javelin10

I said protect our rights so our own government can't take them away. I don't know who Prof Dustman is but why don't you come up with some proof that they don't? I've worked with dozens of EU Citizens and not one of them has social housing. They all work bloody hard and pay their own rent and get mortgages as soon as they can. They are here to work. I suspect you've been swallowing a steady diet of drivel from some right-wing tabloids for too many years which explains your almost hysterical paranoia. People can't get social housing because we've been selling it off faster then we can build it for the last 40 years; another problem entirely of our own making. We've got tons of 'green belt' and could easily meet our housing needs without building more than a tiny bit of it. Last I heard this meant 1% or so. Wages are low because there are no unions anymore, and because minimum wage employers like Sports Direct and all those other parasites know their staff are supported by Tax Credits, which may keep unemployment low, but does it by creating jobs of the lowest quality possible. Wage competition from EU workers may add a small effect to this in some sectors like construction, but it is our own policies that have overwhelmingly kept so many people poor for decades. Blaming it on EU 'migrants' is just another way the Tories use gullible people, like yourself, to distract attention away from the real problems.

Sorry I didn't reply the other day. I'd already done a lot of writing and I wanted to get some dinner. The whole benefit if EU citizens working here is that they tend not to bring their children or elderly relatives. This helps us plug the hole in our demographic, ie, larger numbers of children, huge numbers of retirees and smaller numbers of working age people in the middle trying to pay for them all. The old age crisis is the most serious social crisis we have at the moment, with care and NHS costs spiralling up year on year. It absolutely dwarfs any extra 'burden' brought by so-called EU migrants 'clogging up our NHS', which is more utter brexit bollocks propagated by the newspapers. Yes but they'll be spending a whole lot less tax because their children are paid for by taxpayers in their home country and they'll either go home before they get old or they'll settle and have English kids like my parents did; then they become no different from any UK family. Until then, they cost us less, and they pay more in. They send some home of course. That doesn't mean they still don't have a net positive effect on the treasury coffers.

France and Germany see closer union as the solution to some of the EU's problems. A few small countries plus the UK didn't and put the brakes on ever closer union for over two decades. It's quite possible that as a result of that federalisation I might one day agree it were better to leave one day, but not today. While we remained in the EU we could still make it work for us. And yes I think it worked for us. The EU didn't cause Greece's debt problem; Greece did. For years they let everyone retire at 55 and never bothered collecting tax from everyone. They had plenty of power to bugger themselves up and they used it. Being in the euro meant they couldn't devalue to help their recovery but it didn't make them get themselves in a mess - they did that all themselves. I think our rights as citizens and especially as workers are much safer in the EU then in the UK. Plenty of leading leavers, including the billionaire tax exiles that own all the eurosceptic newspapers want 'fire at will' laws and a sweat-shop economy. They couldn't get that under EU law so for a decade they demonised all EU migrants as scroungers and queue jumpers. The average EU migrant makes a greater contribution to our taxes than the average UK citizen, because they often have no children and the old folks don't come over. This is another brexit lie that took till after the campaign to be debunked. The fact we have a low wages economy and not enough social housing is ENTIRELY the fault of Westminster policy over the last 40 years. It's got nothing to do with Brussels. As far as accepting the old communist states; I wish it had happened slower, but they qualified so they got it. In 20 years time everyone in the EU will probably think it was a good move. Or maybe they would make an example of us just to persuade the rest of Europe to let Luxembourg off the hook so they can continue paying risible tax rates. If you can make 16% more profit in the future EU due to a low-tax Luxembourg by cutting us out then it's makes sense to do so. This is the kind of thinking we do as business people, isn't it? The whole tax thing is highly speculative though. The UK is probably the worst offender in Europe for tax havens and money laundering so I hardly see us leading the way on tightening up the soft tax laws.

Google "where are Dysons made?"

I don't care where the laws come from so long as they are good laws. This lot we've got at the moment haven't got a clue. Like I said earlier, our biggest problems in the UK were caused by Westminster, not Brussels. I'm sorry that's just grasping at straws. I'm not contradicting myself at all; smaller members have the same veto that everyone has, it's just that it's easier to buy off the smaller countries so they withdraw their veto, as in the recent trade deal with Canada. Belgium was holding the whole thing up for a while until the other members threw them a bone. You'd have to throw the UK a much bigger bone, that is all. On your second point I think the Germans would agree; being by far the biggest net contributors. But I don't see Germany making serious noises about reforming the 'membership fee'. There WAS nothing inevitable about ever closer union; many countries didn't want it, but without the UK holding it up for decades it will probably happen now as the balance of power shifts to France and Germany. Those tax issues will be impossible to solve without the cooperation of the rest of the EU. If we try tell Google or Amazon 'pay your taxes or get lost' they could realistically get lost; they aren't going to tell the whole EU to get lost; that is just too much money to give up. This is how leaving the EU would actually represent a loss of sovereignty, not a gain. If the EU got their act together on tax havens (half of which we seem to own) then something could actually happen, especially if they persuaded the US to cooperate. On our own we won't accomplish diddly, in fact, it looks like our current government wants to give these fat cats an even easier ride. Immigration was a lot of it; anyone who thinks otherwise has a short memory; it was the number one topic and in the final weeks the main issue that leavers were pressing. As regards sticking two fingers up at the government; yes, that was what I said myself. But I think what they will now get is a double helping of the same old shit; and seeing as that was such a predictable outcome is what makes that 'two fingers' gesture so pathetic.

