The 2017 GE & Politics Thread

[coldel]

To be honest I was joking about the fox hunting, its irrelevant really. Dropping all the big manifesto pledges and pandering to the DUP is the big news!

[Aashenfox]

A few warning signs at the moment for me are around the exodus of EU workers from public services like the NHS when the country is pretty much at full employment at the moment. Also expect Poland to have a big say in what the EU agrees to with the largest representation of people in the UK. Biggest challenge will be the mess TM has made, that we do not have the strong and stable government any more she said was needed for Brexit, it makes me wonder what we will get then?

 

This is valid of course, but it surprises me that nobody has mentioned that the City of London (and therefore the whole UK, like it or not) exports primarily professional services (tax/audit, etc), for which EU territories require their data to stay inside the EU.

 

I work for the people who make these kinds of predictions (in another capacity completely), and they are all certain that making a profit in London is going to be extremely difficult post hard brexit.

 

The strongest companies (Deloitte, PwC, Ernst & Young) are all pooing themselves, and they are the companies that keep the UK economy ticking over. Where currently, they can audit and store data from any EU nation, afterwards, special agreements will need to be in place and risk mitigators, etc, half the EU countries won't bother, they'll go to Lux and Belgium and IF they go outside EU, they'll go to Switzerland. This is going to be a huge deal.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Aashenfox

[Jay84]

I agree we shouldn't be pandering to DUP and some of the people in that party are from the dark ages with some of their ideals.

[coldel]

They are already doing it - I think as a bank you would be nuts not to have a contingency plan in place if it goes belly up, there was something in the news 3 months or so ago about Goldman Sachs relocating already. But it should serve as warning to TM that no deal, or stretching out resolution of how financial services operate out of the UK for years to come is not a good result for us.

[Stutopia]

I heard an interview on R2 saying they don't want foxing back as it'd take too much time to set it up again, they have no dogs etc any more. Its not like the law passes Friday, they can hunt Saturday. Its likely to take years. Not sure how true it is though.

 

I'd be surprised. I know several packs are still running in the Lakes now, that we're running when I was a kid in the late 80s and early 90s, doing the scent/trail stuff. There's still hunt protesters too, chasing them round and apparently they're getting modern and droning up!

[docwra]

Tenner says we end up with what Norway has, which is all the rules, but no say in making them and still paying in, all to ensure clearing doesn't leave the precious ones in the City who still owe us a trillion pounds (which will be about 70 euros before long).

 

Exactly what I predicted would happen as freedom of movement, customs and market access can only happen as a full/associate EU member.

 

So basically we end up paying just as much as we used to, but dont get any say in actually making the laws that affect whatever parts of the EU we are still subscribed to.

 

Great work Brexit voters, great work.

[Ekona]

Despite the fact we won't see even a third of the stuff in the Speech, I see little to dislike. Brexit stuff seems reasonable, they've ditched the nonsense stuff that should never have gotten anywhere near the manifesto, and there's some other interesting bits in there.

 

The Good Mortgages bill looks both excellent and ridiculous at the same time. I'm keen to see the details of this, as although protection from logbook loans is very much needed some of the other bits removes too much emphasis on people to not be stupid with money.

 

Space Industry bill is fantastic news, HS2 bill can FRO and die a death. Useless idea and waste of money.

[coldel]

£55bn on HS2 so far - would have tucked that in my back pocket to pay for brexit personally.

[docwra]

£55bn on HS2 so far - would have tucked that in my back pocket to pay for brexit personally.

 

Bang Trident in with it and youre looking at £200Bn. Handy.

[Jetpilot]

Terrible this Brexit thingy:

 

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-economy-cbi-idUKKBN19D12S

[coldel]

Its because our pound is so low our exports are more in demand - but we they dont mention is that we require to import many parts to export these goods which are going up in price, and we pay tax on exports which contain imported goods/parts when we drop out of the EU union (which we are still in so we are ok there, for now). So we will likely see this in the short term as a function of that but its not sustainable. When we get to March 2019 without a trade deal in place IF Theresa Maybe continues down a harder brexit route we fall into WTO rules which means any benefit from buying from us due to our weak currency (and we are only exporting because of weak currency not because of a strong economy) will be offset and more by tariffs imposed. Also that this is a small part of our economy, financial services make up a much higher percentage and thats what really matters (even if people hate bankers).

 

What is happening short term because of brexit is that we are in a negative income spiral now, inflation has risen and wages have fallen resulting in a negative income for people in this country which means less capability to spend and thus a weaker economy.

 

You can read the headline and take it at face value as a positive thing, but the underlying problem here is that we exporting more because we are cheap, not because we are strong.

