Westminstenders: Operation Yellowhammer 1q

[RedToothBrush]

Boris Johnson is clearing the decks for a leadership challenge.

I guess that means that the Brexit we get all depends on what George, Michael and Boris decide over lunch and how good Operation Yellowhammer is.

Yes. I agree BigChoc.

But I think we are, in the UK, in the hands of some very scary people at the moment.

And also (when I think of Parliament, some silly and craven people, too. Who are desperately pretending they don't know the outcomes of their (non-)action.

And a lot of people who don't quite 'get' the agenda of the very scary people (I have friends who really still go along with a quite naive belief in the Labour position on Brexit.)

I just keep reading these comments about it bringing houses in the southeast in line with national prices, and within reach of 'the many' and I'm thinking: 'No. it's really not going to work like that.'

Absolutely

It's been said that in the near future shanty towns like in places like Brazil will be normal in the US. We are also heading in that direction. Shanty Towns next to beautiful gated communities with security.

BigChoc everyone I know changed their licence for a French one a long time ago. Unless you had an old paper licence then you had to change it as it is date limited.

Sam Lowe @SamuelMarcLowe
ERG report on NI much closer to UK's preferred position than previous papers.

- checks away from the border;

How far away from the border?
How about Liverpool or Stranraer or Holyhead?

I'm I the only one who finds it absurd.There are three if not four bodies addressing this. There is the cabinet, plus we set up DexEU at vast expense, then TMs close circle produces Chequers? Now all the press etc are talking about is the self chosen, non-cabinet group producing position papers. Why don't the softer Brexit Tories set up yet another group which produces position papers too?

Luckily, I didn't get my arse into gear to sort out my IDP (need it in Europe next year), I was too busy sorting out Irish passport. I would've needed to get a new post Brexit IDP anyway.

Still waiting. My brother got his in about 5 weeks. Don't worry if you don't have it. You are a citizen and they can't take that off you.

@Mrsr8 - I would counsel you to prioritise the GCSEs. It should have to be absolutely nightmarish for you to not get those. And try not to let your ds know you are worried

@RedToothBrush

Example: If we have £50,000 in equity and a 4 bed detached is currently £250,000 and our household income £40,000 that's 5 times our theoretical income

If we lose thirty percent equity we still have £35,000 But the £250000 house becomes £175,000. That's 4.375 times the household income and therefore potentially easier to get a mortgage for that multiple

In theory

You might need to check the maths on this.

I assume that when you say that you have £50,000 equity, you mean that this sum is the difference between your mortgage and the current value of your house - e.g. your house is worth £150k but you've only got a £100k mortgage, giving you a positive equity of £50k. (If you currently have the 'equity' as cash in the bank, then the following does not apply).

You suggest that if house prices fall by 30% you will only lose 30% of your equity. This is incorrect. You lose 30% of the value of the house, which might wipe out your equity completely. E.g. If your current house is worth £150,000 and falls in price by 30%, the new market value is £100,000, and if you owe £100,000 you now have no equity.

If your house is currently worth more than £150,000 then your equity position becomes negative after the price falls - E.g. If you have a £200,000 house and £50,000 equity. The house price falls by 30% to £133,333, but you still owe £150,000 on the mortgage, so your equity is now a negative of £16,666 - you owe more than the house is worth.

Yup, imo prioritise exams (unless total disaster & civil disorder actually strikes in your area.)

For anyone else, for whom 2019 is not that important, Easter school holidays look to be 5-23 April
If in January it still looks like no deal, maybe you could book to take the week before Easter as well - hopefully the worst of any chaos should be over by 23 April

red That sabbatical next year is looking ideal for your family to let out your house for a year and go

I don't understand why people (outside of this thread) aren't discussing this

Unlike people in countries born of revolution, there's never really been a political tradition in England. Or rather what political tradition there has been has been regarded in the same light as morris dancing and trainspotting.

Also, the rosette-driven nature of English politics makes discussion by and large redundant. Few Mail readers are ever going to vote Labour, so there's no point having probing analysis.

There will come a time when people realise that they did Brexit to themselves - they started it, and allowed it to continue. But that time is not now.

It's been said that in the near future shanty towns like in places like Brazil will be normal in the US.

20 years ago you didn’t have to go far off the main roads in Texas to find people living in tar paper shacks with chickens kept in rusty cars and cows wandering across. Even in the cities, shacks were just a block or two away from the huge McMansions.

Maybe someone who reads German and someone fluent in French or other European language could confirm or deny my thought that the 'far right' in Europe are more interested in immigration and associated issues and not wanting to pull out of the EU.
Poland and Hungary are being problematic but I think (I have not researched) they are wanting to bend EU rules rather than leave the EU. Hungary having been criticised for putting up a massive border fence to keep migrants out and passing laws to prevent lawyers 'helping' immigration.

