Brexit, the economy and house prices part 5

Herzlos

It's possible to admit something is imperfect whilst still valuing it though. The EU has It's flaws (no-one has claimed it was perfect), but we're still better off in it.

The UK has flaws too, and they are probably only going to get worse.

Arklight

The reason many Brexits are so tight lipped about stating precisely what they want to be free from when they leave Europe is because Brexit is a right wing movement, but many 'shy Brexiteers' are ashamed to publicly state their beliefs.

Occasionally some twit will stick his neck over the parapet and end up on LBC sounding off about Muslims, brown faces in hospitals, immigrants, and women with university degrees, but mostly they are looking at their shuffling feet - boiling with anger at a world that leaves them too embarrassed to articulate their own prejudice.

This is why this national debate goes nowhere, because one side won’t say what they actually want.

In reality, Europe has very little to do with the Right's long list of grievances, and leaving the EU won’t ameliorate right wingers perpetual sense of victim-hood. That particular wolf lives in their heads and they'll feed it every day regardless.

cogito

Arklight wrote: »

The reason many Brexits are so tight lipped about stating precisely what they want to be free from when they leave Europe is because Brexit is a right wing movement, but many 'shy Brexiteers' are ashamed to publicly state their beliefs.

Sounds like you're talking about well known right winger Jeremy Corbyn.

CKhalvashi

Rinoa wrote: »

Happens in so many other industries. Procurment is supposed to be EU wide. In reality every other government ensures their own companies get the business.

Go to google and look at images of French, German and UK police cars. UK has police cars imported from everywhere. All French police cars are Renault, Citroen, all German police cars are VW, Mercedes.

Over time our industries have suffered as we abide by the rules whilst other countries look after their own.

We've been stiched up for 45 years.

My local police force uses the Vauxhall Astra, while a neighbouring one also uses a large amount of Vauxhall vehicles mixed with Ford and Hyundai.

The Astra is built in Cheshire and I believe the reason why they're so common is as a result of Vauxhall factory fitting the emergency bits but leaving all the 'normal car' bits tucked away so it can be decommissioned after around 4 years and sold to the general public cheaply and quickly. To the best of my knowledge Vauxhall are the only manufacturer with the ability to do this which I'd have thought would bring the supply price down. I'm happy to be proven wrong on this one as I know very little about police cars.

Manufacturer support may be the reason why there are French cars in France (although there are a number of Dacia vehicles appearing) and German cars in Germany. I can't vouch for this though.

buglawton

Herzlos wrote: »

It's possible to admit something is imperfect whilst still valuing it though. The EU has It's flaws (no-one has claimed it was perfect), but we're still better off in it.

The UK has flaws too, and they are probably only going to get worse.

We did value our membership and Cameron went to Europe hoping to get concessions on the UK controlling its immigration from EU, exactly so we could stay in on new terms. However Camerons wish list was weak and what he came away with even weaker. The EU leadership demonstrated how it wanted to stick to its principles regardless of the migration landscape having changed beyond recognition since we first joined.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/19/eu-deal-what-david-cameron-asked-for-and-what-he-actually-got/

Rinoa

CKhalvashi wrote: »

My local police force uses the Vauxhall Astra, while a neighbouring one also uses a large amount of Vauxhall vehicles mixed with Ford and Hyundai.

It's good that some forces still use British built cars. But sadly this is becoming the exception.

This from a couple of years ago. I doubt anythings changed:

Ministers are under fire for allowing a multi-million pound contract for thousands of new police vehciles to be handed to foreign car firms which will make them outside of the UK.

The deal is the first time that so many police forces have joined together to buy cars at the same time to try to secure a cheaper deal for taxpayers.

It will see Ford, Peugeot, BMW and Vauxhall provide 3,000 new vehicles worth tens of millions of pounds for over half of Britain’s police forces over the next two years.

Police forces said they were powerless to offer the contracts to British car factories because European Union procurement rules meant they had to go to the cheapest bidder.

Mike Penning, the Policing minister, said he would examine whether more could be done to encourage British police forces to buy British-made cars.

The news has come just as the Metropolitan Police – the country’s biggest force – is running its own procurement process to replace thousands of police vehicles.
The deal – worth £34million – was announced without fanfare last month by West Yorkshire police, which was the lead force in the negotiations. Buying in bulk saved the forces £5million.
The main vehicle supply contract was awarded to Peugeot, while Vauxhall was awarded a separate deal to supply vans using the same process.
It includes for Peugeot’s 208 and 308 cars, and the Partner, which are made in France, BMW's 3 and 5 series, which are made in Germany.

Labour criticised the decision pointing out that police and France and Germany are never seen driving around in British-made vehicles such as Nissan’s or Toyota’s models.
Jack Dromey, the shadow policing minister, said Home Secretary Theresa May “must not let London down” and intervene to ensure the vehicles were British-made.
He said: “The Government is guilt of a lamentable failure to use taxpayers’ money to buy British for British bobbies.
“No French police minister would ever buy British cars for French gendarmes. Buying British would also boost British manufacturing.”
Chris Matheson, Labour MP for the City of Chester, accused the Government of “betraying” the British car industry by not buying British-made cars.
He said: “No other major EU country would betray one of its leading industries in this way.”
It was very hard “to go to Germany and find a police car that is not an Audi, a Mercedes, or a Volkswagen or to go to France and find a police car that is not a Peugeot, a Citreon or a Renault”.

