The Brexit Thread

[Toby Gymshorts]

Thank fuck it's not my idea then.

[Eggchaser]

Never mind.

[Fussbudget]

A retirement age of 70 is coming soon, brexit or not. when the current age was picked 65 was an age to aspire to. Now it's middle age.

Depends where you're born, doesn't it. Disability-free life expectancy in Hartlepool is 56 years so the current retirement age of 68 already seems pretty ambitious.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

what the fucking fuck? are they mining asbestos there?

[Sean of the Shed]

Harvesting it and eating it as well, I expect.

[Fussbudget]

It's not that unusual (and not even the lowest in the UK), the UK average for disability-free life expectancy at birth is about 62 years for both men and women. Healthy life expectancy has increased significantly less quickly than actual life expectancy, so most people will have to stop working through ill health long before they can collect their pension.

[MsD]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately (as I have a pension I could draw out now). I'm intending to keep working in some capacity until I'm in my late 60s, assuming I'm still healthy and compos mentis. Actually going to make a push on my earning power in the next two years as best I can and hope I don't succumb to something that makes work impossible.

My projected age of death is 30 years hence.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Genius performance by IDS on pensioner poverty.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/latest-news...ng-in-poverty/

Almost 300,000 more pensioners and 400,000 more children are now living in poverty than in 2012/13. Since that year, there have been continued increases in poverty, across both age groups. Very little progress has been made in reducing poverty among working-age adults too.

All while bringing in the hugely expensive triple lock for the standard pension.

cf.

In 1994/95, 28% of pensioners lived in poverty, falling to 13% in 2011/12 - a fall achieved by extra help for poorer pensioners.

Following the financial crisis of 2007/8 poverty rates remained stable. A combination of benefit policies and spells of low inflation helped negate the worst effects of the downturn for the least well-off pensioners.

It wouldn't have been too hard to get that below 13% either, even without spending more money, by uprating the standard state pension by a bit less. Then again. you can understand why they didn't when you recall the "50p pensions rise" furore.

I know it's my answer to every political question, but this is one area where priorities/budgets could be agreed and the decision depoliticized.

[Diable Rouge]

The NI Affairs Committee confirms and concludes that the only feasible solution permitting a status quo on the Border is for the whole UK to stay in the Single Market:

https://mobile.twitter.com/thomasbra...77089313996800

[Ginger Yellow]

The government's latest plan is for the whole UK to be in "a single market", just not for everything.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

So here we are in april of 2018, and they're still talking about having their cake and eating it. This is a healthy democracy.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Opposition are on that page too.

I've sympathy for Corbyn for what he put up with today, but the fact is he's still off the pace, and I'd like somebody in charge who isn't.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

what the fucking fuck? are they mining asbestos there?

The old industries have left a trail of destruction in their wake, including health problems that have continued to blight post-industrial communities long after most of these industries dwindled or vanished altogether. While we are generally aware of these "industrial health" issues we tend to underestimate the extent of the problem or have a narrow view of it, the direct and indirect legacy of these industries is still felt to this day (eg this, or this). That and also the fact that we, as a society, too readily equate disability with people in wheelchairs whereas it’s manifold, eg respiratory disorders, along with many other "industrial diseases", can cause disability.

Industrial diseases and injuries or disabilities resulting from exposure to all sorts of occupational hazards in the workplace are common in former industry-heavy areas and they come in many shapes and forms: (the obvious ones) mesothelioma, asbestosis, pleural thickening, emphysema, occupational asthma and other COPDs (chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases), but also lost limbs, limb disorders, industrial deafness, severe forms of tinnitus, vibration white finger etc.

I touched on this subject in 2015 in a two-part article I wrote in Les Cahiers du football ("Le football britannique dans la grève des mineurs", part One and part Two) about football in the North East during the miners’ strike of 1984-85, and particularly the Easington area, just a few miles from Hartlepool (after explaining the context of the strike in part One, I focused on the positive, cathartic and unifying role that football played in some mining communities such as Easington).

