Friday 20 January 2017

Is stupid the same as denial?

I listened with interest today as four fellow golfers (70+) talked about Ms May and how she had stopped the SNP and independence in their tracks after Tuesday's big speech. They seemed reassured by Donald Trump's assurance of a USA trade deal and swallowed hook line and sinker the idea the day after Brexit all would be hunky-dory as the UK would also have trade deals with Canada and New Zealand as well. After all, was this not what the Daily Mail, Express and Daily Telegraph had reassured them is going to happen, so it must be true. Ms Sturgeon and the SNP had not a leg to stand on, Scotland would just have to do what Westminster told us to do whether Scotland liked it or not.

Let us hold on for a minute. These folk are not stupid, three out of the four ran their own successful, small businesses and yet I was left astounded at the degree of twisting reality to fit their own prejudices that was going on. There was not the slightest cognisance of the reality which is; not one trade deal can begin to be negotiated until after the UK has exited the EU, let alone brought into effect.

Most trade experts agree the earliest any new trade agreement could be brought into force between the USA and UK would be two years after Brexit, given the requirements of any trade deal to secure fiscal and legal checks and balances. Complex trade deals take up to five years or more to agree unless the UK Government is simply going to concede every advantage to the USA and become a defacto state of the USA, the irony would be lost on the 'Free Britain from the EU yoke',Tories.

Until any such trade deals are agreed and ratified by the UK Parliament, the UK will trade with the rest of the world on the basis of World Trade Organisation tariffs. Again, none of this can happen or be put in place until after Brexit.

The current estimates of the hard cash cost to the UK taxpayers of the process of Brexit range from between £30 billion at the bottom end to £50 billion at the top end. Money which will need to be paid to the EU to cover the costs incurred by the EU to expunge the UK from all its current treaties, laws and regulations and the EU side's costs of administering the Article 50 process. The UK wants to leave then EU then the UK pays all the costs of doing so.

Yesterday HSBC announced another 1,000 senior jobs were being moved from London to Paris, this is on top of the 10,000 senior finance jobs which have already left the City of London since the 23rd of June 2016. It would seem the financial world does not see the same glorious end result for the UK economy from Hammond and the Tories rush to create the UK as being the ultimate 'tax haven' for big money. The rich folk meeting at Davos are reported as being seriously underwhelmed by May and Hammond's fiscal plan for the UK and the WTO are pointing out the limits their organisation places on such fiscal jiggery-pokery all of which will seriously curtail Hammond's 'big idea' to save the UK economy.

Yet if you only listen to or read the London based UK media you would never find out what the rest of the world thinks about the Tories rushing the UK to the economic cliff edge with their 'Brexit means Brexit' mantra.

Reuters is reporting the pound is currently at its lowest level against the dollar for 30 years and its lowest ever level versus the Euro. While Bloombergs are reporting increasing world financial worries that the UK is slipping into a period of 'stagflation', that is persistent high inflation combined with high unemployment and stagnant demand in a country's economy. This is the real impact of austerity
and Brexit on the UK economy , no matter the rosy glow of better than forecast economic growth for 2016 -17 being waved around like Chamberlain's claim of "Peace in our time". Instead of 0.9% the IMF now say UK growth is likely to be 1.3%, based on the previous quarter. This 'increase' in forecast growth is, of course, being sold in the Daily Mail as a positive sign and can only have been brought about by Brexit. The problem is the last quarter's UK economic growth figures have yet to be finalised, so the real figure could well end up back at 0.9% and lower or even be as high 1.5%. No one actually knows until the UK's NAO reports on its final adjusted figures for the quarter.

Outside of the world of the sweat marked semmit and urine stained, tattered Union Flag Y-fronts of UKIP and the Tories few think Brexit is anything else but disastrous for the UK economy. Sadly it appears Corbyn's Labour have also bought into this vision of UK loveliness and are donning the requisite semmit and Union flag Y-fronts, as I type. They too seem to be under the impression that Scotland will just have to do what it is told to do by Westminster, no matter whether the majority of the sovereign people of Scotland agree with Westminster or not. Labour and Corbyn are now most definitely part of the problem and do not represent any solution for Scotland's concerns for its place in an increasingly fascist leaning, post Brexit, UK. Over the next 18 months to two years we Scots will just have to sit in Westminster's naughty corner while the British Establishment grown ups decide what is best for us, if you believe what is being said by the BBC, Telegraph, Mail or Express. The message is clear from the British Establishment mouth pieces, "Scotland, just shut the fuck up!"

