The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
The drama was over three years ago and replaced with Covid, which was itself then replaced with Cost of Living associated with the war in Ukraine.
People prompted by a question may give an answer, but how many people have been naming Brexit while unprompted?
This right/wrong poll seems to be a perennial favourite for thread headers now which is bemusing since before the Brexit referendum the poll that was most frequently quoted was the IPSOS MORI Issues Index poll which said how low down Europe was on the index when unprompted and thus how little people cared about Europe.
Perhaps its worth revisiting and considering just how where Europe/Brexit is on the list today?
The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
Ah, the old chestnut of which-of-your-past-encounters-most-resembles-Brexit. I know which I'd choose. I remember the incident fondly. Her arrival was most unexpected and she was, I had thought, unobtainable. And my encounter with her motivated my ex-girlfriend to punch me in the face. But ultimately nothing really came of it and life went back to normal.
Were there seven wasted years in there somewhere ? If not, doesn't count.
Meanwhile, hyperbole of the week. Being in single market and UK makes Northern Ireland ‘world’s most exciting economic zone’, says Sunak
Again: why don't the Scots get that treatment as well? Most of them didn't want Brexit, and it's not as if their parliament is being held to ransom by the local chums of Messrs Johnson and R-M.
The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
I think Season One is now over. After nearly 7 years (7 years!) of turmoil we've hit another quasi-equilibrium. That will be enough to render it a virtual non-issue at the next election.
But it will be back for more, hopefully no longer called Brexit, because the UK-EU relationship will never stand still. Sometimes it will be fractious, at other times constructive. I expect us to move back closer into the EU orbit in fits and starts and each will be a little mini-drama but nothing as explosive as the original. Switzerland is the closest analogue we have and the EU relationship dominates their foreign policy.
Wonder what Churchill would say - the UK aspiring to be like Switzerland.
Have you been to Switzerland?
99.9% of the world would like to be Switzerland. Safe, secure, free, democratic and immensely wealthy
If the UK ends up as an offshore version of Switzerland I will be overjoyed. We have global influence from our language and culture anyway. Fuck the rest
Consider a fresh analogy. Brexit is like having a baby
For the last thee years we have been knee deep in soiled nappies, baby puke, and discussions of burping
For the father, who never even wanted the kid, it has been literally hellish. Even the mother has had doubts. What a pain. Maybe it was a mistake after all? Like the father said?
But now finally the kid is off to nursery school. The father gets some respite. The kid can sort of talk. It’s not all bad tho he’d still rather be free and single and able to do exciting holidays in Nicaragua. But the situation is tolerable and he’s simply bored of arguing with the mother
The mother wipes a tear. The child grows. And laughs. She begins to forget the horrors of the sleeplessness
But there is no baby/child. The UK has gone through the soiled nappies etc for nothing more than black passports.
Sunak could see us kicked out the 2026 world cup. Tosser.
Fifa will look into the UK government’s proposals for an independent regulator amid concerns that the new body could breach rules on political interference.
The white paper that was published last week laid out plans for a government-appointed body that would run a licensing scheme for clubs and oversee checks on owners and directors.
Legal experts believe that there are several areas of concern where the regulator could breach Fifa’s Article 15, which states national associations must “be independent and avoid any form of political interference”.
There are numerous cases in which Fifa has suspended national associations for government interference.
Utterly shocked to see that the left-wing Gary Lineker has been dodging taxes from his millions he milks from Licence Fee payers for years now. Truly shocked.
Almost as shocked as I was to find out the sun rose in the East this morning.
Gary is actually right there - the BBC told a whole set of people they were self employed and simply shouldn't have done.
In many cases the BBC have been presented with large tax bills to pay.
So, if the BBC told Gary Lineker to go and rob a bank, he'd just do it.
It is the taxpayer's responsibility to get it right (cf N. Zahawi)
The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
Ah, the old chestnut of which-of-your-past-encounters-most-resembles-Brexit. I know which I'd choose. I remember the incident fondly. Her arrival was most unexpected and she was, I had thought, unobtainable. And my encounter with her motivated my ex-girlfriend to punch me in the face. But ultimately nothing really came of it and life went back to normal.
Were there seven wasted years in there somewhere ? If not, doesn't count.
Meanwhile, hyperbole of the week. Being in single market and UK makes Northern Ireland ‘world’s most exciting economic zone’, says Sunak
Again: why don't the Scots get that treatment as well? Most of them didn't want Brexit, and it's not as if their parliament is being held to ransom by the local chums of Messrs Johnson and R-M.
The real dividend to come out of these talks is not NI, which had some irritations but also a highly favoured position both in the SM and out of it at the same time, Schrodinger's cat style, already. The real benefit is the highly constructive and polite relationship Rishi has built with the EU as a whole. This has already paid dividends with the Horizon program but I have little doubt there will be more to come.
If Rishi can continue down this path then I genuinely believe that Brexit will become a non issue for all except a tiny minority who are obsessed with it and the loss of their EU citizenship. This minority will no doubt be loud, just as the ERG nutters/Farage were loud in the past, but the vast majority will simply not care anymore. We will just have to fill our threads up with something else.
Picture living in a more complicated/interesting world where families and/or partners may live and work in say England and France. Where they have been able to move freely for forty years and now they have to calculate what they're doing almost from day to day. School holidays parents getting ill one partner in England the other in France. Work calling you from one place to the other ......... a lifestyle build over many years and circumstances.
Imagine if it was Scotland and England and you needed to stamp in your passport every time you wanted to go from one to the other and your time in each was highly regulated after years of free movement and integration?
From here in the South of France your post sounds incredibly parochial and doesn't correspond to most people's experiences at all. This isn't a 'tiny obsession' of a minority. It's affecting many many peoples lives and some quite profoundly.
I'm with Foxy on this. If Starmer doesn't reinstate our right to move freely as we could until two years ago he'll have let a lot of people down very badly.
People who can afford to have a second home in the south of France are a tiny minority.
0.13% of the U.K. population, or less than a third of the population of Hartlepool, to use Roger’s favourite metric.
If free movement of Brits to the EU was so popular why did more go to Australia - requiring visas & work permits - than to the entire EU? Yes, it’s affected some badly, but the overwhelming majority, not at all.
(Point of order: it was "entire EU, excluding Ireland".)
Since we’ve had freedom of movement with Ireland for several hundred years before there was an EU - and still do - it hasn’t been affected by BREXIT, since we’re discussing Brexit effects.
We only achieved free movement in Ireland due to war and invasion, at the least EU freedom of movement is benign.
Just wondering how long FOM to (neutral) RoI for 67 million UK residents would survive an actual NATO engaged war in Europe where deadly stuff might start landing on London and Belfast.
This was always filed under 'Can't and Won't Happen'. Is it still?
Sunak could see us kicked out the 2026 world cup. Tosser.
Fifa will look into the UK government’s proposals for an independent regulator amid concerns that the new body could breach rules on political interference.
The white paper that was published last week laid out plans for a government-appointed body that would run a licensing scheme for clubs and oversee checks on owners and directors.
Legal experts believe that there are several areas of concern where the regulator could breach Fifa’s Article 15, which states national associations must “be independent and avoid any form of political interference”.
There are numerous cases in which Fifa has suspended national associations for government interference.
Sunak could see us kicked out the 2026 world cup. Tosser.
Fifa will look into the UK government’s proposals for an independent regulator amid concerns that the new body could breach rules on political interference.
The white paper that was published last week laid out plans for a government-appointed body that would run a licensing scheme for clubs and oversee checks on owners and directors.
Legal experts believe that there are several areas of concern where the regulator could breach Fifa’s Article 15, which states national associations must “be independent and avoid any form of political interference”.
There are numerous cases in which Fifa has suspended national associations for government interference.
Grocery price inflation reached a high 17.1 per cent this month, adding to the squeeze on households in the cost of living crisis.
Prices are rising fastest in markets such as milk, eggs and margarine, data from the market researcher Kantar showed. It said the rise in food costs would add a potential £811 to annual shopping bills.
The "Turnip King" was forced to shut his business down as Brexit shagged it. So we don't have enough turnips either.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
If you think about it, it looks less and less unexpected.
The super cheap stuff in the supermarkets was achieved by a combination of minimum quality, sweating the supplier, who in turn sweated the workforce.
There were some interesting revelations during COVID about labor conditions around Leicester, for example.
Since the pandemic, there has been a definite step change in bottom end employment, in many countries.
The local specialty fruit and veg places are piled high with produce. I asked, yesterday. They are all purchasing direct from various farms - there is apparently quite a good market in higher quality veg. Lots of farms going that way, lots of smaller purchasers.
The real dividend to come out of these talks is not NI, which had some irritations but also a highly favoured position both in the SM and out of it at the same time, Schrodinger's cat style, already. The real benefit is the highly constructive and polite relationship Rishi has built with the EU as a whole. This has already paid dividends with the Horizon program but I have little doubt there will be more to come.
If Rishi can continue down this path then I genuinely believe that Brexit will become a non issue for all except a tiny minority who are obsessed with it and the loss of their EU citizenship. This minority will no doubt be loud, just as the ERG nutters/Farage were loud in the past, but the vast majority will simply not care anymore. We will just have to fill our threads up with something else.
Picture living in a more complicated/interesting world where families and/or partners may live and work in say England and France. Where they have been able to move freely for forty years and now they have to calculate what they're doing almost from day to day. School holidays parents getting ill one partner in England the other in France. Work calling you from one place to the other ......... a lifestyle build over many years and circumstances.
Imagine if it was Scotland and England and you needed to stamp in your passport every time you wanted to go from one to the other and your time in each was highly regulated after years of free movement and integration?
From here in the South of France your post sounds incredibly parochial and doesn't correspond to most people's experiences at all. This isn't a 'tiny obsession' of a minority. It's affecting many many peoples lives and some quite profoundly.
I'm with Foxy on this. If Starmer doesn't reinstate our right to move freely as we could until two years ago he'll have let a lot of people down very badly.
People who can afford to have a second home in the south of France are a tiny minority.
0.13% of the U.K. population, or less than a third of the population of Hartlepool, to use Roger’s favourite metric.
If free movement of Brits to the EU was so popular why did more go to Australia - requiring visas & work permits - than to the entire EU? Yes, it’s affected some badly, but the overwhelming majority, not at all.
(Point of order: it was "entire EU, excluding Ireland".)
Since we’ve had freedom of movement with Ireland for several hundred years before there was an EU - and still do - it hasn’t been affected by BREXIT, since we’re discussing Brexit effects.
We only achieved free movement in Ireland due to war and invasion, at the least EU freedom of movement is benign.
Just wondering how long FOM to (neutral) RoI for 67 million UK residents would survive an actual NATO engaged war in Europe where deadly stuff might start landing on London and Belfast.
This was always filed under 'Can't and Won't Happen'. Is it still?
