Brexit

So, there are no benefits, then. Not if you actually understand the practical realities of geopolitics.

I mean, right there you go from saying we could become a Socialist state and then say the UK right wants to make all the decisions!

Political theory is all very well, but political reality always wins out. The UK isn't going to become a Great Socialist State with the UK right in power. The UK isn't going to get improved trade deals outside of the EU because we've reduced our bargaining power and influence by leaving it - as well as proving ourselves to be unreliable negotiating partners who renege on our obligations and agreements to score short-term political points for a domestic audience.

No-one in their right mind will be cutting us any slack or doing us any favours in trade deals.

The sad thing is that this was all predictable - was actually predicted! - but a large proportion of the electorate bought into the fantasy of sunlit uplands and '£350m extra a week for the NHS'.

I think next up will be ECHR withdrawal - the perfect wedge issue to divide everyone again. 

Are all peerages now considered political?

Sir Ian Botham as a peer politically is stupid. But if it's a reward for for sporting and charity exploits it's totally deserved. For a ong time peerages were given as a reward for service to the country. Now they seem totally political.

Is this why there have never been more actor peerages - I think 6 are listed on wiki but half of them were probably political. Lord Olivier's was likely only one for services to drama. Lord Attenborough had a good acting career and an elite directing one but his peerage was as much for his immense charity work and also he was a fine chairman of Channel 4. Lord Miles I never understood how he got one.

ALW had been knighted circa 1992 so a peerage was probably due. It was only years later I realised it was likely political as much as his contribution to music. Someone like Benjamin Britten's peerage was clearly for his contribution to music. BB had been made a Companion of Honour and Order of Merit previously but had apparently turned down knighthood and peerages before hand.

A lot of the red wall brexit voters still think they will notice the amount of immigrants in their area reducing - not sure it will happen.

Well... not as explosive in the sense that people were looking for direct evidence of Russian interference in the referendum process.

I agree the fact they didn't look is worse - far worse - but the bare facts of the report give the right-wing press and people like Farage an easy way to spin it. They can claim - they are claiming - that the report shows no evidence of interference, and plenty of people are credulous enough to take that claim at face value. If the report showed clear evidence of Russian interference, there'd perhaps be less wiggle-room for people to spin it.

There is no excuse - at all - for it not having been made available prior to last year's election, although Jeremy Corbyn was such a staggeringly incompetent leader of the opposition that Labour may not have gained much capital from it.

Universities are going to be wrecked by Brexit - reduction in RU students coinciding with Cornovirus and likely banning of Chinese Students

Deadlines annoy me. In many cases the deadline is set by agreement between a group of people and it could be changed at any time by those same people coming to a new agreement, but somehow once the deadline has been called into existence it takes on a dreadful reality of its own and nobody dare question it. The deadline must be adhered to no matter how much it costs, even if it would cost literally nothing to change it.