It's just one of the reasons. The main one being that the EU is a 'regionalised' trading bloc. We accept common standards and some common laws in return for not having to have customs checks or border patrols thus promoting trade and saving billions in public expenditure. We also accept we are in a common 'community' which tries to promote and preserve standards in working conditions, personal rights and standards of living. In a fully globalised economy such as we are heading towards, everything we try and produce has to compete with wage levels in China and India. In the EU economy there is still plenty of trade and competition, but that competition has to be fair and we only have to compete with wage levels in Poland and Romania. I regard this as the best of both worlds. Just getting back to standards for a sec, your post about vacuum cleaners is a case in point. If we really thought that 1600w hoovers were an absolute necessity for civilised living we could do something about it. After we leave we have to either buy an EU spec cleaner, produced in huge quantities on the cheap, or we could buy a UK spec cleaner produced in small quantities at triple the price; except we won't, because they'll all be made in China...to EU spec.

No country has the power to entirely control it's own future. Climate change is seeing to that. The fact that most countries can't even raise enough taxes anymore thanks to super rich companies and individual tax avoidance is also a problem we can't solve on our own. Whilst in the EU we did at least have a say. Every country has a veto on major issues and the others have to bully/bribe them to change their minds. No-one could play the 'dangerous driver' - that is just fantasy talk, and we paid more than poor countries because we aren't poor. I just don't see anything unfair about that. Now we are leaving 'ever closer union' is probably an inevitability, and the other countries that weren't enthusiastic about it don't have a big power to rally round, so those prophecies of 'doom' are probably self-fulfilling.

Yes and "better the devil you know" is the position of someone who may not like a situation but can think of worse ones. "Better the devil you don't" is the position of someone who feels they have nothing to lose. The leave campaign scooped up all the latter group with promises so obviously false even leading leave campaigners were disowning them less than 24hours after the vote. I've never heard of anyone regretting voting remain. I can't say the same for leavers.

If you took the time to actually read something that disagrees with your opinion you might notice I was saying we will soon lose to ability to help decide what those standards are not that we will lose the ability to meet those standards.

I doubt it. Everyone who bothers to debate a topic at least has put some thought into it. The brexit vote was at least half carried by a bunch of people who wanted a change without knowing the first thing about that change. I still maintain this is a retarded thing to do.

Range rovers are built to EU standards. Everything the chinese sell here is made to EU standards. So the answer to your questions are Yes, Yes and Yes. And I haven't insulted anyone on this forum, so why are you?

Problem is a lot of people think £10/hr is reasonable down south as well. You may get a labourer for that but probably not a good one. Only kids will jump at that money and after a couple of days graft they'll jump away just as quick.

The EU economy is about the same size as the US economy. The big economies decide the standards, and the smaller economies adhere to them. When we leave the EU we will no longer be setting any standards; that is my point. I didn't say all leavers were retards; see my point above. I maintain that people who vote to leave Brussels in hope of fixing problems that were made in Westminster were retards. I except Eurosceptics from that criticism; their arguments, though rational, are weak. A trading deficit, of any size, matters much more to the UK than to the EU, as they are six times bigger. They all know this on the continent, why don't we seem to? Also the trading deficit is almost entirely in financial services, and that sector has far less to fear from brexit then everyone else, as the City will be looked after before anyone else.

I didn't say half, I said a quarter. 25% eurosceptics plus 26.9% slight retards equals 51.9%. Eurosceptics aren't retards; I'm just not at all impressed by there arguments. True. It's the bit about being a small fish in an increasingly big and interconnected pond that will make things worse. And the fact that we left for all the wrong reasons. Not really, considering the fact that all the EU laws that really affect us are to do with trade. And the ECHR is something I fully agree with, as should all Brits, as it's the most British thing in the EU. Don't get your point here, but the world has recently been through a massive financial crisis, the effects of which we are still feeling. The last time we had such a big shock it caused WW2. If we get away this time with a bit of unrest and a few right-wing windbags getting elected, then going away, then I'll be very relieved :). Besides, does the UK look like the picture of stability to you, right now? And the EU is growing faster then us now, btw. The EU is huge, and German car manufacturers don't control everything. I'm really not underselling the UK. I'm selling it exactly as I see it.

