P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
The big question is the value of alignment with the EU v the value of othervtrade deals. The evidence points very strongly in favour of the former.
I don't doubt that. I'd like to know why the gov are so keen on 3rd party status - there must be a reason?
The one concern I have about the French election now is that the final result will be decided by people whose British equivalents believe that there is no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Congratulations to Melenchon fantastic result.
It was a very strong result - and totally missed by all the pollsters, who also underestimated Macron’s support.
I very much hope Melenchon’s voters heed his words and do all they can to prevent the far-right candidate becoming President. I think most will.
If that is the case, the left Melenchon represents has a real chance of fighting for the presidency in 2027, when Macron cannot stand. First stop is an alliance with the Greens.
With 99% in it is Macron 27.6%, Le Pen 23.4%, Melenchon 22%, Zemmour 7.1%, Pecresse 4.8%, Jadot 4.6%.
So Macron and Le Pen only about 1% more than the final Ipsos poll, Zemmour 2% less.
The main error was underestimating Melenchon and overestimating Pecresse. The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days and much of the Pecresse vote to Macron and some of the Zemmour vote to Le Pen
So l'événement sismique consists of Le Pen increasing her first round tally by a couple of points and Macron by 3.5? Dramatic fall for smelling salts manufacturer stocks.
The BBC have pivoted seamlessly from the Le Pen revolution to dramatic humiliation for traditional parties and Macron still has it all to do.
The Le Pen policy. Do you get the whole 100,000 Euros in one go or is it just an increase in child benefits which add up to that .
Child benefits are already very generous in France .
Also aiui parents can claim what we would call the income tax personal allowance for each child not using theirs, which unless they have a very well-remunerated paper round, is all of them. French income tax is levied on the household, not individuals as here.
Bootle in DT says the policy is a one off "loan" of €100K to all young couple starting out in life, which they will never have to repay if they go on to have three children.
I haven't checked the actual policy on any FR websites to check if this is correct to be honest.
Rather suspect it will not apply to anyone from Northern Africa.
Haven't fully grokked quordle. did it first time yesterday and was surprised by the boringness of the solutions. Wordle words tend to be interesting, we've had nymph and foray recently.
The Le Pen policy. Do you get the whole 100,000 Euros in one go or is it just an increase in child benefits which add up to that .
Child benefits are already very generous in France .
Also aiui parents can claim what we would call the income tax personal allowance for each child not using theirs, which unless they have a very well-remunerated paper round, is all of them. French income tax is levied on the household, not individuals as here.
Bootle in DT says the policy is a one off "loan" of €100K to all young couple starting out in life, which they will never have to repay if they go on to have three children.
I haven't checked the actual policy on any FR websites to check if this is correct to be honest.
Rather suspect it will not apply to anyone from Northern Africa.
So get married at 17, and off to university with 200k cash between you.
Haven't fully grokked quordle. did it first time yesterday and was surprised by the boringness of the solutions. Wordle words tend to be interesting, we've had nymph and foray recently.
Today's Wordle is towards challenging too.
Wordle in 4 today. Might buy a lottery ticket later.
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
1. We are already wholly aligned on standards. 2. Removing barriers only an issue if we dispute "dynamic" alignment on standards. Yet both parties claim they will not drop food standards, so as with (1) this is easy 3. We aren't signing trade deals. We have done some roll-over deals. And a deal with AUSNZ which only kicks in in 2036. America has told us to do one. So we're protecting the theoretical right to sign trade deals with partners shockingly refusing to small UK better terms than large EU.
The one concern I have about the French election now is that the final result will be decided by people whose British equivalents believe that there is no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Congratulations to Melenchon fantastic result.
Losing?
22% and 7.6m votes is definitely a good result for a far left agenda.
Before you are too insulting to his supporters remember without them voting Macron in a fortnight he loses to Le Pen.
Had the French left unified around a single candidate they could have beaten Le Pen. The collapse in mainstream French politics on both left and right has been amazing.
If the French far-right had united, it would have got 30% (although a lot of Le Pen’s support may be because she’s currently pretending not to be far-right).
More generally, I reckon it’s important to wait until the Assembly elections before making any definitive judgements about where French politics and society is heading. My guess is that the Socialists, the Greens and the mainstream right will all do a lot better than their presidential candidates, while the Macron, Melenchon and Le Pen parties will all do worse.
The test for each of the latter three is to survive the departure of the current leader without imploding or fracturing.
I would expect En Marche to lose its majority in the legislative elections in June, even if Macron is re elected later this month
So l'événement sismique consists of Le Pen increasing her first round tally by a couple of points and Macron by 3.5? Dramatic fall for smelling salts manufacturer stocks.
The BBC have pivoted seamlessly from the Le Pen revolution to dramatic humiliation for traditional parties and Macron still has it all to do.
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
The big question is the value of alignment with the EU v the value of othervtrade deals. The evidence points very strongly in favour of the former.
I don't doubt that. I'd like to know why the gov are so keen on 3rd party status - there must be a reason?
They are sovereignty absolutists. They will happily inflict otherwise unnecessary bureaucracy and additional economic hardship on the country in the name of apparent full control.
Whilst I hate the word "benefits" and all it implies, the article nails to the floor just how broken both the economy is and our politics. Working people should not need to reply on foodbanks, yet for so many Tories this is something to be celebrated.
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
I actually agree with you on this
Good! And our barrier to free trade - 3rd party checks done by a broken computer - is the cause of the current chaos.
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
The big question is the value of alignment with the EU v the value of othervtrade deals. The evidence points very strongly in favour of the former.
Perhaps Melanchon favours a far right government, on the ground that it will destroy the bourgeois parties, and lead to a true socialist party taking power.
The one concern I have about the French election now is that the final result will be decided by people whose British equivalents believe that there is no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Congratulations to Melenchon fantastic result.
It was a very strong result - and totally missed by all the pollsters, who also underestimated Macron’s support.
I very much hope Melenchon’s voters heed his words and do all they can to prevent the far-right candidate becoming President. I think most will.
If that is the case, the left Melenchon represents has a real chance of fighting for the presidency in 2027, when Macron cannot stand. First stop is an alliance with the Greens.
With 99% in it is Macron 27.6%, Le Pen 23.4%, Melenchon 22%, Zemmour 7.1%, Pecresse 4.8%, Jadot 4.6%.
So Macron and Le Pen only about 1% more than the final Ipsos poll, Zemmour 2% less.
The main error was underestimating Melenchon and overestimating Pecresse. The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days and much of the Pecresse vote to Macron and some of the Zemmour vote to Le Pen
The part @SouthamObserver says was totally missed is the underestimating of Melenchon, so yes it was missed.
PS "The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days" Where did that (4.5%) left vote move from? The truth is the polls underestimated the left vote.
Whilst I hate the word "benefits" and all it implies, the article nails to the floor just how broken both the economy is and our politics. Working people should not need to reply on foodbanks, yet for so many Tories this is something to be celebrated.
This is why I was so disappointed with Sunak's mini budget (and indeed Labour's response which barely touched on the point). The cost of living crisis is always the worst for the poorest and he did absolutely nothing to help them when faced with a doubling of heating costs. It was wrong.
Worse than doing nothing, your party deny there is a crisis at all. Why do something to fix something that doesn't exist? This is Boris - boosterism is all he knows. So no, not the highest peacetime taxes, not an inflation bomb, not a brutal tax rise, not a fuel and food price crisis. No no, the real issue is chicks with dicks on Channel 4.
You post with an anti HMG agenda which is absolutely fair and understandable, but as we are where we are just how would you deal with the cost of living crisis
It is a genuine question as I am interested in alternatives to HMG
As I have posted repeatedly there are massive structural problems. Jobs that do not pay enough wages and do not guarantee hours. Housing costs that are unaffordable unless you have a large deposit which you can't possibly save for. A social security safety net that makes people so indebted that recovery is almost impossible.
There are no quick and simple solutions. But the starter for 10 has to be recognising the issue exists at all. The Tories deny it - they even celebrate the rise of foodbacks as if working people reliant on charity is a Good Thing. Labour don't want to address it - they're also stuck at the micro instead of looking at the macro. But at least they don't enjoy kicking people like the Tories do. So its a start.
You have not even attempted to answer the question other than to say kick out Tories
I assume the reason is it is almost insoluble no matter which party is in charge
It's not insoluble, but it's insoluble in our current economic situation without using methods that create greater long term problems.
Bluntly, unless we can find ways to raise economic output substantially without increasing the labour force, so there is more money to go round, more tax coming in and the national debt is reduced as a portion of income so becomes more affordable, it can't be done.
But that's something nobody is willing to do as it is in itself quite costly and also requires us to work harder at a time when many workers are already feeling the strain.
I mean, I'm part of the problem from that point of view I suppose. I'm looking to go part time. But if everyone did that, our tax structure is buggered.
If I worked more hours, that might reduce staffing needs and help our economy/tax structure - plus given I'm reducing hours on medical advice due to overwork, so it would save my pension because I would likely be dead before I'm 60 - but from a personal POV it would not be the right solution.
And that's true for most people.
There's plenty of money out there to pay off the national debt; much of it is stashed in the offshore accounts of the super-rich.
Why do we chase ever-increasing 'living-standards' rather than happiness? What is wrong with the country as a whole choosing to do what you are doing, and I have done, as individuals - trading income for time?
