General Chat

Given that the 2 year exit process is going to require a lot of public funded resource has anyone tried to work out how much it will cost the taxpayer and how will it impinge on whatever government is in power to actually govern if they are heavily involved in re-negotiation.

These issues seem to have been overlooked so far.

for those who say "no north - south divide".........

....... I come from Lancashire, and I grew up being taught "there's them down south that get everything and there's us up north that get nothing".

We knew that we would not get decent jobs "down south" because we had the wrong accent, northern universities were considered "poorer" in terms of education than southern ones, on and on it went.

It might be hard for some of you to understand but there was a time 50 years ago when someone with an excellent degree from a northern university (1st class honours or a top flight PhD) would find it extremely hard to get a position in business in London; with the Government; at Oxford; Cambridge or certain other southern universities; or at one of the top private schools ............. because their accent would not "fit". Remember the BBC accent????

It was just like being of the wrong racial group became later ............... the person would pass all applications, be called for interview, and fail as soon as they entered the room or opened their mouth.

I know I'm thinking back to the 50s and 60s, and that things have, I hope, changed in many of those respects ......... but there are other things dividing the many parts of north of England from the south.

This never seemed to be taken into account by the Tories, the Liberals or the Lib-Dems ............ so far as I could see watching your politics from afar.

I was trying to point out that the very obvious colour division on that map was something that might have been expected.


Growing up, we always seemed to consider Scotland as a separate entity from the North of England

......... and in a sense, Scotland's historic close connection with France makes even more sense of the large Remain vote.


You've certainly got a long row to hoe .............. but I do think the markets will stabilize soon as the world realises it hasn't come to an end and you haven't dropped off the into the unknown deep.


Just think ........... you'll be able to import NZ lamb, Canadian cheese, etc etc, once again :-D

The 'north-south divide' doesn't really mean 'north * south', it means 'London and parts of the south-east * the rest of the UK'. There has been precious little investment down here in parts of straw-chewing yokel land in the south-west. That image of leafy stockbroker belt, home counties affluence doesn't extend too far west.

And we already have chilled cabinets full of Canadian cheddar and NZ lamb ;-)

The divide in this referendum was much more between town and country than between north and south.

Country area voted for leave much more strongly than towns and big cities tended to be for for remain.

IGP. my thoughts exactly..... many have kept telling the people of Britain how much it cost for us to remain in the EU........ now we have the expense of coming out. I wonder if one day this question could be asked under the Freedom of Information Act.... or would it be kept secret for 50 years. :-|

Bankers worked all night, armed with a £10 billion war chest, buying and selling currency, stocks and gold....men of integrity ?? :-P :-P

We already do import NZ lamb etc etc and have done for years. It is cheap but not a patch on Welsh lamb.

Upland farming in the UK has created the landscapes that people love and the tourist industry depends on. Vast amounts of EU funding have made all this possible. We shall see whether the promises to maintain agricultural support will be kept.

There have been excellent northern universities for a very long time - Durham, Newcastle, Liverpool, Nottingham, Manchester/UMIST . Some of my rellies taught in them. A Geordie or Liverpudlian accent was no obstacle to advancement unless you wanted it to be.

It is perfectly true that the Inns of Court and City banking have a preference for a handful of universities and public schools. I have never understood why the Labour Party fail to tackle this and instead have created a parallel system of elite comprehensives and feeder primaries..

Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle all voted remain.

Huge amounts of public funds have been invested in the transit system of northern cities (Sheffield, Nottingham, Manchester) have wonderful light rail systems and the regular railway is getting serious investment too. The old Liverpool docks are now a major arts centre.

I think Sylvia's memory is a very long way from today's reality. Even the Boys from the Black stuff would not recognise today's Liverpool. Sure there are still far too many pockets of poverty all over England from northern cities such as Hull, Middlesborough and Sunderland, Aston and Coventry in the Midlands, Luton, Peterboro, Corby in the east Midlands, Southend, Barking, Margate and Dover in the south east. As I recall Waterloo, Canada has its problems.

