It's Galileo Groundhog Day! You can keep asking the same question, but it won't change the answer As the imagined strains of Sonny and Cher’s hit "I Got You, Babe"* died down, the UK Parliament’s Exiting the European Union Committee spent a chunk of yesterday morning asking the UK space industry the same old questions. Youtube Video Patrick Norris of UK Space, Colin Paynter of Airbus and Dr Bleddyn Bowen of the University …
I do spend quite some time there already (that's why I can recommend Toulouse first hand). Unfortunately a permanent move is not on the cards until my partner wants to quit her job as an NHS doctor. The specific disease she is specialised in has a considerable cohort in London but is not very common in France Sud Ouest so it would require extensive retraining.
"Couldn't she just infect the locals to ensure her skills are in high demand?" Some chap from Edinburgh got sentenced to life two weeks ago for infecting five people and attempting to infect another five with this specific virus. I don't see her infect an entire cohort's worth, let alone overcome her moral objections to it.
@Dr_N Nothing 'Brexiteer' about it. I've worked with a whole bunch of people, a small, persistent subset of which seem to believe that they're working 'here' (for some value of here) out of a spirit of generosity. They will tell anyone who listens just how bad here is, how little they enjoy it, and how much better somewhere else is (insert favourite nation, hemisphere, beach, pub of choice). They make people who work with them miserable, and yet years later I'll find out they're still 'here', dragging that little cloud of misery behind them.
So I have relatively low tolerance for people who spout that sort of nonsense. Put up (and make the place better whilst you're at it) or p**** off. :D
You'll note I didn't tell anyone to 'Go back to where they came from', and there was no sarcasm or malice intended. Your post however was dripping with righteous indignity and (quite inaccurate) prejudices. Sometimes in the Brexit vs. Remain debate, I wonder which side is actually the intolerant one.
Sometimes in the Brexit vs. Remain debate, I wonder which side is actually the intolerant one.
Indeed so. The whole thing has echoes of religious fervour like the Reformation, when anyone daring to speak out against the established order was persecuted from the altar by the high priests of the status quo. Remainers seem not only to be agressively intolerant of anyone that isn't pro-EU, they insist on categorizing all leavers as racist and/or stupid and seem quite unwilling to accept or understand that there could be valid economiuc and political arguments in favour of leaving.
Andyv73> I wonder which side is actually the intolerant one.
BOOM! Nail, meet head!
The fact that there are still "sides" this far down the line shows what a clusterf***ed-up project brexit is.
Anyway don't mind me I'm just here to laugh at it all.
The way a rudderless government tries to steer a course (whilst really just worrying about the Tory's internecine stuggles) and the non-dom'd owned press whips it all up is absolutely hilarious.
Sovereignty! Trade deals! (To export what-to-whom?) Fish! Fixing the NHS with all this extra cash!
More, more! Encore!
This is British comedy at its best!
@Dr_N Ah, the last defence of the person caught out passing off knee jerk prejudice as insight: "I didn't mean it, I'm just here to laugh at it all." Sure, funny joke. Ha. Ha.
As someone who didn't vote for Brexit, my observation is that there appears to be a small group of deeply embedded Remainers who are still fighting the Referendum of two years ago, still desperately trying to prove they were right. For them (and, it appears, you) there are indeed sides. One must mock the others mercilessly. With exclamation marks.
For the rest of the country, there seems to be a desire to get on with it and make the most of the cards we've been given. Yes, the government are making a meal of it, yes some of the decisions to rip up decades old institutions are hard to make. Yes, the rest of the process is long and boring and doesn't deliver instant ice-cream and sprinkles.
However, we've got to make those decisions, and we should be looking for the best opportunities - there are some significant benefits we can realise if we do what was voted for. Taking back control of trade agreements, tariffs, regional subsidies, CAP and CFP can make a serious material difference to the 'man on the street' if we so choose.
Unless of course we listen to the hecklers who delight in discomfort and the possibility of failure, just so that they can feel smug and justified. These are the people who offer no solutions, other than some perverse desire to hobble the country just so they can feel vindicated. I'm sure you'd love it to be funny just so you don't have to contribute anything useful yourself.