The question remains, "Will we get back in our box or not?" in the face of ever shriller attacks on our nation by an increasingly feart Westminster; my friends at the golf club are definitely for getting back in the box as for me, I will continue to shout from the roof tops;

"Let us get the hell out of this perfidious UK Union Treaty as fast as is practicable."

Once Liz has popped her clogs, the anachronistic Scottish crown can follow - it has had its day. Maybe we can choose our future king or queen, annually, through some sort of talent show contest vote. Just imagine, we could end up with a year of King Wee Shuggie frae Drumchapel chosen for his impression of Billy Connolly singing  "Grannie's Fuckin' Hielan' hame"  or Queen Euphemia frae Peterheid playing "Bach's Toccata and Fugue" on her nose flute. You could have Kezia the Dug and Ruth the Mooth as two of the judges and get Wullie Rennie to compaire the gig then chuck in Neil Oliver and Alisdair Darling as judges, as well, to keep everyone happy and nostalgic for the old days of the British Empire.

Anything has to be better than the current bunch of Saxe-Coburgs.

5 comments:

  1. Couldn't agree more, similar bunch of over seventies golfers and hangers on in my local bar were making really nasty remarks about Ms Sturgeon last night, and lauding May and Brexit. No real argument or basis for it, just sheer nastiness.
    I did not address it directly, but made clear, quite loudly, my opinion about what they were saying to my drinking companion. As I left, I could hear, behind my back, very nasty comments about me.
    Next time my words will be directed straight to them, and they can reply straight to me. We have to face up to this poisonous stuff.
    These we may be able to convince we must spend time on. People like those we have both described need to be confronted and publicly challenged.

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  2. Excellent article Peter, should have this on WoS. I will mention it, or post a link if that's ok.

    East Neuk, I wonder if these people have grandchildren, maybe some who are at Uni, who will not end up with a massive debt from tuition fees, even if they are very well off. I wonder if these guys have bus passes, or need prescriptions, or even good NHS healthcare. Maybe not, they might go down the private route, though not all want to spend their savings/pensions on private healthcare.

    I wonder if these guys take the winter fuel payment, a nice wee bonus from the WM UKOK admin. These people just do not realise, or even want to, that Scotland is being governed extremely well by their hated SNP. These type of people are selfish, blinkered, self serving, nasty, greedy gits basically. Sickening really, they would see Scotland run down, and asset stripped to the point of utter ruin, as long as they are alright jack! Disgusting really. Does anywhere else in the world have people living there, reaping the benefits of that country, but going out of their way to do down, and ridicule their own country and the people of their country who voted democratically for the government who works for the good of their country and them, against huge odds!

    I wonder what they would rather have, ask them next time. What is it you think a unionist right wing government could do better in Scotland under devolution? What is you want?
    Tuition fees? The bedroom tax? No human rights for your kids and grandkids? A privatised NHS? Just what do you think the future holds, and how might it differ under WM rule, extreme right wing rule, while isolated and at the mercy of the US, is that what you want?

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  3. I sometimes see this at my golf club too. One of the guys I play with (70s 😏) Said he was voting No in 2014. When I asked why, he said, "Because I'm a Tory. I thought Mrs Thatcher was great."

    That's why so many over 70s are like that, they're just Tories.

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  4. Excellent stuff and have shared widely.

    Agree with HA, above; a SOAPBOX (new facility) classic share for Wings over Scotland.

    On the age issue, my mother is 84; she is an Auld Scots Tory, in its proper sense, and is a great admirer of our current FM and previous FM (Emeritus FM Alex Salmond).

    These elements your refer to from the gowf course and club are fcukwit dinosaur relics whose only moral compass is brute, petty selfishness no matter how well they may have done in business for they are about to fcuk up that option, too, for their successors because the pig ignorant blinkers they willfully wear and attempt to illegally impose on their fellow sovereign Scots.

    Their day in the sun is fast running out both physically and constitutionally in terms of the imposed Treaty of Union (and my Hell slap it into them, accordingly).

    Hate to say this, but they are the seed bed of the current resurgence of neo-fascism in their hallowed UK, each and every Lord Haw Haw-Hee Haw one of them, and they need to be democratically stopped at the Gates of our Scots Thermopylae.

    Their must be no more room for closet Nazis manipulating the body politic agenda in a truly democratic and re-independent Scotland.

    Thank you again for this, and please forgive my rant:)

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