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FUCK YES LET'S LEAVE GET HYPE YEY

Casual yes, let's leave and get independence done with

Meh, probably just scribble all over my vote ballot to spite tryhards

Casual no, let's remain and get integration done with

FUCK NO LET'S REMAIN GET CALM YEY

[Powder Miner]

I can't say I much appreciate the tone on that one, Sheb.

I'm aware that the British government extends well beyond the parliament, and that the two houses of said parliament do not constitute the whole of the British government (even if they do constitute much more than the Congress does in the US). But when I am talking about legislative layers, it should be a safe assumption that I am referring to the parliamentary section of the British government when I say "government", and there shouldn't be any need to ignore the rest of the content of my post just to nitpick that specific usage.

And just in case I have to specifically spell it out, a government is the system that, well, governs a country, dealing with laws, enforcement, defense, and seeing for the general welfare of the country that it oversees. A parliamentary government is a certain variety of structure of said system, largely combining the legislative and executive tasks to a single body of legislators, strictly regimented by party and often characterized with multiple parties and strong party power, that choose an executive leader (the Prime Minister) from within their ranks, though certain countries such as France augment this with an additional executive official, a more directly elected president.

Britain's government is a parliamentary system, so the parliament is incredibly central to the top level decisions made within the government, but it does not constitute the entirety of said government, as agencies and such define the government's abilities and responsibilities outside of legislation, and flesh out said government. While the European Union is not a country as such, it still largely centers around a parliamentary hybrid system -- the effective upper house is the directly elected European Parliament (as earlier stated, a Parliament), and my silly meme "xzibit levels of parliament" is a response to the fact that it is two layers of parliament between the EU and the British people, and parliaments as a system (especially the British system) tend to heavily lean against the minority, considering that party solidarity combined with the fact that the executive functions are controlled by the party with the largest amount of seats, even in the European Parliament -- it is the majority of the European Parliament that chooses the members of the European Commission, after all, which functions both in a way as the lower house and as the executive service of the EU's "government". The point I was making was that minority British opinions are likely to be utterly quashed between the two, which I counted as undemocratic.

As for my comparing of the parliaments with the commission... the number of members is an utter triviality, and the structure of said legislative services, for lack of a better term I can think of right now, really does not even matter when the comparison made is one of function -- the European Commission fulfills several legislative functions, and the executive functions it and its President do fill are in many ways similar to the executive functions fulfilled by the parliament and the Prime Minister (who, while admittedly not technically chosen by the majority party of the House of Commons, is for the vast majority of Prime Ministers chosen on that criteria). The comparison is not an unnatural one in the slightest.

I would much rather you attack the content of my argument rather than strike at my specific usage of terms and move things to the matter of my technical knowledge. Especially since I don't even think my knowledge of the whole thing is that poor.

[Loud Whispers]

Please chill guys, no ad hominems only banter!

[Powder Miner]

Alright, I'm sorry. I got worked up.

[nenjin]

Brash Banter Births Bans?

[Powder Miner]

that alliteration is both wonderful and terrifying in its implications

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler: On formatting (click to show/hide)

How best to edit this?
And should I ignore the ones with "you've missed the point" or "we know what you think, but it's just not a fact"? Probably not. Let's just try to be brief.  - er.

Whatever is easiest for you, dead serious I've got an easy to use comp

Also if you think I've missed the point just tell me, if you think there is confusion clarify it otherwise this well get very confusing very quickly :D

Spoiler: Smells like teenage spirit (click to show/hide)

Your argument of "if not out, then further in" makes too many assumptions (but not as many as your opinion that outwards lies pure Nirvana).

What assumptions?

"I think that one of the reasons that European citizens are stepping away from the European project is that we are interfering in too many domains of their private lives and too many domains where the member states are better placed to take action and pass legislation."
.."We were wrong in overregulating and interfering too much in the daily lives of our fellow citizens," said Juncker "But we would also be wrong if we insufficiently respected the principle of solidarity," he added.
Nevertheless "people who want more national things at the expense of European principles" will find themselves defenceless."
President Juncker

The Commission will never take a step backwards and allow national democracies to regain strength. The outstanding policy for the EU is integration and centralization, at what point in the EU has it had the choice to strengthen national democracy or strengthen the EU where it has not chosen to strengthen the EU at expense of the nation? The ever closer union is more than a marketable catchphrase, I feel I'm repeating myself here. It is policy. The European Union only moves in reform in one direction, that is towards ever more centralization. Failed constitutions become Lisbon Treaties, failed referendums become amended so national electorates need not be consulted (France, soon Netherlands), or else just repeated until won (Ireland), suggestions become legally binding requirements (Schengen Agreement), at what point has the EU favoured giving nation states their power back?
My argument makes only one assumption, and that is that the EU will continue to act as they have demonstrated they act by their actions, treaties and by their words. This is why Cameron only walked away with an opt out for a non-legally binding phrase securing us nothing that guarantees independence.

Spoiler: Predicting Earthquakes on Fault Lines makes one a prophet (click to show/hide)

analyze concrete factors that determine the probability of things happening so.

.my speculation, I label as speculation and guess and basic what-ifs. Your speculation, will be so, apparently. Somebody is doing this wrong.

Yes, you are doing this wrong. Your speculation is wrongly labeled speculation. Conjecture would be to form some conclusion off of incomplete information, to guess would be to form some conclusion off of insufficient information to award confidence, to speculate would be to form conjecture without firm evidence.

