Quote, misquotes & the truth about my appearance in the ‘Stronger In Europe’ leaflet

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.




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  • WatlingA5
    WatlingA5 Posts: 168
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    In his blog Martin says the programme is no longer on ITV's hub, but the debate section can be found on YouTube:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2G6RDy4eKw
  • footyguy
    footyguy Posts: 4,157
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    edited 21 May 2016 at 1:22PM
    ... Now can you spot the difference between what it says and what I actually said. It is identical in every way but one…


    Got it yet?


    OK here goes…
    Yes, it’s missing the phrase “The quote is accurate”....
    Did you see the "..." in the original version posted on Euro Guido ?
    That indicates something was edited out
    You'll see something similar at the start and end of the above quotation ;)
    (and I endeavour to do that on all of my posts)

    I thought it was well known what it signifies, especially to a journalist such as yourself.
    I can only presume Euro Guido took the easy option, and acceded to to your complaint, rather than waste time attempting to explain it to you.

    Perhaps I should have taken a lesson out of Euro Guido's book too? :cool:

    Btw, on a similar note, the inclusion of square brackets "[" and "]" within a quote usually also signifies something has been added (or sometimes modified) to what was actually said, in order to clarify matters to the reader. ;)
  • footyguy
    footyguy Posts: 4,157
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    edited 21 May 2016 at 1:45PM
    As you "do not back either side", do I take it you will not be exercising your democratic right on 23rd June?

    What would be the outcome if we all did this?

    Presumably the status quo would be maintained. i.e we will REMAIN in the EU ?

    :cool:

    To coin a phrase from the late Hughie Green:
    "It's make your mind up time, Folks!"
  • WatlingA5
    WatlingA5 Posts: 168
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    edited 22 May 2016 at 8:03AM
    I've been searching for info on that, and have not found any yet.

    Logic suggests that if you don't vote you are, by default, not in favour of leaving. So if only 50 per cent of voters add their cross, and even if the vote is 80-20 in favour of leaving, it still means the majority of the population could be considered to be not in favour of leaving. But how often does logic apply in politics..?

    If anyone has the answer, please let us know :)
  • footyguy
    footyguy Posts: 4,157
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    WatlingA5 wrote: »
    I've been searching for info on that, and have not found any yet.

    Logic suggests that if you don't vote you are, by default, not in favour of leaving. So if only 50 per cent of voters add their cross, and even if the vote is 80-20 in favour of leaving, it still means the majority of the population could be considered to be not in favour of leaving. But how often does logic apply in politics..?

    If anyone has the answer, please let us know :)

    I believe the referendum works on a straight forward majority vote of those that express a preference.

    But, despite all the debates over the actual wording, it is essentially a vote on whether or not to leave.

    So if no-one 'backs either side' then we will REMAIN in the EU.But if just one person votes to LEAVE, and the other 60million + of us don't 'back either side', then the outcome is we will LEAVE

    Hence:
    "It's make your mind up time, Folks!"

    Over the last 100 years, our forefathers fought at least for the right for us to decide (and about 1.5m paid the ultimate sacrifice at that time). I would say it is the least we can now do in rememberance of all those involved, is to stand up and be counted.
  • VT82
    VT82 Posts: 1,079
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    footyguy wrote: »
    As you "do not back either side", do I take it you will not be exercising your democratic right on 23rd June?
    Martin can have a view one way or another, and choose to vote accordingly, without necessarily choosing to endorse one of the campaigns. I know I wish some of those luvvies who signed the open letter last week had done so!

    But Martin, we really need your help in giving us some unbiased info please.

    I always go to the polls when we are given the chance. If it's a valid election, I will vote. If it's a waste of time election, I will spoil my ballot (hello PCC elections).

    For this referendum, I know it's super important, and I want to vote, but I really don't know which way to vote. The amount of hyperbole coming out of both camps is ridiculous. Could really do with some unbiased views on both options, and Martin is someone I would trust more than most.
  • wozearly
    wozearly Posts: 202
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    WatlingA5 wrote: »
    I've been searching for info on that, and have not found any yet.

    Logic suggests that if you don't vote you are, by default, not in favour of leaving. So if only 50 per cent of voters add their cross, and even if the vote is 80-20 in favour of leaving, it still means the majority of the population could be considered to be not in favour of leaving. But how often does logic apply in politics..?

    If anyone has the answer, please let us know :)

    It's a bit cheeky to appropriate the non-voters to one side of the argument or the other, as we don't know their reasons for abstaining. All we know is that they exercised their right not to vote.

    As a counter example, if the question was flipped around to be "Do you think we should stay in the EU?", would that suggest not voting was actually implicit support for yes?

    If there is no lower limit on turnout to make the vote binding (which there isn't in this case), the only rational way to handle it in a way that both sides consider reasonable is to assess the votes of people who did vote and disregard all non-voters and spoiled ballots. Which is what they'll do.

    In the incredibly unlikely event that turned out to be a dead 50-50 split, I imagine somewhere in a referendum document full of legalese it would indicate that the status quo would continue to apply (in this case, Remain).
  • wozearly
    wozearly Posts: 202
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    VT82 wrote: »
    For this referendum, I know it's super important, and I want to vote, but I really don't know which way to vote. The amount of hyperbole coming out of both camps is ridiculous.

