You can’t keep a good man down.
Blair is back.
Curious that he thinks what he has to say is persuasive enough to make us rethink Brexit…..he admits staying in the Single Market in a ‘soft Brexit’ means Brexit is meaningless as we would be still essentially fully in the EU. He also admits that he didn’t hold the promised referendum on the EU because he would have lost it..and that anytime over the last 30 years the vote would have been ‘out’…..so much for democracy…so much for the EU…clearly only a project that the so-called elite are enamoured with….
Attempting to secure access to the single market will be the defining negotiation. “Either you get maximum access to the single market – in which case you’ll end up accepting a significant number of the rules on immigration, on payment into the budget, on the European Court’s jurisdiction. People may then say, ‘Well, hang on, why are we leaving then?’ Or alternatively, you’ll be out of the single market and the economic pain may be very great, because beyond doubt if you do that you’ll have years, maybe a decade, of economic restructuring.”
JC Michael Portillo described David Cameron’s decision to hold the EU referendum as the greatest blunder ever made by a British prime minister. Do you agree?
TB I understand the reasons for it. As you may recall, I argued very strongly against it before the general election . . . but . . . I could’ve held one in 2005 and lost one. When we thought we were going to have to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, I thought that was a very, very open question as to whether we were going to win or not. What it shows you [is] that if you put this decision to people like this in a referendum, I think at any point in time in the last 30 years you could have got that result.
This is basically an argument that if you don’t like what the people think, best not to ask them. And if one has made the blunder to ask, then and got the wrong answer, the thing to do is to hold another referendum, and another, and another, till one gets the right answer.
So why waste time, just hold a pseudo election, and claim a majority of 99%. The EU is looking like the old USSR.
Of course when the campaign against democracy they don’t like (populism) doesn’t work and there’s unrest against ignoring the will of the people then the next step will be a slow but steady round up of the “guilty” and establishment of re-education camps. These people are showing their true colours and their hero’s have form…
That’s why Cameron will eventually, rightly or wrongly, be seen with affection for at least giving us the damn referendum. Even if he was utterly unprofessional during the campaign itself and basically did a runner afterwards, at least he had the stones to put it to the people.
In Roman Catholic terms , it’s called Culpable Ignorance . A mortal sin .
Don’t ask .
Quite. There is a madness at work here. I personally have the greatest difficulty in believing that our Lords and Masters truly think they represent the people.
Their behaviour is guaranteed to result in a critical mass of the populace in deciding to take matters into their own hands. “Democracy” will, at that point, be rejected by that critical mass as clearly only being the train that conveys the elite to their destination. An exercise carried out for appearance sake only. Already Major is flying the kite of another Brexit referendum…
Maybe the likes of Blair/DrunkyJunck/Valls et etc etc think their control over the levers of power and their surveillance state will protect them?
The fact they surround themselves with 24hr armed security (no “Gun-Free” zones for them eh?) in their gated communities at least suggests they know they are truly fucking things up for a cause which is coming into sharper focus and now at an accelerating rate.
They will deserve all that the horrors will bring them over the next couple of decades. The trials will take years to conclude.
I am quite sure they are very aware of the feelings such as those expressed in threads like this
I’d be rather disappointed in our surveillance systems if they weren’t.
“JC Michael Portillo described David Cameron’s decision to hold the EU referendum as the greatest blunder ever made by a British prime minister. Do you agree?”
No. The greatest blunder has been in the standard of our governance that has systematically weakened Britain and the British economy such that currently it is so weak and indebted, it can barely “go it alone”. We need experienced tough talking politicians but instead we have weak career politicians who are experts in political spin and empty rhetoric.
You want to save money, you can start by converting welfare benefits into vouchers, so taxpayer money is not wasted on excess alcohol, tobacco and drugs, or buying stuff over the internet from overseas. Welfare benefits should go into supporting the local economy rather than foreign companies. Then you should have a say in rental charges – otherwise housing benefit, taxpayers money, goes merely into rental and inflating house prices. Next you need to police transactions over the internet to prevent companies selling stuff and providing services without paying British tax. There are a million or so policies one should be implementing. Higher Education is not fit for purpose. The NHS is unaffordable. Energy – we don’t really have an energy policy. Immigration and so on.
Generally agree but I would add that we need to invest in proper affordable education (not gender studies et al) for the best of the UK indigenous population and not educate the world at our people’s expense.
The NHS for example is full of barely understandable foreigners many with dubious credentials and indeed morals, because many of our people cannot get into (or afford) access to decent UK courses in the first place.
Hier ejucashun is not fit for purpose. Now where did I read that?
Portillo said that but in a Leave context.
“You want to save money, you can start by converting welfare benefits into vouchers, so taxpayer money is not wasted on excess alcohol, tobacco and drugs, or buying stuff over the internet from overseas. Welfare benefits should go into supporting the local economy rather than foreign companies.”
Exactly, it’s not rocket science,but the Liberals won’t accept it that benefit claimants cannot control their own finances, which clearly a lot of them cannot.
Speaking of contempt for the public…
http://tv-licensing.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/bbc-defies-information-commissioners.html
Alan: “.so much for democracy…so much for the EU…clearly only a project that the so-called elite are enamoured with….”
Quite right.
HS2 is overwhelming evidence for this sort arrogance of the so-called elite. The public do not want HS2, many environmentalists do not want HS2, the rail industry do not want an extra high-speed line that mimics the West Coast Main Line – they want a new standard speed line in a different place to take freight from existing lines in order to enable maintenance to be done on those other lines. Will the cross-party coalition elite, who have decided HS2 will proceed, listen to all these groups? No.