When you say the EU could with vague notions of unexplained competency turn Spain into London or Dublin into Heathrow without a shred of evidence, I can show you where the EU is delaying our Heathrow expansion and has wasted hundreds of millions of euros developing economic flops without a shred of acumen - versus your unfounded claim that they could woo the world with sweet words and people would arbitrarily throw money at them. When I predict that the EU seeks further integration, it is based off of the analysis that the EU is as of now committed towards further integration and has always been committed towards further integration. Nothing has changed in their views, in response to the Eurozone crisis they remained committed to expanding the Eurozone and when the migrant crisis hit they remained committed to expanding and defending countries' destruction of their borders (even using such an opportunity to expand the powers of Frontex!).

Spoiler: Invest in Heathrow obviously. Or maybe Gatwick, to btfo Heathrow shills (click to show/hide)

Increase British investment in Ireland obviously,

So, stop spending money on Europe and start spending money in Europe... Something screwy with that vision.

First off the European Union is not Europe, if you shall strike me for using pro-UK then we are stuck in this boat
Second off there is a difference between investing in your hypothetical Dublinair Empire and spending money on the European Union.
See, when we spend money on the European Union, we are not investing in Europe. We are throwing money at bureaucrats so they can pay themselves ludicrous salaries. That's not an investment, we get scratch in returns, except to see our own charities, institutions and academia turned against the UK in yet more of the EU's pointless popularity contests (that they waste our money on!).
If Dublin suddenly became a major international hub then I'd want no money going to these bureaucrats, I'd want all the investment going towards helping those Dubliners deliver their hypothetical world class service - service which would then benefit the UK, and whose profits would grant British investors excellent returns. This is the difference between investing and spending money
Personally I suggest British investors continue looking heavily abroad at India and Africa, the profits are much more rewarding and they do more for humanity :)
When you invest in a business, if it busts then you lose out on your investment, if it succeeds you gain profit in return. When you give money to the EU, it's gone. Whatever they do with it, whether it's just for popularity or building financial failures, doesn't matter. Should they succeed, they take all the literal credit.

When they aren't stopping us from investing in our own airports that is >_>
For real, if your big concern is Dublin usurping Heathrow, why would you be in favour of the Entity delaying Heathrow's expansion?

Spoiler: The EU are the Hindenburgs of aviation investment, the Titanic of wise marketing (click to show/hide)

much work is to be done in order to avoid the calamity the EU is self-inflicting [...] Instead of trying to turn Dublin into a titanic international transit hub, they waste our money enabling Poland to make financial flops.

Ever thought that there was no need for the flops? And that once there is a need, it can be done without flopping?

What are you talking about? Of course there was no need for the flops, that's why it makes it so puzzling that the EU sought to fund them instead of actual airports that had need of expansion like Heathrow, Gatwick, Paris, Dublin - I don't know how the bloody hell the EU decides seeking near guaranteed profit over this retarded ego wank is a good idea, I can only begin to wonder if the people they selected to subsidize this were career bureaucrats who've never handled business in their life.
The European Union is incompetent m8 in identifying opportunity and mitigating damage. Shit's gonna drown

It can be done without flopping but the EU would rather flop
Depressing

Spoiler: Year by year the EU tries, I surprised must strike their lies, I shed a tear - not for bankers, I consider them, total wankers, but to know one day they'll lose (click to show/hide)

And you know what? If we had surrendered our Central Bank

We didn't, and there's no reliable sign we will, and I'm ok with that. Find yourself a Europhile to argue this with.

If the EU attempts to gain control of our finances, banks and central bank every single bloody year for year and year on end, what conclusion is there to draw other than the fact that the EU wants to take control of British finance and we're giving them the tools to do so legally without resistance?
Every single year the EU without fail attempts to take control over our ability to fund ourselves, we lose that then we automatically lose control of our country. The EU can claim supremacy over our law but without control over our country - they hold no mechanism to force us to their will without our good faith.

Seriously you must be avin a laff, they've been coming after our finance for a long time and every time they've lost. Thing is -

They only need to win once.

Spoiler: 1/5 national democracies end this way (click to show/hide)

Hahaha there is no amount of depression our nation could endure that would turn Spain into London,

London (Britain/England'n'Wales) into below (Madrid/Barcelona/wherever) Spain/wherever, was the rough example at this point.

Very rough, too rough to illustrate anything - Frankfurt and Paris are the genuine contenders here, not Spain

Spoiler: The musings of long-dead Italians living in the times of explosive change (click to show/hide)

Some nondescript coup de gras they totally have the means to deliver once the UK suffers some nondescript disaster that affects us in the world's eyes in a nondescript way?

The fortunes of politics and finance can turn on a dime. Or the requisite number of eurocents. Your prognostication might be better than mine. I already said it's the dark fuzziness of my visions that I find unenticing, but your clearer images do call you into the tunnel of light, I know.

"I have realized that men have believed and still believe that the world is run by God and by fortune and that however shrewd men may be they can't do anything about it and have no way of protecting themselves. As a result they may decide that it's hardly worth making the effort and leave events to chance. This attitude is more prevalent these days as a result of the huge changes we have witnessed and are still witnessing every day, things that no one could have predicted. Sometimes, thinking it over, I have leaned that way myself.
...Fortune's the same (as a flooding river). It shows its power where no one has taken steps to contain it, flooding into places where it finds neither banks nor dykes to hold it back. And if you look at Italy, which has been both the scene of revolutionary changes and the agent which set them in motion, you'll see it's a land with neither banks nor dykes to protect it." - Niccolo Machiavelli
That's the thing with investing, you will lose as a matter of when, not if. So if losses are guaranteed, why do we invest?
We invest because we look to the rains to make profit from them - the gains from irrigation far surpass the losses in droughts and floods, maximized yet further when with floodgates and meteorologists stacking the odds, the odds are further in our favour. Thus we invest!

