The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[TightEnd]

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[TightEnd]

Theresa May overtakes Boris Johnson as Britain’s most popular politician: ComRes for Independent & TheSundayMirror

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[TightEnd]

Corbyn, grammar schools, US election, TM the new MT, UK democracy: ComRes for Independent & TheSundayMirror

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[TightEnd]

a warning yesterday

"Don't call people who voted Brexit racist. But if Britain doesn't Brexit: they'll join far right racist organisation"

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[TightEnd]

very clever

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[rfgqqabc]

Can the British Government really justify spending £12.6m trying to arrest Julian Assange? That's a lot of money for someone who had been granted asylum, I appreciate its a giant mess but seems way too much. If he was such a problem why did we grant him bail. Was the £240k raised for bail a big surprise? I read somewhere it was largely donated. 

[Doobs]

Can the British Government really justify spending £12.6m trying to arrest Julian Assange? That's a lot of money for someone who had been granted asylum, I appreciate its a giant mess but seems way too much. If he was such a problem why did we grant him bail. Was the £240k raised for bail a big surprise? I read somewhere it was largely donated. 

The people who donated to his bail lost their money.  He seems to be a very persuasive fella.

He wouldn't have been granted bail if they believed he was such a flight risk.  I don't think they would have considered that he was going to get asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy as at all likely when they granted bail.

As with many cases of alleged government waste, I guess they wouldn't have spent 12 million if they realised it was going to cost 12 million when they started. 

I am not sure what else they can do now.  The extradition case has been to court several times and it has been found to be valid, so they can't really just go f it, it has cost too much, we'll just let him go.  I am guessing Julian Assange's supporters would look at this case differently if it was some top banker holing out in the US embassy avoiding some rape/sexual assault* case in Sweden.

FWIW I am not sure why it has taken so long for the Swedes to agree to question him in the Ecuadorean embassy.  I guess thye just assume that even if they charge him, he can just stay there and they just add to their bill? 

* I am not sure what it is currently classed as.

[rfgqqabc]

Can the British Government really justify spending £12.6m trying to arrest Julian Assange? That's a lot of money for someone who had been granted asylum, I appreciate its a giant mess but seems way too much. If he was such a problem why did we grant him bail. Was the £240k raised for bail a big surprise? I read somewhere it was largely donated.  

The people who donated to his bail lost their money.  He seems to be a very persuasive fella.

He wouldn't have been granted bail if they believed he was such a flight risk.  I don't think they would have considered that he was going to get asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy as at all likely when they granted bail.

As with many cases of alleged government waste, I guess they wouldn't have spent 12 million if they realised it was going to cost 12 million when they started.  

I am not sure what else they can do now.  The extradition case has been to court several times and it has been found to be valid, so they can't really just go f it, it has cost too much, we'll just let him go.  I am guessing Julian Assange's supporters would look at this case differently if it was some top banker holing out in the US embassy avoiding some rape/sexual assault* case in Sweden.

FWIW I am not sure why it has taken so long for the Swedes to agree to question him in the Ecuadorean embassy.  I guess thye just assume that even if they charge him, he can just stay there and they just add to their bill?  

* I am not sure what it is currently classed as.

Isn't it a contradiction to set the bail at £240k if he poses little flight risk though? I also find it hard to believe that one year into standing outside the Ecuadorian embassy that we thought that we were achieving anything. I understand we can hardly just let him go, but our claims of "overtly and covertly" trying to arrest him just seem like absolute nonsense.

I completely agree with what you said about if it was a banker, however, the banker is much less likely to be whisked off by the Americans after he has landed in Sweden. This would be particularly outrageous because their extradition treaty " prohibits extradition on the basis of "a political offence" or "an offence connected with a political offence"." It all seems like a complete mess and I was always somewhat blindly on his Assange's side but there are so many questions.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/11681502/Why-is-Julian-Assange-still-inside-the-embassy-of-Ecuador.html

http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/02/jemima-khan-julian-assange-how-wikileaks-founder-alienated-his-allies

This is very long but the best piece I have seen on the topic.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/media/2012/09/legal-mythology-extradition-julian-assange

 I think I can support the conclusion based on their evidence however I do not know if any of it is old. The details of the accusations are a bit strange, but it feels like the issues it potentially deal with are extremely important in society. However, they are also extremely hard to prove either way. It all just makes me horribly uncomfortable and I think the hours of reading have just made me more neutral albeit better informed.

 http://jackofkent.com/2012/09/the-detail-of-the-accusations-against-assange/

It has been a strange evening for me as I've gone from wondering how we could spend so much trying to arrest someone that we can't really arrest legally (presuming he doesn't leave the embassy) to wondering if someone I admired as a whistleblower is actually guilty of these crimes. I was only reading about him because of his comments about Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who was murdered in a "botched street robbery" that was so botched they forgot to take his possessions. Wikileaks have offered a $20k reward for information, proper House of Cards stuff.



P.S sorry if this is patchy, I read a lot of stuff today and I'm too tired to edit this post correctly, so I'll just paste more links in to give people time to read themselves.

[Jon MW]

Can the British Government really justify spending £12.6m trying to arrest Julian Assange? That's a lot of money for someone who had been granted asylum, I appreciate its a giant mess but seems way too much. If he was such a problem why did we grant him bail. Was the £240k raised for bail a big surprise? I read somewhere it was largely donated.  

The people who donated to his bail lost their money.  He seems to be a very persuasive fella.

