John B

Reality from Richard Murphy answering one of Batman's valid points One, disastrous, feature of the Reman campaign last year was the claim that if the UK voted leave then the country would require an immediate emergency budget because it would go into immediate recession. This, of course did not happen because Osborne was dumped for saying it. And the downturn did not seem to appear. Until now that is. As the FT reported yesterday, retail sales excluding food fell in the first quarter of this year. And as the Guardian reported, despite supposed record levels of UK employment (about which claim I am dubious anyway) there was a fall in real wages last month, which is a trend set to continue because of current inflation rates. Now I know that technically this does not create a recession but for most people these are the factors that matter, and as a result economic bad news has arrived, but nine or so months later than George Osborne thought. Osborne’s error was significant. It undermined the credibility of the Remain campaign because no one really thought the roof would fall in on June 24 last year. After all, a small majority were elated by the result and of course they felt good and so went spending. The failed prediction then let Brexiteers suggest that Leave was already a success. That was as untrue as Osborne’s claim. Of course Brexit was not proved a success by what happened last summer: Brexit has still not happened. The error was in basic economics and is telling. It tells us that the Treasury still clings to pure market theory. This says that people are rational and perfectly predict the consequences of the future in their current behaviour. So, the Treasury assumed people would know last June that the decision the UK had made would have poor long term consequences and people would immediately react by stopping spending and investment, so sending the UK into an immediate economic downturn. Wiser economists, not so taken with a theory that is so obviously far-removed from observable human behaviour, realise that this is not what happens in the real world. People rarely shudder to economic halts. They do instead take time to process and react to new information. In this case at least six months was required to get to the reaction, and now we can see it. The uncertainty of our current situation, coupled with the reaction to a falling pound, has created lower income and consumer uncertainty. It will take something pretty staggering in economic terms to change either of those situations in the rest of this year. Brexit may not have happened as yet. It may not happen still. But its economic impact has arrived. If people don’t like that life for the Brexiteers is just about together a lot tougher. As Philip Hammond put it, no one voted Brexit to be worse off. But people are just discovering that is what they got. And I’ll say with some confidence that many won’t like it. May’s honeymoon is well and truly over.

I dont think he is patronising you at all I just think he is saying you are talking Bollix which is probably true because there are varying degrees of severity of all injuries and varying times for players to recover from them

gareth Berg finishes it off with a six a great win by 4 wickets

Really pleased with what I thought was an unexpected win. Looking forward to next season especially if we can keep everybody we dont get so many injuries to key players and get in some new players

I dont think you understand what sponsorship is all about

I will be surprised if we get any points today

BBC text suggested that they were both penalties

Perhaps I should have said he list of negative effects of Brexit keeps getting longer and longer by the day, and there are no known benefits at moment

Brexit seems to be a complete load of ****.

I voted in and know we are heading down the wrong frog and toad

By Lefties do you mean reasonable people as opposed to Xenophobic Knobs

Well we are going to be bought by foreign owners are we not. Pretty stupid thread

It is a Derby but not to some arrogant supporters

Without supporting any of the dreadful acts of violence McGuinness or the IRA were involved in I think people need to inform themselves why these people were driven to such extremeties in the first instance. Catholics were treated like dirt in NI and if an army of an occupying state murdered innocent civil rights marchers in your home town ask yourself how you would have responded?

Yes tears from me I grew to like him a lot as I followed him on Twitter. Of course I am aware of what he did, and what the IRA were responsible for but from that background it makes it even more impressive he became the political figure that he did. There was so much poverty and discrimination in NI in the 1960s which unfortunately led to the troubles and violence Shame he was a Man U supporter but like me enjoyed following Rugby and Cricket I can understand how he is reviled in some quarters but intolerance is never the way forward.

Because Austin is injury prone need to get someone else in I would have thought

Scotland can leave the UK and get a good deal with regard to the single market without being in the EU

Harry Kane may have suffered a repeat of the ankle injury that kept him out for five Premier League games earlier this season, his Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino fears.

Why would you bring in Carceras for Stephens have you seen him play this month and do you know his fitness level

Who?

How do you ship out players who are on contract to SFC if they do not want to go.

Sat we a Man U fan watching the game he thought they we lucky so do I I thought we played really well if a couple of things had gone our way we may have won.

Of course we want a fair system for every child but that does not happen under the Tory's I will show you what I am talking about later.