The project has to be proceeded with.
We just have to pay for an unnecessarily expensive and lengthy rail project that no-one really wants or needs. A prime example of madness of the ego. Britain’s membership of the EU is exactly the same. The EU itself is probably exactly the same. Some might say, metaphorical tongue in cheek, “Not unlike a place like Cuba.”. Also the same with the BBC.
Eventually, this sort of thing brings down the elite. Thatcher and Blair, who both exhibited an arrogance, an unwillingness to listen or change direction, are gone and are now held in our memories with a large measure of scorn although the first of those scores rather more highly than the second on an objective Success/Fail evaluation of their premiership.
Unfortunately, in the meantime it is the wider public who always pay for it all and also experience the discomfort or pain or disadvantage from the arrogance of the so-called elite.
I assume that you know why the HS2 is going ahead? It is part of the TEN-T EU plan for a trans european railway. That is why it is going ahead. It is stupid since we have two main lines going North/South, both electified. I wonder where the electricity is to come from, our reserves for the winter are very low anyway. Then of course, not satisfied with that, our “Elite” want us to use Electricity which we have’nt got for heating, cars, and everything currently done by gas. Truly, they are on another planet……I wish!
I had heard that although it seems curiously at odds with the EU policy of regionalising member States.
But then on the other hand, perhaps not: just shows the incompetence that can afflict any large organisation like the EU in being consistent on its own policies. Vacuum cleaners come to mind!
DWB, I’ve only been on the BBC w/s for about seven to eight years but HS2 is the only subject that I can recall that a large majority of all the posters are consistently against and openly commenting to that effect.
Will Government listen and have the guts to change tack? I doubt it. The Community Charge all over again. Donald Trump though, appears to be setting a good example for changes of mind & heart. Maybe our PM could learn something?
This is a classic case of seeing the symptom, but failing to see the cause.
BLiar has moved his entire 130 strong team from Buckinghamshire into city centre London offices. You seriously think he’s funding this himself?
Someone extremely wealthy and desperately wanting the UK to be back in the EU is funding this. It might well be a group, possibly bankers or such.
Blair himself clearly believes in Remain, and he clearly has a high opinion of himself and a hatred of the people, and democracy. We should be concerned about a man who probably has access to people prepared to offer large sums of money to poorly paid politicians who desperately need cash in order to be able to afford the cost of living in one of the world most expensive cities.
There are so many reports of BLiar taking money out of the Middle East Sunni Muslim oil rich world that his corruption is impossible to ignore. The fact that politicians have decided not to investigate speaks volumes.
Thoughtful,
Blair. No Police investigation, no HMRC investigation ? All very suspicious. One of the many problems in the UK is that many people are above the law.
The late and great, Lord Denning quoted Thomas Fuller’s words of hundreds of years ago, ” Be you ever so high, the law is above you “. Where are there Judges like him today ? Most of them seem to be third rate Lefty placemen. Where is British justice today ?
Blair is well known for his ‘Education, education, education’ speech but, in spite of what we may have believed he meant by these words, I think his political views would probably chime more closely with those of Brock Chisolm, the first Director of the World Health Organisation, who said, ‘Children must be free to think in all directions irrespective of the peculiar ideas of parents who often seal their children’s minds with preconceived prejudices and false concepts of past generations. Unless we are very careful, very careful indeed, and very conscientious, there is still great danger that our children may turn out to be the same kind of people we are.’
Fine sounding words if you go along with Chisolm’s own prejudices about ‘the same kind of people we are’. The aim here, aped by BBC propaganda, the political ‘liberal left’ and the media, was, and is, to use education as a ‘production line’ in order to ‘manufacture’ children fashioned in the mold of the ‘liberal left’.
Brock Chisholm also said, ‘To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas’. Not really the sort of education that we’d willingly inflict on our children but this, in a nutshell, is the political left’s desired ‘utopia’. ‘Education, education, education’ was Blair’s call to indoctrinate and it’s a call that successive governments, aided by their propaganda wing at the BBC, have totally taken on board – woe betide anyone that chooses to dissent. To paraphrase Brock Chisolm, unless we are very careful, very careful indeed, and very conscientious, there is still great danger that our children may turn out to be the same kind of people they are.
Blair picked most of the current lot of lefty Judges, none of them are too be trusted, Justice no longer exists in this Country.
Portillo once was against the referendum not because he was a Remoaner but because a Remain win would unleash the elite left in all its gory (intended).
Here’s his article:-
https://www.ft.com/content/129c569a-64fc-11e4-ab2d-00144feabdc0
“You can’t keep a good man down”
Or, alternatively, “shit floats”.
Bring it on ,the more egotist Blair appears the more likely full Brexit becomes. Talk about no self awareness.!
Just made time to scan again the link provided by Alan. I note that Blair says “As for Corbyn, he says: “I did not call Jeremy Corbyn ‘a nutter’. I don’t think he’s a nutter. I just think he is someone on the far left of politics and he’s been consistent for the last 35 years that I’ve known him, which is fine.”
Except for Corbyn’s position on the EU and on respecting womens’ rights and you could add on racism, as far as Israel and Jews are concerned, although it could be argued that on that last point Corbyn has been consistently prejudiced. Am surprised Blair is not a lot more perceptive about Corbyn. Wonder where and why Blair thinks the motive for the leadership challenge to Corbyn came from? One or two MPs passed over for Shadow Cabinet jobs? Tory infiltrators?
Perhaps Blair is just staying quiet on Corbyn’s recent inconsistencies so that he can feed off Corbyn and Labour at a later point, perhaps before mounting a coup.