They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
I'm in favour of wolf introduction.
I want to farm rhino. If nothing else, this will solve the problem of the tiny minority of walkers who refuse to close gates and act sensibly in the countryside. The remaining 99.999% will then live in harmony with the farmers.
That's an interesting debate. At present certain types of gate are up for removal in more accessible countryside because they block wheelchairs and similar.
The preferred alternative is cattle grids, which are unlikely to block rhinos.
So we design a gate that is rhino proof and wheel chair accessible.
What about rhinos in wheelchairs? Never underestimate the craftiness of the rhino.
Rhinos in wheelchairs were long ago eaten by the wolf, along with his carer lady. The wolf took the wheelchair to abduct LRRH's grandma. Do keep up.
Rhinos are grumpy sods. But it's hippos you have to watch out for.
They charge very quickly, and their skin's thick enough that the average pistol is a popgun. Not to mention their bite is... quite something. Deadliest animal in Africa by kills of humans (or they were, anyway, not checked for a while).
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
Thing is you are fucking around with our environment. You are making a decision to introduce something that was or wasn't here for one reason or another. Will no one think of the birch trees is of course an understandable rallying cry but it is quite a lot to ask you, wolf-introducer as you are, to manage the entire ecosystem as you and a couple of others, @Richard_Tyndall looking at you, seem to want to do.
As though any one decision has no consequences on myriad different mini-ecosystems.
Long live grey squirrels. And air rifles.
But you're (and I mean 'you' in the sense of humanity here; I'm not suggesting you personally have anything to do with it) fucking about with the environment by driving wolves to extinction in the first place. You're fucking about with the environment by reintroducing them. You're fucking about with the environment by allowing the arrival of grey squirrels (because presumably they wouldn't have got here without human help); you're fucking about with the environment by allowing them to remain, and you're fucking about with the environment by eradicating them. There's a touch of the trolley problem here. It's not the case that doing nothing is morally neutral and doing something is morally right or wrong.
"by allowing the arrival of grey squirrels" - this is the logical fallacy as grey squirrels haven't been allowed to arrive by anyone in the UK alive today. I know you caveated that you're talking about humanity not individuals but still, that's as bonkers as people talking about reparations for slavery.
Grey squirrels may not have been native to the UK hundreds of years ago, but they've been in the UK for hundreds of years now. They're established in the UK now.
Australia places strict restrictions on the introduction of foreign flora and fauna which makes sense because they have a unique ecosystem, and new arrivals there might have devastating effects like the arrival of rabbits did in the past.
But as far as the grey squirrel is concerned in the UK, that barn door was left open hundreds of years ago now.
I honestly don't know how grey squirrels got here. I thought they had been introduced by humans (whether advertently or not). I'm really not a fundamentalist on this - my starting point was simply that favouring native species over invasive species isn't exactly controversial.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
Maybe the checks re not being done as efficiently as they could be, but the simple truth is the checks are entirely due to Brexit - No Brexit no checks required.
I must have missed the US and Australia joining the EU.
I refer you to my comment about efficiency - The US & Oz are still being checked albeit using the e-gates. Prior to Brexit they were also being checked but UK was not. I dont know why UK can not use e-gates - does anyone out there know (with facts not opinionated rhetoric?)
The UK was being checked.
As to why to UK can’t use automated gates it’s the EU digging their heels in to make a visible point to UK travellers.
Essentially early on in the negotiations the UK said “why don’t we both agree to use the automated gates. It’s easy and makes everyone better off”
The EU said no. Because… reasons
The UK then said “Whatever as a gesture of goodwill (and because we believe that easy travel makes us better off) we will allow it unilaterally”
Late in the negotiations the UK then said “Look why don’t you throw in use of the automated gates as it makes everyone better off”
The EU said “what will you give us in return for that? You’ve already opened your gates unilaterally so that doesn’t count”
So because the EU don’t understand the concept of a win-win negotiation where sometimes you give something that costs them nothing but makes the other side better off we have ended up with the present pointless frustration.
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
As it happens Grey Squirrels are largely urban animals whereas Red ones are rural. If there are any squirrel lovers on here-seems unlikely as most favour the gas chambers-I saw a black one on Cap Ferrat crossing the appropriately named Rue Somerset Maugham.
I took a long look round and eventually saw quite a few. Jet black but otherwise quite similar to the Red. I asked around and it seems that there's a colony of them which live around the forests in that area.
Fortunately for them the wealthy burghers of Cap Ferrat seem happy to live and let live.
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
I'm in favour of wolf introduction.
I want to farm rhino. If nothing else, this will solve the problem of the tiny minority of walkers who refuse to close gates and act sensibly in the countryside. The remaining 99.999% will then live in harmony with the farmers.
That's an interesting debate. At present certain types of gate are up for removal in more accessible countryside because they block wheelchairs and similar.
The preferred alternative is cattle grids, which are unlikely to block rhinos.
So we design a gate that is rhino proof and wheel chair accessible.
Those rhino's go where they want. I want to see more!
What the fuck's happening with that apostrophe.
That's what my butcher writes when selling more than one rhino. Don't they all?
I'm just trying to help improve the standards of grammar on PB.
Your welcome.
You're.
(Unless that was deliberate, in witch case it was to meta for me.)
Some liability who gives a fuck what non Labour voters think of Jezza
Perhaps anyone in the Labour party who actually wanted to win the election rather than just claim pointless bragging rights? How many votes Corbyn got was only one half of the equation. How many votes he drove into the arms of the Tory party was equally important. That is why he lost.
Yes - my view of the last 40 years is that the size of the Tory vote is inversely proportional to the cuddliness of Labour. The actual Tory offer seems to have relatively little to do with it.
Blair only got 2m more voters than Kinnock before him - the big difference, and why there was a landslide, was the 4.5m 1992 Tories who stayed at home in 1997.
Yes, and similarly May in 2017 got - though it is often forgotten - an absolute shedload of votes.
Rhinos are grumpy sods. But it's hippos you have to watch out for.
They charge very quickly, and their skin's thick enough that the average pistol is a popgun. Not to mention their bite is... quite something. Deadliest animal in Africa by kills of humans (or they were, anyway, not checked for a while).
Rhino are friendly, just like mild mannered pigs, until they start growing the horns. I met a couple of baby rhino and they were happy fellows.
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
Nah. Brexit allowed it but didn't require it.
As for your last point, Sunak's been doing a decent job of that lately.
To give him some credit, Starmer is also understanding of the issue, rather than being one of the Twitter #FBPE mob. I’m sure he stands up for the rights of French border staff, to withhold their labour or work-to-rule.
Some liability who gives a fuck what non Labour voters think of Jezza
Perhaps anyone in the Labour party who actually wanted to win the election rather than just claim pointless bragging rights? How many votes Corbyn got was only one half of the equation. How many votes he drove into the arms of the Tory party was equally important. That is why he lost.
Forde says his own side were wanting him to lose and diverting effort away from the handful of marginals which would have resulted in Corbyn PM
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
How is it the Tories fault, it is what the public voted for. That's called democracy, why do you hate democracy?
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
How is it the Tories fault, it is what the public voted for. That's called democracy, why do you hate democracy?
Of course, they voted for it. They were pissed off, particularly with the arrogant and reckless posho who thought it’d be a good idea to put it to a vote.
They gave a majority to the party that proposed putting it to a vote. They voted for it. They gave ~600/650 seats in 2017 election to parties who claimed they accepted the result. They gave an even bigger majority to the Tories in 2019 to get it done.
That's democracy, democracy, democracy, democracy. Any one of four times the people could have voted differently and how you wanted, they didn't.
Rhinos are grumpy sods. But it's hippos you have to watch out for.
They charge very quickly, and their skin's thick enough that the average pistol is a popgun. Not to mention their bite is... quite something. Deadliest animal in Africa by kills of humans (or they were, anyway, not checked for a while).
Second deadliest. Mosquitos win that contest, by a long way.
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
Thing is you are fucking around with our environment. You are making a decision to introduce something that was or wasn't here for one reason or another. Will no one think of the birch trees is of course an understandable rallying cry but it is quite a lot to ask you, wolf-introducer as you are, to manage the entire ecosystem as you and a couple of others, @Richard_Tyndall looking at you, seem to want to do.