[Jetpilot]

I didnt think for one minute you would see it as a positive but its not all doom and gloom unless of course you want to see it that way

[coldel]

Not really, I didnt think for one minute you would put it into context of whats happening to the country as a whole or why exports are increasing and why that might not work for us longer term

 

Of course exports going up is a good thing - but they should be going up for the right reason. So for example you sell a product for £1. It costs you £0.5 to make it. Some of that parts needed to make it go up in price as they are imported so it now costs £0.6 to make it so you make less money but if you hold your price at a £1 you sell more as that £1 is cheaper for people buying in Euros so you are viewed as a cheap producer. Then, if tariffs are put in place your price is now £1.20 to the buyer, you only gain £1 and you get £0.4 margin and you sell less than before, you hope you sell as much as you did pre-brexit - you are now running at a 25% reduction in profit - less profit means less re-investment and less growth for your business.

 

Like I say, read just the headline and get excited or work through the economics of it and worry for the future and why is it so massively important that hard brexit is not an approach nor is a no deal option as manufacturing will fall off a cliff.

[Jetpilot]

Or just put up a load of non factual doom and gloom links about what "may" happen, see it how you want, but its not one way traffic dude and imho its a positive, even short term when not so long back there was talk of the business's folding or fleeing the country

[Ekona]

It's a false positive though. It's a very short term gain, things are going badly for the guy in the street and it's not looking good for the immediate future. In five years time things may well be amazing, but I struggle to see many positives in the next year or so.

[Stutopia]

We should have devalued the pound sooner to boost exports.

[Jetpilot]

We are all men in the street, whats changed in our world, apart from a few quid more on a holiday, anyone earning less, lost their business, paying more tax etc.

 

What we should of done is get out of this beurocratic load of nonsense years ago, single market is a great concept, the rest is just an industry payroll for politicians.

[coldel]

Doom and gloom our cautious realism thinking through consequences It was blind single tracked optimism that led us to a 2008 crash, I think there are lessons to be learned

 

As above, the growth is a side effect and a small one in the grand scheme of things. Its welcome as I said but its not an indicator of longer term brexit (we havent even brexited yet). For every link showing some headline about the economy like that you can easily share another showing banks relocating into Europe, imports driving up inflation, EU workers leaving public sector roles that cannot be filled by British 'born and bred' etc.

 

The next challenge for our economy is the negative equity if you like that we are in, wage growth is lower than inflation and its gap is growing - stuff costs more and people are not earning enough to maintain their quality of life.

[Toon Chris]

I don't believe in religion as it requires blind faith, so why should I think Brexit will benefit us as a country.

I haven't been party to this whole thread but it seems to me that its a stupid, self-imposed mess that ignores the progress of the world and removes our ability to be part of that. It is enormously damaging culturally.

Its not the arguments about where we will end up that are the problem I think its a bad thing and others think its good - who knows really, one way or the other. Its the enormous cost and upset that simply are not justified on a whim and a prayer of a hazy promised land which we seems to consist solely of no-one telling us what to do, or at least not someone who speaks another language.

 

Retired politicians in 20 years time may well look back at their hubris in thinking Britain was somehow better than other countries and could be a major world player on our own, with no other justification that we think we ought to be important. But I expect to be sitting in my care home (one carer to 60 residents) watching documentaries about how David Cameron set the seeds of destruction for the UK in just one year and he is quite sorry really in retrospect, but it will be filmed in a mansion in Spain and he will be launching his own label wine.

 

In times of uncertainty the rich pull up the drawbridge and the poor get poorer. That s the only part of Brexit-style activity that can be certain. Give it a year fior the true S*** to hit the fan in plain public view and it will be a 65/35 split in a referendum and we can wave good by to a colossal waste of time and money and hope we can repair at least some of the damage.

Oh, and we can tell the Brexiteers to 'just get over it'.

 

Rant over - sorry!

[Aashenfox]

Hear hear!

[Zeezeebaba]

Maybe the UK should become a tax haven for big business. An offshore financial powerhouse

 

 

 

 

[Ekona]

Which isn't entirely a bad idea, but it's politically unsustainable right now. And tbh I reckon we can do better than that as a country, it'll just take time.

[Zeezeebaba]

Doom and gloom our cautious realism thinking through consequences It was blind single tracked optimism that led us to a 2008 crash, I think there are lessons to be learned

 

As above, the growth is a side effect and a small one in the grand scheme of things. Its welcome as I said but its not an indicator of longer term brexit (we havent even brexited yet). For every link showing some headline about the economy like that you can easily share another showing banks relocating into Europe, imports driving up inflation, EU workers leaving public sector roles that cannot be filled by British 'born and bred' etc.

 

The next challenge for our economy is the negative equity if you like that we are in, wage growth is lower than inflation and its gap is growing - stuff costs more and people are not earning enough to maintain their quality of life.

 

High cost of living and low wages.

 

We have been in that boat for years nothing new there.

[coldel]

No we haven't, we have had low inflation and higher wage increase levels which meant people can improve their standard of living. That is now the reverse.

 

What you probably mean is that things like housing are high in parts of the UK, which they are. But then most G8 countries have the same issues. In terms of salary cannot be bothered to go hunting the stats but I believe we are about middling, on par with France and Germany but no where near as high as somewhere like Switzerland (but thats more due to the type of employment in smaller countries).

[Aashenfox]

Yes, it's true that many people 'believed' for reasons that must be entirely their own, that we were getting some kind of bad deal from the EU. We weren't.