Thought I'd start a new thread as this is going to be a major talking point this year...have not made up my mind yet...(unlike bucksfizz)....but thinking of voting for an exit as Europe is not doing Britain any good at all it seems....

Vicky,

Looking at your postings I am glad I didn't attend a school similar to yours.

If it had sided with the Government , what chance someone would have gone to the EU court and tried to get reversal , stalling even more as the game may now be about . So it had to go to court to clarify situation really .

YEH we had a lot of LARGER louts in my skool .

Diana Ross was great...but the Supremes were even better....inside..out...

Vicky,

I would have expected that.

Your upgrade could have been to a reform school.

Pity, you seem to have missed out.

Go back to sleep Fred .

Pompous old git , trouble is I don't know what to expect from a one minute intellectual to a then childish name caller and perpetual moaner/depressed living in another age cartoon obsessed cellar/bunker living crony non voting all criticising numpty big headed numpty .

Don't be too nice VIC ,get it all out ,you'll feel a lot better for it.

Yes I think i'll just be saying " Go back to sleep Freda " from now on .

Live goes on even better, despite of the negative's from the remainers .........

Consumers drive Britain's economy, repulsing expected Brexit vote hit

LONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Britain's free-spending consumers again wrong-footed broad prognostications of a slowdown after June's Brexit vote, driving a robust pace of economic growth in the final three months of 2016, data showed on Thursday.

Gross domestic product rose at a quarterly rate of 0.6 percent between October and December, keeping the above-average pace seen in the first three months after June's referendum decision to leave the European Union.

Services, most susceptible to consumers, were the biggest gainers, while industry and construction lagged.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a slight slowdown to growth of 0.5 percent. Some predictions ranged as low as 0.3 percent.

Sterling hit a three-week high against the euro after the data and British 10-year government bond yields rose to their highest since mid-December.

Many economists had expected Britain to flirt with recession after it voted to leave the EU.

But the Office for National Statistics said that growth in 2016 as a whole slowed only slightly to 2.0 percent from 2.2 percent in 2015, and this was mostly due to weak growth in the first quarter, before the referendum.

The outlook for 2017 is murkier, however, in part because of the reliance on consumers.

Sterling's near 20 percent fall against the dollar is already pushing up costs for businesses, and consumers are likely to share the pain soon.

The Bank of England forecast in November that growth would slow to 1.4 percent in 2017, but it may well raise forecasts for growth and inflation in a quarterly update next week.

LEADING THE PACK, FOR NOW
Britain was probably one of 2016's fastest-growing major advanced economies, and there are some signs this will continue into early 2017. Year-on-year growth, for example, exceeded that of Germany, where the economy grew 1.9 percent last year.

The Confederation of British Industry on Wednesday also reported strong orders for manufacturers in January.

However, the central bank is uneasy about the composition of British growth, with Governor Mark Carney warning that it relies heavily on consumers who will be vulnerable to higher prices.

British carmakers cut investment by a third last year due to Brexit worries, their lobby group said on Thursday.

Services output - which is most sensitive to consumer spending - grew by 0.8 percent.

Her finance minister Philip Hammond has said the resilience of the economy means Britain will enter the Brexit negotiations from a position of strength.

UK's Article 50 Brexit bill to be published at 1230 GMT - PM's spokesman

The British government's bill seeking authorisation from parliament to start the formal Brexit process by triggering Article 50 of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty will be published at 1230 GMT on Thursday, Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said.

Parliament is scheduled to start debating the bill on Tuesday next week.

Second reading of Bill tomorrow plus 3 days of debate.

I see the number of people sleeping rough has increased, about 20% of them are vagrants from Poland, Romania and Lithuania, some luvvies and certain MP's are none too happy about it-------just where did they think these immigrants that they so desperately wanted to come here were going to sleep?
2517

How did they get the money to get here . and why come to a cold country like ours when there's Spain and other warmer countries out there .

Apparently 1 in 3 of those sleeping rough in London are East European vagrants.
2517

That's the EU for you we can't send them back .

What no mention of 'Syrian' refugees left to roam the streets, is that because
all these 'children' were given priority housing, or those luvvies like lily allen,
Sturgeon at al have taken in some of these destitute 'children' and put them
up in their mansions/penthouse apartments like they told us that they would?..

Cracking performance by Corbyn at PM question time this week.

He seriously needs some new advisors and a script writer.