As though any one decision has no consequences on myriad different mini-ecosystems.
Long live grey squirrels. And air rifles.
But you're (and I mean 'you' in the sense of humanity here; I'm not suggesting you personally have anything to do with it) fucking about with the environment by driving wolves to extinction in the first place. You're fucking about with the environment by reintroducing them. You're fucking about with the environment by allowing the arrival of grey squirrels (because presumably they wouldn't have got here without human help); you're fucking about with the environment by allowing them to remain, and you're fucking about with the environment by eradicating them. There's a touch of the trolley problem here. It's not the case that doing nothing is morally neutral and doing something is morally right or wrong.
Exactly. But then why single out grey squirrels vs red squirrels. Yes one is a carnivore one isn't (who knew) but that's just details.
We have come to a place of eco-diversity and getting all het up about < 1/1,000,000,000th of it seems very strange no matter how cute and cuddly red squirrels may be.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
I 100% disagree
Once there was a referendum vote in favour the choice was “implement the democratically expressed views of the electorate” or “don’t”.
It was no longer about Brexit
And ignoring the democratically expressed views of the electorate is not something that is done in mature democracies
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
Might help with the deer problem in the UK. And the badgers.
What "badger problem"? Not like they are insanely aggressive honey bagders. They do for hedgehogs, admittedly.
If you are talking TB - it was the cattle that gave the badgers TB in the first place.
Bloody bad luck that so many badgers are killed just by the roadside.
Attenborough in Wild Isles said we have 25% of all the badgers in Europe. I found that quite a surprising statistic.
Interesting. We aren't short of moles either. OTOH There is an underestimated fact about our geographical/geological position in the UK. We are just off, and right at the edge of the largest landmass on the planet. We are therefore automatically at the edge of the range of a multitude of species, especially land (not sea/sea coast) based birds. Loads of birds we regard as threatened in the UK are abundant in their range as a whole. Corn crake is a nice example. There are lots of others.
Some liability who gives a fuck what non Labour voters think of Jezza
Anyone who cares about winning an election gives a fuck what non-Labour voters think of Jezza.
If for every extra vote you add, you add 2 to your opposition, then you are a liability.
It was aptly noted by @Cyclefree that Jeremy Corbyn was Britain's Trump and the same happened in 2020.
In 2020 Donald Trump got 9 million more votes than Barack Obama did in 2012. The problem for Trump, is that he was such a liability that Joe Biden got 16 million more votes than Obama did in 2012.
You are the red hat MAGA/Momentum obsessive saying "look at our extra votes" while ignoring how repellent your guy was that he drove up the opposition even higher.
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
Rhinos are grumpy sods. But it's hippos you have to watch out for.
They charge very quickly, and their skin's thick enough that the average pistol is a popgun. Not to mention their bite is... quite something. Deadliest animal in Africa by kills of humans (or they were, anyway, not checked for a while).
Setting aside mozzies, which are number one by miles (but arguably so, given that they are a medium for the deadly factor), I'm pretty sure snakes claim many victims than hippos in Africa (and elsewhere, especially south and southeast Asia). Humans are, of course, the most dangerous game of all and we do a much better job of killing each other than any animal does.
Hippos are indeed dangerous and belligerent beasts though.
Rhinos are grumpy sods. But it's hippos you have to watch out for.
They charge very quickly, and their skin's thick enough that the average pistol is a popgun. Not to mention their bite is... quite something. Deadliest animal in Africa by kills of humans (or they were, anyway, not checked for a while).
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
I'm in favour of wolf introduction.
I want to farm rhino. If nothing else, this will solve the problem of the tiny minority of walkers who refuse to close gates and act sensibly in the countryside. The remaining 99.999% will then live in harmony with the farmers.
That's an interesting debate. At present certain types of gate are up for removal in more accessible countryside because they block wheelchairs and similar.
The preferred alternative is cattle grids, which are unlikely to block rhinos.
So we design a gate that is rhino proof and wheel chair accessible.
Those rhino's go where they want. I want to see more!
What the fuck's happening with that apostrophe.
It clearly does not qualify as a possessive , but it might be the omitted letters for rhinoceros.
Some liability who gives a fuck what non Labour voters think of Jezza
Perhaps anyone in the Labour party who actually wanted to win the election rather than just claim pointless bragging rights? How many votes Corbyn got was only one half of the equation. How many votes he drove into the arms of the Tory party was equally important. That is why he lost.
Yes - my view of the last 40 years is that the size of the Tory vote is inversely proportional to the cuddliness of Labour. The actual Tory offer seems to have relatively little to do with it.
Not sure about raw votes (look at the stability of the Conservative share across '79 to '92 or '15 to '19), but the efficiency of turning votes into seats is affected massively by that. I suspect the mechanism is about how interchangeable Lib and Lab votes are. United against a common enemy, you get a 1992 or a 2017. If the Labour leader/platform isn't something centrists can swallow, you get a 1983 or a 2019. If the Conservatives are unpopular as well, they can fall a long way.
And that is why I don't think the Sunaks should be investing too much in redecorating Downing Street, even if they don't like the current aesthetics.
Rhinos are grumpy sods. But it's hippos you have to watch out for.
They charge very quickly, and their skin's thick enough that the average pistol is a popgun. Not to mention their bite is... quite something. Deadliest animal in Africa by kills of humans (or they were, anyway, not checked for a while).
Second deadliest. Mosquitos win that contest, by a long way.
Mosquitos don’t kill people… viruses and parasites do
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
Thing is you are fucking around with our environment. You are making a decision to introduce something that was or wasn't here for one reason or another. Will no one think of the birch trees is of course an understandable rallying cry but it is quite a lot to ask you, wolf-introducer as you are, to manage the entire ecosystem as you and a couple of others, @Richard_Tyndall looking at you, seem to want to do.
As though any one decision has no consequences on myriad different mini-ecosystems.
Long live grey squirrels. And air rifles.
But you're (and I mean 'you' in the sense of humanity here; I'm not suggesting you personally have anything to do with it) fucking about with the environment by driving wolves to extinction in the first place. You're fucking about with the environment by reintroducing them. You're fucking about with the environment by allowing the arrival of grey squirrels (because presumably they wouldn't have got here without human help); you're fucking about with the environment by allowing them to remain, and you're fucking about with the environment by eradicating them. There's a touch of the trolley problem here. It's not the case that doing nothing is morally neutral and doing something is morally right or wrong.
"by allowing the arrival of grey squirrels" - this is the logical fallacy as grey squirrels haven't been allowed to arrive by anyone in the UK alive today. I know you caveated that you're talking about humanity not individuals but still, that's as bonkers as people talking about reparations for slavery.
Grey squirrels may not have been native to the UK hundreds of years ago, but they've been in the UK for hundreds of years now. They're established in the UK now.
Australia places strict restrictions on the introduction of foreign flora and fauna which makes sense because they have a unique ecosystem, and new arrivals there might have devastating effects like the arrival of rabbits did in the past.
But as far as the grey squirrel is concerned in the UK, that barn door was left open hundreds of years ago now.
If we restore habitats, encourage the revival of pine martens, and see the decline of grey squirrels there will be considerable benefits for red squirrels, many species of bird, and other parts of our local ecology.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
The majority of the country now think they were wrong. Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
I'm in favour of wolf introduction.
I want to farm rhino. If nothing else, this will solve the problem of the tiny minority of walkers who refuse to close gates and act sensibly in the countryside. The remaining 99.999% will then live in harmony with the farmers.
That's an interesting debate. At present certain types of gate are up for removal in more accessible countryside because they block wheelchairs and similar.
The preferred alternative is cattle grids, which are unlikely to block rhinos.
So we design a gate that is rhino proof and wheel chair accessible.
Those rhino's go where they want. I want to see more!
What the fuck's happening with that apostrophe.
That's what my butcher writes when selling more than one rhino. Don't they all?
I'm just trying to help improve the standards of grammar on PB.
Your welcome.
You're.
(Unless that was deliberate, in witch case it was to meta for me.)
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
I'm in favour of wolf introduction.
