Cyclefree says it is notable that few in the Remain camp have sought to make a positive case for the EU. So let me make some suggestions. (And no, this gives you no clue as to my vote.) The EU as a force for good. Who knows whether Western civilization will survive a Brexit. It survived the temporary disappearance of Poland so it can surely survive the departure of a damp island in the middle of the North Sea. But…
Expertise is a valuable skill but one of the problems with experts is that all that knowledge can leave you unwilling or unable to persuade. If you think, if you know that X is the right answer and yet people persist in not agreeing, it is hard not to feel infuriated, not to feel that some combination of wilful stupidity and/or ignorance and/or bloody-mindedness is refusing to accept the obvious. And it is easy from there to fall into the…
I have never been political. I’ve never joined any party, and my voting record is patchy. What I do is start technology businesses, and I’m on my third right now. Knowing rcs1000 (he’s an investor in my firm), I asked if I could write a piece for politicalbetting about the impact of leaving the EU on London’s technology start up scene. Let me start by putting London’s tech scene in context. London has the second largest concentration of technology start-ups…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69sNgfbU9Gs Above the Latest Stronger In PPB, you can view the latest Vote Leave PPB by clicking here ‘Get your facts first then you can distort them as you please’ Mark Twain Over the last few weeks research companies running focus groups will have been dissecting psychoanalysing and picking to death the innermost thoughts of voters. When Seth Godin wrote “Facts are unimportant. What matters is what people believe.” This wasn’t meant as a lesson to advertisers on how to hoodwink…
Embed from Getty Images “What did he mean by that?” Metternich is reported to have said on hearing of the death of Talleyrand, Napoleon’s wily diplomat. The same question will be asked in the Chancelleries of Europe and elsewhere should Britain vote to leave the EU. But perhaps it is a more pertinent question to ask if Britain votes to remain, especially if the winning margin is narrow – as seems likely – and certainly less than the winning margin…
Cyclefree: If Leave wins, immigration will likely have been one of the main factors. But what then? Indeed, what then if Remain wins? Much as with the EU debate itself, the immigration debate has been characterised by dishonesty, evasion and avoidance of reality. So – much like the Irishman asked for directions saying that they wouldn’t start from here – let me suggest some basic requirements for an immigration policy and compare them with what we have within the EU…
REMAIN now below 80% chance on Betfair for first time in 10 days pic.twitter.com/Of38yXY3Jk — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 30, 2016 David Kendrick looks at the Remain campagin The Remain approach has been strikingly one-paced. It has been relentlessly and exclusively negative. There has been nothing about how good the EU is, nor how it will become better. We have heard no ‘In 5 years time, the EU will…..We don’t want to get off this Euro-express.’ There is no…
Ex-MP Nick Palmer on a non-Corbynite Labour focus group For friendship and nostalgia, I had a dinner last week with 14 veteran campaigners who have mostly been with me in every campaign since 1997. Coincidentally or not, I think I was the only one at the table who had voted for Jeremy Corbyn. The others are pragmatic Labour campaigners who fight every election to win, and turned a safe Tory seat in 1992 (16% margin) into a perpetual marginal. They’d voted…