While we are on the subject of reminiscences… The moment they knew.
And here is the St Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V.
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What were you doing a year ago this day, this hour, this minute?June 23rd, 2017 |
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Feel free to post more than once if you have more than one experience to relate, and/or if you are on the night shift tonight.
At 3pm I was fiddling with this post, trying to get the picture to display correctly. Eventually a Samizdata elf stepped in and did it properly.
I was up at 5AM delivering “Vote Leave” boards to 26 polling stations in and around Perth, then outside various polling stations wearing “Vote Leave” T-shirts (about the limit of activity allowed on Polling Day), then at 10PM I drove around collecting all the “Vote Leave” boards (those that hadn’t been stolen or hidden by SNP supporters) and finally to the local Referendum Count at Bell’s Sports Centre.
At around 3AM the count was announced with 61% in favour of remain. My local Vote Leave team were happy with that as our initial assessment was that the vote for Remain would be much higher than it actually was.
Then I went home and watched TV until they called the vote for Leave and Cameron resigned.
It was 2-months of hard work, but totally worth it if we eventually break from of the EU, especially if the EU collapses after we leave.
Happy Independence Day everyone.
I was driving up north on the Referendum day, for a family funeral the following day. That night, the Gibraltar vote, so massively ‘remain’, in that dark hour, shook me, and after a fitful night as the tide turned, it was very light just below the 55th parallel, and dawned a fine and poignant day.
On the Gateshead bank of the Tyne that morning after, the Army had turned up with some cannons, I asked them if they were expecting some trouble from the Continent. I saw one businessman type talking to himself, out loud, quite cheerily recounting his delight at the vote as he walked to work in Newcastle, with pre-emptive mocking of the doom-mongers. I had breakfast under Earl Grey’s statue, thinking that his stone head could almost have nodded sagely.
A bit later in the morning than John Galt’s impressive 5 AM, we were voting, and putting a Scottish-oriented vote leave message outside the polling station. Then I worked – it was a working day and I was at work till ten PM that night. Just after ten, I glanced at the latest coverage, thought what a pillock Farage was for saying “It looks like Remain has just edged it”, thought a bit more of David Davis (I think it was) for not agreeing, then we went to bed. I “knew we were going to win, of course”, so I can’t imagine why I had a rather restless night. 🙂 The next morning we went downstairs and began breakfast, As I turned on the kettle, my wife turned on the telly – and her yell betrayed that she had not been quite as confident of victory as I was. (Full disclosure: I was nervously confident. 🙂 )
A couple of hours later I got on a plane and flew south to see Natalie. Ah, the happy Friday and Saturday when we thought – with reason good – that Boris would be our next prime minister and Gove our next chancellor, and Article 50 would be announced in a time nearer 9 days than 9 months. We have Article 50 and we’ll see if Boris is our next prime minister, but, like everything from government, the cost of getting these things is far above what was required.
I was reading this very posting on Samizdata! About 10:30 a.m. local, 3:30 p.m. GMT.
So naturally I followed Natalie’s link, and then links in the sidebar, and immediately on seeing this one (< 4 min.), I just had to gallop back here to recommend it; very interesting, especially as it's pretty unusual to see anything vaguely like this in my own backward country's MSM!
Go to You-of-the-Tube .com/watch?v=0gHLfMXb0Yg : “Brexit guy destroys lefty arguments.”
.
And yes, of course: HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
Oh well, I haven’t finished my coffee yet. Sorry about mixing up 2017 and 2016. And after all, it’s only a [4% of 4%] error in the 2+ millenia A.D. Surely a minute error…. 🙁 )
The rest, however, I stand by. Especially the last three words! 😀
I was in an AirBnB in Tel Aviv. One of my travelling companions came into the the lounge where I was kipping on the sofa bed. He was up already and said, “We’re going to the cafe across the road. Come and find us when you’re ready. Brexit won, by the way.” And walked out. I hadn’t been watching any TV coverage for days before, so I wasn’t expecting it at all.
“Brexit: not going to happen”
I went to bed. Same AirBnB as Rob.
Slept.
Woke up and Facebooked.
David Carr: “I am flying home to a free country.”
Heaven.
