For anyone who has been following these cases over the past 3 months, it was announced today that at least 7 police forces in the UK have started criminal investigations.
http://www.electionexpenses.co.uk/

Criminal prosecutions of sitting conservative MPs could follow + by-election re-runs of any affected seats.
The current government majority is 12.

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Dave

I can't see how you square that with the election of a new government each and every 5 years Vs the "quangos" of the Commissioners of the E Commission.

As it happens, I do think that governments should not have an automatic right to a full 5 year term and they got away with a "fast one" when that was brought into being - but it is a matter for the UK parliament to sort out that one.

here by the way, with your first post; new blood is welcome!!

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Dave

Just shows what utter low life these politicians are, resorting to scare tactics.

I think this vote will be which end of the stick is less shitty, and to be honest I'm still not sure.
Yes we do need to break from the EU, as all the signs are there that collapse is imminent, and if we can distance ourselves from some of the fall out all the better. Its still going to hit hard though.

But then we'll be left with this shower. Deep joy....

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If we vote out Dave will resign. Then its Boris or Komrade Korbyn

Andy

Stephen Kinnock MP for Aberavon (location of the TATA Steel Mills, killed off by the EU) is an archetypal Europhile MP, the type who will thrive here should we remain.

I was going to write a short piece on how the entire Kinnock family has deeply enriched themselves from having the snouts in the EU trough but it even made me just walk away in despair. There is just too much of it, you could write a book. Simply google "kinnock family eu earnings".

It's just got to stop.

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At the moment Germany appears to have massive power in the EU and the balancing forces should be France and the UK. But France currently tends to act in tandem with Germany.

The EU as a block of 28 countries counts as the world's second largest economy by GDP, but Germany (4th), the UK (5th) and France (6th) make up more than half of the total.

The remaining 25 countries are relatively minor economies with Spain next largest at 14th (less than half the GDP of France), then Netherlands at 17th, Sweden at 23rd. Even Poland is bigger than Belgium.

Should the UK exit, Germany's percentage of the rump EU GDP rises from today's 20% to 25% further increasing the perception of power. Only France is an economic challenge (if challenge is a viable word with Holland running the economy). With argumentative Britain out of the room, Germany will have even more freedom to meld the EU in the direction it wants.

Could a rump EU hold together? Would other countries (Netherlands?) be tempted to follow the UK's lead?

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

In diplomatic historical terms what you quite rightly point in this paragraph is an historical anomaly. Historically, the UK always managed to incite a balance of power between the Germanic and the Francs. Even, the UK has never been shy on putting its weight behind the weakest of the two with the objective of restoring the balance of power in the continent whenever circumstances warranted such action.

It's not as if France is willingly on the side of Germany. France simply doesn't have an alternative right now and Hollande is way too blind to see any other way. Between the rock of Germany and the hard place of ideology, Hollande, like Captain Renault, simply blows with the wind. And the prevailing wind right now happens to come from Berlin. This concubinary relation won't last forever but it's where we are now. What does this mean to the UK? It means that the balance of power in the continent is now much harder to achieve than in the past. But, then again, Brexit may quite well be the straw breaking the camel's back and things revert back to their ancestral course.


It might quite well be the real and undeniable end for the EU.


Is there still an EU other than on paper?

The Netherlands? From all countries why did you mention them? Given their affinity with Germany I'd see them as the least probable country to try an exit from the EU. In any event, in case of a Brexit, I see most likely a continued erosion of the EU albeit at a faster pace than what has been happening until now followed by an outright implosion rather than other individual countries following the UK to the exit. But if I had to speculate on this last scenario I'd say that Denmark was the strongest candidate for an exit. The Danexit.

Because of the 'tegen' (against) majorities in both the 2005 and the 2016 referendums.

Denmark would have been my second choice, especially as they never embraced the euro.

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

So if you between 25 and 64 you don't exist? As this group are the real income earners I wonder what that result would show?

You can make numbers show its mathematically possible for an elephant in stilettos to balance on a golf ball, but reality is somewhat different.


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You seek, you find. You knock, they might let you in.



Are you suggesting that the polling data, remembering that this was a poll of polls, is somehow trying to represent a particular view?

Oh and:

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

Just got back from an ace weekend away at Mugello. If you only go to one race go to this one!


Dodgy David Cameron who has repeatedly made it clear that the United Kingdom will never be a part of the European Union Army was once again caught in a lie as a military exercise taking place on Salisbury Plain at this very moment involves the second Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment and the fourth infantry brigade with the flag of the “EU Battle Group” emblazoned on their vehicles.