ROI fully supports Zelensky now, it isn't neutral v Putin as it was in WW2 v Hitler (when De Valera signed the condolence book at the German Embassy when the Fuhrer died)
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
Losses at Ocado Group have more than doubled after a return to more normal shopping habits after the pandemic hammered its retail joint venture with Marks & Spencer.
The £500.8 million pre-tax loss for the year to November 27 increased by £323.9 million compared with the year before and was about £100 million larger than analysts expected. Underlying losses, on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, were £74.1 million, compared with a profit of £61 million the year before.
Leon will eventually be wrong about everything he talks about.
Remember when you were shitting your kecks about the imminent nuclear attack by Russia last autumn?
Still, the necklace, eh?
The greatest single insight in the history of PB. And it took me 2 minutes of watching the debate and even at the end a twat like @kinabalu didn’t know what I was on about
Grocery price inflation reached a high 17.1 per cent this month, adding to the squeeze on households in the cost of living crisis.
Prices are rising fastest in markets such as milk, eggs and margarine, data from the market researcher Kantar showed. It said the rise in food costs would add a potential £811 to annual shopping bills.
The "Turnip King" was forced to shut his business down as Brexit shagged it. So we don't have enough turnips either.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
If you think about it, it looks less and less unexpected.
The super cheap stuff in the supermarkets was achieved by a combination of minimum quality, sweating the supplier, who in turn sweated the workforce.
There were some interesting revelations during COVID about labor conditions around Leicester, for example.
Since the pandemic, there has been a definite step change in bottom end employment, in many countries.
The local specialty fruit and veg places are piled high with produce. I asked, yesterday. They are all purchasing direct from various farms - there is apparently quite a good market in higher quality veg. Lots of farms going that way, lots of smaller purchasers.
Therese Coffey, who I have learned since yesterday is now the SoS for DEFRA, needs to invite Jeremy Clarkson to her office at the earliest opportunity.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
Losses at Ocado Group have more than doubled after a return to more normal shopping habits after the pandemic hammered its retail joint venture with Marks & Spencer.
The £500.8 million pre-tax loss for the year to November 27 increased by £323.9 million compared with the year before and was about £100 million larger than analysts expected. Underlying losses, on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, were £74.1 million, compared with a profit of £61 million the year before.
In an absolutely bizarre interview @lornaslater has essentially suggested that @_KateForbes call the DRS @Circ_Scotland helpline to get better understanding of how it works. 🤦♂️
I am not a fan of the SNP (I know I have kept that quiet over the years) but calling Lorna Slater an SNP minister is definitely defamatory. She is an idiot or Green as they are sometimes called.
Quite. Just shows how much some people know of Scotland, a far distant land of etc.
I couldn't tell you who the members of Sadiq's London city hall cabinet are and I live here.
Leon will eventually be wrong about everything he talks about.
Remember when you were shitting your kecks about the imminent nuclear attack by Russia last autumn?
Still, the necklace, eh?
The greatest single insight in the history of PB. And it took me 2 minutes of watching the debate and even at the end a twat like @kinabalu didn’t know what I was on about
LOL. I see you really are back on the drugs.
As insights go, it wasn't as close as GardenWalker telling us that Sturgeon was about to resign 24 hours before we did.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
Losses at Ocado Group have more than doubled after a return to more normal shopping habits after the pandemic hammered its retail joint venture with Marks & Spencer.
The £500.8 million pre-tax loss for the year to November 27 increased by £323.9 million compared with the year before and was about £100 million larger than analysts expected. Underlying losses, on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, were £74.1 million, compared with a profit of £61 million the year before.
Johnson said there wld be no checks on goods crossing Irish sea under his deal. Untrue. Sunak said y'day checks under Johnson deal were a big problem. Now J said to be pondering opposing Sunak for getting rid of checks his own deal caused. No way Johnson comes out of this well.
Grocery price inflation reached a high 17.1 per cent this month, adding to the squeeze on households in the cost of living crisis.
Prices are rising fastest in markets such as milk, eggs and margarine, data from the market researcher Kantar showed. It said the rise in food costs would add a potential £811 to annual shopping bills.
The "Turnip King" was forced to shut his business down as Brexit shagged it. So we don't have enough turnips either.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
If you think about it, it looks less and less unexpected.
The super cheap stuff in the supermarkets was achieved by a combination of minimum quality, sweating the supplier, who in turn sweated the workforce.
There were some interesting revelations during COVID about labor conditions around Leicester, for example.
Since the pandemic, there has been a definite step change in bottom end employment, in many countries.
The local specialty fruit and veg places are piled high with produce. I asked, yesterday. They are all purchasing direct from various farms - there is apparently quite a good market in higher quality veg. Lots of farms going that way, lots of smaller purchasers.
Sure, it's not surprising - but the financial result is the same. And farm shops and yuppie community rabbit food shops (as opposed to food banks) are of no use at all to the poor person on the peripheral housing estate.
Note that, as with Europe including the UK, the fruit and veg follow the money.
The real dividend to come out of these talks is not NI, which had some irritations but also a highly favoured position both in the SM and out of it at the same time, Schrodinger's cat style, already. The real benefit is the highly constructive and polite relationship Rishi has built with the EU as a whole. This has already paid dividends with the Horizon program but I have little doubt there will be more to come.
If Rishi can continue down this path then I genuinely believe that Brexit will become a non issue for all except a tiny minority who are obsessed with it and the loss of their EU citizenship. This minority will no doubt be loud, just as the ERG nutters/Farage were loud in the past, but the vast majority will simply not care anymore. We will just have to fill our threads up with something else.
Picture living in a more complicated/interesting world where families and/or partners may live and work in say England and France. Where they have been able to move freely for forty years and now they have to calculate what they're doing almost from day to day. School holidays parents getting ill one partner in England the other in France. Work calling you from one place to the other ......... a lifestyle build over many years and circumstances.
Imagine if it was Scotland and England and you needed to stamp in your passport every time you wanted to go from one to the other and your time in each was highly regulated after years of free movement and integration?
From here in the South of France your post sounds incredibly parochial and doesn't correspond to most people's experiences at all. This isn't a 'tiny obsession' of a minority. It's affecting many many peoples lives and some quite profoundly.
I'm with Foxy on this. If Starmer doesn't reinstate our right to move freely as we could until two years ago he'll have let a lot of people down very badly.
People who can afford to have a second home in the south of France are a tiny minority.
0.13% of the U.K. population, or less than a third of the population of Hartlepool, to use Roger’s favourite metric.
If free movement of Brits to the EU was so popular why did more go to Australia - requiring visas & work permits - than to the entire EU? Yes, it’s affected some badly, but the overwhelming majority, not at all.
(Point of order: it was "entire EU, excluding Ireland".)
Since we’ve had freedom of movement with Ireland for several hundred years before there was an EU - and still do - it hasn’t been affected by BREXIT, since we’re discussing Brexit effects.
We only achieved free movement in Ireland due to war and invasion, at the least EU freedom of movement is benign.
Just wondering how long FOM to (neutral) RoI for 67 million UK residents would survive an actual NATO engaged war in Europe where deadly stuff might start landing on London and Belfast.
This was always filed under 'Can't and Won't Happen'. Is it still?
Ireland was only second on my nuclear escape list after Morocco anyway so I'd be heading there. Although one of the variables was agricultural self-sufficiency and I hadn't factored in frost damage to the tomato crop.
The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
The drama was over three years ago and replaced with Covid, which was itself then replaced with Cost of Living associated with the war in Ukraine.
People prompted by a question may give an answer, but how many people have been naming Brexit while unprompted?
This right/wrong poll seems to be a perennial favourite for thread headers now which is bemusing since before the Brexit referendum the poll that was most frequently quoted was the IPSOS MORI Issues Index poll which said how low down Europe was on the index when unprompted and thus how little people cared about Europe.
Perhaps its worth revisiting and considering just how where Europe/Brexit is on the list today?
To be fair, the "issues" poll is pretty much "what's been in the news lately" - so I'd expect it to be much higher in the next poll.
The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
Ah, the old chestnut of which-of-your-past-encounters-most-resembles-Brexit. I know which I'd choose. I remember the incident fondly. Her arrival was most unexpected and she was, I had thought, unobtainable. And my encounter with her motivated my ex-girlfriend to punch me in the face. But ultimately nothing really came of it and life went back to normal.
Were there seven wasted years in there somewhere ? If not, doesn't count.
Meanwhile, hyperbole of the week. Being in single market and UK makes Northern Ireland ‘world’s most exciting economic zone’, says Sunak
Again: why don't the Scots get that treatment as well? Most of them didn't want Brexit, and it's not as if their parliament is being held to ransom by the local chums of Messrs Johnson and R-M.
I'm afraid I have no useful response to that, but I take your point. And of course the entire UK was in that position prior to Brexit.
Sunak could see us kicked out the 2026 world cup. Tosser.
Fifa will look into the UK government’s proposals for an independent regulator amid concerns that the new body could breach rules on political interference.
The white paper that was published last week laid out plans for a government-appointed body that would run a licensing scheme for clubs and oversee checks on owners and directors.
Legal experts believe that there are several areas of concern where the regulator could breach Fifa’s Article 15, which states national associations must “be independent and avoid any form of political interference”.
There are numerous cases in which Fifa has suspended national associations for government interference.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
Losses at Ocado Group have more than doubled after a return to more normal shopping habits after the pandemic hammered its retail joint venture with Marks & Spencer.
The £500.8 million pre-tax loss for the year to November 27 increased by £323.9 million compared with the year before and was about £100 million larger than analysts expected. Underlying losses, on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, were £74.1 million, compared with a profit of £61 million the year before.
Ocado seem to be quite bad at making a profit from delivering food. Which is an interesting, since that is their entire business.
Just Eat seem to have a more sustainable business than Ocado, and that says something.
Ocado's core business isn't delivering food. It's the sale of automation technology to logistics businesses. Food delivery is a very small part of their P&L.
The two-minute video, titled “The Spurs Fan Center,” imagines a fictional ‘Spurs Sensory Center,’ where fans of the club can go to work through their misery over their lack of trophies. Inside, we discover the center is largely devoted to memorializing the misfortunes of hated local North London rival Arsenal, historically the more successful team.
Tim Nicholls, head of influencing and research at the National Autistic Society, doesn’t see the funny side of the betting operator’s skit.
“We honestly have no idea what Paddy Power thought the benefits of making this film were,” he told The Athletic. “We’re really disappointed they used the term ‘sensory room’ as part of a cheap jibe.
The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
Ah, the old chestnut of which-of-your-past-encounters-most-resembles-Brexit. I know which I'd choose. I remember the incident fondly. Her arrival was most unexpected and she was, I had thought, unobtainable. And my encounter with her motivated my ex-girlfriend to punch me in the face. But ultimately nothing really came of it and life went back to normal.
Were there seven wasted years in there somewhere ? If not, doesn't count.