I suppose the only problem is that if ‘high productivity’ workers take it easy (earn less but have more leisure), there is a loss in output and tax which isn’t made up automatically. It’s good for them personally and bad for the treasury. We need a greater proportion of ‘high productivity’ workers to sustain greater social spending. There aren’t many quick fix solutions on that front, barring letting high-skilled immigration rise dramatically - and as we know that has its own consequences politically. The harder long term thinking around investing, training, and retraining is harder to win votes from.
Whilst I hate the word "benefits" and all it implies, the article nails to the floor just how broken both the economy is and our politics. Working people should not need to reply on foodbanks, yet for so many Tories this is something to be celebrated.
This is why I was so disappointed with Sunak's mini budget (and indeed Labour's response which barely touched on the point). The cost of living crisis is always the worst for the poorest and he did absolutely nothing to help them when faced with a doubling of heating costs. It was wrong.
Honestly, I’m not sure there was actually much he *could* have done. But he should have been upfront rather than wasting money on meaningless gestures
He could have rated benefits by the 8% that is actual inflation figure now rather than the 3% back in September.
At least it would be a start.
Martin Lewis is predicting civil disorder and I believe he is correct.
Martin Lewis specialises in a dodgy if not quite illegal looking credit card trick, and gas bills. That's it. He thoroughly embarrassed himself on radio a bit ago by not having a clue how pensions work, so I wouldn't give his sociological musings too much weight.
WTF is dodgy about moving money to a credit card that charges a lower or 0% rate of interest for x months?
As for pensions - it's probably like the tax stuff I have to deal with where even the experts are wrong half the time because they don't look at the complete picture so miss the reason why it's X rather than Y. It does mean I have to play a long game of 20 questions but without knowing the EXACT and COMPLETE situation the advice is usually inaccurate.
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
I actually agree with you on this
Good! And our barrier to free trade - 3rd party checks done by a broken computer - is the cause of the current chaos.
If there is one positive to come out of the Ukraine war, it is that the UK and the EU realise the way forward is for more cooperation in defence, security, and improving our trade relationships
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
1. We are already wholly aligned on standards. 2. Removing barriers only an issue if we dispute "dynamic" alignment on standards. Yet both parties claim they will not drop food standards, so as with (1) this is easy 3. We aren't signing trade deals. We have done some roll-over deals. And a deal with AUSNZ which only kicks in in 2036. America has told us to do one. So we're protecting the theoretical right to sign trade deals with partners shockingly refusing to small UK better terms than large EU.
Cheers. So to clarify if we do formally align, it could impact on other deals? I agree with you that we should align with the EU and I hope/suspect the next government will do so, but I'm trying to see why we have chosen 3rd party status?
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
The big question is the value of alignment with the EU v the value of othervtrade deals. The evidence points very strongly in favour of the former.
I don't doubt that. I'd like to know why the gov are so keen on 3rd party status - there must be a reason?
They are sovereignty absolutists. They will happily inflict otherwise unnecessary bureaucracy and additional economic hardship on the country in the name of apparent full control.
The alternative to the current policy is to acknowledge that you don't get something for nothing, that the irritations of following Eurorules were worth it compared with the alternative, that the EU is actually pretty good at global trade deals and that there isn't a massive market out there that EU membership was preventing us accessing.
In other words, that the animating spirits of this government got it wrong on their central policy. That's the kind of thing that people will work hard to avoid saying, even to themselves.
The one concern I have about the French election now is that the final result will be decided by people whose British equivalents believe that there is no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Congratulations to Melenchon fantastic result.
It was a very strong result - and totally missed by all the pollsters, who also underestimated Macron’s support.
I very much hope Melenchon’s voters heed his words and do all they can to prevent the far-right candidate becoming President. I think most will.
If that is the case, the left Melenchon represents has a real chance of fighting for the presidency in 2027, when Macron cannot stand. First stop is an alliance with the Greens.
With 99% in it is Macron 27.6%, Le Pen 23.4%, Melenchon 22%, Zemmour 7.1%, Pecresse 4.8%, Jadot 4.6%.
So Macron and Le Pen only about 1% more than the final Ipsos poll, Zemmour 2% less.
The main error was underestimating Melenchon and overestimating Pecresse. The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days and much of the Pecresse vote to Macron and some of the Zemmour vote to Le Pen
The part @SouthamObserver says was totally missed is the underestimating of Melenchon, so yes it was missed.
PS "The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days" Where did that (4.5%) left vote move from? The truth is the polls underestimated the left vote.
Hasn't he rather consolidated the NOTA vote? I mean. It was clear who the 2 candidates would be. Only one other would be owt but a wasted footnote. Don't like either of the two? I'm sure this explains at least some of the Melenchon surge.
The one concern I have about the French election now is that the final result will be decided by people whose British equivalents believe that there is no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Congratulations to Melenchon fantastic result.
It was a very strong result - and totally missed by all the pollsters, who also underestimated Macron’s support.
I very much hope Melenchon’s voters heed his words and do all they can to prevent the far-right candidate becoming President. I think most will.
If that is the case, the left Melenchon represents has a real chance of fighting for the presidency in 2027, when Macron cannot stand. First stop is an alliance with the Greens.
With 99% in it is Macron 27.6%, Le Pen 23.4%, Melenchon 22%, Zemmour 7.1%, Pecresse 4.8%, Jadot 4.6%.
So Macron and Le Pen only about 1% more than the final Ipsos poll, Zemmour 2% less.
The main error was underestimating Melenchon and overestimating Pecresse. The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days and much of the Pecresse vote to Macron and some of the Zemmour vote to Le Pen
The part @SouthamObserver says was totally missed is the underestimating of Melenchon, so yes it was missed.
PS "The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days" Where did that (4.5%) left vote move from? The truth is the polls underestimated the left vote.
I'm intrigued as to where all the extra Melenchon support came from TBH (to push him over 20%) considering turnout was down overall and Jadot and Rousell didn't get massively squeezed relatively to the polls. Given how well Melenchon has done in the Ile de France and central Paris in particular, a chunk of it must have come directly from Macron?
Ariège is the only place in the south of France that Menchon has topped the poll this time.
Dordogne has also flipped from Melenchon to Le Pen.
Whilst I hate the word "benefits" and all it implies, the article nails to the floor just how broken both the economy is and our politics. Working people should not need to reply on foodbanks, yet for so many Tories this is something to be celebrated.
That people have to rely on food banks is something of which we should be ashamed. As is our treatment of refugees.
Would you be more ashamed if there were no food banks? Talk to food banks. With the best benefits system in the world, you would still have people who run out of money for food. There are people who have a drugs problem. A gambling problem. A drink problem. A complete inability to budget. Sometimes, they are mentally ill. Or of such low intelligence levels, they are very poorly equipped to survive outside a care system.
All of these people can benefit from food banks - and the very generous people who give to them and man them.
Personally, I'm happy that the number of food banks has risen, to help provide for those who would otherwise go without - for whatever reason. Society still provides. That is something to celebrate.
Society doesn't provide. Which is why working people have to rely on foodbanks. If society provided then working would pay the bills. The explosion in foodbank use demonstrates that this is not true.
"Working would pay the bills" . I seem to remember you were one of the people complaining about rising wages for lorry drivers. Well working can only pay the bills if wages are higher.
Yet the party you stand for is a party that supports freedom of movement which holds wages down as they as we have seen only rise when there isn't another 10 people behind that worker going "I will do it for less". You complain about housing costs yet the party you stand for has of late been supporting the NIMBY cause when it comes to house building.
Christ knows I don't support the conservatives, but to say there is a better alternative currently among any of the big 3 english parties that will provide a solution is disingenuous at best. Sadly the big 3 parties are all the same short termist twonks in this regard. Ordinary people getting better pay....unthinkable we must get lots of people in to fill the shortage so pay doesn't rise.
The trouble with using immigration to fill gaps is long term it can only continue so long. As the rest of the world catches up on education and living standards their population growth will also slow and go into reverse like that of western nations. What we need is people in charge who are looking at how can we make things work with a declining population.
A declining population worldwide is a good thing. Less strain on the environment. Less people to share the scarce resources around.
Whilst I hate the word "benefits" and all it implies, the article nails to the floor just how broken both the economy is and our politics. Working people should not need to reply on foodbanks, yet for so many Tories this is something to be celebrated.
This is why I was so disappointed with Sunak's mini budget (and indeed Labour's response which barely touched on the point). The cost of living crisis is always the worst for the poorest and he did absolutely nothing to help them when faced with a doubling of heating costs. It was wrong.
Honestly, I’m not sure there was actually much he *could* have done. But he should have been upfront rather than wasting money on meaningless gestures
He could have rated benefits by the 8% that is actual inflation figure now rather than the 3% back in September.
At least it would be a start.
Martin Lewis is predicting civil disorder and I believe he is correct.
Martin Lewis specialises in a dodgy if not quite illegal looking credit card trick, and gas bills. That's it. He thoroughly embarrassed himself on radio a bit ago by not having a clue how pensions work, so I wouldn't give his sociological musings too much weight.
WTF is dodgy about moving money to a credit card that charges a lower or 0% rate of interest for x months?
