Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
Seems like a good opening negotiating position from his point of view. Get used it.
Not really. It will be ignored and he will lose credibility.
Indeed. It just makes him look petty. We're leaving and he's trying to stand outside and stop us from searching for a new house by saying only he can search for new houses. Idiot man.
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
It's a stupid thing to say. The UK can have trade negotiations with anyone they like. What they cannot do - and remain a part of the EU - is to enter into an active trade agreement.
I think Juncker is desperately trying to remain relevant as the Germans, Spanish, and co manoeuvre to have him removed.
Surely every single one of his statements make it more likely Germany, Spain and co will find a justification for removing him...
There have been four attacks in France recently - one was unsuccessful (the gunman on the train who was beaten up by those Americans). I suggest the French have every reason to assume that their government and security services are simply not doing their jobs properly. That is the real danger if Le Pen decides to put Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite up against Securite. It could easily prove a winner.
Other than that slight criticism, great post.
There was an interesting piece yesterday again on R4 about how our secret services knew that two of what turned out to be the 7/7 bombers had a base in Leeds/Bradford but didn't inform West Yorkshire Police. Following the 7/7 bombing there was an overhaul of intelligence sharing and now the various agencies including the police are apparently more routinely involved in discussions about potential suspects, and able to bring any local knowledge they might have to the table. This was contrasted with the position in France where the same work was said to be spread between six different secret service agencies which do not have the structures or culture in place to co-operate in the same way. I don't know how reasonable a critique this might be (as against just 'Brits know about these things').
That is interesting and it seems plausible. Simple mathematics reveals that our security services have recently been performing better than their French counterparts, although they appear to be less successful in Northern Ireland. I only hope they don't get complacent.
Simple mathematics says nothing of the sort. For all we know the French secret devices have quietly foiled a hundred attacks letting only a handful through whilst he British secret service have secretly foiled none. We do not know the underlying population of 'events' try are working against.
That's he thing about the secret service - their success are mostly secret.
Umm, no, I think you will find that five failures is more than no failures if you count carefully.
You are of course correct that we don't know how many success stories there are in either country (although they periodically make claims of having disrupted X number of plots). But with that you are talking about ratios, which is a slightly different idea.
A more useful source would be to find out the relative probability of attacks. But for that we would need more information than we have even to do a proper Bayesian rather than frequentist calculation.
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
Seems like a good opening negotiating position from his point of view. Get used it.
Not really. It will be ignored and he will lose credibility.
To lose credibility you have to have some to start with!
Junker is a fool. How does he propose to enforce this decision? The Commission are absolutely shit scared that we will make Brexit a huge success and show just how unnecessary the EU is. Tusk said the same before that we should not be allowed to profit from Brexit or something along those lines.
Well, we need or at the very least want to negotiate with them. So that does give them some leverage.
But looking at the TTIP (which gives the Americans the small matter of everything they want and gives us very little In return) the EU's negotiators really are pretty hopeless, and Juncker couldn't negotiate his way past a three year old with a water pistol. So their threat to play awkward isn't terribly convincing.
I think trade deals tend to reflect bargaining power. You can always get a deal if you are prepared to concede all the contentious points. The US is a big catch for the EU. They have other deals that are far more favourable to the EU. The one with Korea for example.
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
It's a stupid thing to say. The UK can have trade negotiations with anyone they like. What they cannot do - and remain a part of the EU - is to enter into an active trade agreement.
I think Juncker is desperately trying to remain relevant as the Germans, Spanish, and co manoeuvre to have him removed.
Surely every single one of his statements make it more likely Germany, Spain and co will find a justification for removing him...
The cornered beast always lashes out. It's disappointing that the EU Commission always manages to engage in behaviour that is antithetical to its stated aims. Oh well plus ca change...
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
It's a stupid thing to say. The UK can have trade negotiations with anyone they like. What they cannot do - and remain a part of the EU - is to enter into an active trade agreement.
I think Juncker is desperately trying to remain relevant as the Germans, Spanish, and co manoeuvre to have him removed.
He is living on borrowed time anyway. When we the electorate get the chance to vote him out he will be ........ Oh?
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
It's a stupid thing to say. The UK can have trade negotiations with anyone they like. What they cannot do - and remain a part of the EU - is to enter into an active trade agreement.
I think Juncker is desperately trying to remain relevant as the Germans, Spanish, and co manoeuvre to have him removed.