Meanwhile, hyperbole of the week. Being in single market and UK makes Northern Ireland ‘world’s most exciting economic zone’, says Sunak
Again: why don't the Scots get that treatment as well? Most of them didn't want Brexit, and it's not as if their parliament is being held to ransom by the local chums of Messrs Johnson and R-M.
I'm afraid I have no useful response to that, but I take your point. And of course the entire UK was in that position prior to Brexit.
It will become more and more salient in Scottish-UK politics. The danger for Mr Sunak is that he is actually trying to appear both reasonable and sane, in conspicuous contrast to his predecessors (as others on PB have noted in a different context).
The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
Ah, the old chestnut of which-of-your-past-encounters-most-resembles-Brexit. I know which I'd choose. I remember the incident fondly. Her arrival was most unexpected and she was, I had thought, unobtainable. And my encounter with her motivated my ex-girlfriend to punch me in the face. But ultimately nothing really came of it and life went back to normal.
Were there seven wasted years in there somewhere ? If not, doesn't count.
Meanwhile, hyperbole of the week. Being in single market and UK makes Northern Ireland ‘world’s most exciting economic zone’, says Sunak
Again: why don't the Scots get that treatment as well? Most of them didn't want Brexit, and it's not as if their parliament is being held to ransom by the local chums of Messrs Johnson and R-M.
I'm afraid I have no useful response to that, but I take your point. And of course the entire UK was in that position prior to Brexit.
No it wasn't.
Prior to Brexit the entire UK was only in the EU.
Now NI is both in the Single Market and out of it, simultaneously. Schrodinger's Brexit was how NI always should have been resolved, despite the FBPE crowd decrying it as a unicorn, its been achieved.
Grocery price inflation reached a high 17.1 per cent this month, adding to the squeeze on households in the cost of living crisis.
Prices are rising fastest in markets such as milk, eggs and margarine, data from the market researcher Kantar showed. It said the rise in food costs would add a potential £811 to annual shopping bills.
The "Turnip King" was forced to shut his business down as Brexit shagged it. So we don't have enough turnips either.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
If you think about it, it looks less and less unexpected.
The super cheap stuff in the supermarkets was achieved by a combination of minimum quality, sweating the supplier, who in turn sweated the workforce.
There were some interesting revelations during COVID about labor conditions around Leicester, for example.
Since the pandemic, there has been a definite step change in bottom end employment, in many countries.
The local specialty fruit and veg places are piled high with produce. I asked, yesterday. They are all purchasing direct from various farms - there is apparently quite a good market in higher quality veg. Lots of farms going that way, lots of smaller purchasers.
Sure, it's not surprising - but the financial result is the same. And farm shops and yuppie community rabbit food shops (as opposed to food banks) are of no use at all to the poor person on the peripheral housing estate.
Note that, as with Europe including the UK, the fruit and veg follow the money.
This isn't farm shops - it's just one tier up from the "essential" ranges in the supermarkets. Think recreating the greengrocer. The one I go to recreates the greengrocer my mother used to use, in Summertown, Oxford, rather well.
Many of the supermarkets having been heading this way with their higher quality ranges.
Given the tension between quality and working conditions vs food cost, it was inevitable that something was going to have to give, in the end.
Leon will eventually be wrong about everything he talks about.
Remember when you were shitting your kecks about the imminent nuclear attack by Russia last autumn?
Still, the necklace, eh?
The greatest single insight in the history of PB. And it took me 2 minutes of watching the debate and even at the end a twat like @kinabalu didn’t know what I was on about
LOL. I see you really are back on the drugs.
As insights go, it wasn't as close as GardenWalker telling us that Sturgeon was about to resign 24 hours before we did.
That was on Twitter. He told us. That’s where he read it. He told us
I spotted the necklace EX NIHILO. With no information other than what I was seeing with my own eyes
I am uncanny. Sometimes I scare myself to be honest
I heard a new phrase this morning on R4 - the lunar economy. Apparently the British Space Agency is looking at plans to build a communications network on the moon.
Utterly shocked to see that the left-wing Gary Lineker has been dodging taxes from his millions he milks from Licence Fee payers for years now. Truly shocked.
Almost as shocked as I was to find out the sun rose in the East this morning.
Gary is actually right there - the BBC told a whole set of people they were self employed and simply shouldn't have done.
In many cases the BBC have been presented with large tax bills to pay.
As I said earlier, self-employment has been considered the standard in the industry for decades. Jocks and presenters all self-employed contractors regardless of how many radio stations they worked for.
In this case the BBC set the contract. And the people who hate the people who like the BBC can't help but sneer and label them left-wing. Despite being wrong.
Sunak could see us kicked out the 2026 world cup. Tosser.
Fifa will look into the UK government’s proposals for an independent regulator amid concerns that the new body could breach rules on political interference.
The white paper that was published last week laid out plans for a government-appointed body that would run a licensing scheme for clubs and oversee checks on owners and directors.
Legal experts believe that there are several areas of concern where the regulator could breach Fifa’s Article 15, which states national associations must “be independent and avoid any form of political interference”.
There are numerous cases in which Fifa has suspended national associations for government interference.
To be honest, I'd far rather football was clean and poor than see England play in the 2026 WC. English club football is on some very dodgy foundations, and the money which has poured into the game has only made things worse for fans.
The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
Ah, the old chestnut of which-of-your-past-encounters-most-resembles-Brexit. I know which I'd choose. I remember the incident fondly. Her arrival was most unexpected and she was, I had thought, unobtainable. And my encounter with her motivated my ex-girlfriend to punch me in the face. But ultimately nothing really came of it and life went back to normal.
Were there seven wasted years in there somewhere ? If not, doesn't count.
Meanwhile, hyperbole of the week. Being in single market and UK makes Northern Ireland ‘world’s most exciting economic zone’, says Sunak
Again: why don't the Scots get that treatment as well? Most of them didn't want Brexit, and it's not as if their parliament is being held to ransom by the local chums of Messrs Johnson and R-M.
I'm afraid I have no useful response to that, but I take your point. And of course the entire UK was in that position prior to Brexit.
No it wasn't.
Prior to Brexit the entire UK was only in the EU.
Now NI is both in the Single Market and out of it, simultaneously. Schrodinger's Brexit was how NI always should have been resolved, despite the FBPE crowd decrying it as a unicorn, its been achieved.
Read what I wrote, rather than what you imagine. How were we not "in the single market and the UK" ?
Grocery price inflation reached a high 17.1 per cent this month, adding to the squeeze on households in the cost of living crisis.
Prices are rising fastest in markets such as milk, eggs and margarine, data from the market researcher Kantar showed. It said the rise in food costs would add a potential £811 to annual shopping bills.
The "Turnip King" was forced to shut his business down as Brexit shagged it. So we don't have enough turnips either.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
If you think about it, it looks less and less unexpected.
The super cheap stuff in the supermarkets was achieved by a combination of minimum quality, sweating the supplier, who in turn sweated the workforce.
There were some interesting revelations during COVID about labor conditions around Leicester, for example.
Since the pandemic, there has been a definite step change in bottom end employment, in many countries.
The local specialty fruit and veg places are piled high with produce. I asked, yesterday. They are all purchasing direct from various farms - there is apparently quite a good market in higher quality veg. Lots of farms going that way, lots of smaller purchasers.
Sure, it's not surprising - but the financial result is the same. And farm shops and yuppie community rabbit food shops (as opposed to food banks) are of no use at all to the poor person on the peripheral housing estate.
Note that, as with Europe including the UK, the fruit and veg follow the money.
This isn't farm shops - it's just one tier up from the "essential" ranges in the supermarkets. Think recreating the greengrocer. The one I go to recreates the greengrocer my mother used to use, in Summertown, Oxford, rather well.
Many of the supermarkets having been heading this way with their higher quality ranges.
Given the tension between quality and working conditions vs food cost, it was inevitable that something was going to have to give, in the end.
Summertown? A rather nice shopping street in a pretty upmarket inner suburb as I recall (friends live very close by)? [edit] But lots of folk don't have access to such shops.
Oh, I don't disagree with your analysis - but still the financial results are what count, especially with fewer workers in the fields as well.
On lawyers, I just read Chaucer's The Friar's Tale. Not quite the same, but fair to say he isn't a fan of summoners. (In return, the Summoner claims friars dwell in Satan's rectum).
Or there's Shakespeare: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".
Leon will eventually be wrong about everything he talks about.
Remember when you were shitting your kecks about the imminent nuclear attack by Russia last autumn?
Still, the necklace, eh?
The greatest single insight in the history of PB. And it took me 2 minutes of watching the debate and even at the end a twat like @kinabalu didn’t know what I was on about
LOL. I see you really are back on the drugs.
As insights go, it wasn't as close as GardenWalker telling us that Sturgeon was about to resign 24 hours before we did.
That was on Twitter. He told us. That’s where he read it. He told us
I spotted the necklace EX NIHILO. With no information other than what I was seeing with my own eyes
I am uncanny. Sometimes I scare myself to be honest
As a pitch to M. Night Shyamalan, leaves a bit to be desired. "I see necklaces."
Leon will eventually be wrong about everything he talks about.
Remember when you were shitting your kecks about the imminent nuclear attack by Russia last autumn?
Still, the necklace, eh?
The greatest single insight in the history of PB. And it took me 2 minutes of watching the debate and even at the end a twat like @kinabalu didn’t know what I was on about
LOL. I see you really are back on the drugs.
As insights go, it wasn't as close as GardenWalker telling us that Sturgeon was about to resign 24 hours before we did.
That was on Twitter. He told us. That’s where he read it. He told us
I spotted the necklace EX NIHILO. With no information other than what I was seeing with my own eyes
I am uncanny. Sometimes I scare myself to be honest
You also get scared by watching Threads.
A film I watched as a 9 year old and wasn't scared by.
The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
Ah, the old chestnut of which-of-your-past-encounters-most-resembles-Brexit. I know which I'd choose. I remember the incident fondly. Her arrival was most unexpected and she was, I had thought, unobtainable. And my encounter with her motivated my ex-girlfriend to punch me in the face. But ultimately nothing really came of it and life went back to normal.
Were there seven wasted years in there somewhere ? If not, doesn't count.
Meanwhile, hyperbole of the week. Being in single market and UK makes Northern Ireland ‘world’s most exciting economic zone’, says Sunak
Again: why don't the Scots get that treatment as well? Most of them didn't want Brexit, and it's not as if their parliament is being held to ransom by the local chums of Messrs Johnson and R-M.
I'm afraid I have no useful response to that, but I take your point. And of course the entire UK was in that position prior to Brexit.
No it wasn't.
Prior to Brexit the entire UK was only in the EU.
Now NI is both in the Single Market and out of it, simultaneously. Schrodinger's Brexit was how NI always should have been resolved, despite the FBPE crowd decrying it as a unicorn, its been achieved.