He wouldn't have been granted bail if they believed he was such a flight risk.  I don't think they would have considered that he was going to get asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy as at all likely when they granted bail.

As with many cases of alleged government waste, I guess they wouldn't have spent 12 million if they realised it was going to cost 12 million when they started.  

I am not sure what else they can do now.  The extradition case has been to court several times and it has been found to be valid, so they can't really just go f it, it has cost too much, we'll just let him go.  I am guessing Julian Assange's supporters would look at this case differently if it was some top banker holing out in the US embassy avoiding some rape/sexual assault* case in Sweden.

FWIW I am not sure why it has taken so long for the Swedes to agree to question him in the Ecuadorean embassy.  I guess thye just assume that even if they charge him, he can just stay there and they just add to their bill?  

* I am not sure what it is currently classed as.

Isn't it a contradiction to set the bail at £240k if he poses little flight risk though? I also find it hard to believe that one year into standing outside the Ecuadorian embassy that we thought that we were achieving anything. I understand we can hardly just let him go, but our claims of "overtly and covertly" trying to arrest him just seem like absolute nonsense.

I completely agree with what you said about if it was a banker, however, the banker is much less likely to be whisked off by the Americans after he has landed in Sweden. This would be particularly outrageous because their extradition treaty " prohibits extradition on the basis of "a political offence" or "an offence connected with a political offence"." It all seems like a complete mess and I was always somewhat blindly on his Assange's side but there are so many questions.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/11681502/Why-is-Julian-Assange-still-inside-the-embassy-of-Ecuador.html

http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/02/jemima-khan-julian-assange-how-wikileaks-founder-alienated-his-allies

This is very long but the best piece I have seen on the topic.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/media/2012/09/legal-mythology-extradition-julian-assange

 I think I can support the conclusion based on their evidence however I do not know if any of it is old. The details of the accusations are a bit strange, but it feels like the issues it potentially deal with are extremely important in society. However, they are also extremely hard to prove either way. It all just makes me horribly uncomfortable and I think the hours of reading have just made me more neutral albeit better informed.

 http://jackofkent.com/2012/09/the-detail-of-the-accusations-against-assange/

It has been a strange evening for me as I've gone from wondering how we could spend so much trying to arrest someone that we can't really arrest legally (presuming he doesn't leave the embassy) to wondering if someone I admired as a whistleblower is actually guilty of these crimes. I was only reading about him because of his comments about Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who was murdered in a "botched street robbery" that was so botched they forgot to take his possessions. Wikileaks have offered a $20k reward for information, proper House of Cards stuff.



P.S sorry if this is patchy, I read a lot of stuff today and I'm too tired to edit this post correctly, so I'll just paste more links in to give people time to read themselves.

"I completely agree with what you said about if it was a banker, however, the banker is much less likely to be whisked off by the Americans after he has landed in Sweden. This would be particularly outrageous because their extradition treaty " prohibits extradition on the basis of "a political offence" or "an offence connected with a political offence"."

I've heard that before and it probably says something quite bad about a general attitude to crimes against women that many think a financial crime should be more important. And it might be that the banker would be less likely to be whisked off to the Americans after he landed - but only because the banker's chance would be about 0% whereas Assange's chance would be about 1% - as you said, Sweden doesn't extradite for political crimes (which every crime he's committed against America is classified as), and Sweden have never been particularly 'close' to the US anyway so it's almost impossible to imagine they'd stretch the definition to get in their good books.

----

As for the cost - it's a lot but it's also misleading; most of it is the cost of paying the staff they would be paying to do something different if they weren't doing this. It's not clear what the marginal cost that trying to catch him involves but it's a lot, lot less than the headline figure.

---

I did read the reason why they didn't interview him in the embassy sooner but I can't remember exactly what it was - I think it was some difference in Ecuadorian and Swedish law meant that they wouldn't be able to do it 'properly' for some reason; I assume one side has compromised on the details.

It seems like he's gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid Swedish justice but I do remember reading near the beginning of this saga (about 4 years ago) that the general jail sentence for what he's accused of is about 4 years; he's already escaped one of the things he's been accused of because the statue of limitations ran out for it but it's not like he entirely 'got away' with it.

[TightEnd]

"Investors have staked the largest bearish bet against sterling on record"

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/08/15/speculators-mount-largest-short-sterling-position-ever-as-pound-keeps-slumping/?mod=e2tweu

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[TightEnd]

nice work if you can get it

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[TightEnd]

Long, thoughtful by David Hayes on Brexit

"Brexitannia, a state in limbo"

http://insidestory.org.au/brexitannia-a-state-in-limbo

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[Doobs]

nice work if you can get it

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I suspect they will be very lucky to get anyone with anything like the required skills in from PWC, E and Y etc for a £1000 a day.  I suspect they will end up paying upwards of a couple of thousand a day to the big consultants for somebody who left university not long ago, who is effectively having to learn on the job.  I wouldn't want to guess how much it will cost for a partner to drop by for a few weeks.

[TightEnd]

New ICM poll:

Conservatives: 40% (-3)

Labour: 28% (+1)

UKIP: 14% (+1)

Liberal Democrats: 8% (=)

12 point CON lead.


The England alone figures from latest ICM poll

CON 43
LAB 27
LD 8
UKIP 16

Almost all the marginal seats are in England

[TightEnd]

Peston post on what Brexit is shaping up to be - Canada+ (with the + being about services deal)

impeccably sourced this

https://www.facebook.com/pestonitv/posts/1675210406137031