I want to farm rhino. If nothing else, this will solve the problem of the tiny minority of walkers who refuse to close gates and act sensibly in the countryside. The remaining 99.999% will then live in harmony with the farmers.
That's an interesting debate. At present certain types of gate are up for removal in more accessible countryside because they block wheelchairs and similar.
The preferred alternative is cattle grids, which are unlikely to block rhinos.
So we design a gate that is rhino proof and wheel chair accessible.
Those rhino's go where they want. I want to see more!
What the fuck's happening with that apostrophe.
That's what my butcher writes when selling more than one rhino. Don't they all?
I'm just trying to help improve the standards of grammar on PB.
Your welcome.
You're.
(Unless that was deliberate, in witch case it was to meta for me.)
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
They have just thrown some grit in the process
No, we have.
Not as much as they have.
For example it is very very quick to enter the US now.
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
They have just thrown some grit in the process
'Always happened'? Like stamping passports calculating days looking through previous visits thus taking a minute to deal with every person rather than just waving us through? Did you vote Brexit? I think every town and village should print a list and then introduce the stocks and free rotten tomatoes.......
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
I 100% disagree
Once there was a referendum vote in favour the choice was “implement the democratically expressed views of the electorate” or “don’t”.
It was no longer about Brexit
And ignoring the democratically expressed views of the electorate is not something that is done in mature democracies
Rubbish. Votes have been overturned before in mature democracies when it has been found out that there were irregularities, or at least been re-ran.
Reintroducing wolves is unlikely because politicians will be wary of anyone getting injured/killed. It's a shame, because natural deer culling in this way would be a positive step.
Another alternative I've head is introducing lynx.
In my late teens I was involved with the Lynx programme at Riber Castle in Derbyshire. They helped with the very successful reintroduction scheme in the Vosges Mountains in France.
Very interesting Richard. The lynx is probably more appropriate because it is primarily a hunter as opposed to wolves that are also scavengers, and therefore most likely to keep away from areas of human habitation.
Interestingly also, I imagine that that politically the same people who are OK with deer being killed slowly by wolves are definitely not OK with foxy-woxies being killed instantly by a pack of hounds. I guess Chris the twat Packham would fall into that category.
Some liability who gives a fuck what non Labour voters think of Jezza
Anyone who cares about winning an election gives a fuck what non-Labour voters think of Jezza.
If for every extra vote you add, you add 2 to your opposition, then you are a liability.
It was aptly noted by @Cyclefree that Jeremy Corbyn was Britain's Trump and the same happened in 2020.
In 2020 Donald Trump got 9 million more votes than Barack Obama did in 2012. The problem for Trump, is that he was such a liability that Joe Biden got 16 million more votes than Obama did in 2012.
You are the red hat MAGA/Momentum obsessive saying "look at our extra votes" while ignoring how repellent your guy was that he drove up the opposition even higher.
Your not the audience 2017 was aiming at.
Too self obsessed for a bit of redistribution
We see you Bart
Fixed that for you. Doxxing isn’t okay.
On the substance - I am pro-Corbynism (as in I believe in much of what the 2017 manifesto proposed) and remain suspicious of the attempts to play the man not the policies (regardless of where the truth lies on antisemitism) but even in peak Jezmania in 2017 the man didn’t win.
We can debate all day about why that was (I will probably agree with you on quite a bit of that) but Bart’s point still stands. With the UK media mediating, the spectre of Corbyn will motivate the other side to vote in sufficient numbers that he remains an electoral liability.
For me, the ideal would be that Starmer detoxifies/bores everyone sufficiently that he can produce the best bits of the 2017 manifesto in 2024/5 without scaring the voters away because he’s seen as a safe, boring pair of hands.
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
They have just thrown some grit in the process
No, we have.
Not as much as they have.
For example it is very very quick to enter the US now.
Eh? I was in the immigration queue at JFK for almost three hours back in February.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
I 100% disagree
Once there was a referendum vote in favour the choice was “implement the democratically expressed views of the electorate” or “don’t”.
It was no longer about Brexit
And ignoring the democratically expressed views of the electorate is not something that is done in mature democracies
Perhaps. But that's no reason to forgive the Tories for it.
Except we didn't vote to leave Europe, we voted to leave a political and trading organisation that has some, but not all, European nations as part of it.
Except we didn't vote to leave Europe, we voted to leave a political and trading organisation that has some, but not all, European nations as part of it.
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
They have just thrown some grit in the process
No, we have.
Not as much as they have.
For example it is very very quick to enter the US now.
That depends on when and where you are entering. But it can definitely be quicker than it was, that is for sure.
The issue with the EU is to do with FoM. It is a benefit of membership or of specific treaty. If we want a version of it, we need to negotiate it specifically. When you say you want to be treated as a third country, then that is what you get.
My guess is that now that the grown-ups are in charge here, the EU may be more inclined to discuss this - especially as its nationals are getting caught in the ferry queues because there are no eGates at ports. The approach that Johnson and Frost took to the negotiating process was pretty much guaranteed to get the worst possible results.
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
They have just thrown some grit in the process
'Always happened'? Like stamping passports calculating days looking through previous visits thus taking a minute to deal with every person rather than just waving us through? Did you vote Brexit? I think every town and village should print a list and then introduce the stocks and free rotten tomatoes.......
Too right. I remember as a child, and a student myself being waived through when on the coach at Dover. There's too many brexit apologists about. They have given up the search for advantages to brexit and are now saying it's no difference. Pull the other one.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
The majority of the country now think they were wrong. Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
There's two sets of polling. One is would you rejoin (misleading - doesn't set out what the new arrangement would be/would cost) and then there is there was it right or wrong to leave.
Both are impacted massively by covid and the war in Ukraine, as those have had huge effects on the economy, also seen in most other countries that DIDN'T Brexit.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
You can still tell them they are wrong you dolt. That is called opinion. What you should not do is do a Trump and tell them it was "stolen" when it wasn't. The electorate can be "wrong" from an individual's point of view. DJO believes the electorate was wrong to reject Corbyn and is entitled to that view even if we all snigger at him.
By the way, can you please speak to @TOPPING about how to use an apostrophe, or he will have you arrested.
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
I'm in favour of wolf introduction.
I want to farm rhino. If nothing else, this will solve the problem of the tiny minority of walkers who refuse to close gates and act sensibly in the countryside. The remaining 99.999% will then live in harmony with the farmers.
That's an interesting debate. At present certain types of gate are up for removal in more accessible countryside because they block wheelchairs and similar.
The preferred alternative is cattle grids, which are unlikely to block rhinos.
So we design a gate that is rhino proof and wheel chair accessible.
Those rhino's go where they want. I want to see more!
What the fuck's happening with that apostrophe.
That's what my butcher writes when selling more than one rhino. Don't they all?
I'm just trying to help improve the standards of grammar on PB.
Your welcome.
You're.
(Unless that was deliberate, in witch case it was to meta for me.)
too meta…
😜😂
I hope you realise what I did their
Nice try… but nah.
Seriously - the to was deliberate. I went to Grammar School after all!
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
They have just thrown some grit in the process
'Always happened'? Like stamping passports calculating days looking through previous visits thus taking a minute to deal with every person rather than just waving us through? Did you vote Brexit? I think every town and village should print a list and then introduce the stocks and free rotten tomatoes.......
The days are calculated electronically. Upon entry, the flicking through is a quick check for anything odd-looking and then finding a space for the stamp. Upon exit, the job is to find the correct stamp to match the new stamp against.
Except we didn't vote to leave Europe, we voted to leave a political and trading organisation that has some, but not all, European nations as part of it.
Now you're doing pedantry ?
Yeah - tough day at work interviewing prospective students and Topping goaded me.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
I 100% disagree
Once there was a referendum vote in favour the choice was “implement the democratically expressed views of the electorate” or “don’t”.
It was no longer about Brexit
And ignoring the democratically expressed views of the electorate is not something that is done in mature democracies
Two different things. The vote gives the decision a legitimacy that makes reversing it more difficult than if it was a simple executive decision. Having a vote doesn't mean the decision is any less likely to be a mistake.