This tweet from the night of the referendum count always amused me…
I went to bed the night of the referendum fully expecting Leave to have lost. Waking up the next morning I put on the Today programme and was amazed to hear that Leave had won. Having heard the excellent news a song got stuck in my head, so I fired up Apple Music, found the song and put it on repeat. This is basically me from the time I got out of bad until I got to the office. I just couldn’t stop grinning. And I still do. 🙂
It’s funny how very similar this video is to all of the schadenfreude-loaded videos we see of the networks calling Trump’s election.
The same funereal and somber looks, the same disbelief that so many . . . barbarians . . . could have found their way to the polling places . . .
I was still campaigning at this time – I leafleted Kettering and so on.
I did not go to the count – I was too tired.
And it may all be for nothing, we may yet be betrayed.
Either E.U. law rules our internal affairs or it does not.
There is no “Soft Brexit” – we are either out of the E.U. or we are ruled by it.
I was asleep I think, so sure was I of a remain victory I went to bed early and didn’t see the news until the morning. I almost didn’t turn the television on. Imagine my surprise!
The coffee across the road was not bad, actually…
Paul, we are so lucky to have you cheering us all up. And so on.
The polls closed at 10pm, so about now the media were free to speculate. This was the time to have bet on Leave; everyone seemed quite sure that Remain would win. I think someone was offering odds of 9/1. In retrospect, why were they so sure? The actual polls had been 50/50 within the margin of error.
Wasn’t it about now that Nigel Farage made some remark about if there was a 52-48 Remain victory it won’t be over by any means? It wasn’t a particularly prescient thing to say, but give the guy a break, he must have been exhausted. It bugs me how this random pessimistic speculation is so often described as Nigel Farage “conceding”, as if that meant something legally or morally. Grrr. It was a referendum, not an election. He was not a candidate, he was just one more voter, he could not concede anything to anyone. Furthermore counting had only just begun.
Where I live it’s (I think) 5 hours earlier than the UK, so I stayed up fairly late, glued to my computer, watching the returns come in. From my vantage point it was almost as exciting (and surprising) as watching the US election returns come in 5 months later. Happy Independence Day, y’all!
About this time (9.30am) last year, I woke up after only about an hour’s sleep. I’d stayed up until the result was assured and gone to bed just to wake up my incredulous wife to tell her we’d won. We got up and went to Wetherspoons for breakfast to celebrate with the morning-Stella drinkers and the retired paper readers who had given the two-fingered salute the establishment. Then spent the rest of the day trying not to inflame my friends on Facebook whilst they were going through mental derangement.
I voted remain but got an Irish passport just in case. Frankly this was a true false dawn. Almost any piece of evil fuckwittery Brussels could do Westminster can do just as hard if not harder. But Brexit is potentially (we don’t know do we? The powers that be have no idea even of a Brexit framework which is one of the primary reasons I was contra). The other was my wife’s business is threatened. She’s a translator of Russian and Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. It’s not even clear if we’ll retain EEA status and Russia – that’s the jam on the bread not the bread because you can’t really on Russia. Then lots of other things – little things – like what does this mean for the funding of Skylon? What about Erasmus students. And the lies. Take control ofour borders? Yeah, right. It might make it harder to get into the UK if you’re Portuguese or Polish but makes sod all difference to Libyans or Syrians does it?
Don’t remember what i was doing on the 23rd, but i seem to remember that the following morning i learned about the result from Samizdata!
Then i caught my breath, had some coffee, and checked the BBC before commenting here.
Paul Marks’ cheerful comment raises an interesting question: we all know what a country must do to get out of the EU, but how easy would it be for the UK to withdraw from a bilateral treaty with the EU?
The point is, as long as it is easy to withdraw, then even the softest Brexit is better than no Brexit — though not as good as harder alternatives.
We stayed up all night to watch the results come in. I was cautious, didn’t want to jinx it by hoping too early. After all, there’s all those late-counting dense metropolitan areas that will be solidly for Remain.
And little-by-little, I could see, “they’re running out of cities”.
I was surprised how early confidence in the “Remain” result turned to doubt. By twenty past midnight when the Sunderland result was delivered after a very narrow Newcastle win for “Remain” Prof John Curtice was essentially saying “Could be off whack results, but we shouldn’t be expecting this is level of support for Leave if Remain were on track to win”.
The Remain count rapidly lost their lead and never recovered it, the Leave advantage just kept creeping up until it reached the point that Remain could no longer statistically win around 06:00 hrs.
A happy day indeed, which I’ve fortunately got on 4 video files covering the whole night from 5-minutes before the polls closed to Cameron’s resignation.