As for pensions - it's probably like the tax stuff I have to deal with where even the experts are wrong half the time because they don't look at the complete picture so miss the reason why it's X rather than Y. It does mean I have to play a long game of 20 questions but without knowing the EXACT and COMPLETE situation the advice is usually inaccurate.
You have a stroke in the week before the next move is due and spend a year on life support paying compound interest at 39.9%?
The pension claim was, there is no such thing as drawdown.
The one concern I have about the French election now is that the final result will be decided by people whose British equivalents believe that there is no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Congratulations to Melenchon fantastic result.
It was a very strong result - and totally missed by all the pollsters, who also underestimated Macron’s support.
I very much hope Melenchon’s voters heed his words and do all they can to prevent the far-right candidate becoming President. I think most will.
If that is the case, the left Melenchon represents has a real chance of fighting for the presidency in 2027, when Macron cannot stand. First stop is an alliance with the Greens.
With 99% in it is Macron 27.6%, Le Pen 23.4%, Melenchon 22%, Zemmour 7.1%, Pecresse 4.8%, Jadot 4.6%.
So Macron and Le Pen only about 1% more than the final Ipsos poll, Zemmour 2% less.
The main error was underestimating Melenchon and overestimating Pecresse. The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days and much of the Pecresse vote to Macron and some of the Zemmour vote to Le Pen
The part @SouthamObserver says was totally missed is the underestimating of Melenchon, so yes it was missed.
PS "The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days" Where did that (4.5%) left vote move from? The truth is the polls underestimated the left vote.
The combined left vote with Ipsos excluding Melenchon was 11.5% in its final poll. With 99% in it is only 10% combined excluding Melenchon.
So clearly it was mainly the move of the left vote to Melenchon that was missed, with maybe a slightly higher turnout of younger voters for Melenchon than expected
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
The big question is the value of alignment with the EU v the value of othervtrade deals. The evidence points very strongly in favour of the former.
I don't doubt that. I'd like to know why the gov are so keen on 3rd party status - there must be a reason?
They are sovereignty absolutists. They will happily inflict otherwise unnecessary bureaucracy and additional economic hardship on the country in the name of apparent full control.
The alternative to the current policy is to acknowledge that you don't get something for nothing, that the irritations of following Eurorules were worth it compared with the alternative, that the EU is actually pretty good at global trade deals and that there isn't a massive market out there that EU membership was preventing us accessing.
In other words, that the animating spirits of this government got it wrong on their central policy. That's the kind of thing that people will work hard to avoid saying, even to themselves.
On the perhaps unwise assumption that BJ must believe some of the stuff he comes out with, was any of the EUrophobic and global Britain stuff sincere or was it entirely cynical voter pandering?
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
1. We are already wholly aligned on standards. 2. Removing barriers only an issue if we dispute "dynamic" alignment on standards. Yet both parties claim they will not drop food standards, so as with (1) this is easy 3. We aren't signing trade deals. We have done some roll-over deals. And a deal with AUSNZ which only kicks in in 2036. America has told us to do one. So we're protecting the theoretical right to sign trade deals with partners shockingly refusing to small UK better terms than large EU.
Cheers. So to clarify if we do formally align, it could impact on other deals? I agree with you that we should align with the EU and I hope/suspect the next government will do so, but I'm trying to see why we have chosen 3rd party status?
Why? Because sovvrinty innit? We sold people that Brexit would make things cheaper. That being able to get our own trade deals would mean better trade deals. In reality - and its a shocker - making ourselves a small and relatively disconnected player compared to the vast EEA trade block means that perfidious forrin governments don't want to give us better trade deals than we just left. At best we can roll over what we had, at worst they will screw us (Australia) or ignore us (America).
3rd country was critical to maintain the lie that big trade deals to cut prices are around the corner. So despite being entirely aligned with EEA standards - we should be, we largely wrote their standards - we need to destroy trade with red tape.
My sector is zero tariff and zero VAT. A lorra paperwork to demonstrate that. And once stuff is here if I want to sell to a customer on the island of Ireland I then need more paperwork to demonstrate payment of 3rd country tariffs and export VAT both of which are also zero.
The Tories spent decades campaigning against this kind of pointless red tape. Now they pretend it either doesn't exist or is a good thing or is bad but imposed by the evil EU.
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Johnson needs to sack Mr Green Card in a reshuffle straight after May locals and bring in someone who understands the real world.
The one concern I have about the French election now is that the final result will be decided by people whose British equivalents believe that there is no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Congratulations to Melenchon fantastic result.
It was a very strong result - and totally missed by all the pollsters, who also underestimated Macron’s support.
I very much hope Melenchon’s voters heed his words and do all they can to prevent the far-right candidate becoming President. I think most will.
If that is the case, the left Melenchon represents has a real chance of fighting for the presidency in 2027, when Macron cannot stand. First stop is an alliance with the Greens.
With 99% in it is Macron 27.6%, Le Pen 23.4%, Melenchon 22%, Zemmour 7.1%, Pecresse 4.8%, Jadot 4.6%.
So Macron and Le Pen only about 1% more than the final Ipsos poll, Zemmour 2% less.
The main error was underestimating Melenchon and overestimating Pecresse. The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days and much of the Pecresse vote to Macron and some of the Zemmour vote to Le Pen
The part @SouthamObserver says was totally missed is the underestimating of Melenchon, so yes it was missed.
PS "The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days" Where did that (4.5%) left vote move from? The truth is the polls underestimated the left vote.
I'm intrigued as to where all the extra Melenchon support came from TBH (to push him over 20%) considering turnout was down overall and Jadot and Rousell didn't get massively squeezed relatively to the polls. Given how well Melenchon has done in the Ile de France and Central Paris in particular, a chunk of it must have come directly from Macron?
Ariège is the only place in the south of France that Menchon has topped the poll this time.
Dordogne has also flipped from Melenchon to Le Pen.
Do the UK expats in Dordogne-shire get to vote these days? Plenty of very right-wing views amongst those we knew when we had a place there.
Whilst I hate the word "benefits" and all it implies, the article nails to the floor just how broken both the economy is and our politics. Working people should not need to reply on foodbanks, yet for so many Tories this is something to be celebrated.
This is why I was so disappointed with Sunak's mini budget (and indeed Labour's response which barely touched on the point). The cost of living crisis is always the worst for the poorest and he did absolutely nothing to help them when faced with a doubling of heating costs. It was wrong.
Honestly, I’m not sure there was actually much he *could* have done. But he should have been upfront rather than wasting money on meaningless gestures
He could have rated benefits by the 8% that is actual inflation figure now rather than the 3% back in September.
At least it would be a start.
Martin Lewis is predicting civil disorder and I believe he is correct.
Martin Lewis specialises in a dodgy if not quite illegal looking credit card trick, and gas bills. That's it. He thoroughly embarrassed himself on radio a bit ago by not having a clue how pensions work, so I wouldn't give his sociological musings too much weight.
WTF is dodgy about moving money to a credit card that charges a lower or 0% rate of interest for x months?
As for pensions - it's probably like the tax stuff I have to deal with where even the experts are wrong half the time because they don't look at the complete picture so miss the reason why it's X rather than Y. It does mean I have to play a long game of 20 questions but without knowing the EXACT and COMPLETE situation the advice is usually inaccurate.
You have a stroke in the week before the next move is due and spend a year on life support paying compound interest at 39.9%?
The pension claim was, there is no such thing as drawdown.
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
1. We are already wholly aligned on standards. 2. Removing barriers only an issue if we dispute "dynamic" alignment on standards. Yet both parties claim they will not drop food standards, so as with (1) this is easy 3. We aren't signing trade deals. We have done some roll-over deals. And a deal with AUSNZ which only kicks in in 2036. America has told us to do one. So we're protecting the theoretical right to sign trade deals with partners shockingly refusing to small UK better terms than large EU.
Cheers. So to clarify if we do formally align, it could impact on other deals? I agree with you that we should align with the EU and I hope/suspect the next government will do so, but I'm trying to see why we have chosen 3rd party status?
Why? Because sovvrinty innit? We sold people that Brexit would make things cheaper. That being able to get our own trade deals would mean better trade deals. In reality - and its a shocker - making ourselves a small and relatively disconnected player compared to the vast EEA trade block means that perfidious forrin governments don't want to give us better trade deals than we just left. At best we can roll over what we had, at worst they will screw us (Australia) or ignore us (America).
3rd country was critical to maintain the lie that big trade deals to cut prices are around the corner. So despite being entirely aligned with EEA standards - we should be, we largely wrote their standards - we need to destroy trade with red tape.
My sector is zero tariff and zero VAT. A lorra paperwork to demonstrate that. And once stuff is here if I want to sell to a customer on the island of Ireland I then need more paperwork to demonstrate payment of 3rd country tariffs and export VAT both of which are also zero.
The Tories spent decades campaigning against this kind of pointless red tape. Now they pretend it either doesn't exist or is a good thing or is bad but imposed by the evil EU.
Cheers. Hopefully change is coming.
I suspect too many people have no idea that free trade deals doesn't mean just allowing goods in without checks.
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Johnson needs to sack Mr Green Card in a reshuffle straight after May locals and bring in someone who understands the real world.
Understanding the real world isn’t likely to happen with anyone shipped into the cabinet !
The one concern I have about the French election now is that the final result will be decided by people whose British equivalents believe that there is no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Congratulations to Melenchon fantastic result.