Failure to bring prosperity to places such as these has cost Cameron dearly though the problems go back a very long way. But to characterise the problem as north v south them down there and us up here is absurd.

I cannot see any way in which brexit is going to improve life in any of these places, quite the reverse.

Old people at any time in history, any culture you like have always distrusted change and incomers. It is not that they are wrong they are just like that. In normal life the caution of the old tempers the enthusiasm of the young. The referendum had a strange electorate which was all too obviously pitched to get a result. Well, it worked and one day the chickens will come home to roost..

fwiw I have close rellies in Sheffield, Newcastle and the east Midlands. I know these places as they are today and as they were in the 1960s. Not remotely like the same.

Boris Johnson is a wily and highly intelligent man. Do not be taken in by his hairdo and bonhomie. He is quite capable of running rings around any of the self regarding EU leaders his only equal being the awesome Frau Merkel.

Expect surprises.

North/South does matter but not so much in this case I think. There were many people who just didn't like the way they were being told what they should think and what was best for them they wanted to think for themselves.
As for the markets of course they have gone mad and in all honesty whatever the result the markets would have gone a little stupid. There are many people making a lot of money off of this, hence the banks had people in all night buying and selling. All those sold stocks didn't all go into gold someone is sitting there on a reserve right now waiting for the best moment and then they'll start buying.
Yes the future is not known but staying in Europe the future wasn't 100% known either. Tomorrow the sun will rise again and all will settle down one day soon. There might be some hard times ahead, but had the UK stayed in Europe what's to say Europe wouldn't have financially imploded in the near future anyway.

Isn't some of the Welsh lamb still not fit for human consumption due to radiation ? Sorry if I'm wrong on that one.....
Edit
Nope just looked it up the ban seems to have been lifted a few years back

we don't touch Welsh lamb over here ..... almost never see it in the stores, and that is presumably because people won't buy it, and it is much more expensive when it is sold than fresh NZ

Rollo posted ...........
------
There have been excellent northern universities for a very long time - Durham, Newcastle, Liverpool, Nottingham, Manchester/UMIST . Some of my rellies taught in them. A Geordie or Liverpudlian accent was no obstacle to advancement unless you wanted it to be.

It is perfectly true that the Inns of Court and City banking have a preference for a handful of universities and public schools. I have never understood why the Labour Party fail to tackle this and instead have created a parallel system of elite comprehensives and feeder primaries..
.
.

I think Sylvia's memory is a very long way from today's reality. Even the Boys from the Black stuff would not recognise today's Liverpool. Sure there are still far too many pockets of poverty all over England from northern cities such as Hull, Middlesborough and Sunderland, Aston and Coventry in the Midlands, Luton, Peterboro, Corby in the east Midlands, Southend, Barking, Margate and Dover in the south east. As I recall Waterloo, Canada has its problems.

Failure to bring prosperity to places such as these has cost Cameron dearly though the problems go back a very long way. But to characterise the problem as north v south them down there and us up here is absurd.
.
.
fwiw I have close rellies in Sheffield, Newcastle and the east Midlands. I know these places as they are today and as they were in the 1960s. Not remotely like the same.
---------------

I KNOW that I have not lived in the UK for almost 50 years

I KNOW that I do not know what it is like now, personally, I never said I did. I never ever said my "memory applied to today.

I KNOW there are excellent northern universities ............ I went to Liverpool University, after all. I said that it didn't matter that you got a good degree from one of those IF you had a northern accent

I can give you quotes from Headmasters of public schools who said to friends of mine around 1960-65 "Maybe we should consider sending some of our better students to northern universities after seeing the good degree and education you got there"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FWIW .............. my teachers at a good Lancashire grammar school would not allow me to apply to Manchester (because the Faculty was "no good"), to Hull (not a good red brick university), or to Keele (unproven in science). A good friend did go to Keele, earned himself a PhD in Political Science, and became a university lecture and professor in the UK ........... the curriculum was very attractive there as it was the first university in the UK not to put a separation on science and arts.


