You know what really grinds my gears? The Gears Strike Back

Bear in mind the possibilities of (a) one of the testers having a senior moment and writing down the wrong end of the car or (b) the discs having indeed fixed themselves. Brakes wear and thus minor surface imperfections may well be worn smooth.

Staying on a motoring theme.When is a road project finished?.Highways England seem to have a different definition to the one I understand.To set the scene they have been working since spring 2016 on a so called triple decker roundabout on the A19 on North Tyneside. I have to commute through it every day on my way to and from work.Therefore I was most pleased to learn after three years of hell that the project is finished.Except it isnt the £75 million pound underpass they have constructed is only open from 0600-2000hrs each day.Also heavy plant and loads of cones are still in evidence.Turns out when I questioned this I was told that they “hope” to have finished it by the end of this month even though they trumpeted to the media it was finished at the end of March.Only in the UK.

Where I am there have been 3 major roadworks where the end date moved back at least 18 months, each failure to complete was posted on new boards a couple of weeks beforehand. One of them has been ‘revisited’ twice since it was opened for remedial work.

GMG today

Paid professionals choosing to ignore questions only they are in a position to answer and rant at a volunteer because its easier to be the bully and feel superior than accept ignorance of a situation and answer questions which helps everyone progress with the task in hand.

:angry:

I now need to sleep on it before I even consider replying if only to avoid saying something I may regret or stooping to their level and ranting back!

3 Likes

With an even greater will in the word, I am afraid you are not right; a typical remianer response trying to make out that leavers are just racist. I voted to leave to recoup the sovereignty of my country.

1 Like

I must have missed this one but going off the second-last line - I’ve talked to loads of people who have said they voted remain last time and if run again, they would vote leave!

It’s an unenviable and impossible task to work out any semblance of a deal (or none) but I think as a populace we’ve been happier in the past couple of weeks where Brexit hasn’t been the hot topic!

Conversely, I have met people who voted leave originally & would now vote remain! Indeed, a lot of “leave” voters just wanted to “express their displeasure” at the EU rather than have an express intention to actually leave. Congratulations, you got (maybe??) what you voted for.

It has been one of the biggest political messes for decades; we should have adopted the Swiss “double majority” system in order to prevent such a split / close vote. Then Cameron added insult to injury & banged out, passing the poisoned chalice onto his successor. Round spherical things the size of peanuts! :wink:

Anyway, that’s water under the bridge. To me, especially working across multiple EU borders, with multiple EU nationalities, it makes sense to be inside the “office” thumping on the table - you might get some of what you want. If you are outside the office locked door, guess what, no chance of getting anything…

4 Likes

For me - as one who voted remain - the fundamental problem within our politics is no longer ‘should we remain in the EU or Leave?’, it’s ‘now the electorate have voted, how do we leave the EU?’.

Unfortunately, a large slice of those who voted remain - and particularly those in politics and the media - haven’t moved on to the second question and remain firmly answering a question that is no longer being asked.

2 Likes

There were and are legitimate reasons to dislike the EU, but what GMG is the lack of truth (or prevalence of disingenuity) in the arguments that swayed a lot of people:

*Lack of immigration control when the UK Government didn’t fully use existing powers within EU law
*Falling/lowered living standards/poverty/lack of money/etc following 6 years of harsh cuts and austerity in the aftermath of a global recession
*Fishing rights and laws when Farage was on the EU Fisheries Commission, only turned up once, and never votes when opportunities to pass positive legislation arose
*Demise or possible demise of industries such as British Steel, when the UK blocked EU legislation to put tariffs on Chinese steel
*70 million Turks are coming
*All this nonsense about the Lisbon Treaty coming into effect in 2021, despite the Treaty coming into effect in 2007 as a replacement to the Treaty of Rome, both of which were amendments (read: updates) to the Maastricht Treaty and neither of which removed our right to veto or removed our Eurozone or Schengen opt-outs
*Unelected bureaucrats… Yeah, that one looks really good right about now.

…etc.

3 Likes

I always wondered why the threshold was simply 50.1% and reading up on the “Double Majority” seems it does have a bit more weight, for ease I feel 66% seems an obvious majority - for every 1 against the result there are 2 who are in favour.

