GBP Up Against Baht

[donnacha]

6 minutes ago, DannyCarlton said:

If he'd managed to cancel brexit the £ would have truly soared.

You are far from alone in this belief, I have heard variations on this from so many people since the referendum, but no one has been able to explain how, exactly, you would suppress the justified anger of the majority who voted for Brexit.

The various elites were united in their desire to do that over the past 3 years but discovered that there really was no way to override democracy without tearing Britain apart.

The referendum may have been a bad idea, and was only allowed to happened because the political elite had been disconnected from the people for so long and miscalculated, but, once you allow a referendum to go forward, you cannot then ignore the result without shattering the illusion that you are a democracy.

[donnacha]

2 hours ago, BestB said:

It may have represented something for you or other people, but economy does not this way, confidence and investment does not get rebuilt over night just because of an elections

Again, this was not just an election, it was an unequivocal resolution of a long unresolved problem.

The uncertainty created by that unresolved problem was placing pressure on the currency, inward investment, and business planning within the UK.

Once you resolve that - in this case by not entering another deadlocked parliament - you relieve that pressure and the currency adjusts to the level at which it should have been floating.

So, no, this is not just a normal market reaction to an election, there are other factors at play.

[DannyCarlton]

3 minutes ago, donnacha said:

You are far from alone in this belief, I have heard variations on this from so many people since the referendum, but no one has been able to explain how, exactly, you would suppress the justified anger of the majority who voted for Brexit.

The various elites were united in their desire to do that over the past 3 years but discovered that there really was no way to override democracy without tearing Britain apart.

The referendum may have been a bad idea, and was only allowed to happened because the political elite had been disconnected from the people for so long and miscalculated, but, once you allow a referendum to go forward, you cannot then ignore the result without shattering the illusion that you are a democracy.

A very fair assessment to which I have no answer. As you say the damage was done when Cameron called for a referendum to take the wind out of the sails of UKIP. The biggest blunder a politician has made since Blair took us into Iraq.

[Fairynuff]

3 hours ago, sanemax said:

What has Britain lost ?

Power, integrity, respect......

[Blue Muton]

23 minutes ago, Scouse123 said:

Yeah,

 

Well in the UK we run a first past the post system. And it aint changing soon. You are refusing to look at the total picture.

 

It is Tories all the way and Bexit is happening.

 

AS THEY SAY, There are lies, damn lies and then as you are trying to use, statitistics!

But I am looking at the total votes cast, which is the total picture, which is what the first past the post system ignores. Nothing in the slightest disingenuous in my post.

[Fairynuff]

2 hours ago, Blue Muton said:

Why do you choose to misrepresent things?

For all sorts of unpleasant reasons, not least a right wing agenda

[kingdong]

On 12/13/2019 at 6:45 AM, worgeordie said:

45 would be very nice,maybe if the do something to the THB 

it will be achievable.

regards worgeordie

75 would be nicer still

[Blue Muton]

1 hour ago, CG1 Blue said:

The Brexit Party, UKIP and Conservatives were all categorically Leave parties, albeit in different forms. A majority for any of those 3 parties would result in us leaving the EU. 

 

The Labour Party was on the fence with Brexit. Their manifesto promise was to renegotiate a deal with the EU, then hold a 2nd referendum. So a Labour victory could still have resulted in us leaving the EU. Therefore Labour's 32.1% does not represent 32.1% for Remain. At a push it might be 20-22% of the Labour total representing Remain. 

 

The categorically remain parties; Lib Dems, Greens and SNP (although not all SNP voters are remainers) got just 18.1% of the vote. 

 

With respect, I think you're clutching at straws. 

 

Not so, I wasn't the one claiming that the majority of votes cast represented a clear endorsement of Johnson and his policies. Are you seriously suggesting that the votes for Labour were an endorsement for Johnson, if so, how perverse?

[Khon Kaen Jeff]

2 hours ago, BestB said:

Yes, i am guessing this is why today its 39.40 and on the day of elections it was 40.285

 

See what a good guess i am ????or i might just be well read and this is what happens everywhere, worldwide

Yea yea, big yawn. If it was that much set in stone you and everyone else would put their life savings on it. 

[Fairynuff]

5 hours ago, Scouse123 said:

Guess we can add you to the sore losers list, eh?

