Icewolf

Can't be sacked and the parliamentary party doesn't command enough support in the membership to pull off a challenge.

So the pound is now at $1.30, the FTSE 250 is still in the doldrums, my cities largest employer just very publicly declared they are fucked as the commercial property market has tanked (really saying people are not liking the look of the UK right now). Meanwhile the Brexit leaders have either self-destructed or legged it, giving an increasing feeling that after the children have taken a massive shit on the floor it is now up to the grown ups to get us out of this fucking.

Well...not just Gove. Essentially all the campaign staff as well

I think he'd prefer a full cycle, which the next PM likely won't have. But who knows, we'll see. There was a poll out in the times today showing his support among party members in rapid decline. Most of his core campaign staff also switched to Gove on Wednesday night. He didn't have anywhere to go with this.

So its Gove vs May for the leadership. Outside chance for Stephen Crabb. Liam Fox and Adrea Leadsom are not credible candidates in my opinion. (For those unfamiliar with conservative party rules, the MPs will vote on the 5 candidates. Whoever gets the lowest share is eliminated, and they have multiple votes until two are left. The membership then votes on those 2). Andrea Leadsom is a loathsome and pathetic figure. I don't see her getting traction. Liam Fox was sacked for corruption after an unremarkable 18 months in the cabinet, so he is out. Crab is on a rapid rise, but is young and inexperienced, and I don't think there is an appetite for more risk right now. The trouble is that both May and Gove have run government careers of driving reform in a brutally confrontational way, and making severe enemies of those they are supposed to be working with (the teaching profession in Gove's case, and the Police in May's case). Both have been more than willing to have fights, even when fighting does not represent the most effective way forward. Neither has ever demonstrated an ability to negotiate among equals and prefer to be hammering down from a position of power. That is not going to work well in a Brexit negotiation.

There was a lot of positive message. The problem is that Cameron was allowed to dominate and he was too cowardly to go against the eurosceptic parts of the Tory Base and make a pro European argument. Just as he was too cowardly to stay and fix a mess of his own making. And the media effectively just ran the negative campaigns of both sides as a headlines, not helped by the most dishonest campaign in history from vote leave.

Out to Iceland.

"A British citizen working for the European Union, for the purpose of weakening the sovereignty of the United Kingdom, and chaining the British people to European law, reminds me of a Nazi collaborating Jew in Warsaw Poland in 1940." Really not comparing someone to a Nazi? I think everyone here can see what you wrote.

Oh okay... let me make myself absolutely clear. A British citizen working for the European Union, for the purpose of weakening the sovereignty of the United Kingdom, and chaining the British people to European law, reminds me of a Nazi collaborating Jew in Warsaw Poland in 1940. Is that sufficient enough "owning" for you? I'm happy to hear you saved enough of the 30 pieces of silver to get you by until you find something more productive to do. I'm an American, Capitalist, Conservative, Republican, Trump supporter... I already know what you think of me. Will I be asking your permission to post what something reminds me of in the future? No. Right... The Programme I work for was signed off by a UK minister. I have to answer to UK officials. I am constantly reminded that I have to answer to the member state. It is now paralysed because we can't find a UK minister willing to make a decision. The decision of the council I work for to bid for the management of this programme was taken by elected representatives in the UK. The decision to be in the EU was taken by the British government in 1960s and 70s, then by the British people in 1975, then by successive British governments, of both colours, which also signed of on the creation of the structural funds. The same elected government that firmly nailed its colours to the mast in support of the objectives of the structural funds in the 2020 strategy. How the fuck am I undermining sovereignty? The UK still has its sovereignty. If it didn't then it wouldn't have the ability to leave the EU. The fact it is planning to leave demonstrates that it is still a sovereign nation and nothing I have done has ever undermined that. Now I happen to believe that the best way to make use of that sovereignty is to work with other countries. I happen to believe that after 2 world wars that ripped the world asunder and caused tens of millions of deaths across the world for the sake of petty nationalism we in Europe have a duty to build something better and look for co-operation across our borders rather than ripping them apart. We owe that to the world and to each other. Too many died when we didn't. The EU is NOT a fucking nazi state. You are an idiot if you believe that to be true. A bloody fool. My family were in Poland in 1939, some made it to France to fight in the Free forces, others ended up in fucking Siberia. They never went home. The communists would have shot them. You wave your bloody capitalist credentials and sneer at socialism as though it makes you a big man. Try growing up in Europe. The scars still exist. The concentration camps. The lines between east and west. The old war defenses littering every beach. The fact you can't build a house in London or Paris or Berlin without disturbing an old bomb. You want to see someone who actually fights communism and dictatorship? Look up the past of Juncker, his time building resistance on Poland. Why is the East so desperate to be in the EU if it is as bad as the old dictatorships? Why would Germany tolerate it? Italy, Spain, Greece, the lands of the old fascist dicatators? Why do they tolerate it? Because it is not, never has been, and never will be a fucking nazi state. Only a moron would think that. I actually cannot believe that you would be frankly that stupid. But then you said before you don't care about politics outside America, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are actually just that ignorant about European affairs and really have no idea of the history of Europe, how the EU came about, or what it actually does. But I am not going to forget that without basis you said my job was on the level of gassing jews. You are vile.