It was a very strong result - and totally missed by all the pollsters, who also underestimated Macron’s support.
I very much hope Melenchon’s voters heed his words and do all they can to prevent the far-right candidate becoming President. I think most will.
If that is the case, the left Melenchon represents has a real chance of fighting for the presidency in 2027, when Macron cannot stand. First stop is an alliance with the Greens.
With 99% in it is Macron 27.6%, Le Pen 23.4%, Melenchon 22%, Zemmour 7.1%, Pecresse 4.8%, Jadot 4.6%.
So Macron and Le Pen only about 1% more than the final Ipsos poll, Zemmour 2% less.
The main error was underestimating Melenchon and overestimating Pecresse. The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days and much of the Pecresse vote to Macron and some of the Zemmour vote to Le Pen
The part @SouthamObserver says was totally missed is the underestimating of Melenchon, so yes it was missed.
PS "The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days" Where did that (4.5%) left vote move from? The truth is the polls underestimated the left vote.
The combined left vote with Ipsos excluding Melenchon was 11.5% in its final poll. With 99% in it is only 10% combined excluding Melenchon.
So clearly it was mainly the move of the left vote to Melenchon that was missed, with maybe a slightly higher turnout of younger voters for Melenchon than expected
1.5% is not the main part of 4.5% but I know you are always right so I'll accept the error of my ways.
Whilst I hate the word "benefits" and all it implies, the article nails to the floor just how broken both the economy is and our politics. Working people should not need to reply on foodbanks, yet for so many Tories this is something to be celebrated.
That people have to rely on food banks is something of which we should be ashamed. As is our treatment of refugees.
Would you be more ashamed if there were no food banks? Talk to food banks. With the best benefits system in the world, you would still have people who run out of money for food. There are people who have a drugs problem. A gambling problem. A drink problem. A complete inability to budget. Sometimes, they are mentally ill. Or of such low intelligence levels, they are very poorly equipped to survive outside a care system.
All of these people can benefit from food banks - and the very generous people who give to them and man them.
Personally, I'm happy that the number of food banks has risen, to help provide for those who would otherwise go without - for whatever reason. Society still provides. That is something to celebrate.
Society doesn't provide. Which is why working people have to rely on foodbanks. If society provided then working would pay the bills. The explosion in foodbank use demonstrates that this is not true.
"Working would pay the bills" . I seem to remember you were one of the people complaining about rising wages for lorry drivers. Well working can only pay the bills if wages are higher.
Yet the party you stand for is a party that supports freedom of movement which holds wages down as they as we have seen only rise when there isn't another 10 people behind that worker going "I will do it for less". You complain about housing costs yet the party you stand for has of late been supporting the NIMBY cause when it comes to house building.
Christ knows I don't support the conservatives, but to say there is a better alternative currently among any of the big 3 english parties that will provide a solution is disingenuous at best. Sadly the big 3 parties are all the same short termist twonks in this regard. Ordinary people getting better pay....unthinkable we must get lots of people in to fill the shortage so pay doesn't rise.
The trouble with using immigration to fill gaps is long term it can only continue so long. As the rest of the world catches up on education and living standards their population growth will also slow and go into reverse like that of western nations. What we need is people in charge who are looking at how can we make things work with a declining population.
A declining population worldwide is a good thing. Less strain on the environment. Less people to share the scarce resources around.
1. I wasn't complaining about higher wages. I was pointing out that paying a fixed pool of truck drivers more would not solve the immediate shortage of drivers. 2. Freedom of movement does not suppress wages. Swathes of economic studies prove that. Especially if it is a race to the top to provide better salaries and better conditions to boost productivity which is what we need. Incentivise companies to do right and punish those who don't through taxation. Want to pay 19% tax on your profits? Treat your employees well. 3. Housebuilding is not the solution. The market builds "executive 3 and 4 bed homes" with cat neck-breaking sizes for £stupid proces when it chooses to based on ability to maximise profits. We need to have housing associations build and take rents out of the market altogether. As the Germans do. Stop syphoning off cash from people's pockets into a small number of landlords and they can spend it on goods and services. Its called "capitalism" 4. I agree that short-termism is the problem, hence proposing a macro-level review of the issue and a multi-term programme to turn things around as Thatcher had.
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Johnson needs to sack Mr Green Card in a reshuffle straight after May locals and bring in someone who understands the real world.
I can't really see him choosing a CotE from outside the Tory party, so that's not happening.
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
The one concern I have about the French election now is that the final result will be decided by people whose British equivalents believe that there is no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Congratulations to Melenchon fantastic result.
It was a very strong result - and totally missed by all the pollsters, who also underestimated Macron’s support.
I very much hope Melenchon’s voters heed his words and do all they can to prevent the far-right candidate becoming President. I think most will.
If that is the case, the left Melenchon represents has a real chance of fighting for the presidency in 2027, when Macron cannot stand. First stop is an alliance with the Greens.
With 99% in it is Macron 27.6%, Le Pen 23.4%, Melenchon 22%, Zemmour 7.1%, Pecresse 4.8%, Jadot 4.6%.
So Macron and Le Pen only about 1% more than the final Ipsos poll, Zemmour 2% less.
The main error was underestimating Melenchon and overestimating Pecresse. The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days and much of the Pecresse vote to Macron and some of the Zemmour vote to Le Pen
The part @SouthamObserver says was totally missed is the underestimating of Melenchon, so yes it was missed.
PS "The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days" Where did that (4.5%) left vote move from? The truth is the polls underestimated the left vote.
I'm intrigued as to where all the extra Melenchon support came from TBH (to push him over 20%) considering turnout was down overall and Jadot and Rousell didn't get massively squeezed relatively to the polls. Given how well Melenchon has done in the Ile de France and Central Paris in particular, a chunk of it must have come directly from Macron?
Ariège is the only place in the south of France that Menchon has topped the poll this time.
Dordogne has also flipped from Melenchon to Le Pen.
Do the UK expats in Dordogne-shire get to vote these days? Plenty of very right-wing views amongst those we knew when we had a place there.
In French presidential elections you have to be a French national to vote so unless they’ve taken that up it wasn’t their fault !
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
The big question is the value of alignment with the EU v the value of othervtrade deals. The evidence points very strongly in favour of the former.
I don't doubt that. I'd like to know why the gov are so keen on 3rd party status - there must be a reason?
They are sovereignty absolutists. They will happily inflict otherwise unnecessary bureaucracy and additional economic hardship on the country in the name of apparent full control.
The alternative to the current policy is to acknowledge that you don't get something for nothing, that the irritations of following Eurorules were worth it compared with the alternative, that the EU is actually pretty good at global trade deals and that there isn't a massive market out there that EU membership was preventing us accessing.
In other words, that the animating spirits of this government got it wrong on their central policy. That's the kind of thing that people will work hard to avoid saying, even to themselves.
On the perhaps unwise assumption that BJ must believe some of the stuff he comes out with, was any of the EUrophobic and global Britain stuff sincere or was it entirely cynical voter pandering?
True, the mechanism in Bozza's head is different to that of the true believers. More a cynical lie than a fond fantasy.
But the principle is the same. The best time to start being truthful is long long ago, because there's no dignified way to unsay an untruth.
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Johnson needs to sack Mr Green Card in a reshuffle straight after May locals and bring in someone who understands the real world.
Understanding the real world isn’t likely to happen with anyone shipped into the cabinet !
The one concern I have about the French election now is that the final result will be decided by people whose British equivalents believe that there is no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Congratulations to Melenchon fantastic result.
It was a very strong result - and totally missed by all the pollsters, who also underestimated Macron’s support.
I very much hope Melenchon’s voters heed his words and do all they can to prevent the far-right candidate becoming President. I think most will.
If that is the case, the left Melenchon represents has a real chance of fighting for the presidency in 2027, when Macron cannot stand. First stop is an alliance with the Greens.
With 99% in it is Macron 27.6%, Le Pen 23.4%, Melenchon 22%, Zemmour 7.1%, Pecresse 4.8%, Jadot 4.6%.
So Macron and Le Pen only about 1% more than the final Ipsos poll, Zemmour 2% less.
The main error was underestimating Melenchon and overestimating Pecresse. The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days and much of the Pecresse vote to Macron and some of the Zemmour vote to Le Pen
The part @SouthamObserver says was totally missed is the underestimating of Melenchon, so yes it was missed.
PS "The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days" Where did that (4.5%) left vote move from? The truth is the polls underestimated the left vote.
Did the polls ask whet people were only certain to vote. Or is what we are see is Left-inclined people who said unlikely to vote, or won't vote and in the event did?
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
Entirely off topic (unless anyone wants to crowbar in a rise of Nazism thing) but has anyone seen the new and Olivier winning production of Cabaret? Might base one of my increasingly rare forays to London on it.
Whilst I hate the word "benefits" and all it implies, the article nails to the floor just how broken both the economy is and our politics. Working people should not need to reply on foodbanks, yet for so many Tories this is something to be celebrated.
That people have to rely on food banks is something of which we should be ashamed. As is our treatment of refugees.
Would you be more ashamed if there were no food banks? Talk to food banks. With the best benefits system in the world, you would still have people who run out of money for food. There are people who have a drugs problem. A gambling problem. A drink problem. A complete inability to budget. Sometimes, they are mentally ill. Or of such low intelligence levels, they are very poorly equipped to survive outside a care system.
