Rayvin

What are the tariffs likely to be? Is it an across the board figure or variable depending on specifics?

Shush

I mean, sometimes you tell yourself that Johnson is just act, and that the real man isn't as fucking useless as he seems to be, but then you read stuff like this and realise that the only thing that makes you think he's pretending to be a buffoon is that it's simply inconceivable that a man this fucking stupid is running the country.

I'm going to hold off until the new year I think - not particularly convinced my 970 will get very much out of it frankly. I've played this a bit but I wouldn't say I'm a fanatic about it. I might be a bit too introverted to get the most out of it though, it seems to favour people who enjoy talking!

Have just seen this explanation of an "Australia style deal" in the Guardian: Downing Street started using the term at the beginning of the year as a more palatable shorthand for a no-deal. The EU does not have a free-trade deal with Australia, although they are in negotiations. The two sides operate mainly on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, with huge tariffs on imports and exports. It would be more accurate to describe the outcome that would be secured by a no-deal as an Afghanistan-style arrangement, given the lack of formal cooperation in that trading relationship. This is because the EU does have a few agreements in place with Australia that it would not have with the UK in the event of a failure of the trade and security negotiations. These include an agreement on the transfer of EU passenger name records to Australian border authorities to help combat crime and terrorism and an agreement on the mutual recognition of conformity assessments, so that a product tested to EU standards in Australia is regarded as compliant, eliminating the need for duplicative testing when it is imported. I am definitely going to refer to it as an Afghanistan style deal going forward

I know but when you're in these communities you effectively have "lobster syndrome"- if one of you is somehow about to emerge unscathed from a pot of boiling water/the righteous judgement of your peers, you pull the fucker back in because you'd prefer to see everyone suffer rather than anyone escape

Looking like you may well be right then, he's just now warned of a strong possibility of No Deal. I actually cannot wait for this to be over now, whatever happens. His inevitable resignation can't be far off once this is done.

And I got stick for Magic the Gathering

If he was a brave man, I'd agree with you - but I really don't think he is.

I think Boris is going to cave in here tbh. He'll come away with some bollocks that allows him to claim victory which really just gives the EU whatever the wanted to begin with. It doesn't look to me like he has the appetite for no deal.

So... Cyberpunk looks buggy as all hell. Worse on consoles than on PC apparently but christ.. looks a good few months off being finished unless this day zero patch is going to save it.

As I understand it, "people of colour" is preferable to "coloured people" because the former focuses on their (and our) shared humanity (i.e. they are people first and foremost), and the latter focuses on their skin colour. I do think that some people from older generations have quite understandably missed the memo on some of these things though. I don't think people ever explain these things that well when the change is made, it just "happens".

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/07/remainers-britain-soft-brexit "Hard Remainers wouldn't accept a soft Brexit, and now we're all paying the price" Yes, that one The fucking pillock.

There was enough backing from pro-remain MPs on at least two of Theresa May's deal submissions that had the ERG gone in for it, it would have passed. It has always, always, always been the hard Brexiteers who have forced us to this point. Coupled with Theresa May's own total inadequacy in refusing to seek cross party consensus early on. She was repeatedly asked to include other parties, by the other parties. She was repeatedly asked to include protections for workers rights and other useful and pragmatic provisions by Labour. She refused time and time again because the only thing that mattered to her was the electability of the Tory party. As Alex rightly says, the remain side has had literally no control or input on this entire process - we became increasingly desperate as it became clear that we were being increasingly railroaded into a very hard Brexit. And I can guarantee you that the only reason Owen Jones wrote that abortion of an article was in an attempt to 'reach out' to the Brexity red wall - which is indeed Labour's entire strategy at this point. He doesn't believe a single word of what he wrote I'll wager (at the very least I hope). Swinson wasn't an honest actor in this whatsoever and I have no confidence that she cared about anything beyond power and redeeming the LDs into something viable - but she was to some extent forced into that position by Labour taking a more nuanced approach. There was, however, never any attempt whatsoever at meaningful compromise from the Brexit side of this debate. There was, and I can clearly remember it in parliament, attempts at this from the Remain side. And I would say, for the record, that a customs union only approach is something that all of us would have considered a pretty hard Brexit at the outset. Norway would have been the sensible approach that everyone could have gotten behind. May went to an extreme from the outset however.