Surely every single one of his statements make it more likely Germany, Spain and co will find a justification for removing him...
No, I am not proposing that. The government should look at what is good for the country, not the whole, and avoid blood-sucking financial parasites who make comments such as yours above.
That sort of comment's unlike you JJ.
I'm simply saying that there are clearly externalities involved in the situation. The government may decide that it is important than ARM is kept in the UK because of those externalities. If so, it is restricting the rights of private individuals to dispose of their property as they see fit - the value of the externalities should be shared rather than expropriated.
Charles: your comment implied that shareholders should be compensated for any deal the government does not allow to go through.
Think through what that would mean: unscrupulous shareholders could arrange a deal for CriticalBusiness.com to be taken over by ChineseMegaCorp.Evil for a gazillion dollars, in the knowledge that the government would have to block it 'for the public good'. If the government were to compensate them, it would lead to profit for the shareholders, and they even retain the shares in the end.
It's made worse by the fact that many shareholders (though not all by a long means) invest only in the short- and medium- term, and have no interest in the long-term good of the company they've invested in; only in what they can get out. The government will sometimes need to act as a brake against that.
Oh, and I'm saying that as a modest shareholder in ARM for many, many years, who might do rather well from this deal.
I'm undecided atm whether this deal is good or bad for the UK in the long term - hopefully we'll learn more about it later. Certainly SO's questions and comments below should be answered in public.
That is Professor Murphaloon writing from his bedroom, so while it shows Corbyn's incompetence / ignorance, there is also a slather of arsecovering there.
The modern Labour Party is basically a coalition of three groups: 1. Corbyn and friends 2. Metropolitan middle-class lefties 3. White working classes.
Most of the members are in group 1, most of the MPs in group 2 and most of the voters in group 3.
An electable Labour Party need to focus on policies to help group 3, while also attracting a couple of million who voted for David Cameron. But groups 1 and 2 think they can change the world with hashtags and online petitions. Until group 2 can get their act together and actually be for a set of policies rather than just against group 1, then Corbyn and friends are going to be in charge.
On Sunday Politics (London) yesterday a Haringey councillor was interviewed and asked what was wrong with his party, and he said "the leader is divorced from the MPs, the MPs are divorced from the members, and our members are divorced from the public". Nothing we don't know already, but brutally put from one of their own!
/edit as a comment on your post, don't forget also the mainly Muslim ethnic minorities, a big labour constituency, with different priorities from its traditional base.
I think its slightly more worrying than that..
The leader is divorced from the MPs but fairly in tune with the members (especially those who have joined because of him). However, everyone (regardless of what MPs think) is divorced from their traditional voters and while that's been the case for 20 odd years it didn't matter then but is starting to now....
Also half the voters (traditional Labour, live up north) are utterly divorced from the other half (left wing trendy - London, Brighton and other metropolitan places).. That is a big issue as if you trend towards one group you may well lose the other...
Junker is a fool. How does he propose to enforce this decision? The Commission are absolutely shit scared that we will make Brexit a huge success and show just how unnecessary the EU is. Tusk said the same before that we should not be allowed to profit from Brexit or something along those lines.
Well, we need or at the very least want to negotiate with them. So that does give them some leverage.
But looking at the TTIP (which gives the Americans the small matter of everything they want and gives us very little In return) the EU's negotiators really are pretty hopeless, and Juncker couldn't negotiate his way past a three year old with a water pistol. So their threat to play awkward isn't terribly convincing.
I think trade deals tend to reflect bargaining power. You can always get a deal if you are prepared to concede all the contentious points. The US is a big catch for the EU. They have other deals that are far more favourable to the EU. The one with Korea for example.
It also shows how little value the US places on trade with the EU though. Especially now that the deal is on the rocks without the UK being involved.
So. How many Labour MPs are going to walk into the giant trap sized and fully signposted trident trap today?
@Labourpaul: So the Leader's voting one way on Trident, the shadow defence and foreign secretaries another, and none of them is party policy? #shambles
Junker is a fool. How does he propose to enforce this decision? The Commission are absolutely shit scared that we will make Brexit a huge success and show just how unnecessary the EU is. Tusk said the same before that we should not be allowed to profit from Brexit or something along those lines.
That just about sums it up, they're very worried indeed that Brexit might be anything other than a complete disaster for the UK.
