The BBC 1 'Prime Minister' debate

[cloughie]

But many of those white working class / heavy industry groups are - or so it seems to me - being dismembered and are now trying to vote for populist regimes etc out of what seems ominously like a kind of desperate nostalgia for the time when they still WERE empowered and valued. At times, Brexit movements look like a kind of diluted revenge on what they take to be those forces that disempowered them.

The frightening thing is that the chances of that past age ever returning and re-empowering them are so remote as to be delusions inevitably bound to be disappointed, and out of that disappointment, .............well, what next?

Just continue paying - nothing new then!

[DracoM]

Sorry - don't follow that?

[oddoneout]

Hang on he could be selling ‘Big Issue’ yet!

Dunno about selling it, he is it surely?

[cloughie]

Sorry - don't follow that?

That whatever comes out of Brexit - the electorate of this country will end up paying for it, and it will probably be more than what they paid for in the EU, and many may regret the Populist encouragement in 2016! Maybe not!

[DracoM]

Aha! Gotcha - and I agree. Oh dear. I bleed for my country.

[Dave2002]

That's odd
I didn't need to

Will have a look again

Probably depends how many times you've looked at WSJ before.
I'm seeing a £1 for 2 months "offer".

Then things get seriously expensive £14.99 per month.

[LMcD]

That whatever comes out of Brexit - the electorate of this country will end up paying for it, and it will probably be more than what they paid for in the EU, and many may regret the Populist encouragement in 2016! Maybe not!

How I would love to disagree with you, but I fear you're right. There's every likelihood that we shall, as a country, be diminished to a greater or lesser degree whatever deal we do or don't manage to strike.

[DracoM]

And the damage to our global reputation for sage decisions in the heat of crisis has been totally shot to pieces by this lemming-like determination to exit from one of the world's biggest and most influential trading blocs.
Friends from all over that I have contact with are incredulous and aghast.

[Dave2002]

I didn't want this to happen either, but mention of "one of the world's biggest and most influential trading blocs" doesn't highlight the fact (apparently) that the EU is protectionist, and sets barriers to free trade with some other countries. So it presumably advantages some people inside the EU and perhaps disadvantages others outside it. This does not mean I agree with ERG/JRM but there are nuances to the arguments which many are ignoring or did not even know about.

[DracoM]

Hence my careful use of the word 'influential'...............

[muzzer]

For the whole of my life there’s been a sense in Britain that the country has never come to terms with its post-colonial role to find a place in the world to come, but somehow we’ve trundled along getting the best of both worlds, sitting between the US and the EU with a hefty dollop of the Far East for good measure. All the difficult issues were domestic, and that is not to belittle the stresses and strains. Turns out we never had it so good. No one over the age of 40 will live to see the other side of this upheaval unless the rot is stopped sharpish and the national interest put before the party and individual. In my humble opinion, of course.

[DracoM]

And IYO, what is the 'national interest' at this point?

[ardcarp]

and the national interest put before the party and individual

Yes, what makes me furious is that the Machiavellian goings-on in the Conservative party are presented and/or reported as if they were somehow representing all of us in relation to the problems our country has, and which you so eloquently outline in your post.

I think I would feel the same if any party had the nerve to do the same.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, what makes me furious is that the Machiavellian goings-on in the Conservative party are presented and/or reported as if they were somehow representing all of us in relation to the problems our country has, and which you so eloquently outline in your post.

I think I would feel the same if any party had the nerve to do the same.

And I'm presuming that were the neighbours responsible for calling in the police over that row just "normal", concerned and "non-political", their presumed motivations would not have been plastered headlines all over the populist press, unquestioned by intrepid BBC investigative journalists.

[Richard Tarleton]

And I'm presuming that were the neighbours responsible for calling in the police over that row just "normal", concerned and "non-political", their presumed motivations would not have been plastered headlines all over the populist press, unquestioned by intrepid BBC investigative journalists.

The neighbours temselves have helped make the story headline news by putting up posters in front of the house. Mr Penn contacted the Guardian after the police had been and gone. There are now demonstrations in front of the house by Class War activists including the man who doorstepped Jacob Rees-Mogg's children telling them their daddy is a bad man. He has been photograhed standing by the front door. Do you expect journalists not to report the full story, S_A?