Any list you like. I sincerely hope you get everything you voted for, you deserve it. I do however have sympathy for those who DON'T deserve what YOU voted for.

[donnacha]

3 hours ago, Blue Muton said:

Democratic will of the people? Utter nonsense, nearly 60% voted against the Conservatives yet they have complete control of government. That can by no stretch of the imagination match your description.

I am actually glad that the student politicians and London-based leftists have not realised that storming around, denouncing the views of others as "nonsense", is precisely the sort of naked contempt that delivered the most spectacular UK election trouncing in living history.

They simply do not understand how far the tectonic plates of British politics have shifted. Here you have a prime specimen, trying to delegitimize a resounding win on the basis that the First Past the Post system was used ... I suspect he would not consider it a problem if Corbyn had won with 43% of the vote ????

Of course, most interesting as he attempts to juggle statistics, is that he completely forgets the referendum, which was a straightforward Leave or Remain vote ... and the people voted Leave. Whatever about the methods used to tot up constituency votes, you cannot argue that a referendum is undemocratic.

What we discovered in the astonishing results of this election is that, far from regretting that vote as the media have endlessly suggested, the electorate punished the parties who betrayed their promises to honour the vote, and handed Johnson a decisive parliamentary majority with a clear mandate to go ahead and get it done. They gave you their decision 3 years ago, the results of this election only underline their anger at how the media and political elites have persistently tried to spin their mandate away.

So, the good news is that the leftists are on auto-pilot, completely unable to process how badly they have f*cked up. Expect at least another decade of attacks on free speech and democracy as their inability to win at the ballot box spins them ever further into an existential crisis.

[Fairynuff]

19 minutes ago, donnacha said:

the leftists

The favourite insult of the rightists. What they will never understand is that it’s actually a great compliment. The real insult would be if you assumed we thought as you do.

[Blue Muton]

1 hour ago, donnacha said:

I am actually glad that the student politicians and London-based leftists have not realised that storming around, denouncing the views of others as "nonsense", is precisely the sort of naked contempt that delivered the most spectacular UK election trouncing in living history.

They simply do not understand how far the tectonic plates of British politics have shifted. Here you have a prime specimen, trying to delegitimize a resounding win on the basis that the First Past the Post system was used ... I suspect he would not consider it a problem if Corbyn had won with 43% of the vote ????

Of course, most interesting as he attempts to juggle statistics, is that he completely forgets the referendum, which was a straightforward Leave or Remain vote ... and the people voted Leave. Whatever about the methods used to tot up constituency votes, you cannot argue that a referendum is undemocratic.

 

FWIW I consider the UK electoral system to be wholly unfit for the purpose of delivering a government that reflects the votes cast, regardless of who benefits from it. That's what having principles means.

What we discovered in the astonishing results of this election is that, far from regretting that vote as the media have endlessly suggested, the electorate punished the parties who betrayed their promises to honour the vote, and handed Johnson a decisive parliamentary majority with a clear mandate to go ahead and get it done. They gave you their decision 3 years ago, the results of this election only underline their anger at how the media and political elites have persistently tried to spin their mandate away.

So, the good news is that the leftists are on auto-pilot, completely unable to process how badly they have f*cked up. Expect at least another decade of attacks on free speech and democracy as their inability to win at the ballot box spins them ever further into an existential crisis.

No "juggling of statistics", you just made that up. Listing the percentages of votes cast for the different parties is not juggling.

 

Try looking through the thread and seeing what I responded to, it is quite clear and renders your post irrelevant.

 

I don't knock other people for stating views but feel quite at liberty to call out nonsensical claims like the one to which I replied.

 

The referendum is not relevant to my post it is simply deflection on your part, however I note your claim that it was democratic whilst you ignore the fraud that took place during the campaigning, so perhaps it wasn't that democratic after all.

 

 

Edited December 14, 2019 by Blue Muton
addition.

[donnacha]

57 minutes ago, Fairynuff said:

The favourite insult of the rightists.

Nothing in my use of the phrase was insulting, it is a long-established political descriptor used by leftists themselves. It is standard etiquette to refer to groups using the descriptors they give themselves.