With all matters on the island of Ireland it's best to wait and see.
From 1066 and all that:
'Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the question.’
Leon will eventually be wrong about everything he talks about.
Remember when you were shitting your kecks about the imminent nuclear attack by Russia last autumn?
Still, the necklace, eh?
The greatest single insight in the history of PB. And it took me 2 minutes of watching the debate and even at the end a twat like @kinabalu didn’t know what I was on about
LOL. I see you really are back on the drugs.
As insights go, it wasn't as close as GardenWalker telling us that Sturgeon was about to resign 24 hours before we did.
That was on Twitter. He told us. That’s where he read it. He told us
I spotted the necklace EX NIHILO. With no information other than what I was seeing with my own eyes
I am uncanny. Sometimes I scare myself to be honest
But it's about as original as spotting pampas grass on the front lawn of a suburban bungalow.
Grocery price inflation reached a high 17.1 per cent this month, adding to the squeeze on households in the cost of living crisis.
Prices are rising fastest in markets such as milk, eggs and margarine, data from the market researcher Kantar showed. It said the rise in food costs would add a potential £811 to annual shopping bills.
The "Turnip King" was forced to shut his business down as Brexit shagged it. So we don't have enough turnips either.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
If you think about it, it looks less and less unexpected.
The super cheap stuff in the supermarkets was achieved by a combination of minimum quality, sweating the supplier, who in turn sweated the workforce.
There were some interesting revelations during COVID about labor conditions around Leicester, for example.
Since the pandemic, there has been a definite step change in bottom end employment, in many countries.
The local specialty fruit and veg places are piled high with produce. I asked, yesterday. They are all purchasing direct from various farms - there is apparently quite a good market in higher quality veg. Lots of farms going that way, lots of smaller purchasers.
The specialists always do better - quality of their products to start with. Its when operations start to grow and you need to spend serious £dollah to produce bigger volumes.
Too many UK producers faced the perfect storm so have produced a lot less. The weather has been sub-optimal. Energy bills make winter growing very expensive. And then we have labour. After much pushing the government allowed pickers in on a 6 month visa. For a 9-month season. Which meant growers needed two lots of staff and the training needed etc etc.
We really need to focus on growing our farming and fishing capabilities. Instead of shrinking them as we are.
Leon will eventually be wrong about everything he talks about.
Remember when you were shitting your kecks about the imminent nuclear attack by Russia last autumn?
Still, the necklace, eh?
The greatest single insight in the history of PB. And it took me 2 minutes of watching the debate and even at the end a twat like @kinabalu didn’t know what I was on about
LOL. I see you really are back on the drugs.
As insights go, it wasn't as close as GardenWalker telling us that Sturgeon was about to resign 24 hours before we did.
That was on Twitter. He told us. That’s where he read it. He told us
I spotted the necklace EX NIHILO. With no information other than what I was seeing with my own eyes
I am uncanny. Sometimes I scare myself to be honest
As a pitch to M. Night Shyamalan, leaves a bit to be desired. "I see necklaces."
What do the films The Sixth Sense and Titanic have in common?
The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
The drama was over three years ago and replaced with Covid, which was itself then replaced with Cost of Living associated with the war in Ukraine.
People prompted by a question may give an answer, but how many people have been naming Brexit while unprompted?
This right/wrong poll seems to be a perennial favourite for thread headers now which is bemusing since before the Brexit referendum the poll that was most frequently quoted was the IPSOS MORI Issues Index poll which said how low down Europe was on the index when unprompted and thus how little people cared about Europe.
Perhaps its worth revisiting and considering just how where Europe/Brexit is on the list today?
To be fair, the "issues" poll is pretty much "what's been in the news lately" - so I'd expect it to be much higher in the next poll.
A bit, but petrol prices are down 50p/litre from their peak last year and still appear on the list.
Europe/Brexit doesn't even appear on the list, let alone near the top.
Grocery price inflation reached a high 17.1 per cent this month, adding to the squeeze on households in the cost of living crisis.
Prices are rising fastest in markets such as milk, eggs and margarine, data from the market researcher Kantar showed. It said the rise in food costs would add a potential £811 to annual shopping bills.
The "Turnip King" was forced to shut his business down as Brexit shagged it. So we don't have enough turnips either.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
If you think about it, it looks less and less unexpected.
The super cheap stuff in the supermarkets was achieved by a combination of minimum quality, sweating the supplier, who in turn sweated the workforce.
There were some interesting revelations during COVID about labor conditions around Leicester, for example.
Since the pandemic, there has been a definite step change in bottom end employment, in many countries.
The local specialty fruit and veg places are piled high with produce. I asked, yesterday. They are all purchasing direct from various farms - there is apparently quite a good market in higher quality veg. Lots of farms going that way, lots of smaller purchasers.
Sure, it's not surprising - but the financial result is the same. And farm shops and yuppie community rabbit food shops (as opposed to food banks) are of no use at all to the poor person on the peripheral housing estate.
Note that, as with Europe including the UK, the fruit and veg follow the money.
This isn't farm shops - it's just one tier up from the "essential" ranges in the supermarkets. Think recreating the greengrocer. The one I go to recreates the greengrocer my mother used to use, in Summertown, Oxford, rather well.
Many of the supermarkets having been heading this way with their higher quality ranges.
Given the tension between quality and working conditions vs food cost, it was inevitable that something was going to have to give, in the end.
Summertown? A rather nice shopping street in a pretty upmarket inner suburb as I recall (friends live very close by)?
Oh, I don't disagree - but still the financial results are what count, especially with fewer workers in the fields as well.
It wasn't like that in the 80s. We had a scrap yard on the street corner, an abandoned factory site on the street and a building site opposite. The house, when we moved in had been converted into substandard HMO.
The place is fairly gentrified now. The greengrocer in question, there, went. Killed by supermarkets, of course.
The one I go to, in London, is actually a tuning up of the "ethnic" shops that are scattered about London. A number of people have realised that instead of just catering to their own community, they can get other people in, who are looking for quality.
There's an Iranian chap who is half way to a mini-supermarket, not far away.
EDIT: as the financial aspect - if you want non-crap veg, harvested by workers paid minimum wage+, and a bit of profit for the farmer, then there is a price to be paid. The previous prices for cheap food were a kind of lie.
The two-minute video, titled “The Spurs Fan Center,” imagines a fictional ‘Spurs Sensory Center,’ where fans of the club can go to work through their misery over their lack of trophies. Inside, we discover the center is largely devoted to memorializing the misfortunes of hated local North London rival Arsenal, historically the more successful team.
Tim Nicholls, head of influencing and research at the National Autistic Society, doesn’t see the funny side of the betting operator’s skit.
“We honestly have no idea what Paddy Power thought the benefits of making this film were,” he told The Athletic. “We’re really disappointed they used the term ‘sensory room’ as part of a cheap jibe.
Leon will eventually be wrong about everything he talks about.
Remember when you were shitting your kecks about the imminent nuclear attack by Russia last autumn?
Still, the necklace, eh?
The greatest single insight in the history of PB. And it took me 2 minutes of watching the debate and even at the end a twat like @kinabalu didn’t know what I was on about
LOL. I see you really are back on the drugs.
As insights go, it wasn't as close as GardenWalker telling us that Sturgeon was about to resign 24 hours before we did.
That was on Twitter. He told us. That’s where he read it. He told us
I spotted the necklace EX NIHILO. With no information other than what I was seeing with my own eyes
I am uncanny. Sometimes I scare myself to be honest
As a pitch to M. Night Shyamalan, leaves a bit to be desired. "I see necklaces."
What do the films The Sixth Sense and Titanic have in common?
I'm so pleased for Northern Ireland. As Rishi says, their being in the Single Market is economically a seriously exciting place.
I'm suddenly thinking of those 1992 adverts sponsored by the DTi, as it was known then, and as some of the department of trade and industry bureaucrats had conceived the entire single market for the rest of Europe, too, and a bit like British bureaucrats and the UN .
"It's coming !" "Businesses Get Ready !"
And then a zippy, lit graph line would appear across the screen, like a growth forecast, and the early rave-music style soundtrack of the early 1990's would kick in alongside ,
Grocery price inflation reached a high 17.1 per cent this month, adding to the squeeze on households in the cost of living crisis.
Prices are rising fastest in markets such as milk, eggs and margarine, data from the market researcher Kantar showed. It said the rise in food costs would add a potential £811 to annual shopping bills.
The "Turnip King" was forced to shut his business down as Brexit shagged it. So we don't have enough turnips either.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
If you think about it, it looks less and less unexpected.
The super cheap stuff in the supermarkets was achieved by a combination of minimum quality, sweating the supplier, who in turn sweated the workforce.
There were some interesting revelations during COVID about labor conditions around Leicester, for example.
Since the pandemic, there has been a definite step change in bottom end employment, in many countries.
The local specialty fruit and veg places are piled high with produce. I asked, yesterday. They are all purchasing direct from various farms - there is apparently quite a good market in higher quality veg. Lots of farms going that way, lots of smaller purchasers.
The specialists always do better - quality of their products to start with. Its when operations start to grow and you need to spend serious £dollah to produce bigger volumes.
Too many UK producers faced the perfect storm so have produced a lot less. The weather has been sub-optimal. Energy bills make winter growing very expensive. And then we have labour. After much pushing the government allowed pickers in on a 6 month visa. For a 9-month season. Which meant growers needed two lots of staff and the training needed etc etc.
We really need to focus on growing our farming and fishing capabilities. Instead of shrinking them as we are.
According to the lady running the "new" greengrocer, the farm she gets the tomatoes from has invested in automatic picking machinery to go with the poly tunnels.
The two-minute video, titled “The Spurs Fan Center,” imagines a fictional ‘Spurs Sensory Center,’ where fans of the club can go to work through their misery over their lack of trophies. Inside, we discover the center is largely devoted to memorializing the misfortunes of hated local North London rival Arsenal, historically the more successful team.
Tim Nicholls, head of influencing and research at the National Autistic Society, doesn’t see the funny side of the betting operator’s skit.
“We honestly have no idea what Paddy Power thought the benefits of making this film were,” he told The Athletic. “We’re really disappointed they used the term ‘sensory room’ as part of a cheap jibe.
It didn't "mock autism", it mocked Spurs...
And it was funny.
By complaining about it, far more people will now see it, be amused by it, and Paddy Power are going to get more attention they wanted.
Utterly shocked to see that the left-wing Gary Lineker has been dodging taxes from his millions he milks from Licence Fee payers for years now. Truly shocked.
Almost as shocked as I was to find out the sun rose in the East this morning.
Gary is actually right there - the BBC told a whole set of people they were self employed and simply shouldn't have done.
In many cases the BBC have been presented with large tax bills to pay.
As I said earlier, self-employment has been considered the standard in the industry for decades. Jocks and presenters all self-employed contractors regardless of how many radio stations they worked for.