All of these people can benefit from food banks - and the very generous people who give to them and man them.
Personally, I'm happy that the number of food banks has risen, to help provide for those who would otherwise go without - for whatever reason. Society still provides. That is something to celebrate.
Society doesn't provide. Which is why working people have to rely on foodbanks. If society provided then working would pay the bills. The explosion in foodbank use demonstrates that this is not true.
"Working would pay the bills" . I seem to remember you were one of the people complaining about rising wages for lorry drivers. Well working can only pay the bills if wages are higher.
Yet the party you stand for is a party that supports freedom of movement which holds wages down as they as we have seen only rise when there isn't another 10 people behind that worker going "I will do it for less". You complain about housing costs yet the party you stand for has of late been supporting the NIMBY cause when it comes to house building.
Christ knows I don't support the conservatives, but to say there is a better alternative currently among any of the big 3 english parties that will provide a solution is disingenuous at best. Sadly the big 3 parties are all the same short termist twonks in this regard. Ordinary people getting better pay....unthinkable we must get lots of people in to fill the shortage so pay doesn't rise.
The trouble with using immigration to fill gaps is long term it can only continue so long. As the rest of the world catches up on education and living standards their population growth will also slow and go into reverse like that of western nations. What we need is people in charge who are looking at how can we make things work with a declining population.
A declining population worldwide is a good thing. Less strain on the environment. Less people to share the scarce resources around.
1. I wasn't complaining about higher wages. I was pointing out that paying a fixed pool of truck drivers more would not solve the immediate shortage of drivers. 2. Freedom of movement does not suppress wages. Swathes of economic studies prove that. Especially if it is a race to the top to provide better salaries and better conditions to boost productivity which is what we need. Incentivise companies to do right and punish those who don't through taxation. Want to pay 19% tax on your profits? Treat your employees well. 3. Housebuilding is not the solution. The market builds "executive 3 and 4 bed homes" with cat neck-breaking sizes for £stupid proces when it chooses to based on ability to maximise profits. We need to have housing associations build and take rents out of the market altogether. As the Germans do. Stop syphoning off cash from people's pockets into a small number of landlords and they can spend it on goods and services. Its called "capitalism" 4. I agree that short-termism is the problem, hence proposing a macro-level review of the issue and a multi-term programme to turn things around as Thatcher had.
1) You did complain about the wages as you said it would feed through to higher goods prices, yes you also said it wouldn't fix the shortage
2) I dont give a damn what economic studies say quite frankly they are academic bull crap as we saw when freedom of movement stopped that wages in the lower paid sectors started to rise as suddenly there was less workers and companies had to compete for them. We saw it from the hospitality industry and transport industry wailing about it along with sundry others. When reality says one thing and an academic study says another I choose to believe reality.
3) House building is the answer but as also I mentioned learning to manage with a declining population would offset this to some extent. Where we agree is that our current model of housebuilding is the wrong one. That does not mean housebuilding in a more useful way is not the answer
Labour, lib dems, greens, conservatives however are not the answer. Three of them all have the same damn mindset and just want to tinker at the ages and the other thinks we should all live in yurts.
Entirely off topic (unless anyone wants to crowbar in a rise of Nazism thing) but has anyone seen the new and Olivier winning production of Cabaret? Might base one of my increasingly rare forays to London on it.
The one concern I have about the French election now is that the final result will be decided by people whose British equivalents believe that there is no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Congratulations to Melenchon fantastic result.
The French Corbyn.
More radical than Labour's Manifesto under Jezza.
There are of course parallels. Biggest party over 500k members, inspires young voters with a radical agenda.
Passes off liberal elite Centrists like Roger.
What's not to like!!
Didn't piss me off. I might have voted for him in the first round. I like a lot of what he says particularly leaving NATO and his loathing of Macron having had his head up Trump's backside and his dislike of Israeli expansion
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
1. We are already wholly aligned on standards. 2. Removing barriers only an issue if we dispute "dynamic" alignment on standards. Yet both parties claim they will not drop food standards, so as with (1) this is easy 3. We aren't signing trade deals. We have done some roll-over deals. And a deal with AUSNZ which only kicks in in 2036. America has told us to do one. So we're protecting the theoretical right to sign trade deals with partners shockingly refusing to small UK better terms than large EU.
FRANCIS: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.
"While each case is dealt with individually, the guidance says that if a detainee’s refusal to be searched “is based on discriminatory views” then police should consider recording a non-crime hate incident."
Entirely off topic (unless anyone wants to crowbar in a rise of Nazism thing) but has anyone seen the new and Olivier winning production of Cabaret? Might base one of my increasingly rare forays to London on it.
How long is it running for?
Currently 1st Oct but I guess that may be extended.
Entirely off topic (unless anyone wants to crowbar in a rise of Nazism thing) but has anyone seen the new and Olivier winning production of Cabaret? Might base one of my increasingly rare forays to London on it.
How long is it running for?
Currently 1st Oct but I guess that may be extended.
Must admit I fancy going. Cabaret is a great musical.
A year later, Andrew had further reason to feel snubbed. Shortly before he boarded the number two barge – an insult in itself – at the Diamond Jubilee river pageant, he learned that he and his daughters had been cut from the iconic royal photo finish on the Buckingham Palace balcony. Nor were they on the list for an event with 700 dignitaries at Westminster Hall just beforehand. Another guest on the barge heard him whingeing about it to Sophie Wessex, whose invitation was also lost in the mail. The image of a curated Royal Family struck the right note at a time of economic austerity. But a former aide told me: “I hear there were literally people restraining members of the family trying to get on the balcony.”
...
Privately, Epstein told people that Andrew was an idiot, but – to him – a useful one. A senior royal, even if tainted, is always a potent magnet abroad. Epstein confided to a friend that he used to fly the Duke of York to obscure foreign markets, where governments were obliged to receive him, and Epstein went along as HRH’s investment adviser. With Andrew as frontman, Epstein could negotiate deals with these (often) shady players.
...
I am told that former US ambassador to the UK Walter Annenberg’s wife, Lee, was appalled when the Duke made a private visit in 1993 to Sunnylands, their magnificent Palm Springs estate in California, and holed up in his bedroom for two days, apparently watching porn on cable TV.
"While each case is dealt with individually, the guidance says that if a detainee’s refusal to be searched “is based on discriminatory views” then police should consider recording a non-crime hate incident."
just wow
How would the detainee know if a search officer is transgender?
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
I just love the idea that the Government can keep affording all these increases in benefit
The government could if they taxed the wealthy.
Take a tithe from millionaires to allow people on benefits to afford heating and eating. Seems fair to me.
And/or, even easier, cancel the 1% cut in income tax promised before 2024. That would be more than enough to do the decent thing and uprate benefits in line with inflation.
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
Entirely off topic (unless anyone wants to crowbar in a rise of Nazism thing) but has anyone seen the new and Olivier winning production of Cabaret? Might base one of my increasingly rare forays to London on it.
Entirely off topic (unless anyone wants to crowbar in a rise of Nazism thing) but has anyone seen the new and Olivier winning production of Cabaret? Might base one of my increasingly rare forays to London on it.
How long is it running for?
Currently 1st Oct but I guess that may be extended.
Must admit I fancy going. Cabaret is a great musical.
It is. On digging in it seems to be a new cast from the award winners. Not a huge fan of Redmayne tbh but I like Jessie Buckley, sure she’d have been a great Sally Bowles.
"While each case is dealt with individually, the guidance says that if a detainee’s refusal to be searched “is based on discriminatory views” then police should consider recording a non-crime hate incident."
just wow
How would the detainee know if a search officer is transgender?
If the officer says something. That's usually the giveaway.
Entirely off topic (unless anyone wants to crowbar in a rise of Nazism thing) but has anyone seen the new and Olivier winning production of Cabaret? Might base one of my increasingly rare forays to London on it.
"While each case is dealt with individually, the guidance says that if a detainee’s refusal to be searched “is based on discriminatory views” then police should consider recording a non-crime hate incident."
just wow
How would the detainee know if a search officer is transgender?
Transgender mtf is reasonably easy to spot. Generally hand size, adams apple etc.
More to the point given what we now know about the met and the number of officers like wayne couzens it seems to contain are you happy to give that sort the opportunity to self ID as woman in order to get some cheap thrills.
What people keep seeming to miss is in this debate is it is usually not the genuine trans people themselves that are the problem (with the exception of womens sports) but the number of sexual predators who will take up with glee self ID to enhance their opportunities.
Hell if self ID comes in and I get a prison sentence I will happily self ID as female as female prisons are a) cushier and b) I will have a muscle advantage on most of the inmates in case of trouble
"While each case is dealt with individually, the guidance says that if a detainee’s refusal to be searched “is based on discriminatory views” then police should consider recording a non-crime hate incident."
just wow
How would the detainee know if a search officer is transgender?
"While each case is dealt with individually, the guidance says that if a detainee’s refusal to be searched “is based on discriminatory views” then police should consider recording a non-crime hate incident."
just wow
How would the detainee know if a search officer is transgender?
A women in tears on BBC News explaining the horrific position she is in now with her Universal Credit being effectively cut as the 3% increase is far behind the inflation rate .