In the event of a Brexit they'll be forced to consolidate their hold on their current states and stabilize the already shaky Eurodolla.

Yes, and perhaps end up with a solution.

I don't doubt they'll end up with a solution, they'll be forced to to ensure their survival. If they don't then that's it - social project is over, disintegration is scheduled. They'll probably end up having to buy Euros with their gold and dollars, further boosting confidence in the Euro by purchasing more with IMF loans funded by the Federal Reserve, attempting to offset everyone buying dollars with Euros. This will throw a spanner in their attempt at control of fiscal policy for a while whilst they are already coping with budget issues resulting from the migration crisis, the eurozone crisis and their sheer inability to actually invest wisely.

Spoiler: The Russians hide in metal boxes? We should take away their metal boxes! (click to show/hide)

Coal had to go

But not that way. Supply was cut quicker far quicker than demand did even after the pressures of forced importation. Local coal was still of good quality and availability, and it was years until Environmental pressures were significant (so an accidental early benefit the environment, perhaps, if not for the bituminous coal bought in to replace the anthrecite supply). It was a petulent mess of a policy.

"business minister, Matthew Hancock, argued that the £338m said to be required for this plan "does not represent value for money".
There's your answer. If there's better prospects available, why would you pick the option that rewards you with less? There is no such thing as forced importation of coal, though I do find the image of Russians aggressively exporting coal into British furnaces to be quite amusing.

When all signs point to decline investing in it is a poor idea, since you're pretty much guaranteed that you won't make profit. It would take gas prices rising sky high (after the Saudis have been dumping oil, not gonna happen), biomass to have never been invented (biomass still exists) and for there to either be more coal or some revolutionary breakthrough that allows for more coal to be extracted, same way the Texan gas fields went dead - then were revived after they learned fracking. Much better for British coal companies as is to seek employment from Chinese or African firms looking to efficiently extract methane and coal from their richer grounds.

And steel was so hit in the '80s that many recent projects cannot have used British steel stocks for key elements because we do not make that type of steel anymore (even though we originally developed it) because of defundings and closures.

Look further - why was funding pulled and why were there closures? What factors led to this?

And that situation was exploited by international rivals, not caused. The latest thing with China is just a cherry on top, but I warrant that you'd not heard so much about the issue as I, until the recent headlining news, whilst I've been much closer the action for most of my life.  Like one handshake away from someone directly involved and two handshakes away from someone who may have helped sell a supergun pressure vessels to Saddam Hussein, in one direction and in another direction someone behind the success of this test of a nuclear flask (No, not the namechecked Group 4, but I also know someone who did prisoner escort for them, as at happens. )  Look, trust me, it's a historically raw subject, although I don't want to pull 'rank' on this one if I can help it.

Neat! I live in London though, so I never accept people's assertions based off of rank to be true. Everyone knows Lord so and so, or a treasurer, or a President this or Minister that. Oil tycoons, oligarchs, Princes, Executives, Actors - it were only three months ago I had a casual chat in a bank (not even mine) with a former UN health director who'd jumped ship to the WHO over Sherlock Holmes and Anatomy books (two unrelated topics). It's not too hard to bump into big cheese without trying, and if you want to get involved in big cheese you need only get into some think tank on Mile End or C.o.London, or creep into some Party shenanigens.
Funniest anecdote of all has to be my old neighbour, he applied for a job at some financial centre as a joke (being a retired old man) and they gave it to him - he explicitly told them afterwards he had no experience in finances and was only applying to the job as a joke. They replied that they'd give him the necessary training course for free and only needed an old face to give the appearance of experience to their clients (to get them to trust in giving them some money to invest) whilst their actual technicians would do the actual investing.
That sums up finances in a nutshell. Reminds me of the bloke who first predicted the subprime mortgage crash, even though he'd analyzed the mortgages and his analysis was sound, he carried no authorial rank (and some of his investors even staged a consumer revolt xD).
I find it's better to trust in analysis than authority, and better to remain no one in one's argument than to place one's self in one's argument - gets in the way of discerning what's what.

Spoiler: tfw you sold the world (click to show/hide)

I've never seen any local politician in my area permanently fuck up a continent and I've never seen them permanently fuck up a borough, but once you fuck up a continent you can't unfuck it, you either laugh or you cry ;P

An easily found counter-example: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-35946977 (Sorry, I recall you dislike the BBC, but, it was the first link.)
Learn not to extemporise so glibly, please.

I actually quite like the BBC and would like to see its licensing renewed, or else some adequate alternative state funding system provided. I criticize it because I love it dearly, and I expect the highest standards from them. I do recall whilst abroad, looking at how the BBC and CNN for example present themselves to the world. CNN's channel showed their hostess speaking with a great plethora of the world's movers and shakers. The BBC by contrast focused on their coverage of a village in China. Their first report of the village being taken over by urbanization and their old ways being lost - one generation later their report on families getting used to the new advanced infrastructure being put in place - and another generation later the bustling urban jungle that had grown from the little village they once covered. The sheer gulf in quality is palpable. I don't for example bother criticizing Russia Today, because my only expectation of it is that it is the Kremlin's mouthpiece. I bother criticizing the BBC because I expect the best per pound :)

Oh, and the topic of extemporising or attributing to incompetence what is to ability, I don't, you accidentally cropped out the most important part of that post:

I've not seen any of my local politicians fuck up an entire continent before

Because they're local... Never ascribe to a lack of incompetence what may just be down to the lack of ability... 