Obviously, taken completely out of context. You are a British citizen, working in the UK, for the Europeans, enforcing European will. I can understand why many of your own people would not trust you. They view it as a foreign government. Cry xenophobia... that'll work. No....that is directly in the context of you stating that working for the ERDF reminds you of Nazi Collaborators. Either own your statement, in which case I will chalk you up as an utter piece of human shite, or apologise for it. Don't try some useless chickenshit "it was all out of context" when every person here can see exactly what context it was in and exactly what you said. In other news, Sterling continues its fall, and the Brexit camps promises have gone from promising that everything would be made of gold in our glorious days of freedom to....well actually nothing. Seems there is a clear passage towards a Swiss or Norway type of arrangement were you exclude yourself from the Parliament and Council of Ministers but still pay into the EU budget and accept the overwhelming majority of EU law...hrmmmm. "Take Control" anyone? Even Boris Johnson is now promising free movement will remain. Meanwhile 1/3rd of firms surveyed by the institute of directors have announced 1/3rd of their members are planning recruitment freezes...just what this years crop of graduates and school leavers wanted to hear.

I had to go back and read this again to understand the gravity. You are employed by the EU. Your job is all about the UK being a member state of the EU. You will eventually lose your job because of this decision. Your opinion about the Brexit is biased to the extreme degree, and I can now understand why many British citizens probably consider you an enemy. It reminds me of "Schindler's List", if you ever saw the movie... the Nazi's appointed special Jewish citizens to help organize the Jewish settlement population in the residential ghetto "prison". They were all eventually slaughtered, but that's a different part of the story. I don't know Ice... I would want to get right with history, and start working for your country and not for Europe. Good luck Sir. So delivering innovation hubs and start up enterprise support, along with training for socially excluded persons to help them get back to the job market is the same as collaborating with Nazis to commit an act of mass murder? Christ...there is some dumb shit posted here but that really takes the piss. Or maybe delivering funding to encourage business innovation in a region that has notoriously poor levels of innovation and low levels of pay is secretly seeking the overthrow of the United Kingdom and ensuring the total mastery of Furhrer Juncker? There are UK regions now begging the government to ensure that they replicate the same funds into the same priorities after this vote. Doesn't exactly sound to me like I was inflicting mass damage that should be compared to a genocide. I am employed by a County Council to deliver funding that is provided by the EU correct. People can sneer all they like, but in my region there is essentially no other economic development funding. No funds for apprenticeships, not funds for really tackling social exclusion, no funds for building the business support networks to nurture and support SMEs and business startups. Nothing. Take us out and all you get are the few pennies thrown towards infrastructure projects, and even for those people were getting ready to go cap in hand to the European Investment Bank. Which for a region that is consistently bottom on productivity, business start up rates and average weekly wages is really a bit of a problem. Vote Leave painted that lie on the side of their battle buses. Its total bollocks for them to try and back away from it now, but now they are even talking about pulling back on their immigration promises. I don't actually think there is a true statement left in their campaign documents. Wheels have well and truly fallen off that pile of crap.

