Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

So far the only strife I've seen is on the internet. Preston is carrying on as normal, nobody is talking about it in the street. Is it the same for other residents of Britain who frequent this board?

Well 'strife' might have been strong. I really was thinking about the declining value of our money which seems to continue to drop.

[garbon]

I'm glad in this time of strife that Britain is taking the time to spend time discussing the report findings on events that took place over a decade ago. Pretty important stuff.

Unlike the United States, it seems they actually want to know why they went headlong into a bullshit war.

Seems like the money (I read 10 billion pounds?) spent generating the report could have been better applied elsewhere.

[Duque de Bragança]

So far the only strife I've seen is on the internet. Preston is carrying on as normal, nobody is talking about it in the street. Is it the same for other residents of Britain who frequent this board?

Is there any strife ever in Preston?  Aside, from week-end binge drinking? 

[The Larch]

Seems like the money (I read 10 billion pounds?) spent generating the report could have been better applied elsewhere.

More like 10 million. 10 billion for a report? 

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/the-inquiry/inquiry-costs/

The Iraq Inquiry has published the final expenditure for the financial years 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15. The total expenditure since 2009 is £10,375,000.

[garbon]

Seems like the money (I read 10 billion pounds?) spent generating the report could have been better applied elsewhere.

More like 10 million. 10 billion for a report? 

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/the-inquiry/inquiry-costs/

The Iraq Inquiry has published the final expenditure for the financial years 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15. The total expenditure since 2009 is £10,375,000.

This is what happens when I read at 5 in the morning.

Anyway, same point but in less hysterical voice.

[CountDeMoney]

Seems like the money (I read 10 billion pounds?) spent generating the report could have been better applied elsewhere.

I think the GOP would have a problem spending that sort of money on, say, prosecutions. 

[Sheilbh]

This report on the problems when the country takes a massive risk with minimal planning for the aftermath could possibly have been better timed....

[Josquius]

Really interesting video on Leave - and Languish's favourite subject, coal mining:
https://vimeo.com/172932182

Watched the video.
Just underlines even more so that ignorance is to blame.

Things can't get worse -> ohhhhh yes they can
Factories all closed etc... -> ....and that was the eu?...As opposed to the people you just decided to hand over power to?
I just want a change -> what the hell? How is leaving in anyway going to change things for the better? Far more likely they will change for the worse. Why do you want a change for the worse?

[Tamas]

This report on the problems when the country takes a massive risk with minimal planning for the aftermath could possibly have been better timed....

I see what you did there!

[dps]

On your bike is easier said than done.

Growing up in semi-rural Appalachia, basically the only people I knew who didn't have cars were elderly people who had given up driving because of physical ailments, or some of the really old folks who had never learned to drive in the first place because they were already adults before automobiles became common.  Outside of old people like that, I don't think I met anyone who didn't have someone in their household who owned a car until I was in my 40s and working in Charleston.  Charleston was big enough that it had a decent enough public transportation system that people didn't necessarily need a car.  (Though it's not just about size;  Charleston isn't as big as Goldsboro, and the bus system here is a joke.)

You've no job, no savings, no support structure away from you home town.... so youre expected to just up and move to the big  city? Sleep on the streets until you find a job and get your first months pay?

Millions of people have done just that since the start of the industrial revolution (and even before that, but not to the same extent).

I had this problem myself when I left university. I was effectively a prisoner in my hometown.  Of course I was never going to find a job there, not even part time crap in a shop, but I couldn't afford to just move.

Look at it from the other end--who could you afford to stay?

And that's not considering that people might have mortgages, kids in school, elderly relatives to care for, etc...

If you've never had a job, I'm not sure how you'd manage to get a mortgage.  The elderly relatives to care for, I'll give you, but kids in school is an excuse, not a reason.  Lots of kids transfer to new schools, even in the middle of the school year.  Granted, I don't know but that it might be more difficult to do in the UK.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Are you talking Charleston, SC or Charleston WV?

[The Minsky Moment]

I'm glad in this time of strife that Britain is taking the time to spend time discussing the report findings on events that took place over a decade ago. Pretty important stuff.

Unlike the United States, it seems they actually want to know why they went headlong into a bullshit war.

Is that really such a mystery?

[derspiess]

Are you talking Charleston, SC or Charleston WV?

Pretty sure he means WV.

[Zanza]

The lack of jobs is also much exaggerated, as can be seen from the labour participation rates in the various regions of the country :

http://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/compendium/participationratesintheuklabourmarket/2015-03-19/participationratesintheuk20141overview#regional-and-international-comparisons

I think part of the problem is that in a digital world it is easy for envy to take root. The tabloids continually run stories on the doings of the rich and famous, it makes a modest income in Doncaster look small, even though they are doing well above the average in a global sense. UK minimum wage is £7.20 an hour and these places are cheap to live in by British standards.

At least you'll soon no longer feature in those Eurostat reports, so you can't bring facts to the discussion anymore. 

[garbon]

Hopefully this is Corbyn's swan song.

So I now apologise sincerely on behalf of my party for the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq in March 2003.

That apology is owed first of all to the people of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and the country is still living with the devastating consequences of the war and the forces it unleashed.

They have paid the greatest price for the most serious foreign policy calamity of the last 60 years.

The apology is also owed to the families of those soldiers who died in Iraq or who have returned home injured or incapacitated.

They did their duty but it was in a conflict they should never have been sent to.

Finally, it is an apology to the millions of British citizens who feel our democracy was traduced and undermined by the way in which the decision to go to war was taken on the basic of secret 'I will be with you, whatever' understandings given to the US president that have now been publicly exposed.