We're in the situation where the consensus (2 to 1) thinks Brexit was a mistake but there is no easy way to reverse it.
If you can't reverse a mistake, you need learn to live with it. Unfortunately neither of the Leave nor Remain tribes has any interest in damage limitation. The first doesn't admit to the damage that needs limiting; the second didn't choose the damage in the first place.
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
They have just thrown some grit in the process
'Always happened'? Like stamping passports calculating days looking through previous visits thus taking a minute to deal with every person rather than just waving us through? Did you vote Brexit? I think every town and village should print a list and then introduce the stocks and free rotten tomatoes.......
The days are calculated electronically. Upon entry, the flicking through is a quick check for anything odd-looking and then finding a space for the stamp. Upon exit, the job is to find the correct stamp to match the new stamp against.
In any event, the stamps are going next year.
What?! The return of stamps is the biggest Brexit divided so far (along with those gorgeous blue passports…mmm)
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
As it happens Grey Squirrels are largely urban animals whereas Red ones are rural. If there are any squirrel lovers on here-seems unlikely as most favour the gas chambers-I saw a black one on Cap Ferrat crossing the appropriately named Rue Somerset Maugham.
I took a long look round and eventually saw quite a few. Jet black but otherwise quite similar to the Red. I asked around and it seems that there's a colony of them which live around the forests in that area.
Fortunately for them the wealthy burghers of Cap Ferrat seem happy to live and let live.
There are loads of black squirrels round my way. It's fun seeing a black and grey 'playing' together. (I put 'playing' in quotes because I've little idea if they were playing, fighting, or performing some form of weird sciurine mating ritual...)
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
They have just thrown some grit in the process
'Always happened'? Like stamping passports calculating days looking through previous visits thus taking a minute to deal with every person rather than just waving us through? Did you vote Brexit? I think every town and village should print a list and then introduce the stocks and free rotten tomatoes.......
If you read back up the thread I was differentiating between the stamping (I reckon it’s 30 seconds but that’s a detail) and the electronic checking which always happened when you enter Schengen
I don’t travel inside Schengen that much but I did recently do London > Stockholm > Amsterdam > London and there were no intra Schengen checks
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
The majority of the country now think they were wrong. Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
There's two sets of polling. One is would you rejoin (misleading - doesn't set out what the new arrangement would be/would cost) and then there is there was it right or wrong to leave.
Both are impacted massively by covid and the war in Ukraine, as those have had huge effects on the economy, also seen in most other countries that DIDN'T Brexit.
OK then.
In your opinion, how unpopular does Brexit have to be for how long for revisiting the question of whether the UK should be closer to / in the EU become the democratic thing to do?
(My answer, for what it's worth, is that if Brexit is still unpopular after Starmer's Operation Make Brexit Work, we'll have no choice.)
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
I'm in favour of wolf introduction.
I want to farm rhino. If nothing else, this will solve the problem of the tiny minority of walkers who refuse to close gates and act sensibly in the countryside. The remaining 99.999% will then live in harmony with the farmers.
That's an interesting debate. At present certain types of gate are up for removal in more accessible countryside because they block wheelchairs and similar.
The preferred alternative is cattle grids, which are unlikely to block rhinos.
So we design a gate that is rhino proof and wheel chair accessible.
Those rhino's go where they want. I want to see more!
What the fuck's happening with that apostrophe.
That's what my butcher writes when selling more than one rhino. Don't they all?
I'm just trying to help improve the standards of grammar on PB.
Your welcome.
What about my welcome?
Hanged by his own omitted omission apostrophe lol.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
I 100% disagree
Once there was a referendum vote in favour the choice was “implement the democratically expressed views of the electorate” or “don’t”.
It was no longer about Brexit
And ignoring the democratically expressed views of the electorate is not something that is done in mature democracies
Rubbish. Votes have been overturned before in mature democracies when it has been found out that there were irregularities, or at least been re-ran.
Sure. But I wouldn’t consider - fixed election to be a “democratically expressed view of the electorate”
But despite the best efforts of a few fanatics there wasn’t evidence of an invalid result in the Brexit vote
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
The majority of the country now think they were wrong. Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
Oh really, are you that naive ?
The current polls simply reflect a long whine from remianers blaming everything they can think of on Brexit, often when it has nothing to do with it.
What is missing is the the long list of bad news from the EU which regularly occurred when we were in. We had a taste of that in the Covid fiasco when Van der Leyen demanded all our AZ jabs.
But currently were missing the £17 billion quid handed over in times of austerity, the keep Germany's lights on diktat on pool gas resources, the dont upset Putin schtick in Ukraine we would have been tied in with via EU foreign policies, lots more immigration, and all the daily low level bollocks which just pissed people off.
The news cycle to date has mostly been one way, the polls are simply reflecting that, throw in the reality of what we have missed out on and they wont be showing those results.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
The majority of the country now think they were wrong. Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
Oh really, are you that naive ?
The current polls simply reflect a long whine from remianers blaming everything they can think of on Brexit, often when it has nothing to do with it.
What is missing is the the long list of bad news from the EU which regularly occurred when we were in. We had a taste of that in the Covid fiasco when Van der Leyen demanded all our AZ jabs.
But currently were missing the £17 billion quid handed over in times of austerity, the keep Germany's lights on diktat on pool gas resources, the dont upset Putin schtick in Ukraine we would have been tied in with via EU foreign policies, lots more immigration, and all the daily low level bollocks which just pissed people off.
The news cycle to date has mostly been one way, the polls are simply reflecting that, throw in the reality of what we have missed out on and they wont be showing those results.
Well I can see your opinion is indeed set in stone.
'Long whine' is good. As though that would persuade anyone against their will.
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
They have just thrown some grit in the process
No, we have.
Not as much as they have.
For example it is very very quick to enter the US now.
Eh? I was in the immigration queue at JFK for almost three hours back in February.
I’ve been flying into LAX mainly recently - far cheaper than JFK.
I wander down, look at the screen, put my passport on the plate and they wave me through. 15 minutes from plane to kerb side.
Also, regarding classified documents. I guess he stopped reading after he saw the dollar amount. He should have kept on reading so he would have seen this line - "In 1978 Congress enacted the Presidential Records Act to ensure that the papers of all future Presidents are the property of the American public." https://twitter.com/waynomac39/status/1642904617007685632
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
I 100% disagree
Once there was a referendum vote in favour the choice was “implement the democratically expressed views of the electorate” or “don’t”.
It was no longer about Brexit
And ignoring the democratically expressed views of the electorate is not something that is done in mature democracies
Perhaps. But that's no reason to forgive the Tories for it.
The accusation was implementation was not in the best interests of the country. It would be a different point to blame Cameron for holding the referendum
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
The majority of the country now think they were wrong. Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
There's two sets of polling. One is would you rejoin (misleading - doesn't set out what the new arrangement would be/would cost) and then there is there was it right or wrong to leave.
Both are impacted massively by covid and the war in Ukraine, as those have had huge effects on the economy, also seen in most other countries that DIDN'T Brexit.
OK then.
In your opinion, how unpopular does Brexit have to be for how long for revisiting the question of whether the UK should be closer to / in the EU become the democratic thing to do?
(My answer, for what it's worth, is that if Brexit is still unpopular after Starmer's Operation Make Brexit Work, we'll have no choice.)
I'm very happy to become as close as possible to the EU. I voted remain after much soul searching and wish we had stayed in. I also think if the government of the day wants to move as close as possible it can. Rejoin (under new terms - we won't get the same deal we had again) would, I think, need a new mandate (via General election with it in the manisfesto or a new referendum). It may happen, but my preferred state now is as close co-operation as possible. The EU is, effectively, a protection racket, but a very big one that worked well for the UK economy to be part of. I embrace free trade, but of course while we have free trade with the EU, its currently not frictionless, and every effort should be made to make it so.
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
I'm in favour of wolf introduction.
I want to farm rhino. If nothing else, this will solve the problem of the tiny minority of walkers who refuse to close gates and act sensibly in the countryside. The remaining 99.999% will then live in harmony with the farmers.
That's an interesting debate. At present certain types of gate are up for removal in more accessible countryside because they block wheelchairs and similar.