Ici, « L’héritage industriel » n’est pas qu’une belle expression pour touristes-sociologues en mal de romantisme houiller. Cet enfoiré de patrimoine tout rouillé a laissé des traces et s’obstine à faire dérouiller. Depuis 1985, plus de 14 000 hommes (et femmes, 15 % du total) sont morts du mésothéliome et de cancers liés à l’amiante dans le North East, et l’hécatombe continue. Un chiffre qui ne comprend pas toutes les saloperies mortelles que les services médicaux et autres cabinets d’avocats spécialisés sur ce créneau ne peuvent formellement attribuer à cet héritage toxique.

(between 1985 and ~2012, 14,000 people have died in the North East alone from mesothelioma and asbestos-linked cancers, and this figure excludes all the other lethal conditions that cannot be specifically attributed to this heavy industry heritage, i.e mining, steel, shipbuilding etc. Many of these workers will have ticked all the boxes for disability at some point, whether they were classified as such or not).

And then there’s depression/other mental health issues of course, an overlooked group of conditions in this context as we don’t necessarily link them to disability. Yet, these conditions can be classed as disability, the latter now has a wider meaning under the Equality Act 2010.

(As an aside, my pharmacist wife – who’s predominantly worked in ex mining/industrial areas – was telling me the other day that the number of UK-wide prescriptions has doubled in just a decade and antidepressant prescriptions have trebled since 2000 (!). There’s generally better awareness over mental health than a decade or so ago and there are systemic/structural reasons to explain this exponential rise – for instance insufficient mental health provision forces GPs to favour a medication-based route with the risks it entails, eg addiction – but the problem really is widespread and can lead to more disability, especially in economically impacted areas such as Hartlepool or Easington).

[Tubby Isaacs]

Luton is going to carry on producing lots of vans. I think it's pretty clear now, as it should have been from Nissan making encouraging noises before, that the government have said it's Single Market and Customs Union for us.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Luton is going to carry on producing lots of vans. I think it's pretty clear now, as it should have been from Nissan making encouraging noises before, that the government have said it's Single Market and Customs Union for us.

Yes but have the Govt said "The single market" and "the Customs union." and joining the EEA, or did they say "A customs Union," and "A single market" which is cake eating nonsense.

[Tubby Isaacs]

They're going to cave. The car manufacturers have been told this privately.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Well who is going to tell boris, and David, and liam, and Michael, and Jacob, and what are the Daily Mail going to have to say about this?

[NHH]

No that private, then

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha.

The loons will have to swallow it. I wonder if some see what's coming already. I noticed old IDS looking strangely contented when interviewed about another red line evaporating before his eyes.

[sw2borshch]

A colleague from Manchester said she'd never so many people walking with sticks until she moved to Teesside.

[Tubby Isaacs]

And I expect lots of people who should be walking with sticks are already dead.

[Diable Rouge]

The Beano note Jacob Rees-Mogg's resemblance to Walter from Dennis the Menace:

https://mobile.twitter.com/BeanoOffi...41242000105472

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I love that.

[Nefertiti2]

This is coruscating from Handelsblatt

"When the Brexit negotiations began in March 2017, some in the EU feared they could be bamboozled by savvy British diplomats, well-schooled in the country’s imperial tradition. A year later, things look very different. Britain’s diplomats are still brilliant, but they have little say in their own country, making little headway against demagogues and populist deniers of reality like Boris Johnson or David Davis.

Long after the loss of its colonies, Britain continued to benefit from the Empire’s fading aura. But with Brexit, that magic has finally worn off. Left to its own devices, Britain is just a medium-sized state with limited global influence, its Empire long gone. The Commonwealth does not have a seat at the table with the world’s great powers.

So now the prime minister travels the country, trying to hold together the tiny remains of the empire on which the sun never set. Northern Ireland and Scotland voted against Brexit, and there is a still a risk that Scotland may carry out its threat to leave the UK.

Within Europe, Britain has marginalized itself. Its hopes of fomenting division among the EU’s other 27 member states have proved illusory. Ms. May has had to endure much humiliation, including from Angela Merkel. Last year, the German chancellor made it known that EU heads of government had better things to do than discuss Brexit. In future, could the British prime minister deal directly with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, please?"

[Tubby Isaacs]

I didn't see anybody here expecting genius diplomacy. In so far as Brexiters thought about it at all, it was us saying "BMWs" and Angela Merkel telling the EU to surrender. Plan B was so say "BMWs and wine".