I can’t really see Bojo, Pob (Gove), or any of the other lying bastards actually doing time for their “crimes”. What possible financial sanctions could be applied ?
Guillotine the lot of them; forget Brexit ever existed; party like it’s 2015…job’s a good 'un.
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I wish I shared your confidence. I can’t remember who it was but someone answered Donald Rumsfeld’s “known unknowns” hyperbole with the point that its “things about which we are absolutely certain” that prove to be untrue that cause us real problems.
Well, I agree with everything you said about the difference between EU and local elections and a GE but I, like Guy am not quite as confident that an electoral upset is impossible.
Apart from the fact that there will be a poisonous row about what questions to put and it will be close again thus providing little closure.
Include Trump in that sentiment too. WTF gives that tw@t the right to get involved in British politics?
If ever there was a case for not electing BoJo as leader of the conservatives it is precisely for the reason Trump says so.
And don’t even mention his suggestion that führer farridge should be on the Brexshit negotiating team or that the UK should behave in a disorderly and illegal way by not paying their dues…
“America First” is the only reason Trump supports this; he wants to get his hands on the UK cash.
Pity Liz can’t just turn round and tell him to foxtrot oscar 
I’m sure she’d like to. Perhaps Charlie boy will instead over tea at Clarence House 
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I apologize for the omission of the Orange Gibbon.
He would of course find his head on the block directly after Bojo…
as for Liz…she should watch out ; she may find herself on the list.
Maybe she’ll ask PP to drive him up the ‘Long Walk’ as he did Obama…
In the most recent of his Reith lectures on BBC4, Jonathan Sumption, former Supreme Court Law Lord, argues very cogently that a referendum is a very crude and undemocratic method of determining policy, because it is incapable of democratic amendment by parliament (or was so regarded until Mr Speaker Bercow stood up for the rights of parliamentarians).
According to Sumption, “democracy has the unique power to accommodate opposing opinions and interests”, but referenda do not allow for this, on the flawed basis that “the people have spoken” and may therefore not have their decision usurped under any circumstances; nor are any further arguments to be allowed. This, Sumption asserts, is not how democracy functions, nor how it was designed to function.
For this reason I am set against a second reference, and think the flawed undemocratic Brexit process that it has entrained, must be revoked. Another referendum should be ruled out of order forthwith.
A parliamentary solution should be sought, and facilitated, however long and painful the process may be, and whatever supplementary processes (e.g citizens assemblies) may be called for to support it.
Link to 2019 Reith Lectures:
I missed this but it is a very valid pint.
Well, what do you know - unasked for, evidence of this appears almost instantaneously - the last thing we want in the UK is an American style health service 
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The US healthcare system is based on the notion that the State can not (and should not) subsidise the survival of individuals whose lives are not productive enough to insure themselves against medium to long-term incapacity, so they should be allowed to die.
It’s an inevitable consequence of an unregulated free market economy applied to health and illness or disability: coming to your home and your family soon.
Of course, if you’re a socialist bleeding-heart snowflake, nobody’s going to stop you reaching into your own pocket to fork out the necessary bucks to pay A N Other’s bills. That’s the American way.
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Unless we now find that it was even more illegal than it was if it had been mandatory.
Do you think that is likely to happen?
Personally, I don’t, but I defer to your experience of fighting these issues to the last ditch, and perseverance does sometimes pay off.
But I sense in Sumption’s presentation on the legal issues surrounding the referendum that wiser voices may prevail, and Bercow may be instrumental in, if not the key to, a parliamentary solution to this constitutional conundrum.
I realise that you are not advocating this stance but, in my view, it is mistaken on a macro-economic basis, not to mention a moral one.
The thing is that no-one, or almost no-one escapes infirmity and the need for care at the end of their lives and many have chronic illnesses - the problem with an insurance based, for-profit system is that there is not much money in frailty and none at all in chronic illness so you wind up with a system that is iniquitous and inefficient - the US spends massive amounts on healthcare (17.9% of GDP in 2017) without getting especially good outcomes but sometimes at great cost to individuals - the single most common reason for personal financial hardship in the US is healthcare costs (some 62% of bankruptcies) and the single most important factor in your expected survival from advanced cancer is whether you have insurance or not.
Some things are simply better provided by the state for the common good from a pot contributed to by everyone.
@anon88169868: “I know you are not advocating this stance…” (letting people die)
Well, not in so many words, but I am of the opinion, based on decades of professional involvement with very elderly and totally dependent people, that expectations that people who are physically incapable of essential self-care by reason of age and decrepitude, including many chronic and incurable illnesses, should be afforded anything beyond palliative care, and support toward a timely and dignified death, with euthanasia as a freely available option.
We should not be queasy about supporting very frail and dependent people in decisions about not extending their lives when they can’t help themselves, deal with their own bowel actions, change their posture, or engage in meaningful social intercourse with others outside their carers. Letting go of life in its natural course and proper period should be encouraged, not shirked.
It’s not as ethically complicated as we have made it IMO, and I do not intend to be a burden on anyone when I know my time to depart is due.
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I completely agree with your point Peter, but that has nothing to do with how the care we decide is appropriate is funded.
These are two quite separate (and very important) issues.
It’s not just about end of life care - I chose that example because it is the period in most people’s lives when they need most healthcare input.
The problem with the US system is that access to care is based principally on one’s ability to pay - are you really telling me that one person should get better care for their cancer than another because the first is a Wall Street banker and the second a refuse collector?
How do you value one human life over another?
The US system is broken economically and morally.
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Yet more analysis of just how one-sided a US-UK deal brokered by Trump would be
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In a previous post sometime ago my opinion and choice of words was not accidental and words like dross - vitriolic - one of them from another forum was used against or towards me so no wonder you were softly lambasted.
I swear occasionally, maybe more than I should but we can’t erase the words from the language or the sentiment that leads to their use; I’m not going to change my use of language on a forum where the presumption is that other users are adults.
Mostly I try to swear at things and situations rather than individuals. Well at least individuals who are not in the public eye.
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Well, look at Trumps track record:
’ An analysis by USA Today published in June 2016 found that over the previous three decades, United States president Donald Trump and his businesses have been involved in 3,500 legal cases in U.S. federal courts and state court, an unprecedented number for a U.S. presidential candidate.’
@anon88169868 “The US system is broken economically and morally”
I agree completely.
But it’s also true of the ‘modern’ NHS, I think, which is on its knees.
The NHS has long since abandoned it’s functions as an institution that vigorously promotes healthy living.
It is no longer structured so as to prevent the degenerative diseases and malignancies to which pollution, including sugar-polluted ‘foodstuffs’ are contributory factors.
And it is wedded to an ethos of delaying death any cost to the quality of life, the public purse, or the real sensibilities of thoughtful people.
All to be understood as a personal opinion, but widely shared I think by a silent majority of people whose commitment is to world health, without borders.