h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"So... less than 1% of the world population, then?"

With 5% of the wealth.

80% of the world population survives on £10 a day or less so not much of a market there.

The richest country in the world, the US, has no trade deal with the EU and for decades we've had the ridiculous situation whereby a $400 item goes for £400 here despite exchange rates indicating it should be £300 - all due to import duties.

We keep hearing the EU is our biggest market - how much is that because of the barriers to trade with the richest country in the world?

Don't get me wrong - I voted Remain and think we should have stayed in the EU but we need to face life as it is not how we wish it was.

It seems to be going very wrong at the moment

Almost a year on from the last post in this thread, how does everyone think it's going? I remember saying somewhere back up the thread that 2018 could only be better. Well, it was for me - I became a father. Then again, I can (at the moment) afford it. If I was in less secure employment, more poorly paid employment, or Bod forbid not in employment, it would have been a pretty terrible year.

Is *anyone* here a Leave voter? And if you are, can you tell me with a straight face that you think life here is going to be better in April?

I wasn't allowed to vote, because I live in the EU (but outside the UK), so apparently, I don't get a say in the matter.

However, a friend of mine, who I will see next week when I visit the UK, did tell me that she voted leave. I will ask her.

How's the little one doing?

I'm so sick of them all talking about nothing else that I no longer care, which is not really how it ought to be.

The tory infighting has, at times, almost made me sorry for Theresa May, but then - as Nish Kumar so eloquently put across my own identical feelings on the Mash report last week - I remember things like Grenfell and the Windrush stuff....

Can't we just fast forward or something? I want to be just put in stasis until it's all done. Mostly I wish they just STFU and talk about something else really.

I have been trying to follow what's going on by listening to the Brexitcast, but it's very little help, as it's so chaotic and they often have little to report, as things were seemingly stalled (or any advances in the proceedings were kept from the press) for long periods at a time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05299nl/episodes/downloads

Apparently, many individual countries within the EU (Germany, Ireland and the UK, anyway) are in such turmoil internally at the moment, that mutual negotiations are almost impossible.

I can't see why the Brexitcast is so popular - has even won awards, or topped the charts or something - and is even listened to by the top bods in Brussels. It just goes round in circles.

Anyway - Brexit is a punch in the stomach for us Brits living in EU countries. I've taken the easy way out and applied for German Nationality, as have most of my British friends here (except the Northern Irish ones).

congrats, Hoo

I'm still dithering about applying for German citizenship as I'm currently unemployed. However one way or another I'll be applying within the next 4 months. But I'm not happy about it.

I have leave voters among my acquaintances. Mostly we communicate via facebook. Prior to the referendum most of them said - there were 2 exceptions from 10 or 11 people - that they didn't really want to leave but they wanted to give the government a bloody nose.

The other 2 said it was all about immigration for them. Yeah. I don't know either, they live near Chesterfield if that is meaningful.


But now, the others have all turned into rabid brexiteers. Nobody has said (or is admitting to) they have regrets about it. They are mostly on my case every time I post articles or comment on Brexit. "it's the will of the people" "getting our power back" all that guff. They are mostly retired but a few of them work and a few of them have their own companies. None, as far as I know, work for a vast international company or export outside the UK.

I sincerely hope their lives don't go down the toilet - but if mine starts to get a bit rocky I will be calling them on it.

"They are mostly retired"

Who'd have guessed? The "greatest generation" have been replaced by the "I'm alright Jack" generation.

They're a generation who never had to fight a war, never had to do national service, benefited from a time when a university education wasn't only free, but actually paid students a maintenance grant for term time and benefits for vacations, grew up with a nationalised rail service and public utilities and a well-funded NHS. And pretty much as soon as they got into positions of power, they set about pulling up those ladders behind them so the generations to follow would never benefit. Then they retired on generous final-salary pensions.

Here's hoping that they live long, long lives, and that they're required to deal with whatever's left of the care system after we've regained "control of our borders". Here's hoping the generations they betrayed take it out on them.

That sentiment is appropriate here as well, especially considering some of last night's election returns.

...haven't looked yet at election returns, a cold shudder postponed...

Excuse me but not all of my generation voted to leave...

Nobody said "all". "Most" is plenty damning enough though, don't you think?

I think you summed up the Tories pretty well, Hoo.....

I'm amazed at some of the people I know who have professed to voting leave - some for very flimsy reasons. I think it's such a shame that all the groups who are shouting now about the problems associated with Breixt didn't shout so loudly before the referendum. No wonder people were swayed by the leave campaign promises who might never otherwise vote at all.

"I think you summed up the Tories pretty well"

Thanks. But everything I said applies to New Labour - and I voted for them.

It's an entire generation of politicians - starting with people my parents' age and coming down to people basically a little older than me - who I blame. (There are relatively few people younger than me with any actual power - I'm 49. Boris Johnson is 54, Callmedave Cameron is 52, Nick Clegg 51, Theresa May is 62, Blair 65, Brown 67 and Vince Cable and John Major are both 75.

Jacob Rees-Mogg is just a little bit older than me, despite being apparently about 147.

I'm 51 and therefore unworthy of your blame. I'm one of the oldest wave of Gen Xers. I definitely have some apprehension about what the baby boomers have left us. For example, I've always accepted the high likelihood that our Social Security will be either depleted, gutted, or done away with altogether before I reach retirement age.

>Jacob Rees-Mogg is just a little bit older than me, despite being apparently about 147.<

I was actually acquainted with him when I was a student as he was I the year above me. He was exactly the same at the age of 20 . But the son of William didn't really ever stand much of a chance - at being in any way normal at least.

>>I think it's such a shame that all the groups who are shouting now about the problems associated with Breixt didn't shout so loudly before the referendum. No wonder people were swayed by the leave campaign promises who might never otherwise vote at all. <<

Oh we were. So many people were and we were branded pessimist quislings who don't have our country's best interests at heart. And no? "stop with the project fear" is one of the few printable things I get to hear these days.

And to top it all: I'm being called unpatriotic for wanting to apply for a German passport.

Don't worry misery likes company, that's why they object to your decision.
They are in a hole of their digging, xenophobia is a big cause of self inflicted misery.

I think the problem was that the remain groups weren't cohesive in the same way as the leave campaign. The booklet issued by the government remain lot was rubbish as far as persuading the general public.

Anyway that's all in the past. And I don't think the age groups are that significant either, in terms of voting or power. It's just so deeply depressing what a mess it's all becoming.

I think it is a mistake to imagine that this will all be resolved by B-day.
Realistically the knock on effects of the decision to leave the EU (and more importantly the knock on effects of the red line decisions to leave the customs union and single market) will take at least a decade to resolve - in terms of economic re-balancing and political and legal structures - which means the current state of directionless chaos is going to be the political reality for the UK for the next 10 years.