In this case the BBC set the contract. And the people who hate the people who like the BBC can't help but sneer and label them left-wing. Despite being wrong.
Grocery price inflation reached a high 17.1 per cent this month, adding to the squeeze on households in the cost of living crisis.
Prices are rising fastest in markets such as milk, eggs and margarine, data from the market researcher Kantar showed. It said the rise in food costs would add a potential £811 to annual shopping bills.
The "Turnip King" was forced to shut his business down as Brexit shagged it. So we don't have enough turnips either.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
If you think about it, it looks less and less unexpected.
The super cheap stuff in the supermarkets was achieved by a combination of minimum quality, sweating the supplier, who in turn sweated the workforce.
There were some interesting revelations during COVID about labor conditions around Leicester, for example.
Since the pandemic, there has been a definite step change in bottom end employment, in many countries.
The local specialty fruit and veg places are piled high with produce. I asked, yesterday. They are all purchasing direct from various farms - there is apparently quite a good market in higher quality veg. Lots of farms going that way, lots of smaller purchasers.
Sure, it's not surprising - but the financial result is the same. And farm shops and yuppie community rabbit food shops (as opposed to food banks) are of no use at all to the poor person on the peripheral housing estate.
Note that, as with Europe including the UK, the fruit and veg follow the money.
This isn't farm shops - it's just one tier up from the "essential" ranges in the supermarkets. Think recreating the greengrocer. The one I go to recreates the greengrocer my mother used to use, in Summertown, Oxford, rather well.
Many of the supermarkets having been heading this way with their higher quality ranges.
Given the tension between quality and working conditions vs food cost, it was inevitable that something was going to have to give, in the end.
Summertown? A rather nice shopping street in a pretty upmarket inner suburb as I recall (friends live very close by)?
Oh, I don't disagree - but still the financial results are what count, especially with fewer workers in the fields as well.
It wasn't like that in the 80s. We had a scrap yard on the street corner, an abandoned factory site on the street and a building site opposite. The house, when we moved in had been converted into substandard HMO.
The place is fairly gentrified now. The greengrocer in question, there, went. Killed by supermarkets, of course.
The one I go to, in London, is actually a tuning up of the "ethnic" shops that are scattered about London. A number of people have realised that instead of just catering to their own community, they can get other people in, who are looking for quality.
There's an Iranian chap who is half way to a mini-supermarket, not far away.
EDIT: as the financial aspect - if you want non-crap veg, harvested by workers paid minimum wage+, and a bit of profit for the farmer, then there is a price to be paid. The previous prices for cheap food were a kind of lie.
Yes, North Oxford has changed - my friends moved there in the mid 80s. Noisy metal bashing factory by the canal, lots of derelict railway land, wild flowers. Now it's wall to wall commuter boxes. I was quite astonished by the changes when I visited for the first time in many years lately. Even the flower shop in a greenhouse on the main road (Banbury Road?) has become a posh-ish restaurant (nice food though).
Consider a fresh analogy. Brexit is like having a baby
For the last thee years we have been knee deep in soiled nappies, baby puke, and discussions of burping
For the father, who never even wanted the kid, it has been literally hellish. Even the mother has had doubts. What a pain. Maybe it was a mistake after all? Like the father said?
But now finally the kid is off to nursery school. The father gets some respite. The kid can sort of talk. It’s not all bad tho he’d still rather be free and single and able to do exciting holidays in Nicaragua. But the situation is tolerable and he’s simply bored of arguing with the mother
The mother wipes a tear. The child grows. And laughs. She begins to forget the horrors of the sleeplessness
You should find a magazine to send that to. Some of them pay good money, I hear.
Many of ERG can live with the deal - they will take their lead from Baker and Rees-Mogg, I suspect in long run DUP will live with it too. Sunak will not pull back.
Utterly shocked to see that the left-wing Gary Lineker has been dodging taxes from his millions he milks from Licence Fee payers for years now. Truly shocked.
Almost as shocked as I was to find out the sun rose in the East this morning.
Gary is actually right there - the BBC told a whole set of people they were self employed and simply shouldn't have done.
In many cases the BBC have been presented with large tax bills to pay.
As I said earlier, self-employment has been considered the standard in the industry for decades. Jocks and presenters all self-employed contractors regardless of how many radio stations they worked for.
In this case the BBC set the contract. And the people who hate the people who like the BBC can't help but sneer and label them left-wing. Despite being wrong.
Utterly shocked to see that the left-wing Gary Lineker has been dodging taxes from his millions he milks from Licence Fee payers for years now. Truly shocked.
Almost as shocked as I was to find out the sun rose in the East this morning.
Gary is actually right there - the BBC told a whole set of people they were self employed and simply shouldn't have done.
In many cases the BBC have been presented with large tax bills to pay.
As I said earlier, self-employment has been considered the standard in the industry for decades. Jocks and presenters all self-employed contractors regardless of how many radio stations they worked for.
In this case the BBC set the contract. And the people who hate the people who like the BBC can't help but sneer and label them left-wing. Despite being wrong.
The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
Ah, the old chestnut of which-of-your-past-encounters-most-resembles-Brexit. I know which I'd choose. I remember the incident fondly. Her arrival was most unexpected and she was, I had thought, unobtainable. And my encounter with her motivated my ex-girlfriend to punch me in the face. But ultimately nothing really came of it and life went back to normal.
Were there seven wasted years in there somewhere ? If not, doesn't count.
Meanwhile, hyperbole of the week. Being in single market and UK makes Northern Ireland ‘world’s most exciting economic zone’, says Sunak
Again: why don't the Scots get that treatment as well? Most of them didn't want Brexit, and it's not as if their parliament is being held to ransom by the local chums of Messrs Johnson and R-M.
Go grab an Armalite then. Otherwise, soz
The Scottish should 100% do this. You get a lot further with the ammo box than you do with the soap box or the ballot box.
The two-minute video, titled “The Spurs Fan Center,” imagines a fictional ‘Spurs Sensory Center,’ where fans of the club can go to work through their misery over their lack of trophies. Inside, we discover the center is largely devoted to memorializing the misfortunes of hated local North London rival Arsenal, historically the more successful team.
Tim Nicholls, head of influencing and research at the National Autistic Society, doesn’t see the funny side of the betting operator’s skit.
“We honestly have no idea what Paddy Power thought the benefits of making this film were,” he told The Athletic. “We’re really disappointed they used the term ‘sensory room’ as part of a cheap jibe.
It didn't "mock autism", it mocked Spurs...
And it was funny.
By complaining about it, far more people will now see it, be amused by it, and Paddy Power are going to get more attention they wanted.
Streisand Effect in action again.
The National Autistic Society also getting some free publicity - might not be a bad move on their part either.
The more Sunak extols the virtues of Northern Ireland's single market membership, the harder it gets for him to explain why the rest of the UK shouldn't have it too.
Consider a fresh analogy. Brexit is like having a baby
For the last thee years we have been knee deep in soiled nappies, baby puke, and discussions of burping
For the father, who never even wanted the kid, it has been literally hellish. Even the mother has had doubts. What a pain. Maybe it was a mistake after all? Like the father said?
But now finally the kid is off to nursery school. The father gets some respite. The kid can sort of talk. It’s not all bad tho he’d still rather be free and single and able to do exciting holidays in Nicaragua. But the situation is tolerable and he’s simply bored of arguing with the mother
The mother wipes a tear. The child grows. And laughs. She begins to forget the horrors of the sleeplessness
You should find a magazine to send that to. Some of them pay good money, I hear.
Utterly shocked to see that the left-wing Gary Lineker has been dodging taxes from his millions he milks from Licence Fee payers for years now. Truly shocked.
Almost as shocked as I was to find out the sun rose in the East this morning.
Gary is actually right there - the BBC told a whole set of people they were self employed and simply shouldn't have done.
In many cases the BBC have been presented with large tax bills to pay.
As I said earlier, self-employment has been considered the standard in the industry for decades. Jocks and presenters all self-employed contractors regardless of how many radio stations they worked for.
In this case the BBC set the contract. And the people who hate the people who like the BBC can't help but sneer and label them left-wing. Despite being wrong.
The more Sunak extols the virtues of Northern Ireland's single market membership, the harder it gets for him to explain why the rest of the UK shouldn't have it too.
Not hard at all, we have the advantage of controlling our own laws having taken back control.
NI has the advantage of controlling their own laws, combined with single market membership as a cherry on top due to their unique circumstances.
We couldn't have both, we'd need to sacrifice control to be in the single market, which wasn't worthwhile, which is why we left.
The great Brexit fuckdrama is over. Some think it was a rape. Some a meaningless one night stand to be vaguely regretted. For others it was a sublime consummation
But for all of us, it is now over. The post coital heartbeat is audibly slowing. And the normal political pulse resumes. And so we get on with the day
Ah, the old chestnut of which-of-your-past-encounters-most-resembles-Brexit. I know which I'd choose. I remember the incident fondly. Her arrival was most unexpected and she was, I had thought, unobtainable. And my encounter with her motivated my ex-girlfriend to punch me in the face. But ultimately nothing really came of it and life went back to normal.
Were there seven wasted years in there somewhere ? If not, doesn't count.
Meanwhile, hyperbole of the week. Being in single market and UK makes Northern Ireland ‘world’s most exciting economic zone’, says Sunak
Again: why don't the Scots get that treatment as well? Most of them didn't want Brexit, and it's not as if their parliament is being held to ransom by the local chums of Messrs Johnson and R-M.
Go grab an Armalite then. Otherwise, soz
The Scottish should 100% do this. You get a lot further with the ammo box than you do with the soap box or the ballot box.
You don’t really. Use of violence simply hardens opinion of those who oppose you. Scottish nationalists have made far more progress in the last five decades than Irish nationalists, because (current issues aside) they at no point placed themselves beyond the pale.
Equally, it’s arguable that the suffragettes set back the cause of the vote for women. Certainly those who shared their aims but whose actions were more conventional and constitutional thought so.
The more Sunak extols the virtues of Northern Ireland's single market membership, the harder it gets for him to explain why the rest of the UK shouldn't have it too.
Maybe that’s the plan, use NI as a test then in a year the UK and EU start sounding out putting it into action for rUK once everyone except the headbangers see it as sensible.
Sunak wins a glorious election victory and everything returns to sanity. This might not happen.
The DUP are a fxcking disgrace and clearly nothing bar a return to a hard border between NI and Ireland will satisfy them.
They fear the future, whatever it may bring, so spend their time just huddling together assuming that if they prevent anything at all that will be a good result.
The DUP is the political wing of the Free Presybterian Church of Ulster, and while it's true that they fear the future it's also true that they get off on fearing the future. They think they know what the future will bring, because they believe it's all written in the Book of Revelations. The principal factor in everything they say about the border or the Irish Sea is their belief that the Roman Catholic church is the Antichrist, that it owns both the RoI and the EU, and that it's hell-bent on coming to get them. They love "holding out" more than everything. Their whole mythos is based on it. They are far crazier than the IRA ever were. The IRA's mythos was kitsch in comparison.