JG,
Have you ever been to Sunderland?
NickM
In case you did not remain a citizen of a supranational-State?
Should the EU adopt worldwide taxation of its ‘citizens’ as does the USA and Eritrea, you will excuse our laughter, won’t you?
Of the 196 countries in the world, 2 of them have some form of citizenship based taxation. The likelihood of the EU being given any right to taxation at all, never mind taxation based upon EU citizenship is close to zero.
There is a far higher probability of the EU collapsing through the weight of its own bureaucratic irrelevance within the next 20 years.
After all, who wants to be a member of a club where the membership fees are astronomical, the benefits are negligible and the restrictions it places upon everyday life excessive.
No, but not sure what that’s got to do with anything.
You mentioned Sunderland JG. It is a shithole.
I see Ed’s point, but like JG I’m skeptical. The US does it because it has, still and for the time being, a lot of weight to throw around – the EU has no such weight.
What Alisa said; plus, if NickM retains UK citizenship, then in the unlikely event that he’d be subject to worldwide taxation, he can just send his Irish passport to Brussels with a 2-fingered salute. (NB: it’s not so easy for US citizens.)
Let’s not be too hard on NickM: he did make a couple of good points, although with perhaps some hyperbole:
I’m just reminding everyone that as the land lawyers will tell you, you can’t take the benefit without the burden, and I wouldn’t like to bet against the EU directly taxing people soon, it would be a natural step of the move to ever closer union. The collapsing beast is as dangerous as the well-fed one, if not more so. And the US has such a helpful framework to copy. If the EU’s court is intended to be used to resolve issues for EU ciitizens in the UK post-‘independence’, why would the EU not have extra-jurisdictional taxation?
As for Sunderland, it has fine parts, like Tunstall and Roker and it makes lots of cars.
The thing here is that the EU has no real independent power of its own.
There is neither an EU army, nor an EU police force of any consequence and apart from docking the money sent to a country through EU programs, it has no real power of enforcement (as the Eastern European refusal to accept Muslim migrants has demonstrated)
The countries that make up the EU (and the UK specifically) have always deliberately and explicitly blocked attempts at direct tax raising powers for the EU, because it would grant the EU a level of autonomy that they do not wish it to have.
Which is also why one of the key red lines of the UK in the EU-UK BRexit talks is that the jurisdiction of the EU court will cease as soon as the UK leaves the EU. The EU is fighting tooth-and-nail on this as they understand that without the biased EU court they subject to the whim of an international arbitration panel to deal with any problems arising from BRexit after 30th March 2019.
“The countries that make up the EU (and the UK specifically) have always deliberately and explicitly blocked attempts at direct tax raising powers for the EU, because it would grant the EU a level of autonomy that they do not wish it to have.”
And that is an extremely wise policy. I offer as evidence the experience of the US: As originally structured, our federal government lacked much in the way of taxing authority; it subsisted primarily on import duties and similar sorts of fees. That kept it small and relatively weak. It wasn’t until the 16th Amendment, ratified in 1913, that it gained direct taxing authority over the people. And that (coupled with the 17th Amendment, providing for direct popular election of Senators, and the creation of the Federal Reserve, all of which were adopted in that same dreadful year) spelled the end of our experiment with true federalism. Freed of monetary shackles, and able to extract revenues in essentially unlimited amounts with no real mechanism for state control, growth of the size, scope and power of the federal government was as inevitable as it has been inexorable. Thus began our long descent into the federal tyranny we see today. I certainly hope that the EU retains that policy once the UK has left.
Laird,
If the United States were only able to tax the States, and take the lower of, say, 5% of a State’s annual revenue or spent budget, and had, outside of a declaration of war until armistice, no borrowing power, and no printing press, then you might get the Feds back to some semblance of modesty.
The EU’s direct taxing powers are limited, mainly a bit of VAT is paid over and some tarifffs are collected by states and paid over. Will the EU have its own ‘1913’ year and start bursting its bonds? (Or is that Greece’s job?)
On another point, there has been no discussion at all in the UK about post-independence abolition or even simplification of VAT, or reducing the rate.