King Hitler's post is essentially showing the difference between Partnership and Dictatorship. He describes it as being a client state, whereas the reality is that the EU is a partnership. The benefits are many, and people are now seeing those benefits fall away and a lot of people are panicking, and rightly so. Worse, it seems that our political establishment are actively making it worse by turning to total civil war in their own parties rather than providing anything that remotely looks like stability in the face of uncertainty. I didn't hold Cameron in much esteem, but to resign and walk away from a crises of his own making on the day the pound crashed a record amount...utter fucking coward. As for some of the comments in this thread about "Generation Snowflake." I'm 25. In 2009 I was 18. My adult life has been recession, austerity, and now it looks like that will last until I am 30. No living generation has gone through something like that. For Britain it has actually been worse than the Great Depression in terms of lost growth. (I know that isn't the case for the USA). If you are 30 you turned 18 in 2004, and had 5 years of solid growth to get your life set up. Ok I bet it wasn't all easy, but do not for a moment presume that this generation is complaining about having it easy. Its been fucking hard for the last 5 years for most of my contempories. I got it lucky, good job straight out of University, better pay than the national average since I was 22, and an inheritance to smooth it out ontop of that. Most people my age don't have that and have had 5 years of no Employment rights, poor job prospects and a generally bleak outlook. Ontop of that the Labour Government's total failure to construct housing stock meant sky high rents and none of the social housing rights the older generation enjoyed. If the economists are right "generation snowflake" will be the only generation in Living memory to have endured 10 years of economic misery as their starting point in life. I know there are some of my age who complain too much and aspire too little. I know it can seem like kids whining. Heaven knows I find it personally irritating because it often feels like all my achievements are ascribed purely to luck without the hard work I put in. But please just remember that it has been fucking bleak for a lot of us, and it looks a lot bleaker now. Partnership.. our tax money gets paid to Brussels, Brussels gives us some of that money back with a complimentary "provided by the European Union" sticker, cut out the middleman and redistribute the taxes nationally within our own boarders - why send it to Brussels for them to skim some? I do agree with you on the parties making it worse; the current infighting since our independence vote with MP David Lammy and now Nicola Sturgeon threatening to block the UK exit is horrifying. These people do not believe in the democracy that they oversee, with any luck they will come to there senses before some enraged pensioner gets all shooty. They do believe in democracy, they are doing the thing they were elected to do. They are both elected by a small constituency rather than the entire UK (one as an MSP, one as an MP), and therefore are both obliged to respresent the views and wishes of that constituency, and defend its best interests. If they believe that those that elected them would like to have the referendum ignored, then it is there democratic duty to work to have it overturned. There hasn't been a generation that had it as bad as you described in decades. Its not really fair of you to complain "Oh poor generation snowflake, they didn't have it as bad as a 1900s liverpudlian peasant therefore nothing is wrong for them." And whilst in the EU this country has better economic potential than outside of it. You can say that an individual can pull themselves up and make themselves better in a crap economic backdrop. You can't say that for an entire society.

King Hitler's post is essentially showing the difference between Partnership and Dictatorship. He describes it as being a client state, whereas the reality is that the EU is a partnership. The benefits are many, and people are now seeing those benefits fall away and a lot of people are panicking, and rightly so. Worse, it seems that our political establishment are actively making it worse by turning to total civil war in their own parties rather than providing anything that remotely looks like stability in the face of uncertainty. I didn't hold Cameron in much esteem, but to resign and walk away from a crises of his own making on the day the pound crashed a record amount...utter fucking coward. As for some of the comments in this thread about "Generation Snowflake." I'm 25. In 2009 I was 18. My adult life has been recession, austerity, and now it looks like that will last until I am 30. No living generation has gone through something like that. For Britain it has actually been worse than the Great Depression in terms of lost growth. (I know that isn't the case for the USA). If you are 30 you turned 18 in 2004, and had 5 years of solid growth to get your life set up. Ok I bet it wasn't all easy, but do not for a moment presume that this generation is complaining about having it easy. Its been fucking hard for the last 5 years for most of my contempories. I got it lucky, good job straight out of University, better pay than the national average since I was 22, and an inheritance to smooth it out ontop of that. Most people my age don't have that and have had 5 years of no Employment rights, poor job prospects and a generally bleak outlook. Ontop of that the Labour Government's total failure to construct housing stock meant sky high rents and none of the social housing rights the older generation enjoyed. If the economists are right "generation snowflake" will be the only generation in Living memory to have endured 10 years of economic misery as their starting point in life. I know there are some of my age who complain too much and aspire too little. I know it can seem like kids whining. Heaven knows I find it personally irritating because it often feels like all my achievements are ascribed purely to luck without the hard work I put in. But please just remember that it has been fucking bleak for a lot of us, and it looks a lot bleaker now.

