E I Addio

I think you are reading something into the situation that isn't there. In previous years Speedwáy has been predominantly on a Friday night and there was never any problem getting dates. Cook said on the mic about 2-3 months ago after a particularly horrendous night with roadworks and delays around the Tunnel that this couldn't go on and he wanted more Saturday meetings in 2017. Therein lies the problem. While the track is generally available on Fridays the stock cars use it on Saturdays and the Speedwáy fixtures can't be sorted until the stock cars sort their dates out. He clearly couldn't commit to the EL while all that was in limbo. It's clear the Tunnel hasgone from bad to worse over the last two years, not just affecting Lakeside. It must be costing the country millions in wasted time and money with these long delays.

I didn't say the EU isn't spending as much as other countries I said that Japan (that is one country ) spends more than the entire EU. Not sure how you make the jump from there to saying the EU isn't spending anywhere near as much as other countries. Obviously there are inefficient as well as efficient farmers as in other any industry , but the EU in its wisdom has decided subsidies are the way to go not just in the UK but all over Europe. I dint see why the UK farmers should be deemed to be any less efficient than those anywhere else in Europe but the Voice of (Un)Reason seems to have a bee in his bonnet because UK farmers who vote Conservative get subsidies but he has no comment about French farmers under a Socialist government, who have long been among the most inefficient also getting subsidies. Almost everywhere in the developed world subsidies go with farming . Rightly or wrongly that's the way it is. You can't blame the UK farmers for accepting them when most others around the world get it.

Never miss the chance to have a dig at another club or stir up a bit of trouble if you can do you ? Why should it mention Stuart if he is not leaving ? Where does it say the club is up for sale ? Where does it say he is losing money? The explanation given by Jon Cook on Essex Radio is that they want to run more Saturday meetings for ease of travelling for the Kent fans, because the Dartford Tunnel is so badly congested on week nights (which it is) . In fact Jon Cook said over the mic two months ago that they were looking for more Saturdays next year. The problem is that until the stock car season finishes in two weeks time they cant make any commitments because the stocks get choice of dates but the BSPA need a commitment today, AGM day Ten pages into the thread and only Steve Shovlar comes up with speculation about Stuart leaving. Just because he lives in the USA it doesn't mean he never comes over here on business.

On that basis you might as well say they are all trick tracks and nobody could say you were wrong. Bit of a pointless argument to make really.

We expect the ill informed politics of envy from V.O.R. but you must surely know that farming subsidies are an al most world wide phenomenon. The USA spends around $20billion. p.a on subsidies and Japan around $43 billion which is more than the whole of the EU spends including spending on inefficient French farmers. EU farming subsidies have been reduced considerably in recent years but the whole issue of subsidies is immensely complicated and not capable of easy dismantling. There is far more to the problem than blaming allegedly greedy farmers for depending on handouts.

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I think a number of members have grasped the irony. It is that Steve claims a lot of Brexit voters didn't know what they were voting for but it's clear from his comment about the European Court and UK laws that he doesn't understand all that facts either. As for Brexit voters making protest votes etc, I haven't discussed with anyone why they voted the way they did so I have no idea what their motives were. What percentage of the 17,000,000 that voted out have you discussed it with? U.K. Rents were rocketing long before Brexit and have been discussed on the forum long before Brexit. As for rights for employees disappearing what specific employment rights do you think are going to disappear? Industrial Tribunals and modern employee rights go right back to the Thatcher era and beyond. The idea that they all come from the EU is a myth. The recent judgement in favour of Uber drivers shows where the courts stand on these things and it's highly unlikely all that will be dismantled. This is another one of those scare stories ( the sort we hear from both sides I have to add) that are put out and gain traction for no particular reason. All anyone can say with certainty is that since the referendum the pound has fallen in value. Apart from that it's all speculation at the moment and there is still a long way to go before we know whether it's for the better or for the worse.My guess is that things will more or less trundle along in the same old way in the long term. That's what usually happens. Money talks. The Germans aren't going to want to lay off thousands of car workers because they can no longer sell 800,000 cars a year to the UK. and that's without other EU carmakers, and there are all sorts of strings to be pulled on both sides of the fence. It's all sabre rattling at the moment. The real horse trading has yet to start. It's just a shame that Csmeron messed it all up when he went to renegotiate last February. That's what happens when you send a boy to do a mans job. In the meantime, don't believe all you read in the Mail and the Guardian.