Meanwhile, our new PM has appointed a SoS for Trade, an SoS for Business, an SoS for Brexit and fitted out a long haul aircraft for their use.
I read elsewhere that the EU has 27 trade negotiators plus a load of others lower down the rungs - wonder if any are worth headhunting?
There have been four attacks in France recently - one was unsuccessful (the gunman on the train who was beaten up by those Americans). I suggest the French have every reason to assume that their government and security services are simply not doing their jobs properly. That is the real danger if Le Pen decides to put Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite up against Securite. It could easily prove a winner.
Other than that slight criticism, great post.
The more attacks there are, the more the indigenous French will flock to a modern day Jean d'Arc to save them from the enemy in their midst, who will be looking towards a 1492 solution to solve the problem. There are clearly different possibilities to stop her. A respected conservative native French politician like Juppe would offer the best odds, but he is nearly 71 years old. A socialist, or Sarkozy (with his previous failure in 2012 and part foreign background - 50% Magyar, 25% Turkish-Jewish), will have less chance.
@politicshome: Jeremy Corbyn says Theresa May's 'One Nation' mission statement "wdn’t have happened" without him as Labour leader https://t.co/nuYCLQdjyQ
I was at the rugby a few weeks ago, the tries my side scored were all down to me.
So. How many Labour MPs are going to walk into the giant trap sized and fully signposted trident trap today?
Fewer than half the PLP members, so Conservatives will get the double of portraying Labour as dangerously split and dangerously weak on national security.
There have been four attacks in France recently - one was unsuccessful (the gunman on the train who was beaten up by those Americans). I suggest the French have every reason to assume that their government and security services are simply not doing their jobs properly. That is the real danger if Le Pen decides to put Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite up against Securite. It could easily prove a winner.
Other than that slight criticism, great post.
The more attacks there are, the more the indigenous French will flock to a modern day Jean d'Arc to save them from the enemy in their midst, who will be looking towards a 1492 solution to solve the problem. There are clearly different possibilities to stop her. A respected conservative native French politician like Juppe would offer the best odds, but he is nearly 71 years old. A socialist, or Sarkozy (with his previous failure in 2012 and part foreign background - 50% Magyar, 25% Turkish-Jewish), will have less chance.
Theresa must be just a little tempted by an election, 10 points ahead and with the opposition in chaos and denial. She won't go for it, but the thought must have crossed her mind in the last few days.
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
It's a stupid thing to say. The UK can have trade negotiations with anyone they like. What they cannot do - and remain a part of the EU - is to enter into an active trade agreement.
I think Juncker is desperately trying to remain relevant as the Germans, Spanish, and co manoeuvre to have him removed.
Surely every single one of his statements make it more likely Germany, Spain and co will find a justification for removing him...
The cornered beast always lashes out. It's disappointing that the EU Commission always manages to engage in behaviour that is antithetical to its stated aims. Oh well plus ca change...
If theres one individual who reminds me why I voted leave in the first place, it has to be Juncker. How did we get ourselves into a situation where he - and his 'commission'- were ever able to assert authority and and control over us. I mean - who is he? What has he ever done?
So. How many Labour MPs are going to walk into the giant trap sized and fully signposted trident trap today?
Fewer than half the PLP members, so Conservatives will get the double of portraying Labour as dangerously split and dangerously weak on national security.
It's amazing to see how quickly the Tories have all united after the voted having looked hopelessly split while Labour are in utter turmoil and actually talking about SDP2.
Theresa must be just a little tempted by an election, 10 points ahead and with the opposition in chaos and denial. She won't go for it, but the thought must have crossed her mind in the last few days.
Given the success of the feminist t shirt, she must also be tempted to have a 'this is what a credible leader looks like' top...
Theresa must be just a little tempted by an election, 10 points ahead and with the opposition in chaos and denial. She won't go for it, but the thought must have crossed her mind in the last few days.
I suspect the thinking is that having an election whilst labour is an inferno you could get burned, if you wait until they are a pile of ash the you can sweep up
Yes but is 'wanting to be in government' enough, without any sort of coherent programme (not even a reasoned critique of Corbyn's offering let alone an alternative centre-left analysis to take on the Tories) or charismatic alternative leader?