The preferred alternative is cattle grids, which are unlikely to block rhinos.
So we design a gate that is rhino proof and wheel chair accessible.
Those rhino's go where they want. I want to see more!
What the fuck's happening with that apostrophe.
That's what my butcher writes when selling more than one rhino. Don't they all?
I'm just trying to help improve the standards of grammar on PB.
Your welcome.
What about my welcome?
Hanged by his own omitted omission apostrophe lol.
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
As it happens Grey Squirrels are largely urban animals whereas Red ones are rural. If there are any squirrel lovers on here-seems unlikely as most favour the gas chambers-I saw a black one on Cap Ferrat crossing the appropriately named Rue Somerset Maugham.
I took a long look round and eventually saw quite a few. Jet black but otherwise quite similar to the Red. I asked around and it seems that there's a colony of them which live around the forests in that area.
Fortunately for them the wealthy burghers of Cap Ferrat seem happy to live and let live.
There are loads of black squirrels round my way. It's fun seeing a black and grey 'playing' together. (I put 'playing' in quotes because I've little idea if they were playing, fighting, or performing some form of weird sciurine mating ritual...)
If they mate presumably the progeny would come out in a rather nice panzer grey.
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
They have just thrown some grit in the process
No, we have.
Not as much as they have.
For example it is very very quick to enter the US now.
That depends on when and where you are entering. But it can definitely be quicker than it was, that is for sure.
The issue with the EU is to do with FoM. It is a benefit of membership or of specific treaty. If we want a version of it, we need to negotiate it specifically. When you say you want to be treated as a third country, then that is what you get.
My guess is that now that the grown-ups are in charge here, the EU may be more inclined to discuss this - especially as its nationals are getting caught in the ferry queues because there are no eGates at ports. The approach that Johnson and Frost took to the negotiating process was pretty much guaranteed to get the worst possible results.
FoM about the right to be treated equivalent to a domestic citizen not about entry rules (although that might come as a side benefit)
Rhinos are grumpy sods. But it's hippos you have to watch out for.
They charge very quickly, and their skin's thick enough that the average pistol is a popgun. Not to mention their bite is... quite something. Deadliest animal in Africa by kills of humans (or they were, anyway, not checked for a while).
Second deadliest. Mosquitos win that contest, by a long way.
I recall reading somwhere The Yellow Fat Tail Scorpion, Androctonus Australis, saw off a few hundred in North Africa every year but cannot find the link.
Except we didn't vote to leave Europe, we voted to leave a political and trading organisation that has some, but not all, European nations as part of it.
Now you're doing pedantry ?
If we are going to be pedantic I would like to object to the use of the word "we" used in it's possessive form. More correctly it should be said that some of us (by small numerical majority of those who voted) voted to leave a political and trading organisation that has some, but not all, European nations as part of it.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
The majority of the country now think they were wrong. Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
Oh really, are you that naive ?
The current polls simply reflect a long whine from remianers blaming everything they can think of on Brexit, often when it has nothing to do with it.
What is missing is the the long list of bad news from the EU which regularly occurred when we were in. We had a taste of that in the Covid fiasco when Van der Leyen demanded all our AZ jabs.
But currently were missing the £17 billion quid handed over in times of austerity, the keep Germany's lights on diktat on pool gas resources, the dont upset Putin schtick in Ukraine we would have been tied in with via EU foreign policies, lots more immigration, and all the daily low level bollocks which just pissed people off.
The news cycle to date has mostly been one way, the polls are simply reflecting that, throw in the reality of what we have missed out on and they wont be showing those results.
We're also missing the extra growth that our £17.5 billion would have helped deliver thanks to membership of the single market and customs union, as well as the lower inflation.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
I 100% disagree
Once there was a referendum vote in favour the choice was “implement the democratically expressed views of the electorate” or “don’t”.
It was no longer about Brexit
And ignoring the democratically expressed views of the electorate is not something that is done in mature democracies
Perhaps. But that's no reason to forgive the Tories for it.
The accusation was implementation was not in the best interests of the country. It would be a different point to blame Cameron for holding the referendum
The implementation we ended up with certainly wasn't. And that was a matter of choice, not democratic necessity.
Some liability who gives a fuck what non Labour voters think of Jezza
Anyone who cares about winning an election gives a fuck what non-Labour voters think of Jezza.
If for every extra vote you add, you add 2 to your opposition, then you are a liability.
It was aptly noted by @Cyclefree that Jeremy Corbyn was Britain's Trump and the same happened in 2020.
In 2020 Donald Trump got 9 million more votes than Barack Obama did in 2012. The problem for Trump, is that he was such a liability that Joe Biden got 16 million more votes than Obama did in 2012.
You are the red hat MAGA/Momentum obsessive saying "look at our extra votes" while ignoring how repellent your guy was that he drove up the opposition even higher.
The 2017 Corbyn electoral miracle saw the Tories expand their vote by 2.3m. When the party in government picks up 20% more votes than when it won last time, you are not "winning" no matter how much the cranks say so.
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
I'm in favour of wolf introduction.
I want to farm rhino. If nothing else, this will solve the problem of the tiny minority of walkers who refuse to close gates and act sensibly in the countryside. The remaining 99.999% will then live in harmony with the farmers.
That's an interesting debate. At present certain types of gate are up for removal in more accessible countryside because they block wheelchairs and similar.
The preferred alternative is cattle grids, which are unlikely to block rhinos.
So we design a gate that is rhino proof and wheel chair accessible.
Those rhino's go where they want. I want to see more!
What the fuck's happening with that apostrophe.
That's what my butcher writes when selling more than one rhino. Don't they all?
I'm just trying to help improve the standards of grammar on PB.
Your welcome.
You're.
(Unless that was deliberate, in witch case it was to meta for me.)
too meta…
😜😂
I hope you realise what I did their
Nice try… but nah.
Seriously - the to was deliberate. I went to Grammar School after all!
Hmmh… I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt then… on this occasion.
On port queues, I sympathise with the government. I mean, who could possibly have foreseen that more people may wish to cross the Channel at the start of the Easter break, or that the weather may be a bit unpredictable at the beginning of April? Obviously, the French are behind this.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
The majority of the country now think they were wrong. Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
Oh really, are you that naive ?
The current polls simply reflect a long whine from remianers blaming everything they can think of on Brexit, often when it has nothing to do with it.
What is missing is the the long list of bad news from the EU which regularly occurred when we were in. We had a taste of that in the Covid fiasco when Van der Leyen demanded all our AZ jabs.
But currently were missing the £17 billion quid handed over in times of austerity, the keep Germany's lights on diktat on pool gas resources, the dont upset Putin schtick in Ukraine we would have been tied in with via EU foreign policies, lots more immigration, and all the daily low level bollocks which just pissed people off.
The news cycle to date has mostly been one way, the polls are simply reflecting that, throw in the reality of what we have missed out on and they wont be showing those results.
Well I can see your opinion is indeed set in stone.
'Long whine' is good. As though that would persuade anyone against their will.
My opinions not set in stone, there have been some uncomfortable adjustments as a result of Brexit but the country isnt falling apart because of it. Covid and Putin have had much bigger impacts.
And as for the whining, the vote was almost 7 years ago, I prefer to look forward rather than cling on to a non existent past, you and the League of European Empire Loyalists still have your chance to seek to rejoin Nirvana. Maybe you could advance some positive arguments next time,
They shouldn’t be protected at all. That is the point.
I love seeing squirrel (grey in my area) and I've never understood why we should be actively intervening to kill one type of squirrel to protect another. Because they're foreign? Prejudice agasinst foreign humans is bad enough, but who needs ecoxenophobia?
Wonderful animals. So bright and every one with their own personality. I feed them daily when I'm here. They are quite the most interesting and ingenious animals I've ever interacted with. I find them much more interesting than the Reds. My cousin in a nature writer and she lathes the idea of 'native species' which is a big thing in Scotland. She thinks it's typical of the Nationalist mentality!
Sorry but these comments are just stupid and ignorant and I would certainly have expected better from Nick even if not from you. Your cousin sounds like a moron.