Mr Ed,
You mention Greece. I was recently on holiday on Crete. The EU mandates VAT at something around 15-25%. It is 20% in the UK on most stuff. It is 24% in Greece. VAT is more than anything else the one thing I hate about the EU. Afew years back I bought the kit to build a super-duper PC – Hekate is her name. Did I mind dropping a load of money to Aria Tech in Manchester. No. This was a high spec machine. What I minded was one item on the fully itemised bill. And that was the VAT.
Mr Ed,
Yes, Sunderland does make lots of cars. I recall my Dad buying a Nissan and complaining about being charged delivery. He bought it in Gateshead which is not a million miles from Mackemland. But the Nissan plant almost folded post Brexit and they only stayed (there was talk of a move to amongst other places the Czech Republic) when the Tories did a “deal” with them. This is what I mean by the myriad of little things. The UK Gov had to bribe a Japanese company as a result of Brexit. Itjust goes on and on.
Can’t see VAT going away anytime soon, it just contributes too much to HM Treasury. There may be some structural changes and reform of the most egregious aspects (such as the removal of VAT on tampons and energy) but that would be the extent of any changes.
So, JG…
Are we singing from the same hymn sheet? It would seem so. My point is the right in the UK (at least by and large doesn’t believe in less Gov) May certainly doesn’t. I am a Classical Liberal. Yes, I am. I believe the government ought to defend the realm and pretty much all the rest we can better do ourselves. I also believe in free trade and movement of people, goods and money. Would I prefer it if this was really universal (with countries who broadly share our values). You know like the USA or South Korea, not Eritrea or North Korea (who can quite frankly join the Venezuelan club and fuck off). I would love that freedom. But I have to live in reality and that means I live in a community of 500 million which is not ideal but it is something. Link that with the USA, Canada, Australia (and a few other places) via a single thing (free movement of all of the above – nothing else – what else is needed?) and the Chinese will be shitting themselves.
Mr Ed, that was pretty much the way it was here prior to 1913, when federal taxes had to be “apportioned”; it was essentially based on population. The Progressive Movement was responsible for the 16th Amendment along with a host of other evils which torment us to this day. But at least we don’t (yet) have a VAT (although from time to time some idiot raises the idea; I can understand why it is Nirvana to politicians).
Laird, it’s amazing the number of otherwise-bright nincompoops who are so crazy about VAT.
Julie, if you have to be taxed, then VAT makes more sense than a lot of little taxes. We had a debate here in Australia around a Goods And Services Tax (GST), and I supported it because the government was also getting rid of a lot of taxes that had grown, or stayed in place, over the years. Of course, the only good tax is the one you just repealed, but one tax makes more sense than lots.
– While we’re on the topic, any thoughts from anybody on the “Fair Tax”? As I understand it, you pay a stiff tax (35% being bandied-about), on purchases – all purchases, no exceptions – and there are no other taxes. None at all. No income tax, no inheritance tax, no hidden fuel taxes – nothing.
The idea being that low-income people can cut-down their taxes by cutting-down their purchases, which they do anyways through having no money. The VAST simplification of the idea is a major selling-point; I have no doubt you could fill several large rooms with any major country’s ( – and Canada’s – ) tax codes, and they’re constantly being monkeyed-with to ‘encourage’ things (greeeen-weeeeny policies) or ‘discourage’ things (smoking, drinking, morris dancing &c), and under the ‘fair tax’ concept it all goes into the shredder.
I see two big disadvantages – it would creep-up continually as gummints “had underestimated their revenue streams”, and the very idea of “no extra taxes” would endure endless predatory monkeying. But in a participatory democracy, these would actually be two big advantages of the scheme as well – the populace, tired of being dunned 35% at the till and remembering the hype splashed-about by the gummint that brought it in, would become extremely resentful of any increases to the take; and extremely watchful of gummint attempts to smuggle-in any further taxes. Either attempt would be remembered, and both would be severely punished at the polls – and the gummint would clearly know and remember this. As if.
“The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance”, etc etc.
Y. Knott, if you really want to get into a discussion of the (dishonestly named) “Fair Tax” I will oblige, but it’s really off-topic for this thread and deserves its own one. (As you’ve probably guessed, I strongly oppose it.)
– Well, everybody else was O/T, waxing lyrical on VAT ( – which Canada does not have – or at least, we don’t call it that…)
NickM.
The European Union is not of instead-of national governments it is on-top-of-them.
This is a simple point – but it has passed you (and many other people) by, so I will explain it.
On top of the nasty things done by Westminster are the nasty things done by Brussels.