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
Though the UK median pay rise this year also only 3%
Just found a nice spot for my first beer break. First picture is the town I stayed in last night, and the bay I got the shot of the sunrise over. Second picture is the “pathway” up the hillside!
I don't think thats true, but there are limits on what can be done. We can argue about that, and certainly many on here would support going after unearned income more, but its not possible to completely mitigated all the issues right now.
Take the NHS. Arguably it needs a shed load of cash to hire more staff and more capacity for patients. Money alone won't fix that - either you get staff from overseas or you train more at home, Covid has had a big impact on training. But medical schools are expanding, pharmacy admissions are on the up. But these will take years to reach the front line.
I think you believe all tories are heartless and uncaring about other people, I don't think thats true. Most want to support people in need, but also don't like people getting something for nothing. They read stories about free loaders on benefits and come to believe that there is a life out there on state handouts. They believe people who can work should. Where this breaks down is now we have work not paying enough to support a family. Housing costs too much, inflation and the rises in fuels costs are horrific. Tories do understand this, its just that the solutions are not easy.
Just found a nice spot for my first beer break. First picture is the town I stayed in last night, and the bay I got the shot of the sunrise over. Second picture is the “pathway” up the hillside!
Genuinely impressed by the dedication and commitment you show to supporting the brewing industry.
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
1. We are already wholly aligned on standards. 2. Removing barriers only an issue if we dispute "dynamic" alignment on standards. Yet both parties claim they will not drop food standards, so as with (1) this is easy 3. We aren't signing trade deals. We have done some roll-over deals. And a deal with AUSNZ which only kicks in in 2036. America has told us to do one. So we're protecting the theoretical right to sign trade deals with partners shockingly refusing to small UK better terms than large EU.
Cheers. So to clarify if we do formally align, it could impact on other deals? I agree with you that we should align with the EU and I hope/suspect the next government will do so, but I'm trying to see why we have chosen 3rd party status?
Why? Because sovvrinty innit? We sold people that Brexit would make things cheaper. That being able to get our own trade deals would mean better trade deals.
"While each case is dealt with individually, the guidance says that if a detainee’s refusal to be searched “is based on discriminatory views” then police should consider recording a non-crime hate incident."
just wow
How would the detainee know if a search officer is transgender?
Transgender mtf is reasonably easy to spot. Generally hand size, adams apple etc.
More to the point given what we now know about the met and the number of officers like wayne couzens it seems to contain are you happy to give that sort the opportunity to self ID as woman in order to get some cheap thrills.
What people keep seeming to miss is in this debate is it is usually not the genuine trans people themselves that are the problem (with the exception of womens sports) but the number of sexual predators who will take up with glee self ID to enhance their opportunities.
Hell if self ID comes in and I get a prison sentence I will happily self ID as female as female prisons are a) cushier and b) I will have a muscle advantage on most of the inmates in case of trouble
Quite so. It would be irrational not to.
But I think even referring to the conceptual possibility of fakers faking it marks you out as "transphobic" in the eyes of the bien pensant
Zelenskiy: tens of thousands likely killed in Mariupol; 300 hospitals destroyed in Ukraine Tens of thousands of people have likely been killed in Russia’s assault on the southeastern city of Mariupol, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the South Korean parliament this morning.
“Mariupol has been destroyed, there are tens of thousands of dead, but even despite this, the Russians are not stopping their offensive,” Reuters quotes him saying in a video address this morning.
Other key lines from his address include Zelenskiy saying:
Russia threatens Europe, not just Ukraine, and will not stop unless it is forced to stop. Russia has destroyed hundreds of pieces of Ukraine’s key infrastructure including at least 300 hospitals. Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers are being amassed for the next offensive. Ukraine needs more help if it is to survive the war.
I had the best day yesterday. Thank you @jk_rowling for bringing together so many of the women who’ve helped sustain each other through difficult times. #SisterhoodIsPowerful. #WomenWontWheesht
Whilst I hate the word "benefits" and all it implies, the article nails to the floor just how broken both the economy is and our politics. Working people should not need to reply on foodbanks, yet for so many Tories this is something to be celebrated.
That people have to rely on food banks is something of which we should be ashamed. As is our treatment of refugees.
Would you be more ashamed if there were no food banks? Talk to food banks. With the best benefits system in the world, you would still have people who run out of money for food. There are people who have a drugs problem. A gambling problem. A drink problem. A complete inability to budget. Sometimes, they are mentally ill. Or of such low intelligence levels, they are very poorly equipped to survive outside a care system.
All of these people can benefit from food banks - and the very generous people who give to them and man them.
Personally, I'm happy that the number of food banks has risen, to help provide for those who would otherwise go without - for whatever reason. Society still provides. That is something to celebrate.
Society doesn't provide. Which is why working people have to rely on foodbanks. If society provided then working would pay the bills. The explosion in foodbank use demonstrates that this is not true.
"Working would pay the bills" . I seem to remember you were one of the people complaining about rising wages for lorry drivers. Well working can only pay the bills if wages are higher.
Yet the party you stand for is a party that supports freedom of movement which holds wages down as they as we have seen only rise when there isn't another 10 people behind that worker going "I will do it for less". You complain about housing costs yet the party you stand for has of late been supporting the NIMBY cause when it comes to house building.
Christ knows I don't support the conservatives, but to say there is a better alternative currently among any of the big 3 english parties that will provide a solution is disingenuous at best. Sadly the big 3 parties are all the same short termist twonks in this regard. Ordinary people getting better pay....unthinkable we must get lots of people in to fill the shortage so pay doesn't rise.
The trouble with using immigration to fill gaps is long term it can only continue so long. As the rest of the world catches up on education and living standards their population growth will also slow and go into reverse like that of western nations. What we need is people in charge who are looking at how can we make things work with a declining population.
A declining population worldwide is a good thing. Less strain on the environment. Less people to share the scarce resources around.
1. I wasn't complaining about higher wages. I was pointing out that paying a fixed pool of truck drivers more would not solve the immediate shortage of drivers. 2. Freedom of movement does not suppress wages. Swathes of economic studies prove that. Especially if it is a race to the top to provide better salaries and better conditions to boost productivity which is what we need. Incentivise companies to do right and punish those who don't through taxation. Want to pay 19% tax on your profits? Treat your employees well. 3. Housebuilding is not the solution. The market builds "executive 3 and 4 bed homes" with cat neck-breaking sizes for £stupid proces when it chooses to based on ability to maximise profits. We need to have housing associations build and take rents out of the market altogether. As the Germans do. Stop syphoning off cash from people's pockets into a small number of landlords and they can spend it on goods and services. Its called "capitalism" 4. I agree that short-termism is the problem, hence proposing a macro-level review of the issue and a multi-term programme to turn things around as Thatcher had.
1) You did complain about the wages as you said it would feed through to higher goods prices, yes you also said it wouldn't fix the shortage
2) I dont give a damn what economic studies say quite frankly they are academic bull crap as we saw when freedom of movement stopped that wages in the lower paid sectors started to rise as suddenly there was less workers and companies had to compete for them. We saw it from the hospitality industry and transport industry wailing about it along with sundry others. When reality says one thing and an academic study says another I choose to believe reality.
3) House building is the answer but as also I mentioned learning to manage with a declining population would offset this to some extent. Where we agree is that our current model of housebuilding is the wrong one. That does not mean housebuilding in a more useful way is not the answer
Labour, lib dems, greens, conservatives however are not the answer. Three of them all have the same damn mindset and just want to tinker at the ages and the other thinks we should all live in yurts.
On wages - there is a worldwide shortage of high end skills skills. Doctors etc. Think degree plus years of practise plus inate ability.
The rate they are being trained isn’t keeping up with increased demand, even including massive expansions in training in India, China etc.
These shortages mean that *skilled* professional middle class people do not see wage pressure from immigration - well, very much.
At the same time, a number of jobs, of moderate or low skill have become minimum wage jobs (at best).
The difference in experience describes why the experience of mass immigration varys across social strata.
I did brilliantly out of this. A chap I knew (no university education) was successively pushed down the earnings scale as job after job became a minimum wage dead end. He emigrated in the end.
I don't think thats true, but there are limits on what can be done. We can argue about that, and certainly many on here would support going after unearned income more, but its not possible to completely mitigated all the issues right now.
Take the NHS. Arguably it needs a shed load of cash to hire more staff and more capacity for patients. Money alone won't fix that - either you get staff from overseas or you train more at home, Covid has had a big impact on training. But medical schools are expanding, pharmacy admissions are on the up. But these will take years to reach the front line.
I think you believe all tories are heartless and uncaring about other people, I don't think thats true. Most want to support people in need, but also don't like people getting something for nothing. They read stories about free loaders on benefits and come to believe that there is a life out there on state handouts. They believe people who can work should. Where this breaks down is now we have work not paying enough to support a family. Housing costs too much, inflation and the rises in fuels costs are horrific. Tories do understand this, its just that the solutions are not easy.