The reason that most sensible naturalists and wildlife experts have a problem with some non native species is because they drive native species to extinction. Ecosystems build up over millennia to a point of natural balance. When you then suddenly introduce a non native species it disrupts that balance and can often lead similar native species being pushed into danger. There are hundreds of examples of this since man started transporting animals around the world - cats in Australia being an obvious example.
You might as well claim that there is nothing wrong with white Europeans wiping out the indigenous peoples of North America 'because we were more interesting'. Nationalism has feck all to do with it. Horse Chestnuts and rabbits are both non native species to the British Isles but they do not damage the native populations of other animals and plants so there is no problem with them. If a species of plant or animal is harmless then it is not an issue. But diversity of species is what is matters. Grey squirrels have driven reds to extinction in many parts of the British Isles. Hence the reason they need to be controlled.
So that nature conforms with your idea of what is right.
Thank goodness you're only an internet numpty rather than a billionaire donor who could influence government policy.
I'm slightly surprised that Richard's (quite eloquently put) position is being seen as anything but the mainstream opinion it is. Humans nowadays usually try very hard to avoid introducing non-native species which could wipe out native species - this isn't out of an idea of 'what is right' but in an attempt to avoid yet another extinction.
Try to import a non-native species into New Zealand and see where it gets you.
Of course, all points of view are contestable, but the point of view that invasive species such as grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed in Great Britain and, say, rats on South Georgia should be controlled isn't really controversial.
So you are a wolf-introducer, then?
Well first of all what a wonderful category of thing to be. "What do you do? I'm a wolf-introducer."
Wolf introduction is a slightly different matter - that's not necessarily protecting existing species but reintroducing ones which have gone. But to me the case for doing so (to manage the population of deer, which is inimical to the population of birch forest, which is detrimental to other native species) seems stronger than the case for not doing so. In a controlled way, at certain locations. It's not a straightforward decision, certainly.
Thing is you are fucking around with our environment. You are making a decision to introduce something that was or wasn't here for one reason or another. Will no one think of the birch trees is of course an understandable rallying cry but it is quite a lot to ask you, wolf-introducer as you are, to manage the entire ecosystem as you and a couple of others, @Richard_Tyndall looking at you, seem to want to do.
As though any one decision has no consequences on myriad different mini-ecosystems.
Long live grey squirrels. And air rifles.
But you're (and I mean 'you' in the sense of humanity here; I'm not suggesting you personally have anything to do with it) fucking about with the environment by driving wolves to extinction in the first place. You're fucking about with the environment by reintroducing them. You're fucking about with the environment by allowing the arrival of grey squirrels (because presumably they wouldn't have got here without human help); you're fucking about with the environment by allowing them to remain, and you're fucking about with the environment by eradicating them. There's a touch of the trolley problem here. It's not the case that doing nothing is morally neutral and doing something is morally right or wrong.
"by allowing the arrival of grey squirrels" - this is the logical fallacy as grey squirrels haven't been allowed to arrive by anyone in the UK alive today. I know you caveated that you're talking about humanity not individuals but still, that's as bonkers as people talking about reparations for slavery.
Grey squirrels may not have been native to the UK hundreds of years ago, but they've been in the UK for hundreds of years now. They're established in the UK now.
Australia places strict restrictions on the introduction of foreign flora and fauna which makes sense because they have a unique ecosystem, and new arrivals there might have devastating effects like the arrival of rabbits did in the past.
But as far as the grey squirrel is concerned in the UK, that barn door was left open hundreds of years ago now.
Well I never - you're back and it turns out you have a strong opinion on squirrels.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
The majority of the country now think they were wrong. Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
There's two sets of polling. One is would you rejoin (misleading - doesn't set out what the new arrangement would be/would cost) and then there is there was it right or wrong to leave.
Both are impacted massively by covid and the war in Ukraine, as those have had huge effects on the economy, also seen in most other countries that DIDN'T Brexit.
OK then.
In your opinion, how unpopular does Brexit have to be for how long for revisiting the question of whether the UK should be closer to / in the EU become the democratic thing to do?
(My answer, for what it's worth, is that if Brexit is still unpopular after Starmer's Operation Make Brexit Work, we'll have no choice.)
I'm very happy to become as close as possible to the EU. I voted remain after much soul searching and wish we had stayed in. I also think if the government of the day wants to move as close as possible it can. Rejoin (under new terms - we won't get the same deal we had again) would, I think, need a new mandate (via General election with it in the manisfesto or a new referendum). It may happen, but my preferred state now is as close co-operation as possible. The EU is, effectively, a protection racket, but a very big one that worked well for the UK economy to be part of. I embrace free trade, but of course while we have free trade with the EU, its currently not frictionless, and every effort should be made to make it so.
Much my position as well and I did vote remain too
Today's good news is arch Brexiteer and introducer of 'The Turkish Lie' Nigel Lawson won't have to queue up anymore to visit his French Chateau.
It is possible to disagree with someone's political views (as I do with Lawson) without celebrating their death. Unless you are a sicko. I'll mark you down as a sick person as well as a twat. Get some help
My point is that we should not be blaming overzealous Germans or vindictive French or lazy Spanish (fill in your own opinions as necessary) for passport checking. This is a direct result of Brexit. It didnt have to be this way because 'get Brexit done' took precedence over 'making Brexit work'. But this is what we have got.
Politicians should stop trying to blame everyone and everything for why it doesn't work - and instead do something about it. Like negotiate with compromise not bluster.
And you are missing the point that the checks *always happened*
They have just thrown some grit in the process
No, we have.
Not as much as they have.
For example it is very very quick to enter the US now.
That depends on when and where you are entering. But it can definitely be quicker than it was, that is for sure.
The issue with the EU is to do with FoM. It is a benefit of membership or of specific treaty. If we want a version of it, we need to negotiate it specifically. When you say you want to be treated as a third country, then that is what you get.
My guess is that now that the grown-ups are in charge here, the EU may be more inclined to discuss this - especially as its nationals are getting caught in the ferry queues because there are no eGates at ports. The approach that Johnson and Frost took to the negotiating process was pretty much guaranteed to get the worst possible results.
FoM about the right to be treated equivalent to a domestic citizen not about entry rules (although that might come as a side benefit)
Freedom of movement is integral to equality of treatment: when entering another EU member state all EU citizens enjoy exactly the same rights as its nationals, so, for example, access to eGates and no time limit for staying (for as long as you can support yourself).
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
The majority of the country now think they were wrong. Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
Oh really, are you that naive ?
The current polls simply reflect a long whine from remianers blaming everything they can think of on Brexit, often when it has nothing to do with it.
What is missing is the the long list of bad news from the EU which regularly occurred when we were in. We had a taste of that in the Covid fiasco when Van der Leyen demanded all our AZ jabs.
But currently were missing the £17 billion quid handed over in times of austerity, the keep Germany's lights on diktat on pool gas resources, the dont upset Putin schtick in Ukraine we would have been tied in with via EU foreign policies, lots more immigration, and all the daily low level bollocks which just pissed people off.
The news cycle to date has mostly been one way, the polls are simply reflecting that, throw in the reality of what we have missed out on and they wont be showing those results.
We're also missing the extra growth that our £17.5 billion would have helped deliver thanks to membership of the single market and customs union, as well as the lower inflation.
The 17 billion and more have been swallowed by covid and the cost of living. Like most western countries were having to dig in just to stand still.
The facts of the world economy have changed radically since 2017.
There are three options for dealing with border queues to the EU (1) stop travelling (2) take your chances with the delays, cancellations and extra cost in the full knowledge that it used to be much better and it didn't need to be like this (3) negotiate a new agreement with the EU to bring the UK closer to where it was before and to the EU.
As (2) is not likely to go away, I suspect governments will want to explore (3).
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
The majority of the country now think they were wrong. Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
There's two sets of polling. One is would you rejoin (misleading - doesn't set out what the new arrangement would be/would cost) and then there is there was it right or wrong to leave.
Both are impacted massively by covid and the war in Ukraine, as those have had huge effects on the economy, also seen in most other countries that DIDN'T Brexit.
OK then.
In your opinion, how unpopular does Brexit have to be for how long for revisiting the question of whether the UK should be closer to / in the EU become the democratic thing to do?