In the vast majority of cases there is no appeal to either of the European Courts, even if you do feel you have been treated unfairly. In fact simply feeling you have been treated unfairly is not a grounds for appeal anywhere in the EU. New UK laws answerable to no one ? What are you talking about ? UK laws are made by the UK parliament which can be ejected by the UK electorate if they don't like it and replaced by new representatives. And you try to tell us the common man or woman doesn't understand what they were voting for. The irony !

If all that is important to you is yourself and your family, and you don't give two hoots for anybody else, then the corollary to that is why should anybody else give two hoots about you ? They've had their say and you've had yours. So what are you moaning about?

Without wishing to defend Cameron, it is a fact of history that it was Gordon Brown that started slackening the tax burden on the rich from 1998 onwards and increasingly from 2002 when he came under the influence of Sir Ronnie Cohen. Thus we had the situation in which hedge fund managers were paying less tax than their office cleaners. It was also Brown that abolished the bottom rate 10% tax rate and put the lowest earners on 20% if they were over the tax threshold making many low earners around £230 per year worse or more off. So much for looking after the poor. In fact the Con-Lib coalition raised the tax threshold far higher than Labour envisaged taking many of the low paid out of taxation althtogether. The was almost entirely at the behest of the Lib-Dems although Osborne claimed credit for it. That's not to say Cameron didn't look after the well off, but New Labour especially Brown, are not off the hook when it comes to looking after the rich. Funny how people forget these things when they get on their soapbox. Again, the red tint specs distort the facts of history. Labour certainly created the NHS but they didn't create the welfare support system. Forms of welfare support have been around in this country and in Europe for over 400 years, but the foundation of modern Welfare support was laid down by the Liberals in the early years of the last century. What Labour did was not to create it but to expand it in line with Beveridge Report commissioned by the coalition government in 1941or 42, although it fair to say the Tories probably wouldn't have implemented it as quickly or comprehensively as Labour. It also a fact of history that the electorate threw them out at the next election and kept them out for 13 years, so they couldn't have been that popular with the general public.

Good point. The other thing is there are only a limited number of licensed SCB officials such as start Marshalls, incident recorders etc, and some work at more than one track to cover holidays, and other staff shotrages. if all meetings are on the same night it presents a bigger problem in getting cover . As it is there are some clubs that just about scrape by with the minimum number of trackstaff/officials.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-37720480

The problem there is thst It was, in the words of the PM a straight in/out referendum, not something to find the best way to satisfy all parties. Unfortunately, the man responsible for the shambles resigned from public life straightaway and started looking for something easier and better paid away from the public eye. If the public voted in the belief that it was a straifght in oout referendum I am not sure how constitutionally the politicians could backtrack on it.

I am I missing something here ? Since when did the EDR rider pick his team, rather than the other way round ? There are a lot of lower finishing teams that ought to be having the option of picking Adam before Poole get their pick if Lakeside don't want him. I realise that the Echo's ace journalist Phil Space cobbled the article together to ...er.... fill space on a slow news day and I may be reading too much into it but he talks about Adam going on loan. EDR riders do exactly go out "on loan" .Does this mean Adam might be doing a Garrity rather than EDR, or is there some sort of Ford stitch up in the offing ? Or is it just a journalist saying the first thing that comes into his head to fill a bit of space? Seems strange though that an EDR rider talks about going somewhere when we haven't had the AGM and he doesn't have a PL team place.

It's the PL numpties that are half the problem. Unless and until the PL buy into the EDR system it's never going to work 100%. Having said that, it could still be made to work a lot better than it does now. The whole order of picking needs to be sorted.

He doesn't get me outraged at all. You still haven't said why you don't believe the country has massive state and personal debt and a massive balance of payments crisis or why you don't believe the Bank of England pumped £435 billion QE into the economy. Presumably you think Osborne did a cracking job and sorted the economy out. Still, you are obviously not going to answer those points now, so time to move on.

But you still haven't told us what he said that you think is untrue. Presumably you think the economy and balance of payments was in great shape before the Brexit vote and you think he is making it up when he says the Bank of England pumped over £400 billion QE into the economy.

