Brexit talks have begun

It must be very sad guys to feel so depressed what with the candidates available to you I am on the other hand filled with hope that there is finally an alternative to neo liberalism and the "age of greed" and that with luck we may change our voting system in the next decade and get on with dismantling "the financialisation" of society

Dear Editor.

Please include "I think you will find Jeremy's expenses are the lowest of them all" as an explanation for the idiom; "Being damned by faint praise."

Cheers
Chris

Jeremy's are the lowest because Diane Abbott does his books

Regardless of what I or any other concerned Tory want, Theresa May is the Prime Minister.

Was it an offer or was it the suggestion of an offer? I rather think it was the latter. It will be interesting to see if the EU keeps to its word.

No need to point out the bleeding obvious and this is not the first minority government in recent history.

This year marks the centenary of the two Russian Revolutions of March and October 1917.

Here for Keith's benefit is the full movie version of George Orwell's book, "Animal Farm" which is an allegorical story of life in Russia leading up to the 1917 revolutions and immediately thereafter.

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Keith, just like his comrade heroes has never actually experienced life in a communist state and whilst Comrade Corbyn did have Comrade Abbott as his pillion-passenger on a short bike ride in communist East Germany, they will have only seen what the authorities permitted tourists to see. In other words, very, very little. But his heroes are all Communists - Venezuela's Chavez and Maduro, Cuba's Fidel Castro and, of course, Karl Marx and Josef Stalin: these are the people he, Abbott and McDonnell want to emulate. The pigs.

Corbyn's very recent demand that the State seize unoccupied properties owned by those who could afford (the mortgage) to buy them gives us further confirmation that under him, Britain would be a Marxist/Stalinist country. Under a "Property is Theft" Marxist edict - the phrase was actually coined by French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in his 1840 book "What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government" - the Corbyn Comrades will seize the ownership of every property in the land. Those belonging to "ordinary citizens" will be rented back to them whilst those previously belonging to "the wealthy" - a term that will remain suitably undefined - will be made available to the Party faithful but the larger homes will become Communals to be shared by several families. Any objections by the dispossessed will be met with violence - just as in 1917 - whilst those such as Lord Desai, who has studied Marxism in some depth, will be swept under the carpet.

Just as in Russia exactly one hundred years ago, the Royal Family will be forced into exile whilst their lands, possessions and assets will be turned-over to the government. Britain will still leave the EU but Corbyn isn't interested in anything Brussels has to offer so we'd crash-out and strike free trade deals with countries like North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and the West Bank.

Because around half the population would not be supporters of the government, the government's spy machine will focus exclusively on monitoring the citizenry, the internet will closely policed and those posting anti-government or anti-Party sentiments will be traced and exiled to gulags quite possibly in the Scottish Highlands. All other political parties will be banned though elections will continue to be held for the party faithful, not that there'd be much need for elected representatives other than portraying the merest whiff of democracy to the outside world.

Immigrants will be welcomed: coming to Britain will be no problem for anyone; leaving, on the other hand, may be rather more challenging.

The economy will of course tank and the Pound's value will fall like a stone into a deep ravine. The only industry will be owned and heavily subsidised by the state and it will produce stuff nobody wants - like diesel-powered tractors. The price of everything will escalate and shortages will abound. Rationing will likely become necessary as basic commodities like milk, bread and eggs become harder to find. Corruption will increase exponentially as individuals try to buy their way to a better life. And strict currency exchange controls will have to be implemented. When the country runs of out hard currency and its gold reserves are spent propping-up this anachronistic ideology, McDonnell, in a fit of pique, will order Gordon Brown's arrest over the sale of 395 metric tonnes of Britain's gold reserves for the paltry amount of just $3.5 billion.

Do you really not believe me? Read or re-read the book, visit St Petersburg - the one in Russia, not Florida - where Communals still exist and talk to the people, particularly the elderly who survived Communism and ask them if they'd like to go back to those times. I did exactly that in 2000 with my soviet-born wife.

Most of that is merely your opinion, and is yet more of the #projectfear that served the Tories so well two weeks ago. I am left wing, I see no problem with everyone in society having access to the same levels of education, health care, housing, and housing safety regardless of their backgrounds. Some people who have very nice privileges that they have "worked hard" for don't think that other people should have the same things. If I wanted to polarise people, I would claim that this view is elitist. I would be wrong, it is merely greed and it explains why people move more to the right as they get older and wealthier.

In the same way, you are completely wrong to label Corbyn Communist.