I don't, which is why I seek to destroy that ability. I've never seen any local politician in my area permanently fuck up a continent and I've never seen them permanently fuck up a borough, but once you fuck up a continent you can't unfuck it, you either laugh or you cry ;P

When fraudulent Yorkshire councilors defraud their borough, Barnsley comes to their aid, and its debt is not so insurmountable as to break the borough. When the EU makes decisions that move the continent, they cannot be moved back - the scale is so much larger and there is no Barnsley coming to their aid. Least of all because it didn't change the law, decide monetary policy or decide foreign policy

Spoiler: Triple trifle threat (click to show/hide)

Ok who, because I don't think we live in the same Britain. Where's Nick Griffin now?

Where'd that come from? I grant you he's/they're populist to a certain minority, but they weren't even anywhere near my rather extensive shortlist. And didn't he quit, years back?  An unconsidered trifle.

That came from your idea that Populists were in power, when they are unconsidered trifles.

No my list starts something like your list of "where are the populists in this?"...

Conservatives - 330 seats, Cameron, Osborne and May - all pro-EU. The only potential Tory successor who is pro-UK is Bogolord Boris.
[...]

...but you're all skewed with your commentary, so don't expect my comments added. (Except you use "pro-UK" like certain others use "pro-Life", and all the bias behind it that entails.)

Elaborate on your list then, I wish to see it in full detail with your own commentary - I expect your comments added otherwise how am I to gain any glimpse of your viewpoint?
It seems rather odd to go through all this effort to not defend your points, you are a well slippery fish and I believe as fish are common European resources, that you should share your resourceful commentary with me ;P

Spoiler: I'm really sorry not sorry Sergarr (click to show/hide)

What's NATO got to do with containing Russia? It contains Russia

Militarily, yes, but that wasn't my gist, as I said.

I don't know your gist, because you elude defining it beyond suggestion. Some notion of countries falling into Russia's control through...?
What mechanisms?

Spoiler: RIP in peace wise Hobo, Winter got him - but he lives on (click to show/hide)

If Greeks cannot choose their destiny, and cannot choose their destiny, what choice have they lost?

Point missed again.

Point being? Strike one, strike two - you single out a clause in my point but you don't see me complaining, but you leave no clauses for me to address in full ;)

Spoiler: Clay is not Commission, Commission is on Clay (click to show/hide)

What "fragments" - they used to be called countries, with their own names,

Sorry, I obviously used flowery language when you were reading it as entirely stone-cold literal. A flaw of mine, at least as far as I can actually take that blame.
But, to put it plainly, we're tlking about balcanisation. And not just in the Balcans, this time round.

Through what mechanism would balkanization occur? Unless you are referring to the breakup of a non-state, I'm curious what is so difficult in answering a few simple questions that flesh out the details of your suggestions 

Spoiler: I wish to delegate the abdication of delegation to grammar commissars, in my funeral I'll harvest the coals (click to show/hide)

When you entrust someone less-senior with a responsibility, this is called delegation. When you renounce those responsibilities entirely, this is called abdication.

You are right.  "Setting Up For A Fall" is a better word, or would be if it weren't a phrase.  But that's not Europe (that I know of), and I forget how you got me on this path, now...

Following the path of discussing whether devolution is abdication or delegation - why is "Setting Up For a Fall" a better phrase? If we are heaping up our own funeral pyre with devolution I should quite like to know, as if true is alarming and I would aid you in seeking its avoidance. Else, shall I not continue with no knowledge but of its merits, seeing nought you only claim?

They will no longer have to seek Westminster's approval for projects that inherently favour those with louder voices and deeper pockets!

I dislike people with Louder Voices (c.f. Farage, who doesn't have an 'indoor voice') and Deeper Pockets get their way far too much. Not sure what you're arguing, but now you know my stance, at least.

Quite true - so what is the reason for opposing local authorities having more incentive and funds to develop their own jurisdictions whilst bypassing louder voices and deeper pocketed entities?

Where do you get this below-half efficiency number from?

I don't. I said that roughly half of (most things, actually) are below average (on any given measure, in this case it was efficiency, but average efficiency could be 90% or yet higher, and the minimum only just below this). This starts to be untrue with odd skews to the data, perhaps a single outlier to one side or another, but unless all measurements come out identical, there will always be at least one below-average datum points to pick on.
Simple maths (and of course I mean mean, before anyone asks, although median would apply for most practical distributions too). And in tomorrow's class, we'll discuss Reversion To The Mean...  (Well,  we won't, but we could...)

If we're just talking relative data comparisons that's fine and all, but I don't see what that has to do in regards to the efficient allocation and usage of resources. It is quite simple math, the more money spent on administration of funds, the less funds are available to actually be used. Thus inefficiency arises, hence why (and my chat with the WHO director is relevant here) when you go so high up to the supranational level, a project where only 5% of the funding is actually successfully used is a success. It's pretty horrendous but there's not much you can do about it in life, well - now is one such time in life :D

Regarding competition, that is indeed the point - settle for the highest standard! Compete!