Alisa do you now see why I am not delighted by victory – no need for and-so-on from me this time. Just NickM and many other good people. I am not being sarcastic – I mean it, they are good people, they just do not believe the people should have any say in the laws they live under (that we would be better off if unelected people made our laws for us – including, eventually, our tax laws).
They even “got an Irish passport” – not to join the IRA (they are NOT pro the IRA or anything like that) – but because they think living in an independent country would be a terrible (even “racist”) thing, and would prevent them going on foreign holidays and so on.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Archbishop of Canterbury (yes – “and so on”) hold the same general opinions. And these people are lot more powerful than Paul Marks – as I have no power at all, none.
The chances of betrayal (of the “Single Market” – i.e. E.U. law controlling our internal affairs, NOT just our international trade) are high.
Remember every university (bar Buckingham) and almost every school (including many private schools) and every television and radio station are pumping out pro E.U. propaganda – every day.
We only just won the referendum – think about that.
48% of the voters voted to be SLAVES – and they were so brainwashed they did not even know they were doing that.
Soon (with all the brainwashing) it may be higher than 48% – for the “Single Market” which is THE SAME THING AS THE E.U.
Laird, June 26, 2017 at 1:22 pm: Attaboy! :>)))
Paul,
(a) I don’t believe in the slightest BREXIT means I can’t go on foreign holidays – where did I go on honeymoon? Why the USA – nowt to do with the EU. The “paddyport” just makes it easier. And I think it is kinda cool
(b) I don’t think the EU matters that much. Seriously. I really think that Westminster matters.
(c) I am a Blondie fan.
One of the reasons why VAT was discussed here (and why I don’t accept that it is Off Topic) is that VAT was forced on the UK as part of the accession to the EEC in 1973.*
So when we finally complete BRexit and repeal the European Communities Act 1972 we will also be repealing VAT as that is mandatory for all EEC/EU members and cannot be operated in its current form once the UK has left the EU.
Don’t get your hopes up though, as I expect an equivalent UK specific tax will be implemented at the same time as VAT is repealed.
* – Before 1973 we had a purchase tax which worked completely differently from the current EU VAT regime.
Naturalisation and immigration aside Paul, you don’t just “Get” an Irish Passport. You are either a citizen of the Irish Republic as defined by its constitution or you are not.
If you meet the criteria (basically either you; or one of your parents; or one of your grandparents were born on the geographic island of Ireland) then you are a citizen of the Irish Republic from birth, even if you have spent the entirety of your life living in another country. This has been the case since the Irish Constitution was passed by referendum in 1937.
Estimates suggest that something like 1/4 of those born in the UK are also Irish Citizens under the above definition, but only a small fraction of those have gone as far as exercising their right to an Irish passport, although numbers are likely to increase due to BRexit.
What difference does holding ANY passport make anyway? It’s just an expensive piece of paper to wave at border guards and low grade bank clerks.
JG,
Yup. I spent 43 years not knowing I was Irish. I did get a funny look from a Greek border wallah. I actually had an odd time at Heraklion airport. I wear spectacles. and Crete is sunny so I not only did I have my walking around with glasses but my reading glasses and two sets of sunglasses (one for best and a cheapo set for the beach). Anyhoo I was asked by airport security to have my sunglasses X-rayed. I say “asked” but you know. I also put my prescription specs in the tray and he said, “no”. I have no idea why? But I was hardly likely to endanger a 757 with any of my eyewear. God knows what quandry they would have been in if I had prescription Reactolites.
Actually I can guess the “why?” I suspect it is a disability discrimination thing. I had four hours on the plane to think on it. I also had some honey confiscated. I think that was the liquids ban.
And you are right JG. VAT ain’t going away. We are going to be taxed to the utter embuggeration regardless. And anyone who thinks otherwise is frankly naive. I don’t actually like the EU but leaving is not a panacea. It isn’t even a start.
NickM
Is it your case that remaining in the EU is neutral for liberty?
Or that remaining is actually a positive step for liberty?
Or is it negative step for liberty?
And if you voted ‘Remain’, what were you hoping to achieve? More scope for liberty?
Too coincidental. They’re playing eight miles from me in a few weeks and my 24-year-old son has tickets and wants me to go with. DH must be . . . what? . . . 70?
NickM (June 27, 2017 at 4:59 am): “I don’t actually like the EU but leaving is not a panacea. It isn’t even a start.”