This is a great comparison... and we would never agree to it in the first place. Thank you for posting this KH. I now have an better way to discuss the issue with others around me that have no understanding about what is going on across the Atlantic. Truly sorry about your personal situation, Ice. Life will deal you a bad hand many times, take a chance and throw away the pair of Jacks and go for that fifth Diamond. I have trouble getting my head around your total disdain for your 65+ block. Those are the ones that have lived through all the bad hands that came before. They know what life was like before the EU, and you should give them some credit for experience. Check out how the vote would have been if the voting age was raised to 25, and you cut out all those stupid young kids that never had to dodge falling bombs, they only have to find a good WiFi spot. They remember what Great Britain was, and they know what it means to be English. They just want their country back. I would love to raise the voting age to 25 here. Everything would be run much smoother if we could just cancel those early liberal thinking years right out of the mix... but it would be unfair to take the vote away from the few that do the heavy lifting. Welcome to our world. We have been at war with each other for 30 years, we just have enough respect for each other to not shoot. You will survive. I do believe you will survive as English, Irish, and Scots. I myself... I'm fucking proud to be on your side. On the street I had someone snarl in my face I should be ashamed of myself and declare they were for Brexit because their father had friends who died in World War II. Presumably "dodging bombs." She was about 70 I would guess. Should I give her credit for that experience? That sound logic of thinking just because she is older than me and therefore better? The European Coal and Steel Community was formed to prevent the war happening again. It was given the nod to by Churchill to do that, and formed at the initiative of a Frenchman. Was that the experience therefore of the older community talking? Should I trust more those that actually went through the war but after a mere 7 years realised the future was to put it behind them, or should I accept that because that woman is older than me I should take her "experience" and live on with the short sighted stupidity of tying political decision making to refusing to let go of regarding Germany as the enemy 75 years after the war ended? Is this person more intelligent, more rational and better equipped to view the future of my country because she is still desperately hanging onto a past of war and not a future of hope? Of course that isn't the really stupid part of her argument and her "experience." My Grandfather was in the war. 1940 in France, then in Africa, then in Italy, then in France again. Two years of war before the US even fired its first shot, and served a further 4 afterwards. Then settled in Derby and worked in a factory. His service medals are still at my parents house. He didn't speak English until 1946....a Polish soldier who fought alongside the British and the French in a display of European Unity against evil, before moving to Britain to escape another evil of a Russian Red Army that wanted him dead. I suppose it was the "experience" of this older woman that allowed her to see all this and that I should just hate Germany for a war that happened 75 years ago, and not stand by the memory of the cooperation that brought it to an end. I should be ashamed of that apparently. Or maybe I should take her "experience" of why I should just hate Germany and go and talk to my Fiancee. Her Grandfather was a soldier to. Younger, so serving in West Germany as part of the allied troops forming the first line of defense against the Soviet forces. He met a German woman, married her, moved back to England. According to this older "more experienced" woman my Fiancee is a disgrace and should be ashamed just to exist. How dare anyone have made friends with a German! Now, I am not saying that this woman is typical of her generation, or even a represents a substantial minority of her generation. However it is why I do not accept any argument that rests on the concept of older=better experienced=knows whats right. Because despite allegedly being more experienced than me by about 45 years, this woman spouted nothing but bigoted crap. Utter, bigoted, horrific ignorant crap of the worst kind that the electorate just gave validation to.

