IntenseDebate - Ricardos

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Daniel Hannan: The Chi... · 0 replies · +1 points

Interesting to see the Alton amendment misrepresented in this way. Sanctions of the sort used against Iraq were the outright banning of certain trades - eg we do not sell arms to them, and we do not buy oil from them. That is worlds away from whether we have an FTA with them that gives them preferential access to our market. Alton is all about FTAs, and whether they should prohibited with genocidal states.

If you want to have an FTA with China, have the courage to argue for that. If you think that if we had an FTA, genocide going on in China would not be grounds for revoking it, have the courage to argue for that. But don’t be a slippery customer and pretnd this is a conversation about the efficacy of the oil for food programme. And don’t pretend that a serious response is to ban Mrs Xi from shopping trips in the West End.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Kevin Hollinrake: Time... · 0 replies · +1 points

When you’ve thrown the working poor out of London (for example) where do you expect them to go?

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Kevin Hollinrake: Time... · 0 replies · +1 points

You are completely wrong.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Stephen Booth: The mai... · 0 replies · +1 points

The Swiss and the Norwegians already prove the EU is not necessary for affluence, peace or success.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Stephen Booth: The mai... · 0 replies · +1 points

We insisted on leaving the Single Market. You cheered that on. Now you’re whining that the UK and EU aren’t behaving like a single market, and there are barriers which are causing firms to change how and where they do business. What did you expect? Did you think everything would just carry on with no changes?

If we want reduce these barriers and go back to having a single market, we’re going to need to return to the Single Market via EEA membership.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Stephen Booth: The mai... · 0 replies · +1 points

So CPTPP is really important because of the rulebook it has for the digital and services industries. Maybe we should be be told what those rules are and what they’ll require us to change, and then we can decide whether these are changes we want to make.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Henry Hill: Gove's cha... · 0 replies · +1 points

Sign up to it? Boris Johnson did more than sign up to it. This was the centrepiece of his renegotiation of the Withdrawal Agreement. A Withdrawal Agreement he fought an election over and won. This was his big idea for how to do Brexit. Some Unionists pointed out at the time that imposing a border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, that will only get harder as we choose to diverge further from the EU was outrageous, and ought to be rejected. But we were pushed aside.

The choices haven’t changed. If a border with Ireland is unacceptable, and the border between NI and GB has to be substantially eased, then we will need to align to the Single Market at least. If we’re going to do that we’ll need to avoid ECJ jurisdiction, so we’ll need to join the EEA. Let’s get on with it.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Kevin Hollinrake: Time... · 0 replies · +1 points

A lot of good ideas. The suggested reforms to business rates and capital gains are particularly welcome. I’d modify them to suggest that capital gains should be reformed to tax gains above the risk free rate of return (ie Bank of England rate). Scrapping business rates looks necessary as we switch to an economy with online competition. Tackling tax avoidance properly is long overdue. The fiction that Starbucks is hopelessly unprofitable, or that Amazon doesn’t sell in the UK, was always ridiculous.

I’m slightly wary about the idea to fund social care via a compulsory social insurance fund. We’d be setting something up to immediately take on some huge liabilities (the costs of which aren’t being properly met at the moment). So we’d have to make consideration for funding what is actually required, not just covering the current bills, and think about how to ensure the arrangements are sustainable. Hypothecated funding like this is vulnerable to changing as the economy changes (e.g. drops if there is a sharp rise in unemployment).

Congratulations to Hollinrake for proposing some proper substantial reforms. Let’s hope the government is listening.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Kevin Hollinrake: Time... · 0 replies · +1 points

The tax didn’t support the old system. That was the point. Shamefully, it was politicians from this party that drove it into the ground.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Who's in charge of the... · 0 replies · +1 points

Not experienced enough or intelligent enough to scrutinise and vote on trade agreements, but they are qualified to handle criminal justice, child protection, nuclear weapons policy, pensions, espionage, telecommunications, flood defence, healthcare funding, long term unemployment, homelessness, industrial strategy, food safety, constitutional referendums, euthanasia, etc. etc.?

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