A lot of people are fed up with the pre-Corbyn era politics of (or which they see as) lots of egos all wanting for the top jobs but standing on similar policies. Cooper and Burnham bombed because they had nothing to say. Eagle has nothing to say, Smith is trying but it's early days.
The bottom line is that the Labour rebels need more than simply pointing to Corbyn's unelectability whilst taking for granted: a) that they stand for something, when (apart from not being Tories) they haven't worked out what, b) that they have a suitable alternative leader, when they don't, and c) that their managerial and leadership skills make them suitable people to run the country, when they have been demonstrating their own incompetence at every turn.
Agree with every word of that.
The modern Labour Party is basically a coalition of three groups: 1. Corbyn and friends 2. Metropolitan middle-class lefties 3. White working classes.
Most of the members are in group 1, most of the MPs in group 2 and most of the voters in group 3.
An electable Labour Party need to focus on policies to help group 3, while also attracting a couple of million who voted for David Cameron. But groups 1 and 2 think they can change the world with hashtags and online petitions. Until group 2 can get their act together and actually be for a set of policies rather than just against group 1, then Corbyn and friends are going to be in charge.
On Sunday Politics (London) yesterday a Haringey councillor was interviewed and asked what was wrong with his party, and he said "the leader is divorced from the MPs, the MPs are divorced from the members, and our members are divorced from the public". Nothing we don't know already, but brutally put from one of their own!
/edit as a comment on your post, don't forget also the mainly Muslim ethnic minorities, a big labour constituency, with different priorities from its traditional base.
A good point about the minorities, the cognitive dissonance required to campaign on equality while targeting those who treat women as second class citizens is astounding.
Junker is a fool. How does he propose to enforce this decision? The Commission are absolutely shit scared that we will make Brexit a huge success and show just how unnecessary the EU is. Tusk said the same before that we should not be allowed to profit from Brexit or something along those lines.
Well, we need or at the very least want to negotiate with them. So that does give them some leverage.
But looking at the TTIP (which gives the Americans the small matter of everything they want and gives us very little In return) the EU's negotiators really are pretty hopeless, and Juncker couldn't negotiate his way past a three year old with a water pistol. So their threat to play awkward isn't terribly convincing.
I think trade deals tend to reflect bargaining power. You can always get a deal if you are prepared to concede all the contentious points. The US is a big catch for the EU. They have other deals that are far more favourable to the EU. The one with Korea for example.
It also shows how little value the US places on trade with the EU though. Especially now that the deal is on the rocks without the UK being involved.
Anti-globalisation is making all encompassing trade deals more difficult everywhere
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
@paulwaugh: Hammond: Softbank £24bn takeover of ARM wd be largest ever Asian investment into UK + prove UK has lost none of its allure post-Brexit vote
Brexit going well I see.
Don't think you can conclude that from either of those stories
I can summarise them as follows
1. Prattish prat prattishly over reaches and is slapped down PDQ*
2. Great British company is bought by crazy Japanese investor for more than it's worth
* DD's response was superb - "what are they going to do - sling us out?"
Britain is about the leave the EU. Britain will be free to trade with the world. The Establishment got a smack in the knackers and is being forced into a major reset. Labour is destroying itself. We look set for a period of sensible, business friendly, confident rule. The sun is shining. I'm on holiday next week. We are a lucky country.
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
It's a stupid thing to say. The UK can have trade negotiations with anyone they like. What they cannot do - and remain a part of the EU - is to enter into an active trade agreement.
I think Juncker is desperately trying to remain relevant as the Germans, Spanish, and co manoeuvre to have him removed.
And they are right to do so.
If the EU ditched the commission, or made it subservient to the council of ministers or European council, it might have a much more stable long-term future.
If there are two present day trends which make me realise I'm getting older, much older, it's the number of men under 40 who grow beards, probably around 25% I reckon, as well as the number of men (and women) in the same age group who have chosen to adorn their bodies to a greater or lesser extent with tattoos. Here it's more difficult to assess numbers since usually only their hands, arms, faces and neck are on display, but I suspect approximately the same 25% applies overall.
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
It's a stupid thing to say. The UK can have trade negotiations with anyone they like. What they cannot do - and remain a part of the EU - is to enter into an active trade agreement.
I think Juncker is desperately trying to remain relevant as the Germans, Spanish, and co manoeuvre to have him removed.
Surely every single one of his statements make it more likely Germany, Spain and co will find a justification for removing him...