Well there are a lot of things to say, and I doubt I will write them all here or today. This post will involve bad language. We are fucked. As a country, totally fucked. I am gutted. I worked hard on the campaign so it hurts personally to lose. This is also my career at stake. Not my economic well being, as I have more than enough squirrelled away crash to ride out a recession, but everything I have worked for over the last 4-5 years. 7% currency slide in 1 day. A worse reaction from the markets than the 2008 crash. Companies already preparing to ship their jobs out. No functioning government. The only reason I suspect I am still employed as a person who delivers European Regional Development Funding is because Whitehall is too fucked up right now to have the organisation to sack me. The government didn't plan for this so expect chaos. That is direct from senior civil servants I have to deal with. That is all what the media are reporting, and they are missing the real reason this country is fucked. 1. The European Union primarily impacts on those of working age. Those under 50 voted heavily to remain. Those who are economically active voted to remain. Those that are retired voted to leave. If the over 65s hadn't voted, or voted in line with the rest of the country, we would have had a vote for remain. Those who are youngest (ie, those with least job security and most impacted on by recession and austerity) were 73% in favor of remain. We have a country where the elderly do not give a flying fuck about the young and have just set out to trash our futures so they can enjoy a nominal feeling of nationalism. For fucks sake. That is not a recipe for a happy country. http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/167D6/production/_90081129_eu_ref_uk_regions_leave_remain_gra624_by_age.png If you take this, and treat each age group as though they are the same size, you would get a result of 49% for leave. If you delete the over 65, its 45% for leave. So the over 65s, those with the least stake, the least suffering from the result, brought the biggest swing away from the average. People of my age are now furious, and with good reason. Firms are already cutting back recruitment. This years graduates will be hard hit. Next years harder. People looking for apprentiships, or coming to the end of them now have bleak prospects. People finally finding their feat after 8 years of recession. All fucking gone by an act of national stupidity. By a collection of people who voted for lie after lie about immigration, scare mongering about Turks and Syrians flooding us with rapists and terrorism, voted for that over the very real, and sadly coming very true, economic warnings of pain. 2. I was at the count in my city (that broke 57% remain, 43% leave) on Thursday night. And I was horrified. Forget the overall result for a minute. What I saw made me realise that this country is basically at war with itself. This is not communities divided down the middle. Essentially every polling district was 80:20 split. Some for remain, some for leave. But there were no districts reflective of the final result. Communities are now totally at odds with each other. We do not have a debate between people in the same groups. That is something that is healthy for a country. We have a blazing row between totally different groups. That is something devastating for a country. And it then reflects over the Country. Vote Leave apparently were telling people it was "the heartlands voting against London and Scotland." What a fucking stupid thing to say. We are supposed to be a United Kingdom. How is London any less a part of us than the midlands? How is that supposed to build a United Country? Fuck them...truly fuck the lying cunts and what they have done to us. I really don't know what to say anymore. All around me people I know are seeing their economic security, their hope for the future, their ambitions fall into fucking ruin. All whilst the nation is probably going to fall apart. If not next year, the year after, or the year after that Scotland will leave. They are too politically separate now from the rest of the UK. Ireland maybe, maybe not. But its reignited the independence movement there, and historically that has meant war. 16 years of peace and prosperity, of putting aside the issue of Irish unity may have just come to an end.

LOL... I thought you said you were keeping it relatively short. I don't know a thing about what's going on there. I don't know what you believe to be "disgustingly dishonest". What I do get from your answer is you believe deep in your soul, that people are all the same, and if anyone talks about differences, they are racist. I also see that you still believe that redistribution of wealth can change the weather. You have a "one world" philosophy... and I don't believe in that fantasy world for one second. People are different. They live different lives, and not everyone is gonna get along and go with your flow. Anytime I have seen people forced together, under the same way of life... it never works out. If the UK does not leave the EU, and find a way to lead... I believe your country will be dragged down with the first nation that collapses... but like I said, I have no skin in the game, and I just want the best for you. Good luck. I am not sure how you get to that from my posts. Grassroots Out have been stirring up hatred and fear. That is factual. You can be anti-immigration and not racist/xenophic, and without stoking up hatred and fear. Unfortunately that is not the aproarch that Nigel Farage has taken. As for wealth redistribution/socialism, EU law requires all members to have a free market economy. It is written in black and white in the treaties (Article 107 TFEU if you would like a peek). Or put another way, there is a reason that the Socialist Workers Party are desperate for out. What if I told you that French market traders still use pounds and ounces, and you can still buy in pounds and ounces. Its a fundamentally stupid system and the sooner we get metric mainstream the better, but its still there. I agree with your economic reasoning, but you must be VERY idealistic if you think the above is true. Standing up to Russia and dictators? A clear vision of the future? The EU? Please show me the gates of this parallel dimension, must be a wonderful place and I wish to explore it This is the ambition of the EU for 2020. http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/index_en.htm Just because our media doesn't talk about it doesn't mean it isn't there.