I was saying what it was like and what we were told when I was growing up in the 40s, 50s and 60s ............. and yes, I do know personally that people did NOT get jobs because of their northern accent. One friend was told that a certain public school would not hire him, despite an excellent degree and otherwise ticking all the boxes, because "the parents will not like your accent".

They did get positions if they went to elocution lessons and learned to "speak proper" as it was called.

I too had many friends and rellies who went to northern universities, who got jobs "dahn sarf". I even had one rellie who broke into BBC and was heard regularly on the radio in the late 1960s and early 1970s ..... he changed his accent :-D


I do not quite know what you mean by saying "As I recall Waterloo, Canada has its problems"

That's a non sequitur in terms of the discussion ......... and I would never deny that that Waterloo has Problems", though I'm not sure what you mean.

I also would not deny that any university in Canada has "a problem" in some way ............... all universities, not matter where they are, have "problems" at times. Even Cambridge and Oxford have some problems that you may not know about.

In this instance, I do know what I say .............. I speak as someone who has been a student or employed or otherwise connected to the university world for over 50 years, in England, US, Canada and Australia, as well as having many friends in university circles around the world.

We had sheep during the Chernobyl melt down. It's true restrictions were placed on sheep movement until the levels of radiation were tested and some farmers did indeed lose their flocks. No point in feeding sheep and then keeping the flock as pets,

This was historic and there were NO restrictions on lamb exports for unaffected areas and the bans were lifted a few years ago on badly contaminated farms :-D There were only a few areas that suffered levels outside the food safety guidelines.

Sue

Let us not forget the French farmers in Sept 1990 protesting about English lambs/sheep being imported. They felt so strongly that these humane farmers set fire to a truck of over 200 lambs - they were roasted - alive. Another truck, the sheep had their throats cut and several other trucks of animals suffered cruel attacks.

The farmers were also at war with their government and asking that imports from eastern Europe be curtailed.

Whether we had remained or left there would have to be a period of adjustment - but leaving would be our decision and to manage our own finances. Mistakes well they will be ours and not imposed upon us by strangers.

I object that the assumption is that the 'oldies' would vote for leave. Now why would they do that? Because they recall when law was British law - not laws pass by a group of unelected twerps. 21 years not a proper audit and the deficit gets larger each year. Moving offices each month or so - ridiculous. Expense Claims - think of a number and write it down.

Fishing and manufacturing industries decimated, shipyards gone the same way, steel industry.

Youngsters and I say that for 'under forties' have known nothing other than EU and therefore independence is unknown to them.

We have stood alone before.

Well at least we can play conkers and eat wobbly vegtables again :-D :-D

And clean them up with a good powerful Hoover !

SilviainCanada

Congratulations and thanks for your 2 well written posts, at 12.24 & 17.29 pm

Also

ChrisofWessex

"Youngsters and I say that for 'under forties' have known nothing other than EU and therefore independence is unknown to them."

Autumnleaves

Thank you

Age Division?

The BBC analysis reckons there probably was

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36619342

Whilst Manchester may well have chosen to remain in Europe, its neighbouring towns - Oldham, Rochdale, Tameside and Wigan - firmly decided (60%) to leave.

I live in Wigan and yes, there is still a North/South divide in people's thinking. It's not as strong as it once was, but it is still definitely there. We are a town built on small mining communities and, when we first moved here from Liverpool over 30 years ago, we were told that it could take 30 years before we would be accepted as 'one of them'. I think we have just qualified now :-D

Alea iacta est

Whatever the reason, the result is in.

I do tend to agree with Sylvia, but regardless, the UK, or at least England and Wales, now has to move on to the next phase

Re the age difference and how people voted {in or out} - this was discussed on the radio last night and the percentage of young people who were entitled to vote and did not was quite large {cannot remember the exact figure now}

I am "old" and voted "Remain" because that is what my grandson would be best for the young

Edited after re reading :-0 I said I was old :-S
I used my vote to REMAIN