And then hope that there's a mechanism to deal with runaway monopolies just because one party wisely invested/reinvested just as quick as they could, to the disbdnefit of their neighbour... Just for things that matter, of course.

We need not hope Starver, for we have a long tradition of antitrust law in the UK. Heck, we had the Statute of Monopolies for four hundred years until we joined the EU and got "harmonized"
We still have the Competitions and Market Authority though, so it's all good until the EU tries harmonizing them even more.

Spoiler: Euthanasia is a pretty word for good deadly Asia? (click to show/hide)

Merging, unification, mantling, all pretty names for dismantling all the tiny frames of the countries that once ruled themselves in the mainland.

So, there's no longer a French Parliament, an Italian Finance Minister, a use for the Reichstag Building, given that therevs no Bundestag to sit in it? (The RB was updated by a Brit, as I'm sure you know, and it's a very nice dome to walk up into, I can tell you!)
No real dismantling, just integration into a bigger structure, making some of the original structural elements less independent in motion.. Because that's what everyone wants when they intend synchronised movement between elements of different component structures.
(It would be more efficient to ditch the old frames, make the big frame less flexible and reach all the way down to the ground, but there's no sign of that happening. So there's a loose federal structure with designed in wiggle-room, rather than anything as rigid as the US's federal structure, perhaps.)

The French Parliament never really had any power beyond suggesting agendas, a poor example. We have a Monarch for example, but our Monarch carries only vestigial duties and revenue collection from the Crown; the French Parliament lost nothing in being superseded by the European Parliament. Our Parliament decides our country's foreign policy, economic and fiscal policy, monetary policy, social policy, health policy, trade policy, taxes, defence budget, debt and repayment. Unfortunately our supreme court is not supreme, but that's a trivial matter of whether we accept the supremacy of the European Union or not. The Italian Finance Minister cannot adjust interest rates, cannot order more money to be printed, can only oversee spending and investment in a managerial role. Were he not a former director of the IMF and a consultant for the ECB, he would have zero say in anything regarding the Euro, as it stands now "merely" having zero executive authority over his own country's money. The Bundestag as well is one of the most powerful legislative bodies in the European Union given its control of the ECB, its status as the legislative branch of the pillar of the EU, its legal and political control and no doubt Merkel's good leadership.
"Article 23 of the German constitution, the Basic Law, entitles the Bundestag to participate in matters concerning the European Union.
Article 45 of the Basic Law stipulates that the Bundestag must appoint a Committee on the Affairs of the European Union and that it may authorise the committee to exercise the rights of the Bundestag under Article 23 vis-à-vis the Federal Government. Thus, the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union, which is the central forum for European policy debates within the German Bundestag, and serves as an integrative cross-cutting committee, is one of the few parliamentary committees explicitly mentioned in the constitution.
In the context of laws to accompany the Treaty of Lisbon, which came into force on 1 December 2009, the German Bundestag fundamentally restructured the legal foundations for parliamentary participation in European affairs in September 2009:
The Act Extending and Strengthening the Rights of the Bundestag and of the Bundesrat in Matters concerning the European Union, which has as its core the Responsibility for Integration Act, regulates the participation of the Bundestag and Bundesrat in changes to primary law not subject to the usual ratification procedures and in the use of the primary-law basis allowing extension of the European Union's powers. The Act also contains provisions on Parliament's participation regarding the accession of new Member States and use of the simplified treaty revision procedure.
The Act Implementing the Amendments to the Basic Law for the Ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon creates the framework necessary for Parliament to make use of the option it has to bring action regarding infringements of the subsidiarity principle."
This is why things like the Merkel Samson plan can be passed through onto the entirety of Europe without Merkel holding a post in the EU, or why Greece was negotiating with Berlin and not Brussels. I talked about this earlier on how if you don't control your finances you don't control anything:

Pretty much all of Southern Europe has been screwed over because their parliaments cannot set their own currency rates and so are wholly dependent upon the ECB for financing. Is there something to do with the different histories the Continent and the UK have had? I'm not just talking about the Continent's habit of being united under dictators every now and then, I mean in terms of democracy and taxes. Back when the Kings still had great power, the Parliament did not control any armies (least till Cromwell who chopped the King's head off, but never again), what it did control was taxes. If the King had need of financing he went to Parliament to raise taxes, and this limit was fundamental to the birth of British democracy. Another big milestone, this time with collab from the British B team in their evolution to the A(merican) team. No taxation without representation - again, because taxes found the basis of government. No laws without impartial men to enforce them, no impartial men to enforce them without payment from the state to support them, and in this manner the Prime Minister grew more powerful than the King until the King was ruler symbolically and all power was left to the PM and his mandate from his constituents. Maggie Thatcher, one of the things she got right that no one can argue thanks to the benefit of time - when the UK was busy debating entering the Euro precursor, its intellectual proponents claimed that the UK would descend into economic collapse if it did not join the Euro. Malvinas Thatcher up front rebuked it as an attempt to remove any teeth from national democracy, as a parliament or senate that has lost the ability to set its own budget is ruling only in name. Today with the UK being the financial capital of the world those arguments are shown to be false and the tragedy the Eurozone crisis has wreaked has shown we were fortunate to have escaped such madness.

This is why the Greeks despite voting against austerity must nonetheless accept austerity, our Parliament is not fit to be made naught but a manager's office, as it is our state's central nervous system. To stray too far out of line with EU policy is to earn the ire of an entity that controls your economy. If you don't control your own currency, you are subject to the whims of whoever does. This is why Francafrique got so much shit.

