I agree, it would be good to see house prices 3 - 4 times the average salary as they were for many years, more affordable for people trying to get a foot on the property ladder.
For some reason I have more confidence in lord King. The Canadian in charge of the Bank of England, has proved himself to be too closely knit with the doom and gloom brigade. To me, Lord King, always seemed to talk sense and in terms I can understand. He may be have been put out to pasture, but he still carries some clout.
I agree with Dom, I have more confidence in Lord King, I get the impression Carney had a knee jerk reaction to Brexit especially with him cutting the interest rate so soon which in many peoples view was not called for.
#DespiteBrexit London will remain the global capital of finance according to Mark Boleat, the Policy Chair of the City of London Corporation. He reportedly said "I have no doubt that whatever happens in 2017, the City of London will remain the world's leading financial centre."
#DespiteBrexit British manufacturing output and new orders hit their highest for the last two-and-a-half years yesterday. The manufacturing purchasing managers’ index rose to 56.1 in December, up from 53.6. Anything above 50 means British manufacturing is expanding. The UK has also secured £16.3 billion of new foreign investment since the Leave vote, including £12 billion from DONG, a Danish energy company, and £2.5 billion from Chinese construction firm CNBM to build 25,000 new homes. And to complete the hat-trick, the FTSE 100 reached another record high on the first day of trading in the New Year: the index soared to an intra-day record of 7,205.21. Reuters reports: "Britain’s economy has fared much better than many economists predicted in the aftermath of June’s vote to leave the European Union, with consumer spending strong and companies continuing to perform well."
Just to add some balance (I know it's not wanted). The pound is at its weakest for 3 decades. This will result in cheaper exports and a rise in manufacturing. However, the expansion is deemed by some to be not as strong as it should be. The UK has also lost out on investment and dropped from 2nd to 7th in this important table. http://economia.icaew.com/news/october-2016/uk-loses-spot-as-top-5-destination-for-investment The FTSE100 is trading at record levels, mainly because of the weaker pound. Last point, yes the UK economy is performing better than expected. However, the UK is still in the EU at the time of writing
Really?! Then how do you account from this Economia article: "UK manufacturing growth hits 30-month high"? Or the fact that #DespiteBrexit uncertainty, UK is fifth best country for business in 2017: the country climbed from tenth to fifth place in the Forbes list, only behind Sweden, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Ireland whereas the US fell one place to 23rd. Oh dear, where are Germany, France and Luxembourg? Behind the UK, that's for sure! You're quoting figures that are two months out of date and don't take into account the £16.3 billion investment I outlined above. Whilst it is certainly true that the UK is still in the EU, your idols including Messrs Cameron, Osborne, Soames and Mandelson were all claiming that if "leave" won, economic catastrophe would ensue (it didn't), house prices would tumble (they didn't), World War 3 would break-out (it didn't) and so on and on with in a similar vein ad nauseam. Maybe you don't like good news, preferring to be a hand-wringing liberal pessimist.
I have come to the conclusion that trying to argue with the leavers is about as much use and about as much fun as wrestling with a pig or punching a tar baby. So I gave it up for New Year.
Please don't stop posting on the Brexit threads Andrew old boy, your staunch Liberal views never fail to amuse me And who else can we debate with? Post and get it all off your chest, you'll feel much better for it
Andrew will be back as soon as he can accrue some powerful ammunition, you can bet he is watching the news daily to see if Brexit is having any adverse effects on the economy. I'm missing his comments already, we will have to coerce him
No, I'm not. There was a time, when I was a little boy living briefly in England with my family, when I went to the local primary school with my brother, who is mentally handicapped and two years younger than I. I never came home without a fight on the way home. I was always muddy, scratched, blazer and tie astray, glasses often broken. Then one day I realised that the only reason that my schoolfellows were abusing my brother was to provoke me. So he and I went home a different way.
In truth, there is very little you can argue against in this thread as it contains actualities, not projections or maybes. One would hope you'd be rather relieved reading the thread and realising that Brexit may not be the disaster you were brainwashed into believing it would be
The remoaners must be absolutely chomping at the bit for some bad Brexit news, I'm confident their time will come
Why? What good will it do them? They're wishing for a disastrous outcome so that they can fold their arms, smirk and say "I told you so, but you wouldn't listen. Na na ne na na, I am right, you are wrong." Is that all they have to look forward to?