I don't think a single newspaper has mentioned why it is that the DUP dislike the EU.
This view is about 30 years out of date. But, you know, some people just never move on....
I take it you mean my view rather than the view I am ascribing to the DUP. What was the reason in your view that the DUP opposed Britain's EU membership?
National Sovereignty considered more important than Supranational bodies having greater power, don't think the EU was an honest broker are probably two for a start. Take a long hard look at the make up of the party today, sure it still has its Paisleyite religious types but it is largely dominated by poeople who have fuck all interest in Free Presbyetrianism. In fact the DUP is chock full of fucking technocrats and wonks in the back offices, not people holding prayer meetings. Since Paisley they have had one leader in the deeply religious mould. It didnt protect him from being put out on his arse after a couple of months.
Whats People Before Profits Excuse for its anti EU stance at times? Are they the radical wing of Catholicism and fear the EU is full of Prods?
I hadn't heard of PBP. Three minutes of lookup on the internet suggests they don't seem to think the EU is full of Protestants or anything similar. I doubt they're any kind of wing of Catholicism. They don't seem to be about defending ethnic traditions, let alone any that date back to the 17th century.
National sovereignty considered more important than supranational bodies? That's a legitimate view, but if it's so important to the DUP do they propose that Britain should leave NATO or tell the ECHR and ICJ where to get off? Also they are Irish. I'm not telling them what identity or politics they should have, but Ulster is a province of Ireland. They're British too, and it's their British identity that's far more important to them. Why? It can't just be "because". It's to do with tradition and being Protestant and against rule by evil Dublin.
As for broker, I didn't realise the EU was a broker. Is that how they see it??
NI is a province of the United Kingdom. Its no more a province of Ireland, than Alaska is a province of Canada or Russia.
They have Irish citizenship on top, thanks to the Irish constitution and the Good Friday Agreement, but they're still a part of the UK and not Ireland. Maybe one day there'll be a single country called Ireland spanning the entire island, I hope there will be, but that day is not today.
As for NATO etc, none of those supranational bodies can create law of their own volition, only the EU could do that, so they're not the same thing.
Grocery price inflation reached a high 17.1 per cent this month, adding to the squeeze on households in the cost of living crisis.
Prices are rising fastest in markets such as milk, eggs and margarine, data from the market researcher Kantar showed. It said the rise in food costs would add a potential £811 to annual shopping bills.
The "Turnip King" was forced to shut his business down as Brexit shagged it. So we don't have enough turnips either.
As I noted on the last thread, Which now have food inflation at 21.6% for the cheap end stuff in supermarkets. Does depend on the supermarket, but as I recall the Ocado end showed much less inflation thanb the cheap supermarkets the last time they did a survey.
If you think about it, it looks less and less unexpected.
The super cheap stuff in the supermarkets was achieved by a combination of minimum quality, sweating the supplier, who in turn sweated the workforce.
There were some interesting revelations during COVID about labor conditions around Leicester, for example.
Since the pandemic, there has been a definite step change in bottom end employment, in many countries.
The local specialty fruit and veg places are piled high with produce. I asked, yesterday. They are all purchasing direct from various farms - there is apparently quite a good market in higher quality veg. Lots of farms going that way, lots of smaller purchasers.
Sure, it's not surprising - but the financial result is the same. And farm shops and yuppie community rabbit food shops (as opposed to food banks) are of no use at all to the poor person on the peripheral housing estate.
Note that, as with Europe including the UK, the fruit and veg follow the money.
This isn't farm shops - it's just one tier up from the "essential" ranges in the supermarkets. Think recreating the greengrocer. The one I go to recreates the greengrocer my mother used to use, in Summertown, Oxford, rather well.
Many of the supermarkets having been heading this way with their higher quality ranges.
Given the tension between quality and working conditions vs food cost, it was inevitable that something was going to have to give, in the end.
Summertown? A rather nice shopping street in a pretty upmarket inner suburb as I recall (friends live very close by)?
Oh, I don't disagree - but still the financial results are what count, especially with fewer workers in the fields as well.
It wasn't like that in the 80s. We had a scrap yard on the street corner, an abandoned factory site on the street and a building site opposite. The house, when we moved in had been converted into substandard HMO.
The place is fairly gentrified now. The greengrocer in question, there, went. Killed by supermarkets, of course.
The one I go to, in London, is actually a tuning up of the "ethnic" shops that are scattered about London. A number of people have realised that instead of just catering to their own community, they can get other people in, who are looking for quality.
There's an Iranian chap who is half way to a mini-supermarket, not far away.
EDIT: as the financial aspect - if you want non-crap veg, harvested by workers paid minimum wage+, and a bit of profit for the farmer, then there is a price to be paid. The previous prices for cheap food were a kind of lie.
Yes, North Oxford has changed - my friends moved there in the mid 80s. Noisy metal bashing factory by the canal, lots of derelict railway land, wild flowers. Now it's wall to wall commuter boxes. I was quite astonished by the changes when I visited for the first time in many years lately. Even the flower shop in a greenhouse on the main road (Banbury Road?) has become a posh-ish restaurant (nice food though).
You mean Gees? - I can just about remember the flower shop that came before that.
The more Sunak extols the virtues of Northern Ireland's single market membership, the harder it gets for him to explain why the rest of the UK shouldn't have it too.
Maybe that’s the plan, use NI as a test then in a year the UK and EU start sounding out putting it into action for rUK once everyone except the headbangers see it as sensible.
Sunak wins a glorious election victory and everything returns to sanity. This might not happen.
Won't happen under the Tories because it would split the party in half. Might happen under Labour.
The two-minute video, titled “The Spurs Fan Center,” imagines a fictional ‘Spurs Sensory Center,’ where fans of the club can go to work through their misery over their lack of trophies. Inside, we discover the center is largely devoted to memorializing the misfortunes of hated local North London rival Arsenal, historically the more successful team.
Tim Nicholls, head of influencing and research at the National Autistic Society, doesn’t see the funny side of the betting operator’s skit.
“We honestly have no idea what Paddy Power thought the benefits of making this film were,” he told The Athletic. “We’re really disappointed they used the term ‘sensory room’ as part of a cheap jibe.
It didn't "mock autism", it mocked Spurs...
But how else does the autism charity get publicity?
The DUP are a fxcking disgrace and clearly nothing bar a return to a hard border between NI and Ireland will satisfy them.
They fear the future, whatever it may bring, so spend their time just huddling together assuming that if they prevent anything at all that will be a good result.
The DUP is the political wing of the Free Presybterian Church of Ulster, and while it's true that they fear the future it's also true that they get off on fearing the future. They think they know what the future will bring, because they believe it's all written in the Book of Revelations. The principal factor in everything they say about the border or the Irish Sea is their belief that the Roman Catholic church is the Antichrist, that it owns both the RoI and the EU, and that it's hell-bent on coming to get them. They love "holding out" more than everything. Their whole mythos is based on it. They are far crazier than the IRA ever were. The IRA's mythos was kitsch in comparison.
I don't think a single newspaper has mentioned why it is that the DUP dislike the EU.
This view is about 30 years out of date. But, you know, some people just never move on....
I take it you mean my view rather than the view I am ascribing to the DUP. What was the reason in your view that the DUP opposed Britain's EU membership?
National Sovereignty considered more important than Supranational bodies having greater power, don't think the EU was an honest broker are probably two for a start. Take a long hard look at the make up of the party today, sure it still has its Paisleyite religious types but it is largely dominated by poeople who have fuck all interest in Free Presbyetrianism. In fact the DUP is chock full of fucking technocrats and wonks in the back offices, not people holding prayer meetings. Since Paisley they have had one leader in the deeply religious mould. It didnt protect him from being put out on his arse after a couple of months.
Whats People Before Profits Excuse for its anti EU stance at times? Are they the radical wing of Catholicism and fear the EU is full of Prods?
I hadn't heard of PBP. Three minutes of lookup on the internet suggests they don't seem to think the EU is full of Protestants or anything similar. I doubt they're any kind of wing of Catholicism. They don't seem to be about defending ethnic traditions, let alone any that date back to the 17th century.
National sovereignty considered more important than supranational bodies? That's a legitimate view, but if it's so important to the DUP do they propose that Britain should leave NATO or tell the ECHR and ICJ where to get off? Also they are Irish. I'm not telling them what identity or politics they should have, but Ulster is a province of Ireland. They're British too, and it's their British identity that's far more important to them. Why? It can't just be "because". It's to do with tradition and being Protestant and against rule by evil Dublin.
As for broker, I didn't realise the EU was a broker. Is that how they see it??
NI is a province of the United Kingdom. Its no more a province of Ireland, than Alaska is a province of Canada or Russia.
They have Irish citizenship on top, thanks to the Irish constitution and the Good Friday Agreement, but they're still a part of the UK and not Ireland. Maybe one day there'll be a single country called Ireland spanning the entire island, I hope there will be, but that day is not today.
A large number of residents in the republic are very nervous of reunification, indeed IIRC there is even a majority that are sceptical about any benefits. Certainly if I were, say, a Dubliner, I would think twice about whether I wanted all the strife that would inevitably arise from having a load of Orangemen nutters in my country.
The more Sunak extols the virtues of Northern Ireland's single market membership, the harder it gets for him to explain why the rest of the UK shouldn't have it too.
Because of the need to accept millions of unskilled immigrants, and trade rules decided by the Eurozone acting as a bloc?
The real dividend to come out of these talks is not NI, which had some irritations but also a highly favoured position both in the SM and out of it at the same time, Schrodinger's cat style, already. The real benefit is the highly constructive and polite relationship Rishi has built with the EU as a whole. This has already paid dividends with the Horizon program but I have little doubt there will be more to come.
If Rishi can continue down this path then I genuinely believe that Brexit will become a non issue for all except a tiny minority who are obsessed with it and the loss of their EU citizenship. This minority will no doubt be loud, just as the ERG nutters/Farage were loud in the past, but the vast majority will simply not care anymore. We will just have to fill our threads up with something else.
Picture living in a more complicated/interesting world where families and/or partners may live and work in say England and France. Where they have been able to move freely for forty years and now they have to calculate what they're doing almost from day to day. School holidays parents getting ill one partner in England the other in France. Work calling you from one place to the other ......... a lifestyle build over many years and circumstances.
Imagine if it was Scotland and England and you needed to stamp in your passport every time you wanted to go from one to the other and your time in each was highly regulated after years of free movement and integration?
From here in the South of France your post sounds incredibly parochial and doesn't correspond to most people's experiences at all. This isn't a 'tiny obsession' of a minority. It's affecting many many peoples lives and some quite profoundly.