That neatly summarises where you agree and where you disagree from most who comment on this blog. I don’t think anyone here imagines it is a panacea but almost everyone sees it is a start – or, in Churchill’s worlds, a necessary part of reaching “the end of the beginning”.
– Remaining in would guarantee further travel away from freedom, and would be a great obstacle to reversing course. Over and above that, losing Brexit would have sent a very clear signal to our rulers.
– Getting out makes many things as easy as getting a majority in parliament. Since the freedom-disliking Theresa May found that quite hard against the freedom-hating Jeremy Corbyn, I’m not assuming our certain triumph is just around the corner, but making the goal possible is indeed “a start.”
If, as JG speculates above, 25% of UK citizens can have Irish citizenship for the asking – can be joint UK and Irish citizens – that would seem to weaken the EU’s position. The UK parliament can make such laws as it wishes, the Irish state can make such laws as are permitted to an EU state, and 25% of the population can enter the UK on their UK passport and enter any EU state on their Irish passport.
You are right that leaving the EU was never going to be a panacea, but it was a necessary evil required to stop the EU killing us as a sovereign nation. BRexit is strong and painful medicine that causes temporary pain to save us from death.
For decades our European allies have been trying to turn the trading block that we joined in 1973 into a federal state, literally “A country called Europe“.
For decades we have used our negotiating strength and threat of veto to express the British view that “No. We don’t want this“, but what we could achieve as a major partner of 9 nations when we joined, could no longer be achieved as a minor player among 28 nations when we voted to leave.
Gradual erosion of British veto powers by qualified majority voting meant that our dissenting voice was growing ever weaker. If we had voted for “Remain” it would have been acquiescence to everything we had fought against for so long.
The road ahead for the UK is uncertain, but I prefer an uncertain future to the certainty of being the Western province of a socialist empire.
The EU is not dead. We have not killed it, but we have wounded it badly.
If the UK can secede from the EU and survive, it will stand as testament against EU claims of manifest destiny as well as showing those countries buckling under EU hegemony that existence outside of the EU is possible.
bobby b,
I saw Blondie at Manchester Apollo twice and they were bloody brilliant. Debbie Harry was born in 1945. She is awesome. So see her and her band. You will seriously not regret it. Your son is a wise lad. And I am an English boy who has long hair.
JG,
I did vote remain but oddly enough I was also moderately amused that we shived Merkel below the fifth rib. I was also amused my Dad (who makes Clement Attlee look like a Tory) was annoyed. My Dad wants a USE. The sad truth is he doesn’t even know Europe like I do. I go there every year – at the very least. My Dad lives in Macclesfield and is regarding a trip to Belfast (where my brother lives) as a big deal. Jesus Christ!
With respect to the discussion here about the EU gaining its own taxing authority, I see that’s already being discussed. Of course, they’re blaming the UK departure for the need for additional revenues, and there even may be some truth to that, but at its core you know that this is simply a power play, a bid for even greater insulation of Brussels from the common people. This will be interesting to watch.
Nick:
I respectfully disagree with you on the EU, but agree with you on Blondie. We may well have been at the same shows at the Apollo. Debbie Harry is ageless.
As to Macc, it’s an odd place isn’t it? They don’t like outsiders much do they?
The EU has tried every trick in the book to create a source of income that is independent of its member states, from greenwash to carbon taxes, but these have always quite rightly been rejected by member states as autonomy would turn an already undemocratic and high-handed organisation into a monster, in effect a putative Federal Government of Europe with the same totalitarian ambitions as the US Federal Government.
With Britain leaving the EU, the chances of this happening are greater, since Britain was often the most vocal member state in the fight against a Federal Europe (although not always the most forthwrite, a title which tends to go to the smaller Eastern European EU members these days)
There is also the Greek approach JG. The Greeks for example have a smoking ban which is completely ignored on private property. u
NickM (June 28, 2017 at 5:23 pm): “There is also the Greek approach”
That is one of the reasons why many voted to leave. Staying in would accelerate our move to the kind of polity – beloved of freedom-hating politicians – where everyone must break some of the infinity of laws and enforcement is ignored or not as the establishment likes you or not.
“The Greeks for example have a smoking ban which is completely ignored on private property.”
Unless someone with power wants to hassle you – or wants a kickback – and decides to use that instead of the various alternatives.