That and Cameron's determined to give away even more to Germany:
Germany had a "de facto veto" over David Cameron's EU renegotiations
The former Conservative leader, who resigned from the cabinet last month in a dispute over disability benefit cuts, described the concessions gained as "very marginal" and suggested that, in return, the UK had lost its veto on future fiscal and political integration within the eurozone.
"The EU knew that our veto was very powerful and we have given it away," he told the newspaper. "The reform failed. We got nothing on border control at all. We are now in a worse position than we were before.
Beware the IDS of March! Accursed Sovereignty-dealing land-killer Cameron! D:

Spoiler: Crocodiles to Robots (click to show/hide)

That's fine and all but you're using that word incorrectly, our devolving has dismantled no British institutions

I was expecting the National Curriculum to be skinned, gutted, then thrown away in its entirity, to give just one obvious example that you might have missed, but the U-turn on the needless Academification of all schools may have left it only partly sliced'n'diced by the chef.

Hmmm? The National Curriculum is not a British institution, it's the standard course of study. We have not abolished this doctrine either, so I am not sure what you are referring to. The switch from O levels to GCSEs? Labour's drive to drop Grammar and Secondary schools in favour of Comprehensives?

Spoiler: Westminster stole Clegg's guac bowl (click to show/hide)

Seems sort of weird, I remember a time when they had ambitions to become the 3rd party of UK politics

Which era? Not their original 'before they slipped to 3rd' one, obviously, but are you thinking pre-SDP?

Their AV blunder. If they had won they'd have cemented their place pretty well before they got slaughtered when they reneged on state Uni education

Spoiler: I'm enlightened by my Grayling (click to show/hide)

We don't need a Lord spiritual of secularism,

I had intended to put Humanist, but had a brainfart over the correct term, as I was writing... 

A spiritual lord of humanism in the HoL would give me death by a thousand needles

[Loud Whispers]

On culturally enriching one's economy, because Taiwan London #1 and I ran out of characters

For private sector companies, by industry the apprx. numbers of businesses in each field are:

... number of employees, I think you mean. The numbers add to ~5.4 million, probably close to the right number of working adults for the population of 8 million or so.

This makes me so happy, there are so many businesses in London they can legitimately be confused for the working population, I can only imagine such pride is what Americans are ;-;7
There's about 14 to 15 million people in the Metropolitan area that's connected to London but is legally outside of its boundaries, that's not including those who commute to London from the surrounding area to get to work or the people employed by London based businesses who don't work in London.
To clear things up as to how there are so many businesses:
-The majority were small businesses (0 to 49 employees), 31,000 were medium-size (50 to 249 employees) and 7,000 were large (>250 employees).
-99.9 per cent of private sector businesses are SMEs, employing an estimated 14.4 million people.
-75.3 per cent of private sector businesses do not employ anyone beside the business owners.
So there aren't 5.4million gargantuan world-devouring conglomerates, the vast, vast, vast, vast majority are local businesses with local ambitions, and of them a vast, vast majority are one-man startups, think like cornershop business deals, kebab van enterprise or merchantry in general

Spoiler: And then some ticks to nit (click to show/hide)

As an example:

-256,000 were in Public education (also known as private ed. for any Americans)

Sounds like a lot of Public Schools (US: Private Schools), but could be individual Private Tutors, suitably registered for VAT,  etc.
Note that there are 3,119 schools (of all recorded types) in the whole of London (both inner and outer). Never mind, as this helps your figures.

Public education, not public schools - in addition to tutorage, online courses, language courses and so on.

Financial companies can employ far fewer people to move money than Transportation And Storage do to handle the necessary goods (I assume, rather than being a weird conjunction of mass-transit and posession archival) to support those moving the money. Some people think this a Good Thing™, while others do not.

Not just financial companies, all companies! Only companies that need employ any more than an accountant to move money are massive retailers and banks who are moving valuable physical assets, like money from stores or bullion that's being transferred. Saves a lot of money and makes a lot of money moving obsolete, leaving more capital to grow a company and employ people dedicated to the company's function. In regards to financial companies in particular a lot of their wealth (unless they specialize in Forex trading or something) will not even be thinking of wealth in terms of Sterling, or even money - seeking value. To this end they'll be trading stock in companies, precious minerals, gas, crude, currencies against one another, in regards to derivatives this employs far more people in moving things of real worth. My favourite is a project I hope succeeds - some enterprising individuals are attempting to create a stock exchange for fishing! One thing unique about the fishing industry in particular (well, near unique, it shares this quality with industries like flower farming) is that from harvest to sale, the product must be moved very quickly to the local market (because everyone who loves fish loves fish fresh), and so everything that can expand the scope and reliability of this = more fresh fish moved :D
But I digress, never employ people to do useless things, employ them to do useful things.

But apart from some possible oddities (is Mining just an unrepresented element of its supercategory, or does that include Crossrail diggers/etc, not already in as Construction?), many of the workers in one field (e.g. Health) support those in all the others. Or those in none (Social Services)! Remove or diminish Finance, and there's knock-on in other fields. Especially the Real Estate one. And Social Services might increase recruiting.