(My answer, for what it's worth, is that if Brexit is still unpopular after Starmer's Operation Make Brexit Work, we'll have no choice.)
I'm very happy to become as close as possible to the EU. I voted remain after much soul searching and wish we had stayed in. I also think if the government of the day wants to move as close as possible it can. Rejoin (under new terms - we won't get the same deal we had again) would, I think, need a new mandate (via General election with it in the manisfesto or a new referendum). It may happen, but my preferred state now is as close co-operation as possible. The EU is, effectively, a protection racket, but a very big one that worked well for the UK economy to be part of. I embrace free trade, but of course while we have free trade with the EU, its currently not frictionless, and every effort should be made to make it so.
Much my position as well and I did vote remain too
My position is slightly different. I voted to remain, but when the result arrived clearly we had to leave. Now we're out there's no problem having another referendum to go back in though.
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
I 100% disagree
Once there was a referendum vote in favour the choice was “implement the democratically expressed views of the electorate” or “don’t”.
It was no longer about Brexit
And ignoring the democratically expressed views of the electorate is not something that is done in mature democracies
Perhaps. But that's no reason to forgive the Tories for it.
The accusation was implementation was not in the best interests of the country. It would be a different point to blame Cameron for holding the referendum
The implementation we ended up with certainly wasn't. And that was a matter of choice, not democratic necessity.
And that, too, is an arguable point although given the approach the Remainers took in voting down May’s deal they bear some of the blame.
But that wasn’t the original contention. It was “implementing Brexit” not “this Brexit”
There are three options for dealing with border queues to the EU (1) stop travelling (2) take your chances with the delays, cancellations and extra cost in the full knowledge that it used to be much better and it didn't need to be like this (3) negotiate a new agreement with the EU to bring the UK closer to where it was before and to the EU.
As (2) is not likely to go away, I suspect governments will want to explore (3).
3 is inevitable. Longer term it will be BINO or EEA if not re-join. I hope I am still alive. I will laugh and laugh and laugh.
Some liability who gives a fuck what non Labour voters think of Jezza
Anyone who cares about winning an election gives a fuck what non-Labour voters think of Jezza.
If for every extra vote you add, you add 2 to your opposition, then you are a liability.
It was aptly noted by @Cyclefree that Jeremy Corbyn was Britain's Trump and the same happened in 2020.
In 2020 Donald Trump got 9 million more votes than Barack Obama did in 2012. The problem for Trump, is that he was such a liability that Joe Biden got 16 million more votes than Obama did in 2012.
You are the red hat MAGA/Momentum obsessive saying "look at our extra votes" while ignoring how repellent your guy was that he drove up the opposition even higher.
The 2017 Corbyn electoral miracle saw the Tories expand their vote by 2.3m. When the party in government picks up 20% more votes than when it won last time, you are not "winning" no matter how much the cranks say so.
One man’s election liability is another man’s did better than his immediate predecessors. Isn’t it the case that even in his 2019 shellacking Corbyn received more votes than Blair in 2005, Brown in 2010 and Miliband in 2015?
- firstly capacity: the EU for bullshit reasons have said that the UK can’t use the automated gates (unlike South Korea, Australia or the US for example). That massively reduces the available capacity - from 10-20 gates to, usually, 2-4 officers - The individual checks are marginally longer. The electronic check is the same as pre-Brexit but then the officer flips through every page of the passport and stamps. I’d guesstimate it’s about 30 seconds extra per passport - We share a queue with countries that are deemed high risk so their passport checks and officer discussions take longer
In the case of Dover it’s a combination of several factors: (i) holiday demand; (ii) bad weather delaying sailings; (iii) staff shortages/work to rule by French officers who are grumbling about pay & conditions; and (iv) the elongated time required - especially with coaches where school kids have to get off the coach to be checked rather than a single teacher being able to take the passports down as a single bundle.
So part of it is normal stuff, and part of it is the French being silly and petty. So it’s not Brexit per se, but…
As I see it, Brexit allows the French to be silly and petty, and the French have chosen to take that opportunity (they weren't forced to).
So people who are blaming Brexit for this are essentially saying that the French should be expected to be silly and petty, which is rather xenophobic.
It's not as if the French were slow to turn down an opportunity to be pains in the arse at borders when we were in the EU. Sure, it was more difficult. But the argument 'if only we would do everything the French want us to then we will be able to get through borders more quickly' seems to me to fall into a 'too high a price to pay' category.
Operation Stack has been extant since 1987 - so it’s not as if the French being French, hasn’t been happening every few months for decades!
Yes, stamping of passports takes a little extra time, but the major factors are the work-to-rule by the border staff, and the recent weather.
The thing is with nearly everything Brexit is that it is nearly always another issue, but Brexit tips it over the edge unnecessarily and then people say 'Ah but it isn't Brexit it is this'.
Yes there have been queues at ports before. I have been held up on the tunnel for hours twice before Brexit, so yes there will always be times when it falls apart because of something or other, but those times are made worse by Brexit and there will be times when before Brexit it was just coping and now it won't.
The same applies to the impact on businesses. The cry goes out that the company was probably going to collapse anyway, they were barely making any profit for this reason or that. But Brexit doesn't help if it tips them over the edge and of course this applies to the more successful companies as well. Yes they will carry on being profitable, but less so.
The exclamation that it is always another reason and not Brexit is often/usually not true, both contribute. If you eliminate Brexit, it might just be you get by regardless of the other disaster (weather, overbooking, working to rule, etc)
Of course there will be times that Brexit has nothing to do with it at all and Brexit gets blamed (that's life), but equally there are examples where Brexit is not just contributory but entirely the reason for a failure, so that cuts both ways.
Absolutely. And the other point to make is that unlike COVID and Ukraine, Brexit was entirely self-inflicted and unnecessary. It is the most egregious example of a government acting contrary to what was in the country’s best interests. The Tories should never be forgiven for it.
LOL if the majority in the country voted to leave who are you to tell them theyre wrong ?
The majority of the country now think they were wrong. Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
Oh really, are you that naive ?
The current polls simply reflect a long whine from remianers blaming everything they can think of on Brexit, often when it has nothing to do with it.
What is missing is the the long list of bad news from the EU which regularly occurred when we were in. We had a taste of that in the Covid fiasco when Van der Leyen demanded all our AZ jabs.
But currently were missing the £17 billion quid handed over in times of austerity, the keep Germany's lights on diktat on pool gas resources, the dont upset Putin schtick in Ukraine we would have been tied in with via EU foreign policies, lots more immigration, and all the daily low level bollocks which just pissed people off.
The news cycle to date has mostly been one way, the polls are simply reflecting that, throw in the reality of what we have missed out on and they wont be showing those results.
Well I can see your opinion is indeed set in stone.
'Long whine' is good. As though that would persuade anyone against their will.
My opinions not set in stone, there have been some uncomfortable adjustments as a result of Brexit but the country isnt falling apart because of it. Covid and Putin have had much bigger impacts.
And as for the whining, the vote was almost 7 years ago, I prefer to look forward rather than cling on to a non existent past, you and the League of European Empire Loyalists still have your chance to seek to rejoin Nirvana. Maybe you could advance some positive arguments next time,
I have, regularly, since Brexit. The fact that I regard the original decision as a mistake doesn't mean I haven't been a proponent of managing it better.
Was it you who assured me that our car industry was going to be fine ? I seem to recall arguments with several ardent Brexiteers who were adamant that the transition to EVs wouldn't be a threat to UK manufacturing. We could have averted that.
There are three options for dealing with border queues to the EU (1) stop travelling (2) take your chances with the delays, cancellations and extra cost in the full knowledge that it used to be much better and it didn't need to be like this (3) negotiate a new agreement with the EU to bring the UK closer to where it was before and to the EU.
As (2) is not likely to go away, I suspect governments will want to explore (3).
you forgot invade and annex France and then theres no border to worry about
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They charge very quickly, and their skin's thick enough that the average pistol is a popgun. Not to mention their bite is... quite something. Deadliest animal in Africa by kills of humans (or they were, anyway, not checked for a while).