As long as we shut the door on unwanted immigration which has served to dilute British culture then I will be more than happy, the economy and Andrew can look after themselves.
Ok - working backwards. Who says I don't like good news? It appears you don't like any balance to be added to your argument. You quite frequently label anyone who disagrees with your political posts as "liberals". You use the term in its Daily Mail sense, it has many more elements than you care to respect. Just because I have added some of the less positive facts, don't be silly and start inferring that I want the country I love and live in to fail. Now, you also list people as my "idols" without even understanding which part if the political spectrum I am on. Only last month you claimed I was a Communist sympathiser - now I also idolise right wingers like Osborne and Cameron? Except you probably see them as Liberals in your monochrome world. So, in the world according to you I idolise Stalin, Lenin, Cameron and Osborne! What next - a Thatcherite that supported Scargill? I wasn't merely quoting "out of date figures" - despite the fact my figures come from the same financial quarter as yours. Perhaps you can also research into some deals the UK lost out on? Perhaps you can enlighten us all with the tax breaks being offered to entice some of these companies to the UK. £16.3bn investment doesn't necessarily mean £16.3bn to the treasury. What will you claim next? That the money will also go to the NHS like the money that won't be sent to the EU? Is it possible to list some of the companies that are planning to leave the UK once the UK leaves the EU? You're implying there aren't any (or, better yet, "We don't need them"). The UK is 5th in that Forbes list for one main reason. Tax relief to big firms. Ireland is above the UK- that country has no manufacturing and no construction. It basically offered Apple (and others) a tax deal that saw Apple skip billions in taxes. That's why Ireland is at the top of the list - they 're the Virgin Islands of the Irish Sea). Try passing on the good news of huge investment opportunities in Ireland to the masses if young adults who are still unemployed in Eire. And finally, to your opening paragraph. Your link agrees with what I said, that the crash in the value of the quid is what has increased exports and manufacturing. It doesn't refute my argument - and the argument of a number of economists (many "leavers) that manufacturing is some way behind where it should be. The .25pc interest rate drop and the huge devaluation in the quid should have worked out as a bigger stimulus to manufacturing even the non liberals are saying that! Despite all this good news, the UK is expected to overshoot it's borrowing forecast. https://www.ft.com/content/849f613e-d0fb-11e6-b06b-680c49b4b4c0 Debt is creeping towards 2trillion. The £16.3 bn investment will barely touch the sides as it gets swallowed by weaker tax revenues (why are they weaker?). I feel mostly for the Brits out in Spain. Must be a pain voting leave and still getting "ruled by Brussels". Now the country is doing so well, maybe they'll all come back to good old Blighty.
My wife is an immigrant. Some people may say she is an unwanted immigrant. British culture - what is it? Watching your football club, aka Manchester United Nations - then Up the pub for a pint of Carlsberg, followed by a nice curry from the local takeaway. British culture has always been influenced by overseas people. Beatles - influenced by Elvis, learnt their trade in Germany UK soap operas - influenced by novellas from South Anerica. Food? Always been influenced by foreigners.
The very reason that English is the international language of business is not just because of the British Empire and its post empire fallout or because our American colony rebelled and got rather big, it is simply that it is malleable and it absorbs other cultures and languages like a sponge, unlike the French who guard the purity of their language with great zeal. I agree with you, what is 'British Culture' it has always changed and change is good, a static culture will eventually implode in one way or another, without change you have stagnation, the brexiteers will reply that they want change but they don't, they really want stagnation, some imaginary fixed holy grail rule Britannia fictitious nonsense that never even existed in the form they imagine. Let me say something personally, there is a great deal about this country today that I hate, much of it is the same stuff that is promulgated by the brexiteers, I come from the same generation as most of them, the thing is I have enough of an understanding of the dynamics of human history to realise that my personal prejudice is probably wrong and likely very wrong in the long term. I have faith that the multicultural Britain that has been built over generations will be great in its own right one day, it already is in many respects, and that is where I get so upset with the closed small minded isolationist numpties. The world is globalised that is a fact, what we have achieved through international co-operation, particularly in Europe, is far greater than what we will ever achieve as a small nation growing ever older and smaller, international co-operation in research will give us all a future, isolationism will make beggars of us all. And in three hundred years, if we as a planet actually make it that far, the international language of business will probably be Mandarin (for the picky 'Standard Chinese').
