The Absolute State Of It - It's The UK Politics Thread!

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Mantis
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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Mantis » Thu Nov 29, 2018 7:30 pm

Pretty massive stretch actually.

There's no such thing as Project Fear 2; the BoE are obliged, by Parliament, to produce economic analysis based on the potential outcomes of a poor deal situation. I don't really see why anyone wouldn't think it's a good idea to be prudent and actually consider how badly this entire situation could damage the country.

The deal on offer from the EU has been pretty clear since day one, that would have to be pretty forward thinking scheming to have predicted we'd be open to a last minute second referendum and change of heart. The Tories have been so all over the place for the last two years, they can barely cooperate with each other, the chances of this whole thing coming about as a result of some Government/EU conspiracy is just ridiculous. The likelihood of any deal getting through Parliament is pretty slim due entirely down to how divided this stupid country is.

How many of the EU officials do you actually think are unelected? This is another inaccurate observation that gets thrown around as if it's some sort of huge controversy.

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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Jez » Thu Nov 29, 2018 8:40 pm

Fair enough except the assessment has also said that the 7 major UK banks are in a good position to weather the effects. Bearing in mind the PRIME reason we got hit so hard by the crash was unpreparedness of banks then it follows logically that we are better off now than then to weather a crisis.

I get that they (BoE) have to do projections but why is it that we are hearing almost exclusively about the WORST case scenario? Hmmmm...

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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Mantis » Thu Nov 29, 2018 9:10 pm

Well naturally the media make a big deal reporting the most dramatic results, that's hardly the BoE's fault.

The banks being able to withstand it is a totally separate thing though you know? The banks might be fine, but that doesn't mean we can't have a recession worse than the last one. It just so happens that the last recession was caused by a banking crash, the next one can be caused by anything; like tanking the pound and driving all investment and businesses away due to restrictive trade barriers, and making businesses go bust because they can't deal with the sudden lack of free market access. All of those things could still happen regardless of how prepared the banks are.

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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Raid » Thu Nov 29, 2018 9:16 pm

Jez wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 8:40 pm
why is it that we are hearing almost exclusively about the WORST case scenario? Hmmmm...
Because we don't generally need to plan for good scenarios.

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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Jez » Thu Nov 29, 2018 9:44 pm

Planning is one thing. A balanced fuckin view is another.
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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Tommy » Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:03 pm

Jez wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 9:44 pm
Planning is one thing. A balanced fuckin view is another.
How do you offer a balanced view of an imbalanced set of possibilities?

Also, the Bank of England is independent; it is not a political body.

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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Jez » Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:15 pm

I don't get you guys. But I guess that's why the country is so split on this.
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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Raid » Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:33 pm

Jez wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 9:44 pm
Planning is one thing. A balanced fuckin view is another.
That really depends on the purpose of the study. A balanced view is pointless for informing the government how much medicine to stockpile for example when the end scenario is still uncertain. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Jez » Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:59 pm

Raid wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:33 pm
Jez wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 9:44 pm
Planning is one thing. A balanced fuckin view is another.
That really depends on the purpose of the study. A balanced view is pointless for informing the government how much medicine to stockpile for example when the end scenario is still uncertain. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
Yeah and I'm sure that the Bank gave the government ALL their projections from good through to bad. Thats the sort of thing that is done behind the scenes in any case.
What I take issue with is the single minded reporting of the WORST aspects almost exclusively by the mainstream media. That might be "dramatic" but it's unbalanced and based on very sketchy projections, any of which, good or bad will be influenced by a huge number of other complex inputs. This is too important for unbalanced reporting.

Anyway I don't get you guys and you don't get me. There are others here that don't pitch in on this discussion mainly because of the "stigma" associated with this decision and the reactions it produces. I will join them and if I'm honest I think that this fine forum would be better off without this thread. Final word.
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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Mantis » Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:11 pm

Behind the scenes? They literally publish the whole thing on their website.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media ... CAB8735DFB

There aren't any good scenarios to report. Though funnily enough, if we had balanced reporting in the first place then we'd probably have never voted Leave.

I would be pretty surprised if we really did go down the full Hard Brexit route though. Nobody in power can possibly be that insane to think it would work out. Even JRM must know that No Deal No Transition would destroy the Conservative Party electorally for a generation.

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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Maturin » Fri Nov 30, 2018 9:21 am

Jez wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:59 pm
There are others here that don't pitch in on this discussion mainly because of the "stigma" associated with this decision and the reactions it produces. I will join them and if I'm honest I think that this fine forum would be better off without this thread. Final word.
It's true. I do wonder about the wisdom of having political threads on a specialist forum which is as closely-knit and personable as this, with so few members.

The threads either become an echo-chamber for the half that agree with eachother (while the others bite their lips & steer clear) or it becomes too niggly. Either way it can upset the balance on a small forum I think.

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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Sly Boots » Fri Nov 30, 2018 9:38 am

Kind of between two stools, I find threads like this a useful source of information, but at the same time I don't want them to end up making people want to post less generally or even leave the forum altogether.

It's the nature of online debate (maybe debate in general) that nobody ever changes their position, becoming more entrenched if anything, so maybe it would be for the best if posts kept to a more general 'I think this, this is why', rather than target other posters' statements specifically and try to prove them wrong.

I find the discussion interesting and informative for the most part, but wary of dividing or even alienating parts of our community, particularly after Doug's recent departure.

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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Raid » Fri Nov 30, 2018 9:57 am

I would understand if people didn't want to discuss Brexit on a gaming forum. It's far more contentious an issue than I think we're used to discussing here, and even though I don't think anyone's been unreasonable in this thread, I don't think it's possible to have political discussions where anyone's opinion changes any more.

I think I'll step out of this thread too. I don't find any joy in discussing Brexit, in fact if anything talking about it just makes me feel worse.

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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Tommy » Fri Nov 30, 2018 10:58 am

Maturin wrote:
Fri Nov 30, 2018 9:21 am
Jez wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:59 pm
There are others here that don't pitch in on this discussion mainly because of the "stigma" associated with this decision and the reactions it produces. I will join them and if I'm honest I think that this fine forum would be better off without this thread. Final word.
It's true. I do wonder about the wisdom of having political threads on a specialist forum which is as closely-knit and personable as this, with so few members.

The threads either become an echo-chamber for the half that agree with eachother (while the others bite their lips & steer clear) or it becomes too niggly. Either way it can upset the balance on a small forum I think.
I don’t see the problem. If people can’t separate politics from other discussions than they have a problem, and avoiding discussing controversial subjects is how we end up in situations such as the one we find ourselves in anyway. My friend group has people from across the political spectrum. It would be fairly boring if we all felt the same way.

That said, I am sick of the topic more generally. I understand why it has to dominate headlines but that doesn’t stop it being unimaginably boring.

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Re: The elephant in the room - Brexit

Post by Maturin » Fri Nov 30, 2018 11:47 am

I just find forum political debate always ends up being an unyielding, highly charged, diametrically opposed style of argument in general, and for a close-knit tiny forum I feel that potentially can be an issue.

But, whatever. I gave up debating politics on forums years ago; it always ends up as an exercise in rinse/repeating the same thing over and over again. People treating points of view as undeniable facts, etc (from all sides). It never changes.

I'll just carry on giving these threads a wide berth.

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