I dont blame you but it just means that the Tories get in is that what people want. May is continuing to ignore warnings of an unprecedented funding crisis in the NHS that is leaving no capacity to undertake the medium-term reform needed to make the health service sustainable. She has presided over cuts to social care funding that mean a quarter fewer older people are getting state support with their care needs. Schools in some areas are facing real-term cuts of up to 17% in their pupil funding in the run up to 2020, while the government is expending political capital on defending its planned expansion of grammar schools, which evidence shows will worsen, not improve, social mobility. In prisons, a lack of sentencing reform and staff cuts have left prisons dangerously overcrowded and understaffed. The government is cutting funding for back-to-work support for the long-term unemployed, including the disabled, by a staggering three-quarters from March. Reforms to local government funding mean councils in poorer areas have had to cut back local services 10 times as much as in more affluent areas. And Philip Hammond has enthusiastically embraced the Osbornomics of his predecessor, continuing to provide tax cuts for big businesses and more affluent families, while cutting tax credit support for low-income working families and increasing business rates for many high-street small businesses. Labour’s opposition in absentia is clearing the decks for May to firmly pitch herself on Labour’s territory, by claiming the Conservatives are now the party that represents ordinary working people. She is facing little scrutiny over the fact that this rhetoric is undermined by much of what her government is doing.

The EU Freedom of Movement of workers into the UK has been a major success – despite the spin and deception surrounding these rights. However, by failing to demonstrate control, successive UK Governments have invited criticism – to the point that it was used by the Leave campaign as a representation of how the EU has lost control of it’s borders. The FoM directive allows for the “old” countries to restrict the rights of migrants from “new” countries for up to 7 years. The powers vary from stopping migration completely or allowing only for selected categories of work on a work permit basis. IN 2004 THE UK CHOSE NOT TO USE THIS POWER AT ALL. One of the sharpest rises in net migration came in 2004, when the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia joined. The UK was one of only 3 of the original EU members (UK, Sweden and Eire) to choose not to apply transitional restrictions on these eight countries. In contrast Germany and Austria kept the transitional restrictions in place for a full seven years. Other countries kept restrictions for between 2-5 years and the Netherlands reserved the right to impose further restrictions if there were ever more than 22,000 migrants in a year. By not implementing the restrictions the UK invited the surge of migration. They could have avoided the surge and the enormous bad press that accompanied it if they so chose. The FoM directive is clear. The directive enables Member States to adopt the necessary measures to refuse, terminate or withdraw any right conferred in the event of abuse of rights or fraud, such as marriages of convenience. Article 35 of the directive expressly grants Member States the power, in the event of abuse or fraud, to withdraw any right conferred by the directive. The Migrant could be removed from the UK as well as prosecuted for Fraud. The UK have not used this power – ever. As the UK does not know or track how many migrants are using the welfare system in this way then it is unable to even try to exercise this power. Other EU members insist on migrants proving that they can support themselves. For example Belgium requires all migrants to prove they have sufficient funds, health insurance and suitable housing. Whilst the FoM directive is now widely blamed for an “unacceptable burden” (Theresa May) the problem would seem to be more one of lack of control by the UK Government rather than “Benefit Tourism” by migrants. After 3 months in the UK EU migrants need to be either working, have a member of the family working or have sufficient funds to live (and have full sickness insurance). If not then they can be returned to their home country. The UK does not register migrants as they arrive and as such has no way of knowing how long they have been in the UK. There are no efforts to track or control this movement *. This once more allows the EU-skeptics to portray the FoM as “uncontrolled migration”. In contrast Belgium requires all migrants to register at their Town Hall within 3 months of entering the country and if they intend to work their claim will be assessed and will be processed within 6 months. During this time they can reside in Belgium provided they can prove they have sufficient funds, health insurance and suitable housing. If permission is granted they will be issued with a Foreigners ID card. Only after 5 years of legal and continuous residence in Belgium will EU/EEA and Swiss citizens automatically acquire the right to permanent residence in Belgium (residence card E+) It is not the FoM that causes the lack of control in migration it is the UK Government themselves. As part of the pre-referendum renegotiation, Mr Cameron secured a further power. This “emergency brake/Red Card” mechanism would allow any EU country whose welfare system has come under strain, as the result of an influx of EU migrants of ‘an exceptional magnitude’, to restrict access to certain kinds of welfare benefits. This power was lost once the UK voted Leave in the June Referendum. To summarize it was the UK’s choice to not implement a 7 year partial or full migrant break in order to prepare for fresh immigration from new EU countries, almost all other countries did so. Even with that failure, considerable EU powers already exist to manage migration. It is legally possible to register & track all immigrants, ensure they are entirely financially and medically self supporting, prevent and/or prosecute benefit fraud and return home any migrants who are not economically active. Furthermore, Cameron secured an “emergency brake” to suspend Welfare Payments to migrants if necessary – powers which are now lost. Other EU countries use these powers which might explain their reluctance to fix something that is not broken. It is entirely likely that we are leaving the EU in part because successive UK governments have failed to understand or have been unwilling to use these significant existing powers.