You might have had an argument of sorts if I had used the phrase "authoritarian leftists" in recognition of the fact that, even as recently as a decade ago, positions that are now considered to be rightwing - such as defending free speech, democracy, and the presumption of innocence - were more associated with the left.

As a student, I would certainly have been considered a left-winger. My core political beliefs have not changed that much, but I have had two decades to see how harmful some redistributive policies are to the people they are supposed to help, and the extraordinary damage that Blair wreaked upon the world.

I have been around long enough to notice the pattern that governments are not actually good at doing stuff, and that politicians (on either side) are among the least trustworthy people you will ever encounter. If they were your flatmate, your gut instinct would tell you not to put them in charge of the kitty.

Those are not things I could possibly have known at 25.

To me, the biggest irony of modern times, is that thugs calling themselves "anti-fascist" riot to prevent public talks and lectures, fracture the skulls of peaceful protesters, boycott businesses for stocking books they disagree with, and do everything they can to de-platform fairly mild academics such as Germaine Greer.

When I talk to today's students, the most frightening thing is not the simplistic way in which they see the world, or the eery uniformity of their views (in my generation, we would often argue amongst ourselves all night), but the apparent lack of any sense of humour.

When they deplatform comedians, they genuinely do not understand that not everything is meant literally. I am very worried about this. Has replacing books with Twitter really caused this much damage? Is there anything we can do to encourage independent thought again?

 

[Chivas]

2 hours ago, kingdong said:

75 would be nicer still

lol you realise to get to 75 Sterling would need to be $2.50

[donnacha]

20 minutes ago, Blue Muton said:

don't knock other people for stating views but feel quite at liberty to call out nonsensical claims like the one to which I replied.

How convenient, then, that so many of us are making claims you deem to be nonsensical.
 

 

20 minutes ago, Blue Muton said:

The referendum is not relevant to my post it is simply deflection on your part

No. You cited the FPTP system, used for the parliamentary election, to deny the mandate it gave the Leave parties. I pointed out that the referendum itself was not FPTP, it was a binary vote at national level, which does rather undermine your ridiculous FPTP point.

This "undemocratic" election merely confirmed the decision already expressed in the one-man-one-vote referendum.
 

 

20 minutes ago, Blue Muton said:

I note your claim that it was democratic whilst you ignore the fraud that took place during the campaigning, so perhaps it wasn't that democratic after all.

There, in a nutshell, is the anti-democratic heart of the modern left. If you cannot win at the ballot box, you will declare every election you cannot win illegitimate. Suddenly, Russians are everywhere. Poorly-designed Facebook ads are swinging entire elections, more powerful that the BBC and the entire media elite. Just keep churning up anything you can think of, no matter how ridiculous, knowing that the Guardian will keep hammering away.

As a political force, you're done. Within your bubble, you all agree, you all parrot the same shared wisdom. Outside the bubble, however, the left has long lost any relevance. Ordinary people are not the idiots you presume them to be, they are fully aware of the contempt in which you hold them, they see how deranged your tactics and propaganda have become.

What you have failed to realise, somewhat hilariously, is that the real message of this election is that the left needs to face up to some hard realities and completely reinvent itself. There will no longer be any place for street-fighting partisans like you.

 

Edited December 14, 2019 by donnacha

[Scouse123]

5 hours ago, Fairynuff said:

Any list you like. I sincerely hope you get everything you voted for, you deserve it. I do however have sympathy for those who DON'T deserve what YOU voted for.

 

You mean the vast majority of people in voting areas who voted the same as I did?

 

I am sure they won't mind!

 

The ones who didn't get their way will just have to wait until there is a better democratic way of winning instead of screaming, stamping their feet, holding violent demonstrations, and attacking every person beliefs that do not coincide with theirs.

 

 

Edited December 14, 2019 by Scouse123

[Scouse123]

5 hours ago, Blue Muton said:

But I am looking at the total votes cast, which is the total picture, which is what the first past the post system ignores. Nothing in the slightest disingenuous in my post.

 

Because it was, and still is, a first past the post voting system in the UK, not one of proportional representation.

 

Labour and the left had no problem with this system when they were in power, nor did the Liberals when they were sharing power.

 

You are now trying to put up an argument regards the voting system, and one thing for sure, it isn't going to change the UK result.

