CHAPEL END CHARLIE

Or not good news depending on your point of view. For what it is worth, the BBC 'Poll Tracker' has Leave 3 points ahead at the moment while some individual polls show a bigger lead. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36271589 What stands out is that some 13% of respondents are still registered as 'don't know'. Many of them in practice will be 'don't vote' I suspect. However, this group may still decide the outcome so the race is but no means all over.

^ He will never be a great finisher, nevertheless Lallana has performed well I think and will surely continue to play some part. You might argue that the manager's late decision to favour Sterling ahead of Lallana cost us two years ago in Brazil. How about playing Lallana and young Rashford behind Vardy or Sturridge in the next game?

Methinks England have played well during both games and I just don't understand the critism - indeed we are looking about as good as anyone out there at the moment are we not? I suppose you might critise the manager for selecting a starting line-up that he has been forced to restructure in the heat of competition rather than during the pre-tournament phase. However, I don't remember many saying beforehand that Harry Kane should not be picked ahead of the frequently injured Sturridge or the less experienced Vardy. Yes Sterling is not good enough at this level and clearly should be dropped. I would have Rooney 'on the beach' myself, but he has justified the faith placed in him so far. So I look forward to England almost certainly playing in the knock-out stages of this competition with some optimism. My chief concern not being how we perform going forward, but rather how well our defence holds up when we eventually meet a team who are good enough to put us under real pressure.

I must admit that she wasn't really on my 'radar' much before yesterday, but by all acounts she was a outstandingly humane, principled and compassionate MP. The British people don't really care much for their politicians anymore, but they are not all worthless unprincipled liars out for themselves are they?

Awake again so soon?

It's is fairly common among the elderly to take nap during the day. But thanks for sharing that with us anyway.

What I "accept" is the evidence provided by all the many reputable economic and business organisations that resonable people (so not you then) might consider to be worth listening to. I see this morning that the engineering company Rolls Royce has added its voice to all the other first class UK businesses warning of the risks to our economy. You on the other hand are one of those backward-looking types who can offer nothing but a 'deny everything' response to the evidence or more nonsenical attempts to discredit all that does not support your narrow-minded point of view. If you were told that today is a Thursday I fully expect that you'd soon be on here disputing that or be claiming that those who say this are either corrupt and/or untrustworthy! I see again you claim that your various postings on here are not the essentially selfish display of rank ignorance and short sighted 'little englander' predudice they appear to be, no, no, no, but rather some high-minded attempt to rescue the nation for the sake of our future generations. First off, this nation doesn't really need rescuing, so your 'rip it up and start again' approach is built upon foundations of sand. Secondly, your repeated claim to be concerned about our young is nothing but more 'talk is cheap' drivel as those who really care about the young would not seek to imperil their welfare as you do. You appear to lack the intellect required to comprehend these eminently simple points. As for your obsession with David Cameron and my supposed support for everything he says or does, I can only reply that you might seek to set yourself up as Vote Leave's leading mouthpiece on here but my only intent is to express my personal view rather than any politician's. Further, I will remind you again that I'm not even a Tory voter let alone some enthusiastic advocate of a politician who has brought his nation to the very brink of ecomonic and political chaos - should you get your way in a week's time that is. But your vote did help secure his premiership didn't it? But what did amuse was your depicting this nation abandoning its primary international trading relationship as (quote) "exploring the opportunities available to us outside of the EU". I had not until now realised that you had such a finely devloped sense of humour

"Chaotic" is exactly the right term to describe what may lay ahead for this nation should the latest round of opinion polls prove to be more reliable than past ones were. I say "may" because, despite the polls, I don't think that this is all over just yet. Be that as it may, just imagine the situation - we might have a Prime Minister who is hated not just by the 'usual suspects' on the eurosceptic right but by more moderate tory MP's too. This afterall would be the greatest British political miscalculation since the Suez affair of 1956 - except this is obviously a FAR more serious matter than that. How long any PM could possibly survive in these extreme circumstances is a matter of speculation - not very long I guess. Could he in effect also 'drag down' his Chancellor of the Excequer with him? In more normal circumstances the official opposition might be expected to initiate a vote of 'No Confidence' in the government and perhaps even win it - but just look at who their leader is! Then there is the small matter of the Government having to pursue a separatist policy that the large majority of our MP's (from all parties) are fundamentaly opposed to. So a constitutional crisis to go with along with a huge financial one then as the pound is hammered in the international money markets ... oh and the small matter a governing party ripping itself to pieces just to put the cherry on the cake. Perhaps I am being unduly alarmist here and it will all be sorted out somehow. But right now this does not look like a very pretty picture does it? Unless you are by nature some sort of anarchist that is. .

May I throw Stafan K***z's name into the ring? Not that I think he'll get the job, but rather because it always makes me laugh.

And one of the reasons this particular nation has developed to become so economically successful is our trading relationship with our European neighbours.