European Union Battle Groups are composed of three 1500 rapid response a team of troops, directed by the EU Council of Ministers, and is designed to respond to security crises.


The Council of Ministers is the unelected executive of the EU.


A European Army is in the future of the EU. The EU's long term policy is to displace the US dominated NATO but has not had the structures or funds to do so to date.


A German Government white paper outlines steps to gradually co-ordinate Europe’s patchwork of national militaries and embark on permanent co-operation under common structures. The paper was originally scheduled to be published earlier this year but its' controversial contents caused it to be delayed until after the referendum lest it gave ammunition for the cause of BREXIT.


At the European level, the paper calls for “the use of all possibilities” available under EU treaties to establish deep co-operation between willing member states, create a joint civil-military headquarters for EU operations, a council of defence ministers, and better co-ordinate the production and sharing of military equipment.


When the remainiacs led by Cameron et al claim that Britain is safer and more secure with our European Allies, those of us with longer memories will recall Mitterrand of France refusing to recall French technicians from Argentina who were fusing exocet missiles for that country which went on to sink HMS Sheffield and the Atlantic Conveyor killing may British servicemen and merchant marine and damaging the chances of victory and also Belgium who halted the export of artillery shells and small arms ammunition to the UK during that conflict and at our time of most need.


The recent vote in Parliament not to go to war in Syria can, in the future be overruled by the EU Council who under the Lisbon Treaty, will have supremacy over national Parliaments.

If you want British troops only under democratic, British command and for a safer UK there is only one option: Vote Leave

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Maybe they are on Salisbury plain in preparation for the vote next month?

Anyway, I can't imagine anyone would want to put their life on the line for that blue flag; no bodies repatriated to the UK were ever draped in the flag of NATO.
It does make quite a good aiming point though.

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Dave

Uncertain investors withdraw billions from Europe
Some US investors are looking at the Europe and thinking its a basket case
A lot of investors have cut exposure to Europe during the year. There are political concerns, political risks in Spain and Portugal and weakening data.
Investors are leaving because they are tired of low growth
Poor economic figures that suggest a eurozone recession is a possibility on top of rising brexit fears

Extracts taken from The Times

More reason to leave

Wayne

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The Balkans
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/poi_entity/8417

Well, I'd say you can rather fool people into believing that because they don't understand that you were actually proving something completely different.

But that's why checks and balances are so important in science (like everywhere). When we publish something, it'll have to go through a peer-review process, ie. a paper will be reviewed by a group of selected referees. Whilst for e.g. empirical papers that cannot imply an actual check of the estimations, it implies a plausibility check. But once a paper is published, it is open to scientific debate. And believe me, there's a lot of it. Often it involves actual replications of the empirical estimation to verify or falsify results. And often, wrong results are actually getting detected and dismissed that way. A famous example was Reinhart/ Rogoff (2010), a paper arguing for an unsustainability threshold of the debt-to-GDP ratio of an economy, which was dismissed as it couldn't be replicated. Long story short: Economics isn't a perfect science and we can't predict everything and sometimes we're wrong (so are engineers, medical scientists and physicists BTW) but at least in academia there are rigorous quality checks. The problem is only that those making political or business decisions are too often ignoring the academic debate, because it is slow and often doesn't deliver directly applicable results. That this fundamental research is yet useful, unfortunately not too many people appreciate.


They actually are fairly consistent, but obviously vary across the different samples used. The message stays the same: Young, urban, left-wing and more highly educated people are more likely to vote remain. That's not really too surprising, given that the out campaign is mainly driven by an anti-establishment sentiment. But I will have to add that the poll of polls might be a bit outdated: it's from last year. But generally the main result didn't change too much. That is: There tends to be a marginal lead for the in campaign, but it is likely to be within statistical errors. So it probably won't tell us much.

On a more general point on survey data, as empiricists tend to say: "Never trust survey data". It tends to be very biased as subtle changes in wording can have big impacts and also suffers from bias as what people say tends to differ from what they vote for. One can correct for some of the biases but there are obviously limits: If my data is a bit rubbish, I won't get great results. That's why I think there's a point in the criticism of these polls, and particularly the polls being over-quoted. I accept they are the only measure of public opinion we have, but I don't see how having another marginal poll published every other day should enhance anything.

Apologies for another lengthy post and remember

Goodnight!

In the case of the current encumbents of:
A. The Bank of England
B. The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer
They each have 100% records of being wrong in their public pronouncements.
Of course, these are two of the main participants in the great debate who continue to claim divine insight up to 15 years ahead.

Your social science has yet to earn it's spurs and anyone in another profession who was consistently wrong all of the time could hardly expect to keep their job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dismal_science

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Dave