I'm really not a fundamentalist on this - my starting point was simply that favouring native species over invasive species isn't exactly controversial.
As to why to UK can’t use automated gates it’s the EU digging their heels in to make a visible point to UK travellers.
Essentially early on in the negotiations the UK said “why don’t we both agree to use the automated gates. It’s easy and makes everyone better off”
The EU said no. Because… reasons
The UK then said “Whatever as a gesture of goodwill (and because we believe that easy travel makes us better off) we will allow it unilaterally”
Late in the negotiations the UK then said “Look why don’t you throw in use of the automated gates as it makes everyone better off”
The EU said “what will you give us in return for that? You’ve already opened your gates unilaterally so that doesn’t count”
So because the EU don’t understand the concept of a win-win negotiation where sometimes you give something that costs them nothing but makes the other side better off we have ended up with the present pointless frustration.
I took a long look round and eventually saw quite a few. Jet black but otherwise quite similar to the Red. I asked around and it seems that there's a colony of them which live around the forests in that area.
Fortunately for them the wealthy burghers of Cap Ferrat seem happy to live and let live.
😜😂
No rewriting of history required
They voted for it.
They gave ~600/650 seats in 2017 election to parties who claimed they accepted the result.
They gave an even bigger majority to the Tories in 2019 to get it done.
That's democracy, democracy, democracy, democracy. Any one of four times the people could have voted differently and how you wanted, they didn't.
You're antidemocratic and howling at the moon.
So most of the population control just comes from stressing them out.
Once there was a referendum vote in favour the choice was “implement the democratically expressed views of the electorate” or “don’t”.
It was no longer about Brexit
And ignoring the democratically expressed views of the electorate is not something that is done in mature democracies
Too self obsessed for a bit of redistribution
We see you Phil
They have just thrown some grit in the process
Does this mean I’m a bien pensant now?
https://twitter.com/simon_schama/status/1643071333801000960?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Hippos are indeed dangerous and belligerent beasts though.
* Behind man, of course.
But, to be fair, a bullet will ruin a mosquito's day. Whereas, most of the time, you'll just annoy the hippo charging you.
And that is why I don't think the Sunaks should be investing too much in redecorating Downing Street, even if they don't like the current aesthetics.
What's not to like?
Who are you to tell us that our opinions were set in stone back in 2016 ?
https://twitter.com/saintjavelin/status/1643210754647113736
But over 5m of your of your 12.9m think he's now a liability.
Jeremy Corbyn fan, please explain.
For example it is very very quick to enter the US now.
Interestingly also, I imagine that that politically the same people who are OK with deer being killed slowly by wolves are definitely not OK with foxy-woxies being killed instantly by a pack of hounds. I guess Chris the twat Packham would fall into that category.
Hardly Mr Popular
On the substance - I am pro-Corbynism (as in I believe in much of what the 2017 manifesto proposed) and remain suspicious of the attempts to play the man not the policies (regardless of where the truth lies on antisemitism) but even in peak Jezmania in 2017 the man didn’t win.
We can debate all day about why that was (I will probably agree with you on quite a bit of that) but Bart’s point still stands. With the UK media mediating, the spectre of Corbyn will motivate the other side to vote in sufficient numbers that he remains an electoral liability.
For me, the ideal would be that Starmer detoxifies/bores everyone sufficiently that he can produce the best bits of the 2017 manifesto in 2024/5 without scaring the voters away because he’s seen as a safe, boring pair of hands.
Edited to remove excessive italicisation.
But that's no reason to forgive the Tories for it.
The issue with the EU is to do with FoM. It is a benefit of membership or of specific treaty. If we want a version of it, we need to negotiate it specifically. When you say you want to be treated as a third country, then that is what you get.
My guess is that now that the grown-ups are in charge here, the EU may be more inclined to discuss this - especially as its nationals are getting caught in the ferry queues because there are no eGates at ports. The approach that Johnson and Frost took to the negotiating process was pretty much guaranteed to get the worst possible results.
Both are impacted massively by covid and the war in Ukraine, as those have had huge effects on the economy, also seen in most other countries that DIDN'T Brexit.
By the way, can you please speak to @TOPPING about how to use an apostrophe, or he will have you arrested.
In any event, the stamps are going next year.
A laser might be better...
We're in the situation where the consensus (2 to 1) thinks Brexit was a mistake but there is no easy way to reverse it.
If you can't reverse a mistake, you need learn to live with it. Unfortunately neither of the Leave nor Remain tribes has any interest in damage limitation. The first doesn't admit to the damage that needs limiting; the second didn't choose the damage in the first place.
So we're stuck.
I don’t travel inside Schengen that much but I did recently do London > Stockholm > Amsterdam > London and there were no intra Schengen checks
In your opinion, how unpopular does Brexit have to be for how long for revisiting the question of whether the UK should be closer to / in the EU become the democratic thing to do?
(My answer, for what it's worth, is that if Brexit is still unpopular after Starmer's Operation Make Brexit Work, we'll have no choice.)
But despite the best efforts of a few fanatics there wasn’t evidence of an invalid result in the Brexit vote
The current polls simply reflect a long whine from remianers blaming everything they can think of on Brexit, often when it has nothing to do with it.
What is missing is the the long list of bad news from the EU which regularly occurred when we were in. We had a taste of that in the Covid fiasco when Van der Leyen demanded all our AZ jabs.
But currently were missing the £17 billion quid handed over in times of austerity, the keep Germany's lights on diktat on pool gas resources, the dont upset Putin schtick in Ukraine we would have been tied in with via EU foreign policies, lots more immigration, and all the daily low level bollocks which just pissed people off.
The news cycle to date has mostly been one way, the polls are simply reflecting that, throw in the reality of what we have missed out on and they wont be showing those results.
Brexit has seriously damaged your sense of proportion
'Long whine' is good. As though that would persuade anyone against their will.
I wander down, look at the screen, put my passport on the plate and they wave me through. 15 minutes from plane to kerb side.
Trump on Hannity gave away the ENTIRE game in the classified documents case:
**HE DID IT FOR PERSONAL PROFIT**
Why has no one jumped on this?
TRUMP: “I have the right to take stuff. You know they ended up paying Nixon $18 million for what he had.”
https://twitter.com/guardianogeloso/status/1642623915980619776
Also, regarding classified documents.
I guess he stopped reading after he saw the dollar amount. He should have kept on reading so he would have seen this line - "In 1978 Congress enacted the Presidential Records Act to ensure that the papers of all future Presidents are the property of the American public."
https://twitter.com/waynomac39/status/1642904617007685632
Rejoin (under new terms - we won't get the same deal we had again) would, I think, need a new mandate (via General election with it in the manisfesto or a new referendum). It may happen, but my preferred state now is as close co-operation as possible. The EU is, effectively, a protection racket, but a very big one that worked well for the UK economy to be part of. I embrace free trade, but of course while we have free trade with the EU, its currently not frictionless, and every effort should be made to make it so.
It was probably on one of the Arachnoboards.
It it a pretty dangerous character.
And that was a matter of choice, not democratic necessity.
Otherwise it’s the galleys for you!
And as for the whining, the vote was almost 7 years ago, I prefer to look forward rather than cling on to a non existent past, you and the League of European Empire Loyalists still have your chance to seek to rejoin Nirvana.
Maybe you could advance some positive arguments next time,
https://twitter.com/keiranpedley/status/1643199951718043651
Especially when you hear how courteous and civil he was to people. The polar opposite of Cilla.
@BritainElects
Westminster voting intention:
LAB: 49% (-2)
CON: 26% (+1)
LDEM: 11% (+2)
GRN: 6% (+1)
via
@IpsosUK
, 22 - 29 Mar"
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1643201054262153216
The facts of the world economy have changed radically since 2017.
As (2) is not likely to go away, I suspect governments will want to explore (3).
But that wasn’t the original contention. It was “implementing Brexit” not “this Brexit”
The fact that I regard the original decision as a mistake doesn't mean I haven't been a proponent of managing it better.
Was it you who assured me that our car industry was going to be fine ?
I seem to recall arguments with several ardent Brexiteers who were adamant that the transition to EVs wouldn't be a threat to UK manufacturing.
We could have averted that.