I can read you like a book and what you and your type are "looking forward" to is the imagined Britain of your youth where everything was somehow better than it is today and "damn foreigners" knew their place. Well that guff might work with those on here who are too young to really remember what Britain was like before we joined the Common Market/EU but it won't wash with me because I was there and I actualy remember what this nation was really like back then. The truth is Britain of that era was a nation mired in endless strife and post imperial decline. A nation the world had come to regarded as 'the sick man of Europe' with hoplessly outdated/underfunded old heavy industies and public services that were little short of a joke - with industrial relations to match. But this tired old nation managed to extract itself from that spiral of relentless decline and among the many reasons that remarkable turnaround happened is that our membership of the Common Market significantly stimulated trade with our European neighbours and would eventualy lead to a veritable torrent of oversees inward investment as (Margaret Thatcher's) Single Market idea took hold. Our economy, our nation, has been transformed in my lifetime - largely for the better I think. As you love facts so much (!) here be another one for you: The UK is forecast to become the biggest economy in Europe within a generation. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10537773/Britain-will-become-biggest-economy-in-Europe.html So this is not a nation that is failing and therefore must extract itself from the EU - the polar opposit of that is closer to the truth. If you could take your blinkers off for a moment then you might see that the modern Britain you evidently despise so much is in fact a pretty decent place to live all things considered. Few nations are without their problems of course, and this one is no exception to that rule. However, it seems to me that Britain today is a infinitely better more outward looking place than it was before we joined the EU, and those reactionary types from the older generation (such as yourself) who advocate that we imperil that massive achievement safe in the knowledge that they won't have to pay the price should everything go as wrong as nearly ALL the serious economists are predicting express a viewpoint that represents the very height of irresponibilty.

But there is so little substance to this piece it hardly seems worth commenting on - afterall regulation is the only way to ensure that standards are improved or maintained and "red tape" merely a derogatory way to attack that ambition. It seems to me that your problem is (or should I say one of your problems are) that you consume only right wing opinions that happen to reinforce your own set of pre-existing predudics, rather than anything that might challenge them and therefore lead to real thinking. This is a (bad) habit that is common enough among the elderly and more backward looking sections of society I suppose, but not the road to enlightenment I think. Try reading something other than the Sun/Mail/Express every once and a while and you never know you might even learn something. Needless to say I'm not really expected you to do that however.

So you are buying your opinons from the Daily Express AND the Daily Mail now? Good to see you making such a big effort to read both sides of the argument here

Yes I suppose regulatory arrangements and enforcement can always be improved. But air travel is perhaps the most international of all modern industrialised activities. Therefore, the notion that we need less international cooperation in controlling and regulating this huge and vital business is quite a bizarre one. Even more bizzare methinks is employing this one particular air accident as a argument to leave the EU!

We don't really know - as yet anyway - exactly why this one person did what he did in Orlando. I suppose he might be another ISIS fanatic intent on furthering his cause. But there again his behaviour also fits into a long established pattern of extreme gun violence in the US that has little (or nothing) to do with religion but is rather a manifestation of some deepseated psychpathy. For what it's worth his wife says that he was a violent and unstable man. So I wonder can it be that if you wrap yourself in the flag of martyrdom then your vengeance on the world might assume a type of pseudo "nobilty" and meaning that it really does not deserve?

Well if you, or Raving Lord Duck, can sensibly explain why I'm supposed to believe that those running the OECD today are somehow no different from the long retired (or even dead) people who were in charge a quarter of century ago when the ERM issue was in contention then by all means give it a go. Given previous experience I'm really not expecting anything that makes much sense truth be told.

I can understand that if you have nothing else to offer then attempting to discredit those you disagree with is all that you have. That does make this pastime a very impressive or reasonable one. But if you really want to go down this road then you might remember that leading Bretix advocate Nigel Lawson was once (very) in favour of our joining the ERM. The fact that someone was wrong in the past does not make them automatcaly wrong now does it?

You do realise that this referendum is not about the Euro?

You do realise that the OECD predicts that UK growth could be some 5% lower, compared to what it would otherwise have been, should we vote to leave. I suppose to the economically illiterate 5% might not sound like very much. However, you can rest assured that is in reality a lot of money.

Lower growth of course means that the state will have less money to spend on the welfare state - be it the NHS, State Pensions or other benifits. So I don't really see why "most sensible people", especially if they are from the poorer sections of society, should be so very pleased with such a outcome.

You did not bother to read your copy of the Referendum Voting Guide?

So all that talk about many thousands of extra doctors and nurses in the NHS then was just misinformation then. You will agree that the same money cannot be spent twice I take it.

Speaking of which, I see this morning that Project Squalid is now promising that all those currently in receipt of EU funding will still benifit in this way should we vote to leave the EU. Can you explain how that will be as we've been told that "£350m a week" is going to the NHS should they get their way?

So that's a solid 'Remain' majority secured in Liverpool then.