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Andy 73>As someone who didn't vote for Brexit
At least you got a vote then.
I agree there's nothing to be done but plough on and see what happens. Countries in general can get through all sorts of adversity. I just don't think the UK is in a position to do it quickly, effectively or without flattening the majority of people who voted fir brexit thinking it'd imprive their lives.
But ad I said, we can all take comfort from the laughs such as those generated by this story. And the many more like it we are going to see.
Because at least Britain still has its sense of humour.
But I stand by my, "Why don't you just move there/Send 'em home!" quip. Those are the type of comments that have gotten the UK into the position it's in today.
I can't wait to hear about all of the benefits that leaving the EU is netting us, but for some reason all we seem to hear about is problems caused by leaving the EU
Misery loves company, and all that. It's like climate change, everyone loves to read stories about how the world is going to end, and islands being drowned by rising sea levels obviously creates the "human-interest" stories beloved by newspapers. Clearly some of the changes will be positive, there will be places that become more fertile, warmer & wetter, but anyone who wrote a story about that would imediately have the PC brigade screaming at them for not taking the problem seriously, dismissing the suffering of the afflicted, and generally not showing sufficient panic.
We have to look at the clouds, no-one's allowed to look for silver linings these days.
Would be nice for the Brexit boys to at least come up with one single benefit....
As someone who is watching my daughters future living standards being thrown off a cliff, I would LOVE to see a benefit of Brexit, the will of the people etc etc
An actual benefit, not one that me writing here gets me banned from El Reg for raciest comments
Go on, any single benefit, can't be hard
(and we can ignore the one about our parliament taking back control, because when they do, the Daily Mail accuse them of treason)
@ Gordon Pryra
"Would be nice for the Brexit boys to at least come up with one single benefit...."
Are people still asking this tired question, its almost like it hasnt been answered many times or that it is even difficult. But anyway go on take your pick- economic, trade, immigration, sovereignty, democracy.
@ strum
This debate with remainers does seem to be getting easier and less intellectual. For example Gordon Pryra asking a question answered many times. For my offer to answer the question for him on a number of issues (economic, trade, immigration, sovereignty, democracy) leading to the usual downvotes without a single intelligent response. And of course your comment to keep that trend by making an amusing and incorrect claim without any basis.
I do appreciate this situation is an improvement on remainers trotting out the same disproved 'facts' however many times they were corrected. Hopefully this means remainers are realising how difficult it is to defend the EU or the claims made about its necessity.
codejunky> For my offer to answer the question for him on a number of issues (economic, trade, immigration, sovereignty, democracy)
That's not answering the question. That's typing a list of words!
Single example: Trade what? With whom? France is signing bigger and better trade understandings than the UK right now. How's that a indictment of brexit?!
codejunky> leading to the usual downvotes
Aww, did you lose a vote there? You are meant to keep silent and just accept the Will O' The People™® now. Them's the rules!
@ Dr_N
"That's not answering the question. That's typing a list of words!"
I am not sure how to respond to that without sounding insulting but please reread the exact section you quoted For my offer to answer the question for him on a number of issues (economic, trade, immigration, sovereignty, democracy). He asked for one reason brexit was a good idea and I offered to answer his question over any of those issues. As I have done a number of times before.
"Single example: Trade what? With whom? France is signing bigger and better trade understandings than the UK right now. How's that a indictment of brexit?!"
Right now? Isnt that where we are still in the EU and so the EU handles our trade options? They dictate our tariffs and they do all trade negotiation on our behalf. So your claim that the UK isnt signing anything forgets that the EU bars us from doing so.
@codejunky
Yeah, yeah I get that brexit is really just buzz-word bingo and there's no real substance behind any of it.
Trade: UK will be able to sign the bigglyist trade deals!
Immigration: UK can decide who to kick out. (Such as Commonwealth citizen. Errrrr...)
etc. etc. etc.
codejunky> Right now? Isnt that where we are still in the EU and so the EU handles our trade options?