Ironically (according to the polls) the “remain” vote grows stronger the more time goes on.
if there had been a people’s vote when first suggested and it was a repeat “leave” result it would shut up all the remoaners demanding a people’s vote as it would 2-0

(of course had it been a “remain” vote and effectively 1-1 what does that tell us? best of three? and what classes as a “win” 50.1%?
if 4% was acceptable to leave, would leavers accept 2% majority to remain?? what margin is acceptable to claim a majority - mathematically 50.1% but politically…?:thinking:)

if “leavers” accepted the idea of a people’s vote there was a good chance it would stick, but beat the “its undemocratic” Government should “respect the result” drums instead. now it would seem leavers are scared they’ll lose a people’s vote and I can understand that apprehension.

It should really be >50% of the electorate for a major change, not just of the turnout. If more people actively vote for a change than don’t, that ought to be sufficient.

That’s exactly it. And the shame of that is that so many people are holding onto this as their single point of pride - for once, they feel they matter. Before anyone shouts at me, I’m not saying all, but there is a huge swathe of the disenfranchised electorate who feel “left behind”, “voiceless”, “not cared about” by those in power and, for once, they have what they feel is a victory so massive and singular that to go against it is a personal attack on them.

I posted this comment on a facebook thread that was subsequently deleted:

“Well we will have a 3rd or 4th or 5th” - except we won’t. If Remain was to lose a second referendum then the mandate is stronger as the decision was made following all subsequent, additional information (and a changed electorate), 2.5 years after the first vote and will have been defeated twice. No one is coming back from that. Plus there wouldn’t be any time left before the clock strikes March [:rofl:]. And if Remain wins…

Leave cannot legitimately argue against it. Here’s why:

If the first referendum was “the will of the people”, a Remain win in the second vote would also be “the will of the people”, it’s just that the people’s will has changed.

If Leave loses a second referendum, they would have to accept the result, because “Remain won, get over it”.

The call for a second referendum is supported by there being new evidence and information available. Following a second, there wouldn’t be any new information available again until there was a great shift in our relationship with the EU.

Leave would have to go against the suggestion that calling for another referendum is “undemocratic” if they were to try for a third.

If Leave loses, they can either be gracious or hypocrites.

If leaving the EU is (still) the will of the people, then those who want to leave shouldn’t fear a second referendum. If they win it - as they must believe they would - then their position is strengthened.

The only legitimate (and wholly, ironically, undemocratic) reason for fighting SO hard against a second referendum is that they think they will lose…

Except leave-voters can’t admit that they think they will lose, because that means admitting that leaving the EU might not really be “the will of the people”, and that means undermining their own arguments for continuing with the process for leaving.

…Yeah, what a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. Regardless of your views, politics is well and truly broken, political discourse is a mess, and it will take a looong time to rectify.

I mean, it’s apparently (paradoxically) now undemocratic to hold a vote on whether to leave an allegedly undemocratic organisation that we’re about hold an election for.

1 Like

Don’t turn this into a detailed brexit debate. Find an existing one or make a new one.

Until you have compulsary voting with fines for those who don’t, then you have peoples right not to take part in the political process, the none ofthe above party,

I have been thinking about this recently and especially given at the last GE not one candidate in my opinion was for to stand for my community . Most were sent from outside the area and had no idea of local people or issues, 1 was from over 100 miles away!!!

We should make it a legal requirement that all those eligible are required to vote or face a £100 fine.
There should also be a added option on the ballot paper which should read something like
“I do not wish any of these candidates to represent me”
If this option is selected ALL candidates loose 1 vote,
We may then see the return of local candidates representing local people not their party

Anyone would think the country was being run by RAFAC! :wink:

1 Like

Well for starters there is official EU guidance on the subject of referenda that says it should be a simple majority…

3 Likes

Get real.

I’m not making this up.

The polls, the research all point to what I’ve said being correct.

Sure, some people voted to ‘recoup sovereignty’ but more than a few did not.

I may have voted remain but I think the referendum result needs to be respected and acted on. The fact it’s proving increasingly difficult to reconcile pro-Brexit factions around one deal is perhaps an indication that maybe more thought should have gone into this whole process.

GMG

another professional (different organisation this time) who is asking me to confirm details of something which i copied the individual of a week ago so they were kept abreast of the situation.

seriously? does it say somewhere in my title block, please bounce all your shadmin in Steve’s direction as he’s able to sort your :poop: out when it comes too much for your to deal with despite being in your ruddy job description!??? :triumph::triumph:

Tell that to the Australian Labor Party, after last week.