Verbal

I know. I was offering a public service by informing the cult of that fact, and snuffing out any jihadist hope that Brexit might have other national imitators (paging Jihadi John). We're very much on our own. Or rather, if you take the entirety of Europe, with May's red lines we'd be with Russia, Belarus, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Armenia. All other European states are in the EU, want to be in the EU (a long list), participate so heavily in the EU that they're subject to the four freedoms, in the customs union or area, or, even though they're outside the EU, have the Euro as their currency. Such inglorious isolation and bad company may sit well with the character types most closely associated with voting for Brexit - male, white, southern, on a pension (ie majority Saintsweb jihadists) - because isolation is their thing (aside from the impending one-to-one with the grim reaper). But the rest of us will be wending our way back into the EU, thanks all the same.

Not under any 'impression' at all. I just find it depressingly predictable that anecdotes within families are some sort of evidence of anything, except possibly relatives wanting to shut up Brexit jihadist chatter by appearing to agree with it. But the context was certainly evidence versus what your mum/brother/aunt said. It always is with the cult. A couple of things about the Italian result. One, it's clearly driven by the refugee crisis - just a glance at the regional demographics and the north-south split tells you that. While in the UK the panic during the 2016 referendum was about the roughly 6000 Syrian refugees coming in, in Italy (and Greece, even more so), it was about the hundred of thousands. Two, I know this is going to make Brexit jihadists' heads explode, because it involves a complex thought - but Euroscepticism in Italy is different to here, and does not amount to any sort of unified call for withdrawal from the EU. It's also driven by a depressingly genuine undercurrent of fascism, in the birthplace of fascism.

How did I not see that coming? A sample of a handful of relatives - case closed! That obviously trumps opinion polls in BrexitWorld. The minute people try to counter evidence that conflicts with their worldview by invoking their wife or their cousins you know this is no longer a debate but a crazed rejection of the norms of rationality.

It's not usually worth responding to you as you merely exhibit the dual characteristics of a weird stalker - dishonesty and apoplectic rage. But I'll try this once. Your dishonesty is in your presumably conscious decision to repeatedly rip things out of context - you did it once by ignoring parts of individual sentences. Similarly you make claim for the poll being 'out of date' while ignoring that it was very much 'in date' given that I was responding to hypo's point about Hungary and the rise of the far right in the March 2017 elections. And since you're evidently more of an expert on statistical sampling than me - my training was in Bayesian stats - can you tell me what a minimum sample size is to get a statistically significant result? Or is it that you just won't accept any evidence that doesn't confirm your dishonest and apoplectic view of the world?

Be honest, you don't understand statistical sampling.

In which countries exactly is there a "growing number voicing their dissatisfaction with the EU"? Certainly not Hungary - where support for the EU has increased since the Brexit referendum. And certainly not Poland, where support for the EU has never been higher - nor France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain or Sweden. Even in Greece, where the EU has taken a battering, support for it rose from 27% to 33%. And in the UK, support has also risen to 54%. Clear majorities in ALL these countries backed remaining in the EU at precisely the time that the neo-fascists were making inroads in elections. https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-support-increases-in-europe-continent-but-also-exit-referendum-support/ The jihadist fantasy of a collapsing EU making the UK's self-inflicted economic harm seem accidentally rational - rather like the endlessly repeated one that said the Euro is on the brink of collapse - is just that: a fantasy. The problem that the dimwitted jihadists have is that they see political crises within countries inside the EU as inevitably the result of the EU. On this complete non-sequitur do they build their fevered dreams.

I'm not surprised. It is a little odd how May's speech - the bit where she said she was telling the truth - couldn't find anything to say about how leaving would be better than staying. It reminds me of how the Brexit jihadists in her cabinet have gone, in eighteen months, from 'sunny uplands' to 'not Mad Max'. Still, the Brexit 'mandate' - more imagined than real - expires in March 2019, when 'getting on with it' will mean continuing inside the EU and trying to repair the damage already done to the British economy.

The unicorns still roam free in May's speech, but it's good she's a tad less cakeist by finally acknowledging that Brexit will damage the British economy.

By some miracle (stuck clocks?) your choice of Canada is a good one in relation to Corbyn, because St Jez's policies in the 2017 manifesto would have resulted in an economy with a public/private balance roughly on a par with the socialist republic of Canada. If Corbyn were able to deliver a mixed economy like Canada's, it would be a win for everyone. Sadly, Corbyn is also vastly incompetent, has a record of precisely zero legislative achievements in over 30 years as a parliamentarian, and his election would cause the kind of run on the pound that would rule out pretty much everything promised. But WTAF are you gibbering on about in claiming that Canada 'prioritises' 'equality of outcome over growth'? Care to take a look at how well the Canadian economy is doing? and what evidence do you have for such a claim? Any at all?