Awww codejunky, the fact Macron's been touring the world drumming up big trade wins for France (as an EU country) must really shake your hardline brexiteer faith.
Maybe you've put too much stock in all that anti-EU propaganda you helped to spread?
Still, "Sovereignty!" eh? (Apart from those pesky Enemies Of The People®™ sat in the House Of Lords, natch.)
@ Dr_N
"Trade: UK will be able to sign the bigglyist trade deals!"
Isnt that the EU's stance? To be able to play with the big boys? To make a protectionist trade block based on the old world design?
"Immigration: UK can decide who to kick out. (Such as Commonwealth citizen. Errrrr...)"
UK being able to manage its own borders. That used to be how it worked.
"Awww codejunky, the fact Macron's been touring the world drumming up big trade wins for France (as an EU country) must really shake your hardline brexiteer faith."
Not at all, good for the French they do need it after the last president. However as an EU country there is only so little he can do as they are bound by the EU. At least Macron is aware that the French would probably vote out of the EU if given a choice (which he wont).
"Maybe you've put too much stock in all that anti-EU propaganda you helped to spread?"
Possibly but I expect it is you who put too much stock in the pro EU propaganda. You talk of Macron as if that is a pro EU argument. He was elected on the platform of meaningful reform of the EU, something he is finding is not at all easy. The runner up was the only anti EU party which also happen to be the most detestable party and hardest to gain votes.
In all cases - better within the EU.
You've got to be kidding, have you ever lived elsewhere in the EU? The eurozone economy is shit, the French are far more anti-immigration than the UK (can you imagine the outcry if the BNP got even half the votes that the Front National gets?), The EU pays lip service to democracy with a sinecure of a parliament while runnig a paternalistic bureacracy. It's a protectionist trade bloc, which always leads to mediocrity, and as for sovereignty, you don't get much of that in a federal state.Whether the UK can do better on its own remains to be seen, but whatever the problems are, the EU is not the right solution.
It hasn’t been answered. Democracy has certainly been severely damaged by the idiots who claim that a decision taken by a small majority that had been lied to cannot be discussed or overthrown. Economy and trade have been damaged. And the latest attempts of the government to throw out legal immigrants has ended in utter shame and embarrassment.
@ gnasher729
"It hasn’t been answered"
Look through my message history I have written all of those points into a long comment a number of times.
"Democracy has certainly been severely damaged by the idiots who claim that a decision taken by a small majority that had been lied to cannot be discussed or overthrown."
If you think democracy is damaged because the majority vote is considered to have decided the direction to take then I think you have a difficulty with democracy. You say leave was lied to, which means you either omit that remain was lied to and the UK population directly threatened by the remain campaign or you are in denial. As for overthrown that truly is not democratic talk. If you want to go about things the democratic way then the next election vote for the lib dems who were the only pro-EU major party last election and possibly the next.
"Economy and trade have been damaged."
Really? Since 2008 the gov and BoE have been aiming to reduce the strength of the currency, increase inflation, increase the base rate and reduce the QE. Interesting that the economy was improving as the currency fell when we decided to leave the EU. If you have a problem with trade then you show brexit is good thing. We are currently in the EU and the EU dictates our trade status. When we leave we are free to world wide trade.
"And the latest attempts of the government to throw out legal immigrants has ended in utter shame and embarrassment."
I agree. The gov is not doing a very good job. But then my opinion of this gov is coloured by their determination to remain.
Well sadly I can't see a single benefit. I'm Irish but lived in England for nearly 10 very very happy years and both of my kids were born in England so I have great love for the green and pleasant land. The unfortunate fact is brexit was created by the have-nots of the UK (mainly England) so those people don't give a rat's about the implications because they had no buy-in anyway. I do agree that given this context leadership is desperately needed but not there which is a real shame. However, I for one have great confidence in the British people and I think the *actual* people will pull through in the end, even with appalling leadership.