Utterly shocked about what happened to Jo Cox. I heard the guy was tied to some neo-nazi group. Swift justice, and good luck with the coming choice... may it be the best choice. When you have time, maybe you can share with me your reason for wanting the UK to remain in the EU. Something tells me you have a better answer than... "just cuz". Good luck Ice. I am going to try and answer both of you in one go, and I am afraid it will be relatively short as I don't have much time right now, but I feel you deserve an answer before the referendum and I will be out of the Country and away from internet for the next 3 days. This is quite complex as there are a myriad of different reasons, and also the reason I give now is slightly different to those at the start. Right now it is simply about aspiration. What do we want our country to be. Inside the EU there is a clear vision of a future, a future for our economy, a future for the environment, a future for our influence and place on the world. Economically the EU adds a huge chunk of GDP that we lose if we leave, and everyone apart from the specific Leave campaign group agrees on that. Alongside that, the collaboration structures for universities within the EU add a huge clout to our research capacity and capability, and really drive forward innovation and help us to become market leaders in the industries of tomorrow. We are also able to by working with other countries massively multiply our clout in the world when it comes to big issues like protecting the environment, standing up to dictators and the conduct of Russia, and working for a better world generally. When we fail to work together, as Europe did with the migrant crises, we end up with what we have seen over the last year. That was an area without a common European policy and it was a fucking disaster. What has Vote Leave painted? Well they recently released their picture of Britain. It essentially boiled down to tweaking some VAT rates, and offering an extra 5 billion a year for the NHS. And I just think really? Is that it? We throw a huge pile of cost and uncertainty into our country, we rip up our relationship with our closest neighbors, we turn our back on the structure that took Europe from the most war torn to most peaceful continent, all just so we can twiddle with tax and expenditure? Overall I see a lot of benefit to Europe. I see it when the circus my Fiancee works for has to fight piles of admin to tour in the United States, but has no administrative issues spreading its reach across Europe. I see it in the difference the NGO I used to work with had in working with its EU volunteers vs its Ukranian volunteers. I do not want to be in the situation of the Ukranians, shut out of Europe because my 90day schengen visa has expired. I see it in the science projects I visit driven by EU funds and Europe wide collaboration. I see it in the common standards being set on environmental protection for clean air and water, in basic employment protections and product safety rules that are in place to avoid a race to the bottom and basic lowering of standards. I also see the power we project. Europeans have a hell of a lot of respect for British people, and you walk into a room anywhere on the continent you get attention by being the British one. That gives us a unique capacity to influence and drive forward a Europe that is better for us, better for itself and better for all. We need a strong Europe and we are in a very strong position to make it stronger. And what are leave offering me? Racist crap from Farage on racism (and I am singling him out, although Vote Leave hold some blame as they willingly give out Grassroots out stuff from their stands, violation of electoral law but they don't give a damn), and an offer to tweak VAT here and there and offset the 40 billion predicted government cuts with 5 billion to the NHS. Why the hell would I vote for that vision? EDIT: To address you directly Lys, you have seen what I have said about Donald Trump. I don't want to make this a Trump thread, but it is a nice comparison to draw. Vote Leave have run a disgustingly dishonest campaign, and Grassroots Out and UKIP have run a racist one. Two things I attack Trump for. But unlike Trump, rather than a "make our country great again," they offer all that shit side of politics and only promise a minor spending increase on one specific area. Would you vote for that?

Well there are two things here. For the first as why I might seem more upset, I as a person do not find it easy to express emotion in a written format. Very often in these chases I will have written something expressing my feelings, only to delete it because it somehow feels contrived and fake and doesn't represent how I actually feel. In those cases often there are plenty of people expressing a universally felt outrage, so there is no value in me trying to express something that as a decent human being I know I feel and I hope others know I feel. In this case however, in that particular community, people were dismissing it and not expressing the outrage at a political murder that I felt needed to be said. No one else had said what needed to be said, so I felt obliged to say it. It took a lot of work to get it to say what I actually felt, and about six drafts before I felt it actually reflected my feelings. I also feel that there is a difference between what happens in the case of Muslim extremism and what happened here. In the case of Muslim extremism in Britain there are communities that are probably tolerant of views that lead to lone wolf attacks, but they do not represent a large percentage of the Muslim community, and are subject to huge scrutiny, question, suspicion and monitoring. And the wider Muslim community does fight back against this, and the Muslim's who I count as my friends are generally more outraged than the average person by these events because it is an act of evil done in their name. In this case, we have a murder as a result of division being openly promoted for political goals, namely Nigel Farage (and I would highlight this is more something of Grassroots out and UKIP than of Vote Leave) desperately trying to save his position in the UKIP internal civil war that is coming. Painting giant posters, writing headline newspaper articles all of which are aimed at building division. And we HAVE to call that out because unlike the Muslim extremism which is already fairly well covered in being called out and confronted, until this week we had a situation were a sizeable chunk of the political establishment were engaging in stoking racial tensions, in a far higher profile way than those who....well I actually at this point don't want to say Muslim Community because that is not true, but those who falsely use the banner of Islam to promote their own tensions have done. Yes there is a level footing to both these issues, and we need to fight both. But when you look at what you as an individual can do, what can I do about Islamic extremism? My Islamic friends are not terrorists and hate terrorism. There is no influence I can really have there. But I can fight against racism on the far right of British politics because there are people I know who are dismissing its reality, so I can persuade them, I can fight against the influences they are under. So whilst I know it may appear (and I acknowledge it may appear) that I care about one more than the other, that is absolutely not the case. My colleagues lost friends in the Bataclan. I was in Brussels as the perpetrators were hiding there. I know what this is.