I'm with Foxy on this. If Starmer doesn't reinstate our right to move freely as we could until two years ago he'll have let a lot of people down very badly.
People who can afford to have a second home in the south of France are a tiny minority.
0.13% of the U.K. population, or less than a third of the population of Hartlepool, to use Roger’s favourite metric.
If free movement of Brits to the EU was so popular why did more go to Australia - requiring visas & work permits - than to the entire EU? Yes, it’s affected some badly, but the overwhelming majority, not at all.
(Point of order: it was "entire EU, excluding Ireland".)
Since we’ve had freedom of movement with Ireland for several hundred years before there was an EU - and still do - it hasn’t been affected by BREXIT, since we’re discussing Brexit effects.
We only achieved free movement in Ireland due to war and invasion, at the least EU freedom of movement is benign.
Just wondering how long FOM to (neutral) RoI for 67 million UK residents would survive an actual NATO engaged war in Europe where deadly stuff might start landing on London and Belfast.
This was always filed under 'Can't and Won't Happen'. Is it still?
Ireland was only second on my nuclear escape list after Morocco anyway so I'd be heading there. Although one of the variables was agricultural self-sufficiency and I hadn't factored in frost damage to the tomato crop.
Why do people have the impression Ireland won't be a prime target in a nuclear exchange....it has all those lovely data centres which I would think most enemies would consider worth taking out as a way of crippling national infrastructures everywhere
The DUP are a fxcking disgrace and clearly nothing bar a return to a hard border between NI and Ireland will satisfy them.
They fear the future, whatever it may bring, so spend their time just huddling together assuming that if they prevent anything at all that will be a good result.
The DUP is the political wing of the Free Presybterian Church of Ulster, and while it's true that they fear the future it's also true that they get off on fearing the future. They think they know what the future will bring, because they believe it's all written in the Book of Revelations. The principal factor in everything they say about the border or the Irish Sea is their belief that the Roman Catholic church is the Antichrist, that it owns both the RoI and the EU, and that it's hell-bent on coming to get them. They love "holding out" more than everything. Their whole mythos is based on it. They are far crazier than the IRA ever were. The IRA's mythos was kitsch in comparison.
I don't think a single newspaper has mentioned why it is that the DUP dislike the EU.
This view is about 30 years out of date. But, you know, some people just never move on....
I take it you mean my view rather than the view I am ascribing to the DUP. What was the reason in your view that the DUP opposed Britain's EU membership?
National Sovereignty considered more important than Supranational bodies having greater power, don't think the EU was an honest broker are probably two for a start. Take a long hard look at the make up of the party today, sure it still has its Paisleyite religious types but it is largely dominated by poeople who have fuck all interest in Free Presbyetrianism. In fact the DUP is chock full of fucking technocrats and wonks in the back offices, not people holding prayer meetings. Since Paisley they have had one leader in the deeply religious mould. It didnt protect him from being put out on his arse after a couple of months.
Whats People Before Profits Excuse for its anti EU stance at times? Are they the radical wing of Catholicism and fear the EU is full of Prods?
I hadn't heard of PBP. Three minutes of lookup on the internet suggests they don't seem to think the EU is full of Protestants or anything similar. I doubt they're any kind of wing of Catholicism. They don't seem to be about defending ethnic traditions, let alone any that date back to the 17th century.
National sovereignty considered more important than supranational bodies? That's a legitimate view, but if it's so important to the DUP do they propose that Britain should leave NATO or tell the ECHR and ICJ where to get off? Also they are Irish. I'm not telling them what identity or politics they should have, but Ulster is a province of Ireland. They're British too, and it's their British identity that's far more important to them. Why? It can't just be "because". It's to do with tradition and being Protestant and against rule by evil Dublin.
As for broker, I didn't realise the EU was a broker. Is that how they see it??
NI is a province of the United Kingdom. Its no more a province of Ireland, than Alaska is a province of Canada or Russia.
They have Irish citizenship on top, thanks to the Irish constitution and the Good Friday Agreement, but they're still a part of the UK and not Ireland. Maybe one day there'll be a single country called Ireland spanning the entire island, I hope there will be, but that day is not today.
A large number of residents in the republic are very nervous of reunification, indeed IIRC there is even a majority that are sceptical about any benefits. Certainly if I were, say, a Dubliner, I would think twice about whether I wanted all the strife that would inevitably arise from having a load of Orangemen nutters in my country.
Its a fair cop.
I as an Englishman am not too keen on having a load of Orangemen nutters in my country either.
The more Sunak extols the virtues of Northern Ireland's single market membership, the harder it gets for him to explain why the rest of the UK shouldn't have it too.
Because of the need to accept millions of unskilled immigrants, and trade rules decided by the Eurozone acting as a bloc?
I think the deal is testing all our political positions. Rishi non-fans like myself have to admit he's done well. Rishi supporters want to bask in something going right for him, but don't like acknowledging the role of the protocol bill in bolstering his position. 'Dull competence' fans will be disappointed that there hasn't been a bloodsoaked showdown with the ERG and DUP, restoring the glory days of Osborne. Hardcore remainers are trying to make this about rejoining the single market, but probably privately worried that if it works, this takes away a thorn in Brexit's side, making rejoining less likely. Nobody on PB got everything they wanted, everybody got a bit.
I'm delighted for Sunak, but more importantly I'm delighted for NI. No longer a political football being dangled off the cliff against their will.
Next challenge of course is getting the bowler-hatted twats and the mouth-foamer ERG to at least acquiesce. I don't think this is done and dusted yet.
The more Sunak extols the virtues of Northern Ireland's single market membership, the harder it gets for him to explain why the rest of the UK shouldn't have it too.
Not hard at all, we have the advantage of controlling our own laws having taken back control.
NI has the advantage of controlling their own laws, combined with single market membership as a cherry on top due to their unique circumstances.
We couldn't have both, we'd need to sacrifice control to be in the single market, which wasn't worthwhile, which is why we left.
We left because 52% of the population was conned. There are still 34% of people who might buy shares London Bridge if it were put up for sale by Boris Johnson. You are still one of them lol.
The real dividend to come out of these talks is not NI, which had some irritations but also a highly favoured position both in the SM and out of it at the same time, Schrodinger's cat style, already. The real benefit is the highly constructive and polite relationship Rishi has built with the EU as a whole. This has already paid dividends with the Horizon program but I have little doubt there will be more to come.
If Rishi can continue down this path then I genuinely believe that Brexit will become a non issue for all except a tiny minority who are obsessed with it and the loss of their EU citizenship. This minority will no doubt be loud, just as the ERG nutters/Farage were loud in the past, but the vast majority will simply not care anymore. We will just have to fill our threads up with something else.
Picture living in a more complicated/interesting world where families and/or partners may live and work in say England and France. Where they have been able to move freely for forty years and now they have to calculate what they're doing almost from day to day. School holidays parents getting ill one partner in England the other in France. Work calling you from one place to the other ......... a lifestyle build over many years and circumstances.
Imagine if it was Scotland and England and you needed to stamp in your passport every time you wanted to go from one to the other and your time in each was highly regulated after years of free movement and integration?
From here in the South of France your post sounds incredibly parochial and doesn't correspond to most people's experiences at all. This isn't a 'tiny obsession' of a minority. It's affecting many many peoples lives and some quite profoundly.
I'm with Foxy on this. If Starmer doesn't reinstate our right to move freely as we could until two years ago he'll have let a lot of people down very badly.
People who can afford to have a second home in the south of France are a tiny minority.
0.13% of the U.K. population, or less than a third of the population of Hartlepool, to use Roger’s favourite metric.
If free movement of Brits to the EU was so popular why did more go to Australia - requiring visas & work permits - than to the entire EU? Yes, it’s affected some badly, but the overwhelming majority, not at all.
(Point of order: it was "entire EU, excluding Ireland".)
Since we’ve had freedom of movement with Ireland for several hundred years before there was an EU - and still do - it hasn’t been affected by BREXIT, since we’re discussing Brexit effects.
We only achieved free movement in Ireland due to war and invasion, at the least EU freedom of movement is benign.
Just wondering how long FOM to (neutral) RoI for 67 million UK residents would survive an actual NATO engaged war in Europe where deadly stuff might start landing on London and Belfast.
This was always filed under 'Can't and Won't Happen'. Is it still?
Leon will eventually be wrong about everything he talks about.
Remember when you were shitting your kecks about the imminent nuclear attack by Russia last autumn?
Still, the necklace, eh?
The greatest single insight in the history of PB. And it took me 2 minutes of watching the debate and even at the end a twat like @kinabalu didn’t know what I was on about
Saw a comment on FB pointing out that if Yousuf becomes Scottish FM and achieves independence while Sunak is still UK PM then we would have a Pakistani heritage FM and Indian heritage PM negotiating the partition of Britain. I'd quite like this to happen solely on the basis of historical irony and lolz.
Leon will eventually be wrong about everything he talks about.
Remember when you were shitting your kecks about the imminent nuclear attack by Russia last autumn?
Still, the necklace, eh?
The greatest single insight in the history of PB. And it took me 2 minutes of watching the debate and even at the end a twat like @kinabalu didn’t know what I was on about
And almost as high a percentage. And if you did England only I bet that would be higher too. Mrs May was a vote winning machine. It's a testament to Jeremy's appeal that he got so close in 2017.
Consider a fresh analogy. Brexit is like having a baby
For the last thee years we have been knee deep in soiled nappies, baby puke, and discussions of burping
For the father, who never even wanted the kid, it has been literally hellish. Even the mother has had doubts. What a pain. Maybe it was a mistake after all? Like the father said?
But now finally the kid is off to nursery school. The father gets some respite. The kid can sort of talk. It’s not all bad tho he’d still rather be free and single and able to do exciting holidays in Nicaragua. But the situation is tolerable and he’s simply bored of arguing with the mother
The mother wipes a tear. The child grows. And laughs. She begins to forget the horrors of the sleeplessness
You should find a magazine to send that to. Some of them pay good money, I hear.
Blimey, if Brexit were a baby; what a thought. The child that goes to nursery that does not want to play with the other kids, and the kids don't want to play with him because he lies and bites them.
The only hope for Brexit-Baby is that eventually he gets re-educated and disciplined before he inevitably ends up in borstal with the parents of the baby pretending they don't know him, and all the other relatives saying," yes it is very sad, but we really do have to move on."
I heard a new phrase this morning on R4 - the lunar economy. Apparently the British Space Agency is looking at plans to build a communications network on the moon.
We'd be wise to put in a railway, parliamentary democracy and trial by jury first, surely?
The DUP are a fxcking disgrace and clearly nothing bar a return to a hard border between NI and Ireland will satisfy them.
They fear the future, whatever it may bring, so spend their time just huddling together assuming that if they prevent anything at all that will be a good result.