Crossrail diggers would go in construction, and mining businesses aren't underrepresented because there are a lot fewer of them in the UK, but the few there are make tons of money. Like these peeps who do everything from the mining to financing through to maintenance services:
"This includes feasibility and development studies; legal, advisory, accountancy, tax and audit services; risk management, project management, best practice, environmental, logistics, legacy management and closure-planning services and communications strategies."
Then there's overlap, like Dawnus in the gov.link, which is a Construction Company in the Mining Industry

Most all workers and businesses support one another in some way (I'll concede the dubious usefulness of social work hehe), that's the consequence of a highly developed economy, its successes are intertwined, its failures are intertwined. Removing Finance would cripple any country's economic growth that has a developed economy, only North Korea could get away without noticing :P
This is not the same as a dependency upon Finance and Insurance, as Financial and Insurance businesses do not make up more than a marginal percentage of London's businesses (being 90,000 est. of >5m est.) but they are pretty integral towards the running of the local, national and international economy. Insurance, money moving, investment, trading - they're like lubricant to the economy, keeping things slick.
It'd be pretty neat to have some alternatives, cos it helps to have a shield against international depressions - it hurts here when it hurts in the USA for example, but what alternative is there? You can't really shield yourself from the world's worst influences without also depriving yourself of the world's bounty

DIVERSE AS FUCK, INNOVATE OR FAIL - And then try to innovate again and again because success is as much built on lessons learned in fa
ilure as success!

Innovate, yes, and do not stagnate. And don't assume that institutions that were "too big to fail" will remain. Remain too big to fail or remain in London to the same degree.

THEY ASSUMED THEY WERE TOO BIG TO NEED INNOVATION

THEY WERE WRONG! :D

Capitals (and unnecessary profanity) aside it's a meaningless statement in context of your assertion.

Pardon me, but I must you see for diversity is an OFFENSIVE SHOTGUN OF ELECTRICITY TO THE FACE, it jolts you into action to INNOVATE or PERISH!

In regards to whether London's economy is diversified, I have demonstrated so. In response to your original question on what happens if it fails, then that is the collapse of the international economy and there will be nowhere in the world to flee to; what happens thereafter will look like fallout without the brown filter.
I advise that in the event of the collapse of the global economy you place your hands together, your head on the ground, and pray!

Spoiler: And then all these ninja replies (click to show/hide)

It's not whether those in power are elected into their office which makes a democracy, it's what they do with that power.
I mean, Hitler was originally voted into office democratically too, but I wouldn't call nazi Germany very democratic.

Weimar Germany was democratic, Nazi Germany was a one-party fascist state

With the EU making shady deals with sultans, the EU holding classified, confidential meetings about the TTIP treaty, which will seriously hamper any participant state's democratic autonomy, especially the ISDS part of that treaty, and with xenophobia on the high rise, including in the EU parliament, I daresay that the EU isn't behaving much like a democratic institution.

Business as usual :P

Alright, I'm sorry. I got worked up.

Yeah it's all right, just keep in mind a lot of people ITT are going to be people who don't know what you know, or may not even know of British governance, so it helps to clarify everything down to what would be insultingly obvious otherwise (but is necessary now so everyone's on the same page)

I don't get a say as to who is Prime Minister (to any practical degree).

You don't participate in party elections?

We don't even vote between the two (or more) candidates selected for our benefit by people who were mandated to select those that their parties deemed worthy enough to enter the race on their behalf (to simplify things) like happens with US presidents.

I thought we all got to pick our local MP

[Loud Whispers]

martinuzz: Actually, I'd love to see a constitution too (and not the 150-page crap they trie to call a Constitution last time. A Constitution should be understandable), but I don't think it's a sine qua non condition for democracy. Again, the UK are also lacking a proper, written constitution.

Oh, and triple reply my God, but this caught my eye. Yeah we're a Constitutional Monarchy, we have hundreds of years of legal papers, documents, famous statutes and stuff like the Magna Carta (if any of them survive harmonization :|), we have no one codified singular document called "the constitution" because we had no revolution - our Constitution is the sum of all Laws, Statutes, Judgements, Treaties and Decrees

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Little does anyone know, but the Lords Spiritual are in fact 100% infiltrators and the plot twist is that they're 50% euphoric and 50% rad trad Pius X Catholics.

[Erkki]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 

I'm afraid that within the month Greece will again start blackmailing money form the rest of the EU and that'll finally ensure the brexit.

[Starver]

I have to make serious replies to the message before, and this one looked simpler to do in one go, but then it expanded larger...  Picking up the quick points,  coming back later for the intensive ones...

This makes me so happy, there are so many businesses in London they can legitimately be confused for the working population, I can only imagine such pride is what Americans are ;-;7

... my other idea was...

-The majority were small businesses (0 to 49 employees),

...the large amount of 'self employed' individuals, with or without a workmate or two.  And wondering how many of these are "technical employees" of their own personal company (of 1),which is in turn contracted to work (zero-hours or otherwise) for a larger company, for 'administrative' reasons.  (For high professionals, to most benefit the person, for many others to only the benefit of the company that contracts the company that manages the individualisitic companies that contain one employee (or maybe a handful, whatever is most 'convenient'). Also means multiple companies per person, though zome shared.)

Public education, not public schools - in addition to tutorage, online courses, language courses and so on.

You really complicated that one by suggesting Public Schools (UK) as per Private Schools (US).

Not just financial companies, all companies!