And this is just police cars. How much do we lose out with other government departments under the 'pretend' procurement rules. NHS and local autrhorities spring to mind.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11804048/Ministers-under-fire-for-allowing-half-of-Britains-police-forces-to-order-3000-foreign-made-vehicles.html

Tromking

buglawton wrote: »

We did value our membership and Cameron went to Europe hoping to get concessions on the UK controlling its immigration from EU, exactly so we could stay in on new terms. However Camerons wish list was weak and what he came away with even weaker. The EU leadership demonstrated how it wanted to stick to its principles regardless of the migration landscape having changed beyond recognition since we first joined.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/19/eu-deal-what-david-cameron-asked-for-and-what-he-actually-got/

I suspect the passage of time will not be kind to the movers and shakers on the mainland who failed and in some cases revelled, in not throwing the hapless Cameron a kipper two years ago.
They'll never admit it of course but the loss of the UK was and is a geopolitical faux pas of monumental proportions.
Only Brussels could have turned a referendum in just one of its member nations into an existential crisis for the whole EU project.

CKhalvashi

Rinoa wrote: »

It's good that some forces still use British built cars. But sadly this is becoming the exception.

This from a couple of years ago. I doubt anythings changed

Thanks for the info.

And this is just police cars. How much do we lose out with other government departments under the 'pretend' procurement rules. NHS and local autrhorities spring to mind.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11804048/Ministers-under-fire-for-allowing-half-of-Britains-police-forces-to-order-3000-foreign-made-vehicles.html

There's a good reason why the NHS largely use Sprinters, which is the same reason as many private delivery companies use them and just about every converted band van you'll find is a Sprinter.

They're flexible to convert, reliable, tolerate a lot of abuse and cheap to keep on the road. When looked at as a whole life cost the marginally higher purchase price is more than recouped from reduced downtime and higher residual values.

Is there actually a 5t van (preferably chassis cab) built in the UK now? That is the spec of many ambulances due to the higher payload rather than the 3.5t norm.

I do (as long as British manufacturers can compete) agree to an extent with you on this issue, just want to make sure that we're working on facts (that includes me, hence the question above) with a vehicle that is actually available rather than a hypothetical situation.

Rough_Justice

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Thanks for the info.



There's a good reason why the NHS largely use Sprinters, which is the same reason as many private delivery companies use them and just about every converted band van you'll find is a Sprinter.

They're flexible to convert, reliable, tolerate a lot of abuse and cheap to keep on the road. When looked at as a whole life cost the marginally higher purchase price is more than recouped from reduced downtime and higher residual values.

Is there actually a 5t van (preferably chassis cab) built in the UK now? That is the spec of many ambulances due to the higher payload rather than the 3.5t norm.

I do (as long as British manufacturers can compete) agree to an extent with you on this issue, just want to make sure that we're working on facts (that includes me, hence the question above) with a vehicle that is actually available rather than a hypothetical situation.

The reason that there isn't a UK-made equivalent could again be placed at the door of the EU.
Maybe you're too young to remember the Bedford CF for example, an iconic British van?
Or the Leyland (latterly Leyland/Daf) vans the were the mainstay of many companies including the Post Office?

Then wonder about EU funding Ford to start a factory in Turkey to make Transits, taking advantage of cheaper Turkish labour and wonder why such brands as Bedford and Leyland/Daf no longer exist.
It has IMHO been part of certain Eurocrats grand scheme for decades to weaken UK manufacturing as much as possible, perhaps to ensure subservience to the EU.
But surely these Eurocrat's wouldn't be so duplicitous.
Would they?
:whistle:

Richard_Overton_2911

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Thanks for the info.



There's a good reason why the NHS largely use Sprinters, which is the same reason as many private delivery companies use them and just about every converted band van you'll find is a Sprinter.

They're flexible to convert, reliable, tolerate a lot of abuse and cheap to keep on the road. When looked at as a whole life cost the marginally higher purchase price is more than recouped from reduced downtime and higher residual values.

Not sure I'd agree with that because if you look at the delivery companies (DPD etc) as an example there are very very few Mercedes vans compared to Citroed relays or Peugeot Boxer vans. The motorhome industry is the same ,you find very few Merc based coachbuilds compared to Fiat Ducato or Peugeot Boxers which are all made in the same factory in Italy along with Citroen relays. I've chatted to a few Ocado Delivery drivers are they weren't impressed with the Sprinters.

The relay/boxer/ducato diesel engines are bullet proof and any bodyshop or car machanic worth their salt will tell you Merc Sprinters will rust far quicker than a relay,Boxer or Ducato. Merc Sprinter have been known to have major issues with the injection systems .

The Mercedes Vito Vans are even worse . I'm very suprised Mercedes are willing to put their badges on their vans..

French people tend to buy French build cars, Germans tend to buy Germany Built cars, Italians tend to buy Italian built cars but Brits are told they are insular, Little Englanders if they asked about what British built cars are on offer..