So firstly, I am for remain. The reason I have been gone from this forum and game is because almost all my spare time has been on the streets campaigning. The reason I am here now is because the campaigns are suspended apart from leaflets through doors because of the murder on Thursday. I don't know how widely it has been reported in the states, but on Thursday Jo Cox MP, a Labour party MP in northern England was shot 3 times, and stabbed mutliple times by a man screaming either "Put Britain First" or "Britain First." Britain First being the reincarnation of the British Nationalist Party, themselves a reincarnation of the National Front, are a pile of fascist scum, to put that in a context. On appearing in court today he stated "Death to Traitors." I've made a post here on the CN forums about that, and how I feel about it. Put shortly, write now I am feeling pretty low and pretty angry that politics has led to death, and violence has replaced words in political debate.

Man...I can't even begin to imagine the hell you must have been through. I hope that you never have to go through that again. I'm glad you are reaching out to the world again and have a supportive family. Your mother sounds like she is a rock and you are lucky to have someone to pick you up like that. The only thing I can really say is I have met some astounding arseholes in my life (although none have ever managed to inflict that kind of pain on me) and the thing to remember is not to let them define you. If your life is defined by arseholes, they win.

I feel Olly gets an ill deserved amount of hate. The wildlings killed his parents in front of him. He became in that moment a refugee in his own lands, and was forced to either starve or work as a servant to the Commander of a small garrison of cut throats, thieves and rapists, led by the cast outs of the wealthy in society, a brutal society where lives are short, men are driven by revenge and punishment is harsh. In this world Olly, a child, is forced to act as servant to the man who pardoned the people who killed his parents. Then a group of these violent men come to him and tell him they are going to kill the man who pardoned those that killed his parents. Now young Olly knows two things-these hardened cut throat bastards would kill him in a moment, and in his world its kill or be killed. Revenge and fear are powerful motivators for an adult. For a child, growing up with horror far from civilisation, how much blame can you attached to him? Especially as Jon basically handwaves the entire thing as though it doesn't matter. They raided for years-before the winter, before the white walkers started driving them south. Not out of need, but because they liked raiding. Because their unstructured backwards civilisation didn't give them the tools they needed to build proper societies, they stole from those that ordered their lives to pay for their "free" life. They are not good people. They are not nice people. Yet Jon saves them, for entirely pragmatic reasons (to fight the white walkers), but then handwaves the entire moral questionableness of allying with these people.

The books hint at some communities-like Good episode, although I kind of wonder how they managed to cover the Khal meeting hall with oil without someone noticing.

Well we are talking for an office that has only had 5 elections, and it is the 2nd biggest. It is a little bit bigger than Johnson's 2008 win and livingstone's 2004 win, a little smaller than Livingstone's 2000 win. 2012 was a very marginal election and the outlier to date. Wow...looking back at the old results on wikipedia...so weird to see elections with the BNP actually getting votes. That is one pile of scum we are well rid of.

To cut/raise taxes whilst massively cutting/hugely boosting public expenditure and eliminating/quadrupling national debt over 8 years.

The thing that intrigues me is that Carlos Sainz has been more or less keeping up with him, or at least not very far behind. Which means we have two another very stunning young driver waiting in the wings for a leap into the big time.