Peter Hitchens is not an economist but he was awarded the Orwell Prize in 2010, which is the most prestigious award in this country for political journalism. You and Orion may dismiss him if you wish, in case claiming that his opinion has no more validity than anyone else's or in orions case that he sits down and writes a pack of lies I the Daily/Sunday Mail but I would imagine that most reasonable people whe like to look at both sides of the issue would consider that to win such an award and to be generally regarded as an outstanding foreign correspondent does suggest that he has access to better research and better contacts than most of us and should at least be considered even if one does not totally accept everything he says. I very much doubt that the Orwell Prize is awarded to people who sit down and make up a pack of lies.

I repeat yet again, for the blinkered. I didn't say Hitchens was right or wrong. I said it was food for though. Some of us like to take in a wider viewpoint than others. I agree it's strange, that all this happens after the Brexit vote , and that substantially weakens the credibilty of the article which is why I said I didn't think he was either 100% right or 100% wrong. I daresay the truth lies somewhere in the middle. As I said. I have heard other economic commentators, make similar comments on the lines that the banks etc are a big part of the underlying problem, notably Davd Buick of Panmuir Gordon,who doesn't withe in newspapers for a particular audience, Mybe you feel those points of view are nor worth considering and banks and hedgfund, managers have been a shining example of good financial conduct in the last 15 years and have absolutely nothing to do with the overall serious financial crisis. Many would disagree..

1. My first question was whether you agree that the country has massive state and personal debt, and a disastrous balance of payments situation. I am interested to find out why you think that is a lie. I don't think I have heard anyone say otherwise so maybe you have some information that the rest of us don't have. 2. The Bank of England makes the technical decisions about QE and physically gives the instructions but it's Osborne, and Brown before him that had overall responsibility for the economy and are deemed to approve the BoE's actions. However it is Peter Hitchens article in the Mail that we are scrutinising and if you read it he says that the BoE pumped the £435 billion into the economy. So let's re-phrase the question : is Hitchens lying about the QE pumped into the economy or are you saying it didn't happen. 3. Peter Hitchens is a right wing journalist who writes from a right wing perspective. That doesn't make him a liar. I doubt if he sat there and made the whole thing up. In my post I didn't say the whole thing was gospel, but I simply said it was food for thought. You seem to be saying that the mere fact it is in the Daily Mail makes it untrue, and I am not sure why anyone who has actually read the article would say that.

No, if you read it instead of dismissing it out of hand you will see armieg has not found a lie in the article. It may be the Daily Mail, but Peter Hitchens is a leading journalist who is better informed than most, and who doesn't only write for the Mail . Like all of them he tries to be a bit controversial to sell papers, but that doesn't mean there is never food for thought in what he says. The wider point being made is that we have a very serious economic situation and for years successive governments, Labour, Coalition and Tory have been papering over the cracks, leaving it wide open to speculators. I doubt Peter Hitchens is 100% right when he says the state of the pound is nothing to do with Brexit but I doubt he is 100% wrong either. A lot pretty good financial commentators have been saying similar things. Instead of just dismissing it out of hand and taking Steve Shovlars view that it its all due to the fishwives of Hartlepool or HA's view that it's all the fault of a stupid working class that are too dim to understand it, people ought to look more closely at what's going on with the banks, hedge funds, and speculators that first Gordon Brown and then George Osborne have been pandering to for years.

Are you saying it is untrue that the country has massive state and personal debts and a disastrous balance of payments ? Are you saying it is untrue that Osborne pumped over £400 billion of funny money into the economy ?

I don't know . How many wealthy farmers are there compared to electricians ?

When I say nutcase I mean people who haven't thought things through and get out out of their depth very quickly. I think Orlovs analogy with the X Factor is a good one. It not like sitting in a pub where you put your views and I put mine and maybe look for common ground. A lot if these talk show hosts just like to wind people up to make fools of themselves because ultimately it's what audiences like, and it gives me a chuckle at times, but when the boot is on the other foot and the presenter is on dodgy ground he just shut the discussion down and takes the next call. I have heard James O Brien do that several times. Not saying you don't get good calls at times, especially in the early morning but it's not fair to say that a bloke who gets caught out is typical of Brexit voters because it happens all the time on all sorts of subjects. Capitol Gold is much better radio station, they play ten hits in a row with no talking in between. My idea idea of good listening !

No, it sums up a lot of the type of people that phone radio stations. Most of the time the producers only let the nutcases through the net because that's what makes entertainment. I tend to listen to LBC early most days . I think you get a pretty good overview of what's happening in the world up till about 8 o'clock then you get more and more nutcases phoning in as those with any brains have work to as the morning wears on.