A lot of the things that you claim will happen in some mythical dystopian future will not happen. Why? Because it is impossible to create a dictatorship in this country. It's the same reason that Trump is a lame duck in America - our democracies are far too mature to allow dictatorship. Our electorate, as we saw 2 weeks ago, are far more alert to avoiding the sort of dictatorial leadership that, in other countries, encourages soldiers to threaten civilians with rape.

Which of Corbyn's policies did you disagree with, by the way? I know you don't like him as a person, but I believe you are intelligent enough to look beyond personalities when casting your vote.

We will see.

Very laudable but one small problem. Not everyone has the same IQ so a "one-size-fits-all" education system favoured by the Corbynistas (except for their own) would mean that education standards would have to be lowered. Or maybe you favour eugenics as a means of raising the average intelligence level? German fascists thought that was a brilliant ideology, the soviets not so much - they prefered to force the intelligentsia into internal exile.

So without working particularly hard, you think you're entitled to the same perks and privileges as someone who has? Of someone who has invested and raised businesses employing tens, hundreds or thousands of people? People who have taken risks with their own capital? That makes you a champagne socialist, just like Blair, Livingstone, Galloway and McDonnell.

Well apart from the fact that he's a self-proclaimed Marxist, a man is judged by the company he keeps. In Corbyn's case, that would be Len McClusky, Andrew Fisher, Seamus Milne, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott, Richard Burgon - his close friends and colleagues - his Comrades - as well as those he admires all have one thing in common: their infatuation with and adoration of Marxism.

Which is precisely why they will have to seize power by means that are anti-democratic - they know that the centuries'-old checks and balances won't permit radicals of either the left or the right taking power. Are you taking part in the Million Man march in just over a week? If not, why not?

Compared to the last hard left looney to lead the Labour Party, Michael Foot, Corbyn is a lightweight who only knows how to protest and believes in revolutionary means to seize power from democrats. He embraces terrorists and enemies of the country whilst doing practically nothing to prevent attacks on the country's Jewish population. From my perspective, those are more than enough reasons why he should never be allowed anywhere near 10 Downing Street.

I noticed a lot of natter about eugenics over the past few days, like it was something that had been cast into history as a particularly distasteful Nazi thing.

What a load of old codswallop.

Eugenics was followed by the Americans much, much more than by the Nazis. You must remember that old Adolf's belief was that the Aryan race was already superior to everyone else. Now, that sort of arrogance is reserved for the Americans themselves.

Oh, and Brexiters

(sorry )

We have come a long way since believing the Earth was flat, the seas populated by monsters and the Sun traveled across the sky in a big chariot. We have come a long way from drilling dirty great holes in people's skulls to let out excess pressure. We don't soothe our children by giving them Morphine and ease their toothache with Cocaine, and it's pretty unusual for us to blast anyone with 20,000 volts to cure their hiccups.

We are happy little souls to be living in an age of enlightenment. Weren't our ignorant ancestors stupid for believing such claptrap?

But Eugenics is very much alive and well. Just as the early part of the twentieth century used Eugenics in attempts to cure the hereditary illnesses then prevalent in society (or believed to be hereditary), so promises Gene Therapy today. In theory, the insertion of material into cells will 'reboot' other cells in the body to not provoke neurodegenerative illnesses. At present there are over 200 such research projects patented throughout the world.

We would then be approaching the Utopian (dystopian?) ideal of being able to raise perfectly functioning children, free of illness and made to order - height, weight, eye colour etc.

Steven Hawkins is not a fan.

Are you saying that the German National Socialists were right in their quest for the master race?​

And why are you attempting to link the associated Nazi atrocities to Brexiters, the majority of the British people are for Brexit. Many of us feel it important to prevent the latest German led socialist attempt to control the European people.​

I notice that your personal Utopia includes made to order perfectly functioning children, height, weight, eye colour, why do you not mention skin colour, perhaps because that is not "politically correct"?

Everybody is different, that is one of the best things in life for me and I am sure for the majority of the British people. Perhaps you should shove your eugenics fanaticism where the sun don't shine.

Markham wrote off Vince Cable.

I don't:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/23/labour-young-voters-betray-brexit?CMP=fb_gu

Of course you don't, Andrew, Cable is your last hope to disrupt Brexit!

Well, that and the opinion polls...

....And the lack of will among the politicos to be the one driving the bus over the cliff. Looks bad on the CV.