I'm going to offer up two realpolitik simplistic observations
1. The problem in the NHS isn't the amount of money going in, its what it gets spent on. Both "record amounts being spent" and "a crisis in front-line budgets" are true/ Why? Because the structure hoovers up cash at absurd rates. A mass of bureaucratic complexity with endless tiers of overlapping and competing management. Remove much of the marketisation and more of the money gets to where it needs to get to. The Tories know this but its their people syphoning off the cash so we continue as is
2. Benefit fraud is a spectacularly low percentage - half a percent or so. Lets assume that only captures some of the anecdotage and increase it by a factor of 10 - so 5% is fraud and 95% is genuine. So the war against freeloaders and scroungers is done by ministers knowing it is an outright lie told to weaponise "benefits" and harden voters against human misery. Simply pointing this out, and asking that people treat others as they would be tret themselves will take away so much of the angst around the subject so we can have a grown up discussion.
P&O still have no Dover/Calais services running. What a shambles.
The head of UK ports in apologising for the delays affirmed the cause at Dover is the loss of P & O ferries but also poor weather in the channel
He said the rest of UK ports are operating at 92% but of course some will be wanting to blame brexit
Can I ask when this quote was given? Because the evidence of eyes and ears demonstrates it to be false. "Loss of P&O ferries". Its true that ferry capacity has been reduced. But ships are leaving half empty - trucks cannot get through customs. So the bottleneck is not the P&O issue. "poor weather in the channel" - all you need to do is check the weather forecast today and any day you like last week. There is no poor weather.
The issue is the collapse of the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, where the computer system which HMRC told your government 6 years ago could not cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions has failed because it can't cope with the number of post-Brexit transactions. We have suspended making any inbound checks - trucks are waved through. But outbound we need to show paperwork for the French in that oven-ready deal we insisted on implementing. So without a working computer its manual checks.
Remember that there is no room to park trucks at Dover. So even when GVMS and CHIEF were working the time taken forces trucks to be stacked elsewhere and paperwork to be examined at various pre-channel locations. So even the best case scenario will have queues forever. When the system fails its entirely manual, which creates this chaos.
"Its the fault of P&O" is a demonstrable lie. "Its the fault of poor weather" is a demonstrable lie. You are being spun. You are a smarter man than just believe the lies fed to you in easily digestible portions. DFDS - the people running the ferries - have confirmed their boats are departing half full. So either DFDS are lying about their own business or your quote from UK Ports was a joke at the time and is utterly discredited now.
He commented on 5 live last week and you are clearly suggesting the head of UK ports is lying to the public
I would suggest he knows this subject and you are to be fair hardly a neutral observer
I'm not surprised RP Isn't a neutral observer. He's trying to import stuff into the UK through this chaos. Of course he isn't a neutral observer. He's a critical, and well-informed, one. I'd be surprised if he has any hair left.
You can be well informed, or neutral - both seems a stretch. I'm not sure Big_G is either on this.
Worth noting that I am not a FBPE ultra. Leaving the EU has not caused this. What we chose to do after leaving the single market and customs union is what caused this. I advocate merely the removal of false trade barriers and the return to Thatcherite free trade.
If we agree to align with EU standards on trade (easy, apparently) does that affect our ability to do trade deals elsewhere? If not then it ought to be a no brainer. But there must be some benefit to wanting 3rd party status?
1. We are already wholly aligned on standards. 2. Removing barriers only an issue if we dispute "dynamic" alignment on standards. Yet both parties claim they will not drop food standards, so as with (1) this is easy 3. We aren't signing trade deals. We have done some roll-over deals. And a deal with AUSNZ which only kicks in in 2036. America has told us to do one. So we're protecting the theoretical right to sign trade deals with partners shockingly refusing to small UK better terms than large EU.
Cheers. So to clarify if we do formally align, it could impact on other deals? I agree with you that we should align with the EU and I hope/suspect the next government will do so, but I'm trying to see why we have chosen 3rd party status?
Why? Because sovvrinty innit? We sold people that Brexit would make things cheaper. That being able to get our own trade deals would mean better trade deals.
It sounds like you knew what you were voting for.
Can't recall where on the ballot paper it laid out the specifics of what we would do afterwards. "ah but the politicians told us" say the people who said we could ignore everything the politicians told us because "project fear".
Why are you shocked by the latter? Should trans people be banned from the police force?
Yeah, I'd imagine there would be quite a few.
Saying that only female-born police officers, who aren't themselves trans-men, can do such sensitive things doesn't seem outrageous.
Would a sensible line here be the possession of the appropriate Gender Recognition Certificate for teh relevant officer?
Do you realise how easy it is to get a GRC? It's almost as straightforward as getting HMRC to recognise your non dom status, and there is nothing in there about not having a fully functional penis.
#Russian driver Artyom Severyukhin, competing under the Italian flag at the #European Junior Karting Championship, showed a #Nazi salute at the awards ceremony.
He competing under the #Italian flag because of the sanctions imposed on #Russia.
"While each case is dealt with individually, the guidance says that if a detainee’s refusal to be searched “is based on discriminatory views” then police should consider recording a non-crime hate incident."
just wow
How would the detainee know if a search officer is transgender?
Transgender mtf is reasonably easy to spot. Generally hand size, adams apple etc.
More to the point given what we now know about the met and the number of officers like wayne couzens it seems to contain are you happy to give that sort the opportunity to self ID as woman in order to get some cheap thrills.
What people keep seeming to miss is in this debate is it is usually not the genuine trans people themselves that are the problem (with the exception of womens sports) but the number of sexual predators who will take up with glee self ID to enhance their opportunities.
Hell if self ID comes in and I get a prison sentence I will happily self ID as female as female prisons are a) cushier and b) I will have a muscle advantage on most of the inmates in case of trouble
Quite so. It would be irrational not to.
But I think even referring to the conceptual possibility of fakers faking it marks you out as "transphobic" in the eyes of the bien pensant
Considering activists have claimed committed lesbians refusing to sleep with mtf folk is transphobic I have no doubt. I don't know why they don't go the whole hog and say anyone that isn't trans is not inherently transphobic.
The one concern I have about the French election now is that the final result will be decided by people whose British equivalents believe that there is no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Congratulations to Melenchon fantastic result.
The French Corbyn.
More radical than Labour's Manifesto under Jezza.
There are of course parallels. Biggest party over 500k members, inspires young voters with a radical agenda.
Passes off liberal elite Centrists like Roger.
What's not to like!!
Didn't piss me off. I might have voted for him in the first round. I like a lot of what he says particularly leaving NATO and his loathing of Macron having had his head up Trump's backside and his dislike of Israeli expansion
Is your dislike of NATO related to yacht reductions among acquaintances?
Comments
I did think word 4 was a bit word 2 tbf. Different meaning in the US though.
The final Ipsos poll was Macron 26.5%, Le Pen 22.5%, Melenchon 17.5%, Zemmour 9% and Pecresse 8.5% and Jadot 5%.
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2022-04/Rapport Ipsos_LEMONDE _Intention de vote présidentielle 1er tour 2022.pdf
With 99% in it is Macron 27.6%, Le Pen 23.4%, Melenchon 22%, Zemmour 7.1%, Pecresse 4.8%, Jadot 4.6%.
So Macron and Le Pen only about 1% more than the final Ipsos poll, Zemmour 2% less.
The main error was underestimating Melenchon and overestimating Pecresse. The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days and much of the Pecresse vote to Macron and some of the Zemmour vote to Le Pen
The BBC have pivoted seamlessly from the Le Pen revolution to dramatic humiliation for traditional parties and Macron still has it all to do.
I haven't checked the actual policy on any FR websites to check if this is correct to be honest.
Rather suspect it will not apply to anyone from Northern Africa.
2. Removing barriers only an issue if we dispute "dynamic" alignment on standards. Yet both parties claim they will not drop food standards, so as with (1) this is easy
3. We aren't signing trade deals. We have done some roll-over deals. And a deal with AUSNZ which only kicks in in 2036. America has told us to do one. So we're protecting the theoretical right to sign trade deals with partners shockingly refusing to small UK better terms than large EU.
Gotta keep the story going innit?
There was a reason they liked tower blocks. If you stack the poor on edge, as it were, it leaves a lot of land…
PS "The left vote seems to have moved to Melenchon in the final days" Where did that (4.5%) left vote move from? The truth is the polls underestimated the left vote.
As for pensions - it's probably like the tax stuff I have to deal with where even the experts are wrong half the time because they don't look at the complete picture so miss the reason why it's X rather than Y. It does mean I have to play a long game of 20 questions but without knowing the EXACT and COMPLETE situation the advice is usually inaccurate.
In other words, that the animating spirits of this government got it wrong on their central policy. That's the kind of thing that people will work hard to avoid saying, even to themselves.
I mean. It was clear who the 2 candidates would be. Only one other would be owt but a wasted footnote.
Don't like either of the two? I'm sure this explains at least some of the Melenchon surge.
The Macron camp will be relieved this morning but realize this is a different race from 2017 . They certainly can’t take anything for granted .
Ariège is the only place in the south of France that Menchon has topped the poll this time.
Dordogne has also flipped from Melenchon to Le Pen.
Yet the party you stand for is a party that supports freedom of movement which holds wages down as they as we have seen only rise when there isn't another 10 people behind that worker going "I will do it for less". You complain about housing costs yet the party you stand for has of late been supporting the NIMBY cause when it comes to house building.
Christ knows I don't support the conservatives, but to say there is a better alternative currently among any of the big 3 english parties that will provide a solution is disingenuous at best. Sadly the big 3 parties are all the same short termist twonks in this regard. Ordinary people getting better pay....unthinkable we must get lots of people in to fill the shortage so pay doesn't rise.