Do ALL the toys in your pram have ejector buttons?

I'm waiting for the next Davis cretinism so that I can call Brexit jihadist bingo. Unfortunately BoJo has popped in ahead of him with an even more stupid idea, with his leaked letter to TM saying a hard border between the two Irelands wouldn't be so bad. Christ, this lot are dumb ****s.

Osborne was right then and he's being coy now. Corbyn's customs union speech is just another step in the demolition of a Brexit jihadist's dream. Once there's a majority in parliament for a customs union (in practice, 'the' customs union), the next in line is membership of the single market. After that, the 'why bother?' question becomes irresistible. Trebles all round!

George Osborne is now saying that Labour is more pro-business than the Tories. https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/evening-standard-comment-brexiteers-have-handed-labour-an-open-goal-a3775721.html It says something for the catastrophic May government that even someone as ditheringly useless as Corbyn should be in a position even to think about winning power.

A pretty reliable indicator of outcomes, especially at this point in the season, is goal difference. On that measure, we're fine and dandy.

Relegation is as much a competition as getting into the top six. So just think of it that way. Catching West Brom is going to be tough but we'll give it a good go.

Yet another win for Fulham tonight, against the league leaders, and another strong Targett performance. He's only been there a few weeks and he's already well established as a fans' favourite. The general view at the Cottage seems to be that he's a level above them, and that Sessignon, who scored the first tonight, has been given licence to attack more with Targett's assured defending. What it must be like to play for a team on a serious roll...

You really don't want to be a Moggk n o b.

So wait - you've gone from 'I won't judge Davies until I hear his self-serving justifications' to ' 'Im happy to be on his side'? That's some leap. So what you're really saying is he's a political hero of yours but you didn't want to admit it first time around. Hence the flannel about politics being 'polarised' by us all not sitting down and swallowing this garbage whole. As for Jess Phillips, I've absolutely no idea why you mention her. I've never given her a moment's thought and I doubt my politics align with hers (I'm not even a member of the Labour party). But now you mention her, I can see from your comments that she would have an emasculating effect on faux-macho amateurs. I notice you haven't applied your own banjaxed rule with her that you want for Davies. Where's the 'let's hear her justifications and accept them as read.' All you've done is make a scarcely credible claim that you're read her book. And as for Corbyn and his 'he believes he's right no matter how misguided he is', it's worth pointing that this precisely the character flaw that Corbyn shares with his nemesis Tony Blair, and which led to his worst folly and his ignominious downfall.

One of the chief reasons politics is so grossly polarised is because of poisonous politicians like Philip Davies. So there are two problems with your argument. One, you've got your causality backwards. And two, your argument is predicated on taking Davies' self-justifications at face value. vin is right. Davies' voting record is contemptible. His preposterous rationalisations for it even more so.

To be fair to Corbyn, he only took £27,000 worth Iranian state money for his television appearances AFTER the torture and forced televised confession (on the same channel) of an Iranian journalist. I'm not sure your attitude to women, Lord 'Chicks' Pony, is quite right. This may help:

We stroll on?

All of this is small beer compared to the stunningly awful fact that while May leads the most toxic, incompetent government of modern times, all Corbyn can manage, midterm, is to be four percentage points behind her. It's not that Corbyn is dangerous. It's that he is beyond useless.

Hang on, aren't you numbskulls against 'experts'?

Thanks for that list, JJ. As you say, idiots every single one. Also interesting to see that amount of prestige-massaging going on. Neither of the two 'economists' you list -two out of thousands! - is actually employed by the institutions you mention. Gudgin, rather than being a Cambridge don, is actually employed by the far less salubrious Ulster University, from where (quelle surprise) he writes his anti-Irish-nationalist tracts - as he would as a UUP advisor. He's also the best the jihadist Policy Exchange can come up with as an economic advisor. And Ormerod, rather than being employed by UCL, actually works for Volterra Partners, a 'niche' consultancy specialising in property and transport economics. Neither is a budding Maynard Keynes, that's for sure. I could go through the list but life is for the living. I prefer your shorthand: thickos!

Quite. Besides, if the government really wants to hurry along the collapse of outsourcing, they'll encourage HMRC to go after the genuinely self-employed. Employers - or more strictly companies who contract out - will still need to hire genuine contractors. As a well-known lawyer said after the BBC legal judgement yesterday, each case is 'fact sensitive', and HMRC has had no luck in trying to establish a precedent. This is the first case HMRC has won against the BBC since IR35 became a thing -and dodgy practices with 'disguised employees' (presenters mostly) have been rife there for years.