CHAPEL END CHARLIE

If you propose that only high-skilled immigration should be allowed, then how are the many low-skilled vacancies our economy is generating to be filled? It is both dismissive and insulting I think to characterise these jobs - and the people who do them - as worthless when the truth is we need people to pick our crops, look after our elderly, and work the unsocial hours many British people are now reluctant to do.

But you told this forum that a sense of discontent with the EU was growing across the continent. If that is true why then would this feeling not eventualy be refected in the EU? What you are saying here makes no sense. Like anything else created by the hand of man the EU is imperfect. However, I see no reason to believe that it is beyond reform and surely the only way the UK can play its part in promoting that reform process is from within, rather than isolated somewhere out on the sidelines.

'twas a fine season all right - I wish I could have been there more often to see it. The only slight disappointment (aside from failing to progress again in the FA Cup) would be that we in danger methinks of losing that reputation we'd earned not so long ago for being a club that gives its young home grown talent chance. Ward-Prowse and Matt Targett have played some part in our season, but are we really so very different now from any other PL oufit? The pressure to succed is intense of course and as we have money to burn these days we appear to have reverted to a 'play it safe' policy and buy-in talent just like most others clubs do. Okay, perhaps Harrison Reed and his contemporaries are not good enough in the manager's view. Maybe the club losing some key personnel who were responsible for devloping outstanding young players (such as Bale, Walcott and Shaw) has effected us. But if we never take that risk of giving our youngsters a chance to show what they can do then you never really know do you? Fortune favours the brave.

Because in reality the EU is not the dictating all-powerfull superstate its is sometimes depicted to be?

Fascinated as I am sure we all are with your family history I must inform you that where your parents happen to have been born has nothing to do with anything. Neither for that matter does having visited the continent grant you some special and unique status! How and why you consider yourself to be more European than me - despite you knowing the square root of bugger-all about my anchestry - is one of those little mysteries that do crop up in any conversation with you. As for your latest complaint of being so hard done by on here, I can only say that if YOU choose to employ language such as 'foreigners should mind there own damn business' (or words to that effect) then you lay yourself open to accusations of xenophobia. Indeed, that noun could be classified as a 'fair comment' depiction of your attitude as expressed on here. Re your stated reluctance to even read any opinion that does not coincide with your own, this hardly comes as much of a surprise and is indeed fully consistent with your dismissive approach to evidence in general - as we have seen on here time and time again. Your apparent desire to not only see the UK leave the EU, but for the organisation itself to be destroyed, smacks of a type of fanaticism that makes this forum member glad that he only has to encounter you over a broadband connection rather than in real life. .

So you are now a internationlist who just happens to desire that his nation severs its formal links with its nearest neighbours and vehemently dislikes international cooperation .. oh and for your infomation geography dictates that we are all Europeans by the way! Back on planet Earth, there is little that is more GUARANTEED to reduce oversees investment in the UK economy than us withdrawing from the EU. In the 2014/15 financial year official statitics show that FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) created or secured some 100,000 UK jobs and we received both the highest number, and the higest net value, of FDI projects coming into the European Union. We are behind only the USA and China as a place to recieve foreign investment and the accumulated value of our incoming investments is calculated to have exceeded £1trillion for the first time ever. The reason we have been so very successful in attracting this level of foreign investment is not because the world is obcessed with the UK and its comparetivly modest market of 64 million consumers, no, we have achieved this undoubted success because of our EU membership and the assured access that status gives any business located here to the Single Market area and its 508 million people. The 'Vote Leave' campaign have conceeded now that leaving the EU also means that we will leave the Single Market area - indeed there is no dispute anymore in that regard as both sides now agree on this point. In return for running that absurd risk all 'Vote Leave' can offer the British people is some hoplessly vague promise that they are somehow "sure" that we can negotiate a new trade deal with the EU - both the nature and the timing of which are a matter of mere speculation at this time. IIRC the record shows that in normaly takes between 2 and 9 years to formalize this type of arrangement with the EU such are the labyrinthine legal and political complexities of the issue. So you tell me then why any big foreign business seeking to gain or maintain its assured access to the EU Single Market area would choose to locate their investment in the UK when there are 27 other nations (plus the newly independent Scotland you don't care about) that would be more than willing to have them instead? It seems to me that - if you get your way - for years to come the UK would become one of the last places in Europe to recieve foreign investment rather than the first.

You feel that xenophobia plays not part in the Brexit movement?

It's pretty obvious is it not. Some on here - like you for instance - seem to want foreigners to mind their "damn" business. Except that is when they are putting their money into struggeling British football clubs they happen to support when they suddenly become very welcome. Oh and I think you will find that Marcus Liebherr was a Swiss citizen of German descent and that some of his various business interests are based in Germany.

You are 'backing Britain' while using a image of a foreign invester in the UK as your avatar? I see ...

I suppose that maybe only 6% of our businesses do trade with the EU Single Market area - if you include every 'one man band', corner shop and mobile mechanic in the country. However, the fact of the matter is that a huge 45% of this nation's export trade goes to the EU and millions of British jobs depend upon this. So the 6% claim is sophistry.

Who is this "Oborne" character and why is his opinion important?

I too have been watching BBC Breakfast this morning. You forgot to include in your post that this analysis went on to put the £161m number into its proper perspective. Total government weekly expenditure is expected to be in the region of £15 billion in the financial year ending 2017: http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/government_expenditure.html In return for paying our 'subs' to be a member of the European club we of course gain all the many advantages of being a part of a single market of some 500 million consumers. So do try contributing some longer and more honest contributions on here.