    No different to any election, really. :beer:

    The difficulty is that for both sides lots remains unknown. The EU is currently going through an incredibly difficult period economically and politically (as, arguably, is the UK) with the fallout of the 2008 global recession and the ongoing mass migration crisis likely to continue for the forseeable future. On the surface, that makes leaving look remarkably sensible, but as no country has ever left before there isn't exactly a template to follow for what that might look like.

    Leaving the EU is more likely to lead to some short-term negative economic effects (which may be minor or major and, of course, might not happen at all), if only from the uncertainty that would follow, but with the potential for significant long-term losses, long-term benefits, or no major change.

    Staying in the EU is less likely to see a short-term hit (although there's no reason there couldn't be one), but has the potential for significant long-term losses, long-term benefits or no major change.

    In the absence of any clear facts pointing the direction to one way or the other, both sides are resorting to the tactic of increasingly severe rhetoric and dodgy statistics to try to sway undecided voters to their cause.

    That we've already seen references to world war three and comparisons with Hitler, that suggests it would be highly optimistic to hope for a more reasoned debate for the rest of the campaign. Unfortunately.
  • VT82
    VT82 Posts: 1,079
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    That sums up exactly what I feel about the whole debate. Too many unknowns to have an informed debate, so resorting to nonsense and scare tactics. I voted for this government, and don't really have a problem with them, but this referendum is just one big mess.

    What I really want to know from the government is...

    'If we were not in the EU, would we want to join it given the opportunity?'

    If yes, then we should of course choose to stay. If not, we should choose to leave. Yes, leaving will have short term consequences that could last 1 year/3 years/10 years. But we won't get another chance to vote on this for 30 years, and by this point, the short term consequences of leaving would be long forgotten about. You shouldn't let the impact over the immediate short term stop you making the choice that could be the right one for the long term.

    But of course governments are always short term in nature, only worrying about the next election result.

    This sounds like I want the Leave campaign to win, but I don't, all I want to know is 'If we were not in the EU, would we want to join it given the opportunity?'
  • wozearly
    wozearly Posts: 202
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    edited 24 May 2016 at 8:31PM
    VT82 wrote: »
    That sums up exactly what I feel about the whole debate. Too many unknowns to have an informed debate, so resorting to nonsense and scare tactics. I voted for this government, and don't really have a problem with them, but this referendum is just one big mess.

    What I really want to know from the government is...

    'If we were not in the EU, would we want to join it given the opportunity?'

    If yes, then we should of course choose to stay. If not, we should choose to leave. Yes, leaving will have short term consequences that could last 1 year/3 years/10 years. But we won't get another chance to vote on this for 30 years, and by this point, the short term consequences of leaving would be long forgotten about. You shouldn't let the impact over the immediate short term stop you making the choice that could be the right one for the long term.

    But of course governments are always short term in nature, only worrying about the next election result.

    This sounds like I want the Leave campaign to win, but I don't, all I want to know is 'If we were not in the EU, would we want to join it given the opportunity?'

    I didn't vote for this government, but I don't take any particular pleasure from watching them engage in a very public civil war...

    I'm not convinced there's a great deal of clarity about the long-term view. People aren't, as a general rule, very good at long-term predictions. Neville Chamberlain's "peace in our time" comment the year before World War II began, Gordon Brown stating he'd "abolished boom and bust" shortly before a socking great global recession, Blockbuster's management team dismissing the opportunity to buy Netflix (which later annihilated them from the market), Alex Salmond confidently predicting oil revenues would make Scotland richer on its own shortly before the global oil price tanked for the longest period in recent history, George Osborne having to revise budget forecasts every quarter as the OBR re-corrects its previous assumptions...

    The short answer is that no-one really knows for sure, and any predictions could easily be overtaken by events.

    When you refer to "the government", if you mean the part spearheaded by David Cameron and George Osborne, then their view was always in favour of Remain - the referendum wasn't proposed because Cameron believed it was a good idea, or because the negotiations he was seeking were critical (how often have they been mentioned in the campaign to date?). It was a short-term political judgement for the election which has, in entirely predictable fashion given the Conservative party's tortured history with the EU, come back to haunt him with a vengeance.

    Of course, if by "the government" you mean the part spearheaded by Iain Duncan-Smith and Michael Gove, their view was always in favour of Leave - and are pushing this opportunity for all it's worth.

    So even "the government" wouldn't give a single answer to that question. ;)


    For my own thoughts, if we weren't in the EU we probably wouldn't be looking to join it right now, because it's not having its finest hour. But there are reasons we pushed so hard to join it, which I imagine would resurface again in the future. The more evidently widespread public support for leaving is still a relatively recent phenomenon - not that this makes it the wrong choice, of course.

    It's also worth noting that EU border countries have consistently sought and, over time, achieved EU membership. The union has steadily grown over time, with no countries (to date) having left it - not that this makes it the right choice, of course.

    The economics are a bit different for a comparatively poorer new joiner compared to one its richer members, so it's not necessarily a perfect comparison - countries like Norway and Switzerland have politely stayed out of the EU but negotiated access to the common market, albeit at the cost of concessions such as freedom of movement to live and work which the Leave campaign is targeting as a key thing to scrap.

    There's almost certainly not a right or wrong answer - much like the discussions in the Scottish independence referendum, there are advantages and disadvantages to being a smaller independent national unit, and advantages and disadvantages to being part of a broader coalition of nations with elements of centralised government.

    As very few reliable facts have surfaced despite a long lead-in time for both sides to marshall their arguments, you may ultimately have to vote as your conscience dictates...
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