The problem is that I know my kids would get a better standard of education if we moved into the City. That is a simple fact. I would have received a better standard of education if my parents were wealthier and could afford to live in the suburbs of the City that I grew up in. That is a fact. Instead, I was in a run down school where we were moved to "demountables" because of asbestos in our classrooms. We had to share text books, and quite often I couldn't complete a subject because of lack of materials.

As for IQ - it doesn't really test intelligence per se. Our education system favours those who can remember facts as opposed to having reasoned thinking and logical problem skills. It's still the case that you can get a pass in GCSE History merely by remembering key dates and the odd event.

IQ tests don't really gauge the intelligence of a person. They test problem solving abilities, and favour people with a preference for mathematics rather than, say, linguists. Language ability is proven at a later age, and by that time many kids have, whether you like it or not, lost the postcode lottery.

https://www.schoolcuts.org.uk/#!/ Is a website that requires quite extensive drilling down. Without giving away too much of my location, every school in my vicinity is facing school funding cuts. Cuts are also faced in schools in more affluent areas, but there is not a fair distribution of funds.

My grandfather worked himself into an early grave as a miner. My other grandfather worked himself into losing a lung through the effects of asbestos. Until I set up my own business, I was earning twice as much as they were in real terms sitting in a nice, dry, clean, warm office purely because I was "skilled". At no point in my life has my work threatened to knock years off my life. Hard work is arbitrary. A lady cleaning supermarket toilets earns much less than a lady who scans the goods over the bar code reader. Neither are particularly skilled, both are working hard. The fruits of their labour are borne by the shareholders who work on the advice of a number cruncher sat in a nice clean office somewhere. What's wrong with the prospect of making people stakeholders and shareholders in their companies? Profit related pay was all the rage when I started work in '99 and it had a good effect on productivity. If my company makes a profit, I pass on a bonus to my handful of employees. Yes, I have taken a risk with my "capital" (most of it borrowed!), but they are forgoing family time, working weekends at the drop of a hat, staying behind longer than they should be.

I don't know the relevance, but no I am not.

Corbyn's approach to terrorism is different than those of his predecessors. He is not justifying terrorism, but he is interested in its causes. Let's face it, the de facto position taken by the West is not exactly eliminating or eradicating the problem is it? Supposedly, going into Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria was going to make our worlds safer. But more people are joining their extremist causes. Shouldn't we be asking "Why?"?

For example, when a news story breaks that 50 insurgents were killed in Syria, do you know how that figure is comprised? Essentially, it could be only 1 insurgent was killed. Anyone else killed who is over the age of 12 is labelled an insurgent regardless of if they are or not. The BBC, Sky, Times, Guardian all report that 50 insurgents were killed and we all read it and say "Good work, we're a little bit safer now" or words to that effect. In the Muslim world, the story is that a couple of insurgents were killed BUT so were a number of innocent people. One nation's "collateral" damage is another person's excuse to hold extremist views.

Leadsom has told the press to be more "patriotic" when reporting on Brexit. Maybe the press has similar orders for the other news we are fed?

Corbyn is lightweight compared to Foot, I agree. Foot was far more left wing.

If Corbyn/Labour had any sense, they would simply sit back and watch the Tories make a dog's dinner out of Brexit, and let them stay in power until 2022. By that time, with by-elections and defections, the Tories will be a real minority even with the DUP. By then, people will really have had a gutsful of austerity and the growing wealth gaps.[/QUOTE]

Would that be any better or worse than being in the gang that denies democracy by forcing Brexit to be abandoned?

My view of kids having the same standards of education regardless of background was linked to Nazism in an earlier post.

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Good grief! No. My point was that Eugenics, far from being an unpleasant part of history, is an unpleasant part of our present. It has just received a makeover and a rebranding.

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It was a joke, referring to the Brexiters arrogance and refusal to listen to a counter-argument. It appears that they aren't alone.

Where did I advocate Eugenics? Where did I advocate Genetic Engineering? The more intelligent will have picked up on the sarcasm which ran through the piece, a great slab of which appeared at the end. In that, if the "ideal" world of Genetic Engineering had been sixty years more advanced, we would have missed out on Steven Hawkins.

And you might have noticed where I was taking the mickey out of scientists of the past who regardfed themselves at the pinnacle of knowledge. And referring to how enlightened we are now. The inference of course is that one day, today's science, practices and theories will be ridiculed equally

You're accusing someone, a white man married to a Filipina of wishing we were all identical? Are you demented?