The cornered beast always lashes out. It's disappointing that the EU Commission always manages to engage in behaviour that is antithetical to its stated aims. Oh well plus ca change...
If theres one individual who reminds me why I voted leave in the first place, it has to be Juncker. How did we get ourselves into a situation where he - and his 'commission'- were ever able to assert authority and and control over us. I mean - who is he? What has he ever done?
"BBC's Panorama uncovered documents that neatly illustrated how the companies redistribute wealth. The UK headquarters of GlaxoSmithKline established a Luxembourg branch in 2009. The subsidiary lent £6.34bn to GSK in the UK. The UK company paid nearly £124m in interest back to the Luxembourg subsidiary. The revenue could not tax the interest at the then UK level of 28% and collect £34m. Instead, the Luxembourg tax authorities levied a tax of 0.5%, or £300,000. The deal was pin money by Luxembourg's standards."
Mr. Max, Corbyn may well have provided both an opportunity for great victory through Conservative unity *and* a perfect example of the perils of infighting.
Mr. Charles, hadn't heard Davis' riposte, but it's rather good.
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
Seems like a good opening negotiating position from his point of view. Get used it.
Not really. It will be ignored and he will lose credibility.
PB Brexitory thinks Juncker has credibility to lose? Wow.
There have been four attacks in France recently - one was unsuccessful (the gunman on the train who was beaten up by those Americans). I suggest the French have every reason to assume that their government and security services are simply not doing their jobs properly. That is the real danger if Le Pen decides to put Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite up against Securite. It could easily prove a winner.
Other than that slight criticism, great post.
The more attacks there are, the more the indigenous French will flock to a modern day Jean d'Arc to save them from the enemy in their midst, who will be looking towards a 1492 solution to solve the problem. There are clearly different possibilities to stop her. A respected conservative native French politician like Juppe would offer the best odds, but he is nearly 71 years old. A socialist, or Sarkozy (with his previous failure in 2012 and part foreign background - 50% Magyar, 25% Turkish-Jewish), will have less chance.
Is that 1492 making a treaty with England, 1492 expelling the Jews from Spain or 1492 discovering the New World? Busy old year.
Theresa must be just a little tempted by an election, 10 points ahead and with the opposition in chaos and denial. She won't go for it, but the thought must have crossed her mind in the last few days.
Given the success of the feminist t shirt, she must also be tempted to have a 'this is what a credible leader looks like' top...
Mr. P, saw somewhere (maybe the papers) that Thornberry, apparently Shadow Defence Secretary, has called for Labour MPs to abstain on Trident.
What's the point of the party if it's official stance on a significant piece of defence policy is to have no opinion?
Despite the majority of only 12, the government could get pretty much anything through the Commons now. It must be tempting to put up something controversial (several billion of cuts in tax credits?) just to see if the opposition can unite for anything!
There have been four attacks in France recently - one was unsuccessful (the gunman on the train who was beaten up by those Americans). I suggest the French have every reason to assume that their government and security services are simply not doing their jobs properly. That is the real danger if Le Pen decides to put Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite up against Securite. It could easily prove a winner.
Other than that slight criticism, great post.
And the police chief/his girlfriend who were beheaded on video and uploaded to Facebook.
I hadn't heard about that one! When was it?
It was a few weeks back. The police officer was attacked and killed as he came home. The killer then held his wife (herself a police officer) and three year old child hostage and live streamed this on Facebook. After a bit he killed the wife and was then killed by the police. One orphaned child saw this all. It was just outside Paris.
No wonder morale within the French police is said to be low. Incidentally, on my recent quick visit through Paris I saw groups of soldiers patrolling the streets and metro. I've never seen this before, even when Algerian terrorists were blowing people up on the streets of Paris in the 1980's. What have we come to when a major civilised country is forced to do this?
One final point: the Nice killer moved to France in 2005. He had no skills. Why was he let in? What conceivable reason could there have been for permitting the immigration of a no-skilled person from North Africa? In all the talk about Schengen and the radicalisation of 2nd/3rd generation immigrants it is often forgotten that countries might do well not to permit continued immigration of people who bring no apparent discernible benefit to the host country (and may well bring certain disadvantages).
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
Seems like a good opening negotiating position from his point of view. Get used it.
Not really. It will be ignored and he will lose credibility.
PB Brexitory thinks Juncker has credibility to lose? Wow.