Look closer then. Government statistics show that our 'workforce participation' rate is already at record levels and the unemployment rate (c 5%) is almost certainly comprised largely of those who find themselves either temporarily between jobs, or are unemployable for some reason. Anecdotally, I can hardly leave my home now without being assailed by 'now hiring' signs in shop windows and on the backside of almost every passing bus. So the effect of increasing wages would not be to somehow solve our labour shortage - because the UK now just does not have some vast pool of idle workers at its disposal - but rather to increase the costs and thus reduce the international competivnes of UK industry. Those are bad things by the way. Better training I suppose might result in narrowing the 'skills gap' we now see in certain sectors. But the real reason we have immigration here is that our economy requires workers (both skilled and unskilled) in order to fulfil the many vacancies it is creating every year. In that sense the EU Single Market is not failing, it is doing exactly what it has been designed to do. The IFS (Institute of Fiscal Studies) slams yet another torpedo into the side of the floundering Brexit case: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36371700

What we see here I think is the Remain camp 'spinning' the forecasts for all they are worth. Surely we have both been 'around the block' enough times to understand that nearly ALL politicians behave in that manner. But that is not the same thing as saying that the forecasts that lay behind the 'spin' are either wrong or fundamentaly unreasonable in some way. Indeed Charles Bean - the former Deputy Governor of the BoE - said only yesterday that the Treasury forecasts (or more precisly what economists call a 'gap analysis') are based on a well understood model of the economy that is considered to be robust. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36357177 Any type of forecast might be wrong of course, be it about tomorrow's weather or the economy in five years time. But HM Treasury forecasts are not some kind of random guess generated by politicans that the British people can safely ignore because that is just not the case. Just how big a hit our economy is likley to take should we vote to leave the EU is a matter of some valid debate - but the likelihood that our economy will suffer to some extent has (more or less) been established now. Again, as a firm believer in freedom of speech I really don't mind those who disapprove of the idea of shared soverengthy and/or strongly object to the EU 'Single Market' concept expressing their honestly held opinion on those subjects. In a month's time they can vote their way and I will vote mine and we shall see who is in the majority. What I do find deeply objectionable however is those who claim we can administer this massive shock to our economic system and then escape any adverse consequences of that choice. That I think is the biggest lie of all.

Google is your friend my dear Goat.

How pleased I am that communication between us now been restored - this could be the start of a beautiful friendship. If you go back a couple of posts old boy you will see that I said the £350m number was so absurd even you would not defend it - you will agree that you do tend to come on here and attempt to defend even the more outlandish claims the Vote Leave campaign come up with. If you are really so worked up about HM Treasury forcasts and how the Chancellor of the Exchequer has chosen to interpret them, then instead of pointlessly bothering me I surgest you take the matter up with those responsible directly at: The Rt Hon George Osborne MP. HM Treasury, 1 Horse Guards Road, London. SW1A 2HQ As always - more than happy to help.

Your decision to not talk to me anymore was as short lived as I predicted. But never mind Wes - consistency is overrated as a virtue don't you think But I am pleased to see that you agree that the £350m number is a whopper.

I must commend the outstanding work the 'Vote Leave' campaign have performed with their latest propaganda broadcast just shown across our TV channels. First off they blazenly repeat the proven lie that the UK sends the EU "£350m" a week - a claim that even Wes Tender does not bother to defend anymore! To follow up this tasty little starter they then go on to imply that the UK will for some inexplicable reason have to bail out new EU entrant states that have adopted the EURO currency when any fool knows this is not the case. And then - wait for it - it seems that a absurd 80+ million foreigners are apparently hell bent on arriving here and feasting on the undoubted generosity of our welfare state. The standard of honesty and objectivity seen in your average British Party Political Broadcast is not exactly a high one - to put it mildly. But methinks we have today witttnessed a new low.

No names, no pack drill of course, but have you ever noticed how with some people the older they get the more right wing and reactionary they become? Just saying ...

Yes this is indeed very impressive - in a somewhat sinister 'dark side of the force' kind of way

Again, there is no gaurantee as to which form of trade deal we may reach with the EU post Brexit. Those who whom otherwise - be they Michael Grove or the hard right Bruges Group - are telling lies.

Speaking of being "spectacularly uniformed" if some on here seek to employ little Norway as evidence of how the UK might do outside of the UK then we really should take a closer look at their situation before drawing a whole set of conclusions that are almost certainly false: • Norway (a EEA member state) has never been in the EU. So there is no meaningful basis for comparison as to how their economy might have performed were they EU members. • Norwegian prosperity depends largely upon North Sea oil and gas extraction coupled with the form of guaranteed access they have to the EU Single Market area. Should we vote to leave the EU then (regardless of what Michael Grove might claim) there is no guarantee whatsoever as to the terms of any trade deal we might agree with the EU. • Oil and gas extraction has a more significant impact on the Norwegian economy than it does on ours because they have a population of just 5 million while the UK has a population of some 64 million. Norway also appears to have been far more prudent than we have in how it chooses to invest these fossil-fuel income streams. • In order to secure that Single Market access Norway has to contribute to certain EU funds, comply with EU regulations AND accept the free movement of people principle that is implicit in the Single Market concept. As they have little or no influence over EU28 decision making they have in effect volunteered themselves for a 'taxation without representation' type situation. • The record shows that Norway (and Switzerland by the way) accept rather more immigrants from the EU than we here in the UK do - measured on a per capita basis of course. I will repeat this last point for emphasis - MORE EU IMMIGRATION than the UK.

• EU Commission remains not directly elected = it is a sinister undemocratic dictatorship. • EU Commission becomes directly elected = it is the sinister United States of Europe.

Yeah but your attitude has led you to the dark side of the football force young Lighthouse and ended up with you actualy wanting Man Utd to win a football match! There just has to be something deeply perverse in that surely.

Not a 'field of dreams' type bloke I see. But you tell me where you last saw your football soul and I'll send out a search party and see if we can rediscover it.