Don't tell the children, but no petrol means no teachers, no teachers means no exams. It's a resource heavy machine exam season. Needs reliable IT, delivery systems, postal systems, access to foreign workers to mark the exam papers, as many teachers won't mark them for the joke pay and conditions etc etc.

That, and the fact that english qualifications are worth diddly squat in a no deal.

I'm still not telling kids that but many are about to see 14 years of education go up in smoke.

There will come a time when people realise that they did Brexit to themselves - they started it, and allowed it to continue. But that time is not now.

^ This is so true. It agrees with a piece in the Mirror today.People did it to themselves and still haven't realised. The greatest coup of Farage and certain Tories was to get people to cast some of their key protections down the river.

"It is no accident that the most diehard Brexiteers are on the right of the party.

When they say they want to escape from the un-elected bureaucrats of Brussels what they mean is they want the UK to be free from rules which oblige firms to treat workers fairly, pay a decent wage, abide by environmental standards, adhere to health and safety rules, guarantee paid holidays and paternity pay and uphold regulatory standards.

And the greatest coup they pulled off was to sell Brexit to the very people who benefit most from these protections.

But that is not the end of the story.

Whatever form of Brexit we choose we will be poorer as a result but a hard Brexit will cause the most economic damage.

The only way of thriving in such circumstances will be to become an ultra-competitive economy which slashes taxes and regulations in order to undercut our rivals.

This was always the intention of the Brexiteers. It is what all their economic claims are based upon.

What they will never tell you is the price of such a move: less protection for workers, less money for public services, the opening up of the NHS to private health corporations and the rolling back of environmental and business regulations."

Following my own "nothing in isolation" comment, Brexit is happening against a backdrop of the explosion of human population worldwide, with the greatest growth in the areas most threatened by climate change.

Maybe Remain, Leave, Tory, Labour, whatever would always have been like throwing grains of sand into the sea ?

Even the Dalai Lama - not noted for political pronouncements beyond trying to encourage human decency - has weighed in suggesting that Europe is for Europeans ... nothing in isolation. (Which I find a weird echo of Abraham Lincolns championing of Liberia.)

Is that racist ???????????

We're unlikely to see human population stabilize by our own hand, so we'll just have to accept natures fix. I'm sure it'll be quite innocuous - we might not even notice it.

My view from Germany, LeClerc
Like other far right parties in Europe, the AfD are

• anti-immigration for MENA only
• they are not anti FOM for Europeans
• they don't campaign to leave the EU - they want to reform it
• and in fact seem to have stopped mentioning the Euro

• I remember the AfD were originally formed when the Euro was started, as a pressure group to bring back their beloved DM. However, since then, many younger people don't remember having the DM and don't really miss it.

• They have some quite left-wing economic policies: more public spending on welfare, nationalisation, anti-austerity etc

The Swedish far right wants to increase aid to developing countries for climate change measures

The AfD are a special case in that they are driven by the former East Germany, which has still not caught up exonomically or socially with the rest of Germany

• decades of brutal repression by the communist USSR have done very longterm damage to the East The Communist regime deliberately whipped up racism as a tool to distract the population and also wrecked the economy

DGRosetti, your assumptions about the human population ever increasing are not correct. Hans Rosling used to lecture on this before he sadly died last year. He wrote a book before he died called Factfullness - Ten reasons we're wrong about the world- and why things are bettee than we think. Population is due to stabilise at around 11 billion people which is obvs more than the 7 billion + currently alive but it's not unmanageable especially if we in rich west cut back on our consumption or find more efficient ways to consume.

I will now go back to lurking.

Inequality vs other countries: The divided UK

Also the significant East / West division in German shows up in these tables, but still nowhere near as bad as in Britain

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/09/13/the-divided-uk/

In terms of regional inequality, the UK is more divided than the US.

The situation in the UK is extreme.
It is as if a great crime has been committed on large parts of the UK population.
The regions have become sacrifice zones, feeding the finance monster in London.

The same crime committed on the heartlands in the US.

The crime began in 1970s and it is still happening.
As inequality drives political instability, it is vitally important for all, wherever they live that something is done.
As the Economist suggested nearly two years ago, “Regional inequality is proving too politically dangerous to ignore”
– The Economist, 17 December, 2016.

your assumptions about the human population ever increasing are not correct

Perhaps in part due to this?

According to scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, sperm counts among men in the west have more than halved in the past 40 years and are currently falling by an average of 1.4% a year

www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/29/infertility-crisis-sperm-counts-halved

Even back in 2014, parts of the Uk had lower GDP per head than parts of Poland

The big loss in value of Sterling post-referendum will have worsened this.
A major reason why immigration from Eastern Europe has fallen so much since

Population is due to stabilise at around 11 billion people which is obvs more than the 7 billion + currently alive but it's not unmanageable especially if we in rich west cut back on our consumption or find more efficient ways to consume.

As soon as I saw the "if" I lost interest .... we know where this is going.