The trouble with using immigration to fill gaps is long term it can only continue so long. As the rest of the world catches up on education and living standards their population growth will also slow and go into reverse like that of western nations. What we need is people in charge who are looking at how can we make things work with a declining population.
A declining population worldwide is a good thing. Less strain on the environment. Less people to share the scarce resources around.
You have a stroke in the week before the next move is due and spend a year on life support paying compound interest at 39.9%?
The pension claim was, there is no such thing as drawdown.
https://citywire.com/wealth-manager/news/martin-lewis-tv-pension-gaffe-sparks-outrage/a471535?section=new-model-adviser
So clearly it was mainly the move of the left vote to Melenchon that was missed, with maybe a slightly higher turnout of younger voters for Melenchon than expected
3rd country was critical to maintain the lie that big trade deals to cut prices are around the corner. So despite being entirely aligned with EEA standards - we should be, we largely wrote their standards - we need to destroy trade with red tape.
My sector is zero tariff and zero VAT. A lorra paperwork to demonstrate that. And once stuff is here if I want to sell to a customer on the island of Ireland I then need more paperwork to demonstrate payment of 3rd country tariffs and export VAT both of which are also zero.
The Tories spent decades campaigning against this kind of pointless red tape. Now they pretend it either doesn't exist or is a good thing or is bad but imposed by the evil EU.
These are the real life impacts of the Tories disgusting abandonement of those on in work benefits who are in a desperate situation .
And drawdown is one of those things where my point above applies - it's complex and if you don't know the exact situation blooming dangerous...
In all honesty I'm slightly more shocked by the implication that the number of transgender police officers who were born male is anywhere above zero.
I suspect too many people have no idea that free trade deals doesn't mean just allowing goods in without checks.
https://twitter.com/keiranpedley/status/1513437648039428097
Cheeky reply from Survation.....
2. Freedom of movement does not suppress wages. Swathes of economic studies prove that. Especially if it is a race to the top to provide better salaries and better conditions to boost productivity which is what we need. Incentivise companies to do right and punish those who don't through taxation. Want to pay 19% tax on your profits? Treat your employees well.
3. Housebuilding is not the solution. The market builds "executive 3 and 4 bed homes" with cat neck-breaking sizes for £stupid proces when it chooses to based on ability to maximise profits. We need to have housing associations build and take rents out of the market altogether. As the Germans do. Stop syphoning off cash from people's pockets into a small number of landlords and they can spend it on goods and services. Its called "capitalism"
4. I agree that short-termism is the problem, hence proposing a macro-level review of the issue and a multi-term programme to turn things around as Thatcher had.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-employers-plan-biggest-pay-rises-nearly-10-years-cipd-2022-02-14/
But the principle is the same. The best time to start being truthful is long long ago, because there's no dignified way to unsay an untruth.
Take a tithe from millionaires to allow people on benefits to afford heating and eating. Seems fair to me.
The Tories seem to have given up
Saying that only female-born police officers, who aren't themselves trans-men, can do such sensitive things doesn't seem outrageous.
2) I dont give a damn what economic studies say quite frankly they are academic bull crap as we saw when freedom of movement stopped that wages in the lower paid sectors started to rise as suddenly there was less workers and companies had to compete for them. We saw it from the hospitality industry and transport industry wailing about it along with sundry others. When reality says one thing and an academic study says another I choose to believe reality.
3) House building is the answer but as also I mentioned learning to manage with a declining population would offset this to some extent. Where we agree is that our current model of housebuilding is the wrong one. That does not mean housebuilding in a more useful way is not the answer
Labour, lib dems, greens, conservatives however are not the answer. Three of them all have the same damn mindset and just want to tinker at the ages and the other thinks we should all live in yurts.
REG: What's the point?
just wow
And those who cannot have children would presumably sue for discrimination?
Tina Brown hatchet job on Andrew. breathtaking.
A year later, Andrew had further reason to feel snubbed. Shortly before he boarded the number two barge – an insult in itself – at the Diamond Jubilee river pageant, he learned that he and his daughters had been cut from the iconic royal photo finish on the Buckingham Palace balcony. Nor were they on the list for an event with 700 dignitaries at Westminster Hall just beforehand. Another guest on the barge heard him whingeing about it to Sophie Wessex, whose invitation was also lost in the mail. The image of a curated Royal Family struck the right note at a time of economic austerity. But a former aide told me: “I hear there were literally people restraining members of the family trying to get on the balcony.”
...
Privately, Epstein told people that Andrew was an idiot, but – to him – a useful one. A senior royal, even if tainted, is always a potent magnet abroad. Epstein confided to a friend that he used to fly the Duke of York to obscure foreign markets, where governments were obliged to receive him, and Epstein went along as HRH’s investment adviser. With Andrew as frontman, Epstein could negotiate deals with these (often) shady players.
...
I am told that former US ambassador to the UK Walter Annenberg’s wife, Lee, was appalled when the Duke made a private visit in 1993 to Sunnylands, their magnificent Palm Springs estate in California, and holed up in his bedroom for two days, apparently watching porn on cable TV.
On digging in it seems to be a new cast from the award winners. Not a huge fan of Redmayne tbh but I like Jessie Buckley, sure she’d have been a great Sally Bowles.
More to the point given what we now know about the met and the number of officers like wayne couzens it seems to contain are you happy to give that sort the opportunity to self ID as woman in order to get some cheap thrills.
What people keep seeming to miss is in this debate is it is usually not the genuine trans people themselves that are the problem (with the exception of womens sports) but the number of sexual predators who will take up with glee self ID to enhance their opportunities.
Hell if self ID comes in and I get a prison sentence I will happily self ID as female as female prisons are a) cushier and b) I will have a muscle advantage on most of the inmates in case of trouble
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Definitely not an easy one today.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/05/nhs-equality-chief-leads-mutiny-against-transphobic-watchdog/
They are paying more in tax now then they have ever done, more than under 13 years of Labour.
If rates go up much more than the total collected from the wealthy will go down as they will find ways to avoid paying tax.
Take the NHS. Arguably it needs a shed load of cash to hire more staff and more capacity for patients. Money alone won't fix that - either you get staff from overseas or you train more at home, Covid has had a big impact on training. But medical schools are expanding, pharmacy admissions are on the up. But these will take years to reach the front line.
I think you believe all tories are heartless and uncaring about other people, I don't think thats true. Most want to support people in need, but also don't like people getting something for nothing. They read stories about free loaders on benefits and come to believe that there is a life out there on state handouts. They believe people who can work should. Where this breaks down is now we have work not paying enough to support a family. Housing costs too much, inflation and the rises in fuels costs are horrific. Tories do understand this, its just that the solutions are not easy.
But I think even referring to the conceptual possibility of fakers faking it marks you out as "transphobic" in the eyes of the bien pensant
Tens of thousands of people have likely been killed in Russia’s assault on the southeastern city of Mariupol, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the South Korean parliament this morning.
“Mariupol has been destroyed, there are tens of thousands of dead, but even despite this, the Russians are not stopping their offensive,” Reuters quotes him saying in a video address this morning.
Other key lines from his address include Zelenskiy saying:
Russia threatens Europe, not just Ukraine, and will not stop unless it is forced to stop.
Russia has destroyed hundreds of pieces of Ukraine’s key infrastructure including at least 300 hospitals.
Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers are being amassed for the next offensive.
Ukraine needs more help if it is to survive the war.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/apr/11/russia-ukraine-war-latest-austrian-chancellor-to-meet-putin-ukraine-prepares-for-fresh-onslaught-in-east-live?page=with:block-6253eb9e8f0887d7b40d7f93#block-6253eb9e8f0887d7b40d7f93
https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1513440353537380356
Annoying all the right people.....
The rate they are being trained isn’t keeping up with increased demand, even including massive expansions in training in India, China etc.
These shortages mean that *skilled* professional middle class people do not see wage pressure from immigration - well, very much.
At the same time, a number of jobs, of moderate or low skill have become minimum wage jobs (at best).
The difference in experience describes why the experience of mass immigration varys across social strata.
I did brilliantly out of this. A chap I knew (no university education) was successively pushed down the earnings scale as job after job became a minimum wage dead end. He emigrated in the end.
1. The problem in the NHS isn't the amount of money going in, its what it gets spent on. Both "record amounts being spent" and "a crisis in front-line budgets" are true/ Why? Because the structure hoovers up cash at absurd rates. A mass of bureaucratic complexity with endless tiers of overlapping and competing management. Remove much of the marketisation and more of the money gets to where it needs to get to. The Tories know this but its their people syphoning off the cash so we continue as is
2. Benefit fraud is a spectacularly low percentage - half a percent or so. Lets assume that only captures some of the anecdotage and increase it by a factor of 10 - so 5% is fraud and 95% is genuine. So the war against freeloaders and scroungers is done by ministers knowing it is an outright lie told to weaponise "benefits" and harden voters against human misery. Simply pointing this out, and asking that people treat others as they would be tret themselves will take away so much of the angst around the subject so we can have a grown up discussion.
Try harder next time love.
So, no.
He competing under the #Italian flag because of the sanctions imposed on #Russia.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1513445447628730371
The worst part is the smirking laugh....