Andrew Haslam-Jones

A deliciously succulent mass of minced pork meat, seasoned and spiced as preferred, wrapped in puff pastry and often left exposed at the ends. This is a somewhat mammoth version. They are usually found in delightfully individual portions. From The Ginger Pig to Greggs, readily available:

Brexit harms the UK. It was designed to harm the UK. Those who promoted Brexit, whether they knew or not, did not care. They were doing in their own or their (often overseas) friends’ interests.

Well, his only other option would have been to put himself up to be the leader of Reform in Wales.

Perhaps. Or the country was still being run by people on both sides of the binary political divide who had actually fought in the war and knew that peace and unity were in the interests of the UK.

Most people in most countries talk to themselves about stuff inside the country most of the time. This is nothing new. The miracle was joining the EU in the place in 1973. Perhaps we trusted our political leaders then and foreign policy was much less of a source of political posturing?

They model themselves on Donald Trump. They share his lack of values.

The only other world leader who wouldn’t be embarrassed to receive one that springs to mind is Vladimir Voldemort Putin.

The revolution of turning the UK into a pale reflection of the US, begun by Brexit, has not yet been completed.

I’m not asking for sympathy for them, nor suggesting they didn’t take it seriously. Only that they were misled and that, given the complexity of the issue (David Mitchell was prescient on that), Kahneman’s prediction that the choice would ultimately be emotional.

That’s one way of looking at it but not mine. People can be conned without being children. Daniel Kahneman’s interpretation is more persuasive.

And as for those who voted for Leave on the basis of what they were promised, you might criticise their gullibility but not necessarily being missold. Plus, you’re ignoring the history in the UK of votes on the EU being mini-referendums on domestic politics.

Every person is no personally responsible for something they campaigned and voted against.

Yes, the standard is dysfunctional. Systems that have been in place for many years are notoriously difficult to change.

The electoral system is dysfunctional. It’s not about blame. It’s about a system that consistently produces suboptimal results. That’s also applicable to the rest of the world.

That change wouldn’t have made a huge difference.

Or rather those who set the agenda should. At least even that nest of vipers, the Daily Telegraph, is printing articles admitting to the damage that Brexit has done. It’s a beginning but there’s a heck of a long way to go.

I’m not sure that I’m blaming others rather than pointing out the weakness of the UK’s electoral system which makes it especially difficult to reverse a decision like Brexit, which in itself was a poorly organised referendum (as I think you may have pointed out previously).

Except, to pretend that that was the only thing they were voting about, or the most important thing of a multitude of issues on all but one of those occasions (the referendum) would be misleading. (BTW, we’ve “only” had 3 general elections since then?)

As for the subsequent elections, the majority voted for anti-Brexit parties but such is the nature of our electoral system, parties without majority support win outright majorities in parliament. In any event, voters vote for parties, buckets of policies and personalities, not single issues. 2/2

That’s I think a miscasting of both the referendum and the subsequent elections. EU elections in the UK have always been mainly about domestic politics, a way to complain, hence an element of anti-Cameron, anti-austerity voting. 1/

He looked considerably less confused and anxious armed with a little bit of a picture of what life might look like for him in the short term. Perhaps there’s something there about people who have already experienced something helping to explain how it feels. 3/3

I’d had a retinol tear earlier this year and could warn him about loss of depth perception while the eye healed, how the gradual absorption of the gas in his eye might look and how long it would take. He worked as a teacher and drove to work. So, the considerations of having one eye for a while. 2/

Even in “smaller” operations, patients want the prognosis. Recently, in the recovery room after an eye operation, the nurse was good at explaining what the patient had to do (posture, eye drops), but there was no information on what the patient recovering from a retinal tear could expect. 1/

YouTube video by LeonPFB Flanders & Swann

Anyway, on the more general point of xenophobia, I also had occasion to reflect that a lot of people appeared to have listened to Flanders and Swann’s The English are Best and not appreciated its irony 5/5: youtu.be/1vh-wEXvdW8?...

Only the Russians make as many films about WW2 and look how that has allowed them to be manipulated. There’s a reason why Putin insists on calling the Ukrainians fascists. 4/

I myself was at a Germany v England football match on 17 June 2000 (1.0, Shearer goal at the other end -missed it - Karsten Janke missed a sitter at our end) when half the stadium was humming the Dambusters March and some were even wearing WW2 British tin helmets. 3/

I have often reflected that Brexit was most popular in the generations that grew up after the war, nurtured on celluloid fantasies of a wartime glory in which they did not take part but were somehow trying to repeat. The actual wartime generation voted Remain as much as the young (LSE study). 2/

Yes, even an ardent Brexiter who had been celebrating the victory as only possible after Brexit (he wasn’t a football fan, having no idea England had beaten Germany several times while an EU member) recoiled from that when I showed him, but he still had that mindset. 1/

TBF, I think I said that’s where it started. Large numbers of relatively poorer and less familiar Eastern Europeans were an easier target for the xenophobes to start with, bearing in mind xenophobia in general runs deep in the UK (unless “they” are playing for “your” football team).

Oh, I agree. That’s why I thought the anti-EU migrant rhetoric was disingenuous from the xenophobes, them even claiming that EU membership meant a racist migration policy, when they were only hiding their dislike of anyone different.