Heard two politicians on the radio yesterday arguing the toss over Brexit. One was saying it's not in the interests of France and Germany to raise tariffs against the UK in the instance of Brexit, with the other saying we can't logically have all the benefits without the subscription fee. One thing that wasn't said was that giving the UK all the benefits without the subscription would sow the seeds of destruction of the EU itself, as every country would then jump on the bandwagon believing it too could press for the benefits without having to pay a cent. I believe this would be an unacceptable risk to France and Germany, as it would mean the EU reverting to just a free trade area, which is what we joined in the first place.
There is also the inconvenient fact that the saving won't be the headline £55m per day that the Brexits trumpet as the EU costing us (it's actually closer to £35m), as we will still have to prop up areas of the economy which are currently heavy recipients of EU funds, such as farming, grants for research and the poorer regions (Cornwall and Wales) - or simply choose not to. Looked at another way, the government will spend a forecast £772 billion in 2016/17. The net contribution to the EU will be 1.5% of that, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, or £11.58 billion, so that's the maximum we could save, not allowing for the extra we'd have to shell out to replace the grants and subsidies mentioned above.
Seems rather than using the Office for Budget Responsibility to develop forecasts (and all forecasts are imperfect), the government could save a packet by outsourcing financial forecasts to Mystic Boris' prophesy method of divination. No analysis necessary, just Boris' inspired prediction plucked from thin air (and the billions upon billions of unconscious calculations that take place in his head to reach his conclusions). Boris' forecasts are akin to a salesman's revenue forecast - based on the best of all possible outcomes and in essence an expression of a wish in order to keep the sales director happy). At school we had large boxes at the ends of our beds in which we kept our smelly clothes - were we prescient when we called them Boris boxes?
Asad Shah, who was killed in Glasgow by a Muslim a few weeks ago, was a member of a Muslim sect called the Ahmadis. The Ahmadis believe Mohammed was followed by another Prophet in the 1800s, which is heresy to orthodox Muslims, as Mohammed said he was the last Prophet. However, the Bible and the Koran are littered with instances of God changing his mind and he's just as capricious as humans.
Just noticed that while 'koran' shows up as a spelling mistake in Blogger (you have to use Koran with a capital K), you can use 'bible' with no capitalisation issues.
There is also the inconvenient fact that the saving won't be the headline £55m per day that the Brexits trumpet as the EU costing us (it's actually closer to £35m), as we will still have to prop up areas of the economy which are currently heavy recipients of EU funds, such as farming, grants for research and the poorer regions (Cornwall and Wales) - or simply choose not to. Looked at another way, the government will spend a forecast £772 billion in 2016/17. The net contribution to the EU will be 1.5% of that, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, or £11.58 billion, so that's the maximum we could save, not allowing for the extra we'd have to shell out to replace the grants and subsidies mentioned above.
Seems rather than using the Office for Budget Responsibility to develop forecasts (and all forecasts are imperfect), the government could save a packet by outsourcing financial forecasts to Mystic Boris' prophesy method of divination. No analysis necessary, just Boris' inspired prediction plucked from thin air (and the billions upon billions of unconscious calculations that take place in his head to reach his conclusions). Boris' forecasts are akin to a salesman's revenue forecast - based on the best of all possible outcomes and in essence an expression of a wish in order to keep the sales director happy). At school we had large boxes at the ends of our beds in which we kept our smelly clothes - were we prescient when we called them Boris boxes?
Asad Shah, who was killed in Glasgow by a Muslim a few weeks ago, was a member of a Muslim sect called the Ahmadis. The Ahmadis believe Mohammed was followed by another Prophet in the 1800s, which is heresy to orthodox Muslims, as Mohammed said he was the last Prophet. However, the Bible and the Koran are littered with instances of God changing his mind and he's just as capricious as humans.
Just noticed that while 'koran' shows up as a spelling mistake in Blogger (you have to use Koran with a capital K), you can use 'bible' with no capitalisation issues.
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