You probably need to poach them off the big boys. When I started my boss had about 16 guys. About 5 of them were excellent climbers and really well motivated but he ripped the guts out of them on massive Planes all day every day and they all left to do other things. I bet there are tons of good ex-climbers out there who got to 30, started getting married/having kids etc and, not having the resources to start up for themselves, decided to do something easier that payed better and actually gave them a future. Most youngsters nowadays would rather die then do what we do for a living. Do yourselves a favour and get some Romanians while you still can

Trying to forecast our future is a fool's errand, and as someone has already said; In 10 years what would we compare our situation to? Forecasting is what led the leavers at referendum time to say "we aren't listening to experts anymore", but expert opinion and forecasting aren't the same thing. Experts were already debunking brexit myths long before the vote, such as 'getting rid of all the silly EU regulations' (not going to happen; we will still have to make stuff to EU spec to sell it anywhere) and the £350m/week bollocks, and a dozen other things I could mention. The problem was that no-one cared. The leave campaign had their eurosceptics in the bag of course, but they were only really about 25% of people likely to vote. They had to make up the numbers with people who hated the Tory government, or politicians in general, or refugees/EU citizens/muslims/Illegal immigrants (leavers tended to make no distinction as the newspapers tended to paint them all the same). Leave presented itself as the choice that could change Britain for the better, whereas Remain was just more of the same. Desperate people went for the change option. Does that make them retards? Actually it does a bit. Just because something has changed doesn't mean it will change for the better. Apathetic voters or first-time voters didn't really look at the detail at all, and ardent leavers want to ignore it. The EU economy is 6 times larger then the UK economy; that is why the US President (the last real one, that is) said we'd have to get to the back of the queue, why the Chinese said 'we don't deal with minnows (ouch!) and why the EU has the upper hand in all things other then financial services. The City of London will get a good deal if any deal is made. The rest of us will not.

I had lots of problems with VT until recently. I bought a sewn eye2eye (75cm I think)for my new SRT setup and found it worked really well on my DRT short rope (some old 13mm marlow stuff). I think the improvement came from two things: 1. The e2e was much shorter on the wider DRT rope and made the VT lock better. 2. The sewn eyes made the last couple of inches to the karabiner much stiffer, which helped self-tending and reduced 'sit-back' My recommendation therefore is: try shortening your cord, then when it's locking nicely, tape the ends to the adjacent working part, nice and tight. Or stop being a tightwad and buy a sewn hitch cord. Actually I'm a huge tightwad, which is why I descend on a figure-8 attached to my side-D ring so it fits just under my hitch; hopefully this will make my hitch cord last as long as possible

Thanks for this 10 Bears. Don't know why I was only notified of a reply today but thanks is better late then never!# I've been persuaded to go for the flat rate in my tax returns; it means the business doesn't have to own the vehicles, for one thing.

And here it is 1 hour later on my trailer ready to go off and finish a job with it Chipped beautifully and even though I drove it down a very steep earth slope it felt very stable even when I span it round on an incline. More practice handling it needed!

Thanks again dan494 but I don't have the space for anything that big. We are in an AONB and I can't imagine being allowed to put anything up bigger then we can hide from the neighbours. It'll have to be fairly close-fitting to the chipper itself; in fact, I'm waiting for the M500 to arrive then I will just build it round the machine! @Pragma; Thanks for the heads up Steve - I've had a look at your site and the products look good.

Showed your post to the missus. She said no! Seriously though, having had a look over my declared info I notice it is open to interpretation as it mentions "secured to ground while in storage" rather then "while in my garden" so I doubt I'll get any joy out of that clause if I have to claim. Both quotes seem to exclude overnight storage in open, and both explicitly exclude wooden structures, which is a pain as my garden office is 45mm planks and more secure then the house! Looks like I'll have to get my trowel out

I went for an M500 because it is self-propelled. Here in South Devon there is hardly a bit of flat land anywhere, particularly on my own property, and after renting a TW 75 one day I was buggered if I was going to manhandle something like that (or heavier!) every day. Did not find one used so bought new. Am now figuring out (with help from forum members) how to secure it at night!

Thanks dan494. According to that, a wooden shed wouldn't be of any use either! The line about "immobilised by the application and setting of a recognised physical security restraining leglock" looks promising, but what is a leglock? Personally I wouldn't put any faith in immobilisers; a big fat chain is much better.

Cheers chaps. Having just arranged insurance quotes recently I did specify the chipper would be outside and chained to a ground anchor but obviously don't want to rely on insurance. I will be making sure it cannot be seen from any public space but someone who wandered into my garden would be able to lift up covers etc. Seeing as your comments about a structure are virtually unanimous that kind of seals the deal. What will fit in my available small spaces are the tricky part. That storm cover (thanks wicklamulla) would certainly do the trick, I'll have to go over the small print in my insurance cover to see if they've taken my declared info on board.

I'm taking delivery of a new Jo Beau M500 'soon' and was wondering how current owners secure theirs. I'm sorry to say I can't fit it in my workshop so it has to go outside; out of sight of prying eyes and under cover but outside none the less. I have ordered a concrete-in ground anchor to chain it to but how much chain/which chain+lock would you recommend?