The DUP is the political wing of the Free Presybterian Church of Ulster, and while it's true that they fear the future it's also true that they get off on fearing the future. They think they know what the future will bring, because they believe it's all written in the Book of Revelations. The principal factor in everything they say about the border or the Irish Sea is their belief that the Roman Catholic church is the Antichrist, that it owns both the RoI and the EU, and that it's hell-bent on coming to get them. They love "holding out" more than everything. Their whole mythos is based on it. They are far crazier than the IRA ever were. The IRA's mythos was kitsch in comparison.
I don't think a single newspaper has mentioned why it is that the DUP dislike the EU.
This view is about 30 years out of date. But, you know, some people just never move on....
I take it you mean my view rather than the view I am ascribing to the DUP. What was the reason in your view that the DUP opposed Britain's EU membership?
National Sovereignty considered more important than Supranational bodies having greater power, don't think the EU was an honest broker are probably two for a start. Take a long hard look at the make up of the party today, sure it still has its Paisleyite religious types but it is largely dominated by poeople who have fuck all interest in Free Presbyetrianism. In fact the DUP is chock full of fucking technocrats and wonks in the back offices, not people holding prayer meetings. Since Paisley they have had one leader in the deeply religious mould. It didnt protect him from being put out on his arse after a couple of months.
Whats People Before Profits Excuse for its anti EU stance at times? Are they the radical wing of Catholicism and fear the EU is full of Prods?
I hadn't heard of PBP. Three minutes of lookup on the internet suggests they don't seem to think the EU is full of Protestants or anything similar. I doubt they're any kind of wing of Catholicism. They don't seem to be about defending ethnic traditions, let alone any that date back to the 17th century.
National sovereignty considered more important than supranational bodies? That's a legitimate view, but if it's so important to the DUP do they propose that Britain should leave NATO or tell the ECHR and ICJ where to get off? Also they are Irish. I'm not telling them what identity or politics they should have, but Ulster is a province of Ireland. They're British too, and it's their British identity that's far more important to them. Why? It can't just be "because". It's to do with tradition and being Protestant and against rule by evil Dublin.
As for broker, I didn't realise the EU was a broker. Is that how they see it??
NI is a province of the United Kingdom. Its no more a province of Ireland, than Alaska is a province of Canada or Russia.
They have Irish citizenship on top, thanks to the Irish constitution and the Good Friday Agreement, but they're still a part of the UK and not Ireland. Maybe one day there'll be a single country called Ireland spanning the entire island, I hope there will be, but that day is not today.
A large number of residents in the republic are very nervous of reunification, indeed IIRC there is even a majority that are sceptical about any benefits. Certainly if I were, say, a Dubliner, I would think twice about whether I wanted all the strife that would inevitably arise from having a load of Orangemen nutters in my country.
Its a fair cop.
I as an Englishman am not too keen on having a load of Orangemen nutters in my country either.
Or the PIRA, The Real IRA, The Continuity IRA, The Really Real IRA, The Keeping' It Real IRA, The I Can't Believe It's Not The IRA etc.
Mind you, the organised crime scene in Dublin is about 50% IRA sub variants already.
And almost as high a percentage. And if you did England only I bet that would be higher too. Mrs May was a vote winning machine. It's a testament to Jeremy's appeal that he got so close in 2017.
So appealing that his candidates won a lot of votes on the basis of doorstep canvassers saying "it's safe to vote for your local Labour candidate because Corbyn can't possibly be PM"...
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People prompted by a question may give an answer, but how many people have been naming Brexit while unprompted?
This right/wrong poll seems to be a perennial favourite for thread headers now which is bemusing since before the Brexit referendum the poll that was most frequently quoted was the IPSOS MORI Issues Index poll which said how low down Europe was on the index when unprompted and thus how little people cared about Europe.
Perhaps its worth revisiting and considering just how where Europe/Brexit is on the list today?
Comes without a cup holder
https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/status/1630493637699153921
99.9% of the world would like to be Switzerland. Safe, secure, free, democratic and immensely
wealthy
If the UK ends up as an offshore version of Switzerland I will be overjoyed. We have global influence from our language and culture anyway. Fuck the rest
Fifa will look into the UK government’s proposals for an independent regulator amid concerns that the new body could breach rules on political interference.
The white paper that was published last week laid out plans for a government-appointed body that would run a licensing scheme for clubs and oversee checks on owners and directors.
Legal experts believe that there are several areas of concern where the regulator could breach Fifa’s Article 15, which states national associations must “be independent and avoid any form of political interference”.
There are numerous cases in which Fifa has suspended national associations for government interference.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/government-appointed-regulator-could-trigger-fifa-rule-breach-investigation-fqgvl2vqs?shareToken=c0543b5d07851c96cf2156365dac3a99
It is the taxpayer's responsibility to get it right (cf N. Zahawi)
This was always filed under 'Can't and Won't Happen'. Is it still?
The super cheap stuff in the supermarkets was achieved by a combination of minimum quality, sweating the supplier, who in turn sweated the workforce.
There were some interesting revelations during COVID about labor conditions around Leicester, for example.
Since the pandemic, there has been a definite step change in bottom end employment, in many countries.
The local specialty fruit and veg places are piled high with produce. I asked, yesterday. They are all purchasing direct from various farms - there is apparently quite a good market in higher quality veg. Lots of farms going that way, lots of smaller purchasers.
The greatest single insight in the history of PB. And it took me 2 minutes of watching the debate and even at the end a twat like @kinabalu didn’t know what I was on about
As insights go, it wasn't as close as GardenWalker telling us that Sturgeon was about to resign 24 hours before we did.
Oh dear, how sad. Never mind!
Note that, as with Europe including the UK, the fruit and veg follow the money.
And of course the entire UK was in that position prior to Brexit.
By stopping it.
https://www.casino.org/news/paddy-power-attacked-over-spurs-ad-that-mocks-autism/
The two-minute video, titled “The Spurs Fan Center,” imagines a fictional ‘Spurs Sensory Center,’ where fans of the club can go to work through their misery over their lack of trophies. Inside, we discover the center is largely devoted to memorializing the misfortunes of hated local North London rival Arsenal, historically the more successful team.
Tim Nicholls, head of influencing and research at the National Autistic Society, doesn’t see the funny side of the betting operator’s skit.
“We honestly have no idea what Paddy Power thought the benefits of making this film were,” he told The Athletic. “We’re really disappointed they used the term ‘sensory room’ as part of a cheap jibe.
Senior members of ERG area already concerned by differences in language between EU & UK
They point to Commission saying Stormont Brake will only be triggered in 'most exceptional circumstances'
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1630529445785137156?s=20
Prior to Brexit the entire UK was only in the EU.
Now NI is both in the Single Market and out of it, simultaneously. Schrodinger's Brexit was how NI always should have been resolved, despite the FBPE crowd decrying it as a unicorn, its been achieved.
Many of the supermarkets having been heading this way with their higher quality ranges.
Given the tension between quality and working conditions vs food cost, it was inevitable that something was going to have to give, in the end.
I spotted the necklace EX NIHILO. With no information other than what I was seeing with my own eyes
I am uncanny. Sometimes I scare myself to be honest
In this case the BBC set the contract. And the people who hate the people who like the BBC can't help but sneer and label them left-wing. Despite being wrong.
English club football is on some very dodgy foundations, and the money which has poured into the game has only made things worse for fans.
How were we not "in the single market and the UK" ?
Oh, I don't disagree with your analysis - but still the financial results are what count, especially with fewer workers in the fields as well.
On lawyers, I just read Chaucer's The Friar's Tale. Not quite the same, but fair to say he isn't a fan of summoners. (In return, the Summoner claims friars dwell in Satan's rectum).
Or there's Shakespeare: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".
"I see necklaces."
A film I watched as a 9 year old and wasn't scared by.
From 1066 and all that:
'Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the question.’
Too many UK producers faced the perfect storm so have produced a lot less. The weather has been sub-optimal. Energy bills make winter growing very expensive. And then we have labour. After much pushing the government allowed pickers in on a 6 month visa. For a 9-month season. Which meant growers needed two lots of staff and the training needed etc etc.
We really need to focus on growing our farming and fishing capabilities. Instead of shrinking them as we are.
Icy dead people.
Europe/Brexit doesn't even appear on the list, let alone near the top.
The place is fairly gentrified now. The greengrocer in question, there, went. Killed by supermarkets, of course.
The one I go to, in London, is actually a tuning up of the "ethnic" shops that are scattered about London. A number of people have realised that instead of just catering to their own community, they can get other people in, who are looking for quality.
There's an Iranian chap who is half way to a mini-supermarket, not far away.
EDIT: as the financial aspect - if you want non-crap veg, harvested by workers paid minimum wage+, and a bit of profit for the farmer, then there is a price to be paid. The previous prices for cheap food were a kind of lie.
"It's coming !" "Businesses Get Ready !"
And then a zippy, lit graph line would appear across the screen, like a growth forecast, and the early rave-music style soundtrack of the early 1990's would kick in alongside ,
By complaining about it, far more people will now see it, be amused by it, and Paddy Power are going to get more attention they wanted.
Streisand Effect in action again.
https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/ed-humpherson-to-david-pares-treasury-inflation-infographic/
This would be a big win for UK science, which has suffered as a result.
https://twitter.com/nathanbenaich/status/1630508065144315906
That would indeed be a benefit for the rest of us from the NI deal.
https://twitter.com/CER_Grant/status/1630533846482526209?s=20
And @boulay beat me to the loose ball
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64796022
The end is coming for the Tory filth, the bells are tolling...
NI has the advantage of controlling their own laws, combined with single market membership as a cherry on top due to their unique circumstances.
We couldn't have both, we'd need to sacrifice control to be in the single market, which wasn't worthwhile, which is why we left.
Use of violence simply hardens opinion of those who oppose you.
Scottish nationalists have made far more progress in the last five decades than Irish nationalists, because (current issues aside) they at no point placed themselves beyond the pale.
Equally, it’s arguable that the suffragettes set back the cause of the vote for women. Certainly those who shared their aims but whose actions were more conventional and constitutional thought so.
Sunak wins a glorious election victory and everything returns to sanity. This might not happen.
They have Irish citizenship on top, thanks to the Irish constitution and the Good Friday Agreement, but they're still a part of the UK and not Ireland. Maybe one day there'll be a single country called Ireland spanning the entire island, I hope there will be, but that day is not today.
As for NATO etc, none of those supranational bodies can create law of their own volition, only the EU could do that, so they're not the same thing.
https://twitter.com/MikeDiplockre/status/1630320722261291013
I as an Englishman am not too keen on having a load of Orangemen nutters in my country either.
The only hope for Brexit-Baby is that eventually he gets re-educated and disciplined before he inevitably ends up in borstal with the parents of the baby pretending they don't know him, and all the other relatives saying," yes it is very sad, but we really do have to move on."
Mind you, the organised crime scene in Dublin is about 50% IRA sub variants already.