[sanemax]

5 hours ago, Fairynuff said:

Power, integrity, respect......

That is down to the last three years of Corbyn stubbornness 

[Scouse123]

7 hours ago, CG1 Blue said:

The Brexit Party, UKIP and Conservatives were all categorically Leave parties, albeit in different forms. A majority for any of those 3 parties would result in us leaving the EU. 

 

The Labour Party was on the fence with Brexit. Their manifesto promise was to renegotiate a deal with the EU, then hold a 2nd referendum. So a Labour victory could still have resulted in us leaving the EU. Therefore Labour's 32.1% does not represent 32.1% for Remain. At a push it might be 20-22% of the Labour total representing Remain. 

 

The categorically remain parties; Lib Dems, Greens and SNP (although not all SNP voters are remainers) got just 18.1% of the vote. 

 

With respect, I think you're clutching at straws. 

 

 

 

Thank you,

 

And your above post puts a far more balanced representation of the election result.

 

And no matter what anybody says, the result was a Tory landslide victory. They openly stated their policies and further stated we were leaving with a deal preferably, but without one if necessary and the people backed that decision.

[sanemax]

10 minutes ago, Scouse123 said:

 

 

Thank you,

 

And your above post puts a far more balanced representation of the election result.

 

And no matter what anybody says, the result was a Tory landslide victory. They openly stated their policies and further stated we were leaving with a deal preferably, but without one if necessary and the people backed that decision.

Tories only got 48 % of the vote, which means they lost .

Remain won again as they got 52 % of the vote, as they also did win the referendum with 67 % of the voters not voting to Leave .

Its just not fair, I'm telling ya

[Scouse123]

1 minute ago, sanemax said:

Tories only got 48 % of the vote, which means they lost .

Remain won again as they got 52 % of the vote, as they also did win the referendum with 67 % of the voters not voting to Leave .

Its just not fair, I'm telling ya

 

Either you are just trying to wind me up or using twisted facts and logic to support a daft argument.

[sanemax]

8 minutes ago, Scouse123 said:

 

Either you are just trying to wind me up or using twisted facts and logic to support a daft argument.

Humour dear boy , ridicule, if you like 

[ivor bigun]

14 hours ago, Blue Muton said:

Democratic will of the people? Utter nonsense, nearly 60% voted against the Conservatives yet they have complete control of government. That can by no stretch of the imagination match your description.

So tell us again ,which planet are you from?

[nauseus]

10 hours ago, Chivas said:

lol you realise to get to 75 Sterling would need to be $2.50

Assuming that the USD stays where it is now. 

[Scouse123]

7 hours ago, sanemax said:

Humour dear boy , ridicule, if you like 

 

Well, it was late last night when I went to bed after posting and I am still getting over jet lag after my recent voting trip to the UK. lol......It takes longer and longer to recover as I am ageing.

[brianthainess]

Wow now what will i spend my extra 200 baht a week on, i need to make a bucket list oh wait i need a new bucket dam.  

[Blue Muton]

2 hours ago, ivor bigun said:

So tell us again ,which planet are you from?

"Democratic will of the people? Utter nonsense, nearly 60% voted against the Conservatives yet they have complete control of government. That can by no stretch of the imagination match your description."

 

 

The planet where the definition of democracy is that the outcome reflects the majority will (or majority of votes cast), assuming of course that there is a free and fair vote.

 

Is that something that's diffferent wherever you come from?

[ThaiBunny]

37 minutes ago, Blue Muton said:

The planet where the definition of democracy is that the outcome reflects the majority will (or majority of votes cast), assuming of course that there is a free and fair vote.

That is simply not the electoral system of any country that uses first-past-the-post voting (also know as "winner takes all"). If you refer to Wikipedia you can see that no governing party has ever received 50%+ of the total votes cast in the UK. Wikipedia also shows a total of 60 countries who use the same system

[Fairynuff]

1 hour ago, ThaiBunny said:

That is simply not the electoral system of any country that uses first-past-the-post voting (also know as "winner takes all"). If you refer to Wikipedia you can see that no governing party has ever received 50%+ of the total votes cast in the UK. Wikipedia also shows a total of 60 countries who use the same system

Shouldn’t the concept of honesty form a part of the definition of democracy?