Would he have said "the white one" though? There's a possible argument I guess that if you were in a majority black country and wanted to identify an individual who was white, that you would indeed say 'the white one', but I'm still not sure that this makes it right. The argument I believe is that people of colour never get to escape from being "the black one" in white society. Why not "the guy on the right", or "the taller one" or whatever. The fact that his skin colour comes up so readily as a descriptive tool is probably the problem here. I've certainly said "the black guy" in the past for this kind of situation, but I actively try to avoid doing so now that I've been a bit more broadly informed on the issue. I mean it doesn't really hurt to just come up with something else.

I don't understand why it's so hard. It's not like their whole careers would fall apart if they admit getting something wrong ffs, I mean there's no consequence to anything they do anyway. But it's not just politicians, people in general in this country are now so fucking precious that they can't handle being wrong about anything. I've repeatedly read comments in the Guardian in the past few days (the Guardian is now pro-Brexit incidentally, following Labour into the breach, and therefore churning out articles about how the mess we find ourselves in is all the fault of Remainers - presumably having identified that to get leavers back on side, they need to start indulging in the same make believe reality as their hoped for audience) stating that angry Remainers who constantly criticise and point out the flaws of the Brexiteer arguments are "the reason" this is all happening. And like, just fucking think about that statement. There is a large body of people in this country so fucking delicate that if someone calls them out for being wrong, calls them stupid for believing something completely devoid of evidence be it COVID related, Brexit related, whatever - they're so weak that if this happens they immediately dig their heels in and vote for it anyway out of what... spite? And this is what these people themselves are telling us they're doing. If you vote for something because the other side called you stupid for holding some demonstrably stupid views, then you're not a rational adult who should vote, you're a child. And I'm sorry to say the entire right wing of the country is now stained with this weak, pitiful childishness.

You're right and I needlessly hedged my view. I agree. It's unsettling to see people equate it with cultural marxism and all that Frankfurt School stuff though and I'm starting to wonder if something more is needed to reach people like Millwall's fanbase who apparently think this is all some kind of conspiracy and that the only people who think their booing of it is racist are "uneducated". I was reading through a Millwall forum on it and I don't think I saw a single post calling out their fans. It was split between people (the majority) decrying BLM, and the rest who simply didn't want the media scrutiny on the club and wished it hadn't happened as a result. It seems to have become a message that has been poisoned by the thought leaders on the reactionary right - which, more than anything else, is just sad. But equally, maybe that's why it needs to continue.

They've "solved" Northern Ireland. Remains in the single market. Hard border down the Irish sea then, presumably.

At the risk of sounding like a snowflake, it should stop for everyone who is only doing it for show, but continue for those who feel strongly about it?

Seems like Millwall's game tonight could be an interesting one. The club had originally said that the players wouldn't take the knee again after the fans humiliated themselves in the last game, but now it seems some of the players still intend to proceed, so Millwall has in fact decided that it will go ahead. And the fans will inevitably boo this once again. At least one of their players has claimed he will walk off if this happens.

He is, hilariously, one of their leading ITKs

You're absolutely right - unfortunately this has now been going on for 5 years and it doesn't seem to be a situation that Starmer is capable of fixing. In his defence, I'm not convinced anyone is. I'm increasingly starting to think it just isn't going to happen for Labour, in general. There isn't actually that much common ground between the left and the centre anymore. If we had a proper electoral system this wouldn't be a problem, but under FPTP, it is. Maybe the way to heal this would be for Starmer to promise PR as the reward for the left falling into line. It would mean the end of Labour governing with a majority ever again if they won power that final time, but it would also mean the end of the Tories.

Is this a problem yet..?

I went the same way as Fish and Alex but on balance of discussion, I think I've been converted to seeing it the other way.

Just having a quick scan - everyone they're linked with is "worse than Parkinson". I'm curious who they really thought they'd get tbh. Either way the trajectory is set in stone no matter what. They hate whoever it is until he signs, then once he signs they all 'get behind him, get behind the shirt" etc, before giving him the first 45 mins of his first game, deciding he's shite and then proceeding to destroy any chance the poor bastard has through extreme toxicity, all the while claiming to be "the best fans in the world FTM". Rinse and repeat.