Why do we want to get involved in Galileo? Be like all the other non-EU European countries and just use the service. So what if we have to buy French receivers, we buy GPS receivers from the Far East so it's not as though it's breaking new ground. And by receivers I mean the actual silicon, not the end consumer boxes.
We want to get involved in it for the same reason that it exists in the first place: we want a positioning system we control, so we are not vulnerable to someone (perhaps someone who has taken against us in some kind of temper tantrum) turning the system off or degrading it at some time inconvenient to us.
the government claimed there would be high quality jobs continuing in the UK in the design and support of future space junk, and that companies were not moving out of the UK, honest guv'nr.
In an unusually clear position from the EU the government still seems to hope that there is room for negotiation. Its more like Iran expecting to win the contract to build US nukes...
We don't like to be seen as a second class country. America, Russia and the EU have their GPS systems while we are scrabbling for crumbs like every other third-country.
We want a seat at the top table; our exceptionalism insists we deserve that. It is just a little inconvenient that we resigned from the club which is the location of this particular top table.
But, never mind, we'll show Johnny Foreigner we can do just as well without them. British pride and patriotism requires it. For Queen, Country and St George. We may have lost our empire but, by God's divine hand and grace, we will have that British constellation above us, above everyone. Huzza!
I am sure Britain could build the bestest navigation system in the world. It would be called the Postoffice Imperial Satellite System and would have at least one furlong 2D accuracy and 3 rod elevation accuracy. Eat that with your fancy centimetres!
It would be exclusively produced by Dyson (but manufactered in Asia) but he will ask a decent price, honest. Oh, and the noise of the receiver would make any conversation impossible but at least it would look really good, like a Star Wars prop. Don't forget to stock up on the proprietary batteries, available exclusively from your local Post Office upon showing your birth certificate.
Is that the thing you find in a WHSmiths 10 miles away?
Once we have rid ourselves of the iron grip of the globalising EU, we will be free to move all our Post Offices back into the local corner shop where they belong. This is what Mr Farage promised me and this is what I voted for. I believe the Tory government will make this their priority once the shackles have been cast off and we've taken back control.
They'd damn well better make this a priority, because I plan to have all my special unicorn feed delivered to Mr Patel's and held for me.
We don't like to be seen as a second class country. America, Russia and the EU have their GPS systems while we are scrabbling for crumbs like every other third-country.
Which is, of course, the main reason the EU is building Galileo, it doesn't want to be seen as living off US and Russian crumbs. Better to beggar taxpayers by duplicating systems than be seen as third-rate power.
"Which is, of course, the main reason the EU is building Galileo, it doesn't want to be seen as living off US and Russian crumbs."
Glad I wasnt the only one to spot that. I originally thought he was talking about the EU before the ranting. Especially since the EU are still building the system and last I heard they decided we should be cut off then realised the encryption tech was part of the UK development.
We don't like to be seen as a second class country. America, Russia and the EU have their GPS systems while we are scrabbling for crumbs like every other third-country.
Which is, of course, the main reason the EU is building Galileo, it doesn't want to be seen as living off US and Russian crumbs. Better to beggar taxpayers by duplicating systems than be seen as third-rate power.
Crumbs? Combined with 'Russia' or 'America' neither really sound appetizing or healthy - I'd heartily recommend cooking up something yourself, which is what the EU is doing.
The UK are only thinking of getting into the kitchen 'cause they are miffed at not being allowed in a members only restaurant any more despite cancelling their membership and throwing a stropand insisting they still be allowed to use the lav.
Which is, of course, the main reason the EU is building Galileo, it doesn't want to be seen as living off US and Russian crumbs.
Rather the EU realised it would be at a significant disadvantage if America or Russia denied or restricted services they critically relied upon if they ever ended up in a serious dispute with either, such as a trade war, a sanctions battle, or a physical conflict.
It may mostly be 'a waste of money' but most insurance is. Its worth only materialises when it's needed.
Hello codejunky.
Surprised you took so long to join the discussion.
And what is HMG's response
"We'll build our own global positioning constellation."
Are they f**king kidding me?
So that alleged £350m/week going to the NHS not going to happen then with this kind of spending.
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