Yes, but you had lauded the financial companies, said they were the core, so I ws running with that.

and mining businesses aren't underrepresented because there are a lot fewer of them in the UK,

You musread what I thought I wrote there. I was musing that in "Mining,  Forestry and Tap Dancing Schools" (or whatever the category was) that people mining, in London, would be pretty sparse.  (Whilst Forestry, probably a different catagory but beyond scroll-back horizon, covers various Royal Park employees and tree surgeons both independent and Council employed, so I was not surprised to see that one mentioned)

THEY ASSUMED THEY WERE TOO BIG TO NEED INNOVATION

THEY WERE WRONG! :D[

I thought the problems were too much financial 'innovation'. "Tell you what, how about we let people bet on the outcome of other people's bets that major company's bets about whether a homeowner had corectly bet that he could pay his mortgage off, if he actually won the Lottery? But we hedge a bet against them, just to make sure!"

I don't get a say as to who is Prime Minister (to any practical degree).

You don't participate in party elections?

No, because I've never been a member of a political party. (Tempted by the OMRLP, though. Either that, or try to join all of them. Well, the palatable ones, at least.) But I don't have a party allegience, so I never thought it worth it. I support candidates by voting for them in elections, whoever I find personally appealing, including which side of their own party they lie.

The choosing of a Prime Minister is layers of abstraction away from that interaction. I hope that my vote for my candidate leads to their party coming top, with (now, or in the future) a leader at their swing, in the intra-pary spectrum. But it's a low hope, in the face of other people voting good MPs out of office because they don't like the current leadership (of a different hue) or vote bad MPs in just because they like the cover-photo face of the party concerned. But I work with what I have.

We don't even vote between the two (or more) candidates selected for our benefit by people who were mandated to select those that their parties deemed worthy enough to enter the race on their behalf (to simplify things) like happens with US presidents.

I thought we all got to pick our local MP[/spoiler]

Well, if we're in general concordance with our neighbours, perhaps. But, even then, <see above for details>...

(No, I don't support PR. That gives me even less say about which person my vote puts into parliament, let alone government. Although then I'd probably play "chase the nicer leader", like I can't/won't do now. And then suffer those others that I don't like who were put high on the party list for <reasons>, while other amicable 'listers' just don't make the cut. Or do I bet on how far down the list my vote will count for?)

[Sheb]

martinuzz: Actually, I'd love to see a constitution too (and not the 150-page crap they trie to call a Constitution last time. A Constitution should be understandable), but I don't think it's a sine qua non condition for democracy. Again, the UK are also lacking a proper, written constitution.

Oh, and triple reply my God, but this caught my eye. Yeah we're a Constitutional Monarchy, we have hundreds of years of legal papers, documents, famous statutes and stuff like the Magna Carta (if any of them survive harmonization :|), we have no one codified singular document called "the constitution" because we had no revolution - our Constitution is the sum of all Laws, Statutes, Judgements, Treaties and Decrees

Yeah, and the same for the "constitution" of the EU, also a bunch of laws, statute, decrees and treaties, although they're not as old and solid as the one in the UK, I'll grant you that. But martinuzz seemed to have an issue with that.

I can't say I much appreciate the tone on that one, Sheb.

I'm aware that the British government extends well beyond the parliament, and that the two houses of said parliament do not constitute the whole of the British government (even if they do constitute much more than the Congress does in the US). But when I am talking about legislative layers, it should be a safe assumption that I am referring to the parliamentary section of the British government when I say "government", and there shouldn't be any need to ignore the rest of the content of my post just to nitpick that specific usage.

Yeah, sorry, but it's hardly worth addressing all your post until we know we're talking about the same thing. Especially since government tends to be used differently in the US and Europe. Here it's also commonly used to refer to the topmost, elected layer of the executive (in a usage similar to the US 'administration' as in 'Obama administration' I think). So for exemple when we say that Belgium spent one year and some without a government, it doesn't mean everything stopped working as in a US government shutdown. It just means we couldn't agree on who was to ministers.

Also, the EU is a bloody complex thing, and I honestly wouldn't expect most Europeans to be able to tell the Council of Europe from the European Council (Yes, they are two totally unrelated things), so it's not really that far a stretch to assume you're not familiar with it either.*

That being said, you're wrong. The Commission isn't a lower house of parliament in any form. Commissioners don't vote on legislation. It's much more like the British Cabinet (and don't tell me the 100% Tory cabinet is well representative of minority views. It's not, and it's not its job either).

and my silly meme "xzibit levels of parliament" is a response to the fact that it is two layers of parliament between the EU and the British people,

That is also wrong, as the EU Parliament is directly elected by the European people, including the Britons. It should also be noted that while technically a parliamentary system, the EU parliament is proportional, not FPTP, and got a strong culture of consensus, which result in minority parties not being as sidelined as you would think. Juncker's EPP only had 220 out of
750 seats, and was voted in with broad support from the socialists and liberals parties as well as from a bunch of individual MEP.

Then, we haven't even talked of the Council (of the European Union). While its true that the Lisbon treaty did away with the requirement for unanimity is most case, replacing it by a qualified majority system which require a supermarjority of both countries and population, there is still a whole bunch of things for which it is required (aka, any national government has a veto) like taxation or defense or justice. Even still, consensus is the norm: about 75%-85% of the decisions are taken with all state voting in favour.


*Case is point, I then mixed up the European Council and the Council of the European Union (which are both different from the Council of Europe) and had to check on wiki. I'm willing to take a bet that no one here can describe the three without going to check first :p I'll change my avatar to one of Boris if someone manage it.

[Sheb]

Oooops, double post.

[Orange Wizard]

I then mixed up the European Council and the Council of the European Union (which are both different from the Council of Europe)

Fuck me

[Sheb]

There is also the European Council of Regions which is also part of the EU. I think we should just ban the word "council" actually.