Theresa must be just a little tempted by an election, 10 points ahead and with the opposition in chaos and denial. She won't go for it, but the thought must have crossed her mind in the last few days.
Given the success of the feminist t shirt, she must also be tempted to have a 'this is what a credible leader looks like' top...
I wonder whether instead, either Owen Smith or Angela Eagle might adopt such a tee shirt?
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
@paulwaugh: Hammond: Softbank £24bn takeover of ARM wd be largest ever Asian investment into UK + prove UK has lost none of its allure post-Brexit vote
Brexit going well I see.
Don't think you can conclude that from either of those stories
I can summarise them as follows
1. Prattish prat prattishly over reaches and is slapped down PDQ*
2. Great British company is bought by crazy Japanese investor for more than it's worth
* DD's response was superb - "what are they going to do - sling us out?"
Mr Kirkup had an interesting take on DD - he's viewed as an unreasonable bruiser by Brussels types. And that's a good thing.
"Mr Davis’s greatest liability in the job is that for all his reputation as a bruising operator at Westminster, he is regarded as unserious and unreasonable by many of those he will have to negotiate with. His greatest asset, meanwhile, is that he is regarded as unserious and unreasonable by many of those he will have to negotiate with. Reasonable men strike reasonable deals. Unreasonable ones strike outrageous ones.
Just ask Recep Tayyip Erdogan: the Turkish president jails journalists and kills Kurds, but the EU still does deals with him. Remember that realpolitik when you hear patrician Europeans insisting the EU cannot compromise on its values to strike a Brexit agreement. In politics, there’s always a deal to be done. "
As is often the case, I find myself on the wrong side of most opinion on here. I think it's been an unimpressive start by the Prime Minister who, as far as I can see, gets 58% approval ratings for a) not being Cameron (the novelty will soon fade) and b) not doing anything at all.
Her damascene conversion to Heathite interventionism seems to be gaining her praise aplenty though I imagine if she had simply read pages from the Maidenhead phone book, the response would have been equally euphoric.
The fact remains the problems with the public finances and a range of other issues haven't melted away with the departure of the Dave and George Show and once again the insidious tax cutters are muttering away in the undergrowth. With the abandonment of Osborne's plan for fiscal surplus, it seems we are committed to a long term policy of debt management.
The quality of some of her Cabinet picks (Rudd in particular) will be tested in the fire of day to day banalities, indiscretions and events beyond control. We'll see - I'll reserve judgement if that's okay.
Labour may or may not be moving to schism - Corbyn is not interested in tacking or trimming to obtain power - he has his beliefs and he won't change them to win a point or five in the polls. He would rather talk to the electorate and try to change them one voter at a time. In many ways, that's an honest and honourable position but ultimately futile.
The Conservatives are the exact opposite - they will trim, tack, indeed do a complete about-turn on a policy if it is seen to be a) popular and b) guarantees their continuation in Government. The ultimate end is policy by focus group or perhaps policy by referendum.
No, I am not proposing that. The government should look at what is good for the country, not the whole, and avoid blood-sucking financial parasites who make comments such as yours above.
That sort of comment's unlike you JJ.
I'm simply saying that there are clearly externalities involved in the situation. The government may decide that it is important than ARM is kept in the UK because of those externalities. If so, it is restricting the rights of private individuals to dispose of their property as they see fit - the value of the externalities should be shared rather than expropriated.
Charles: your comment implied that shareholders should be compensated for any deal the government does not allow to go through.
Think through what that would mean: unscrupulous shareholders could arrange a deal for CriticalBusiness.com to be taken over by ChineseMegaCorp.Evil for a gazillion dollars, in the knowledge that the government would have to block it 'for the public good'. If the government were to compensate them, it would lead to profit for the shareholders, and they even retain the shares in the end.
It's made worse by the fact that many shareholders (though not all by a long means) invest only in the short- and medium- term, and have no interest in the long-term good of the company they've invested in; only in what they can get out. The government will sometimes need to act as a brake against that.
Oh, and I'm saying that as a modest shareholder in ARM for many, many years, who might do rather well from this deal.
I'm undecided atm whether this deal is good or bad for the UK in the long term - hopefully we'll learn more about it later. Certainly SO's questions and comments below should be answered in public.
Retrospective action by a government is always a bad thing because it is arbitrary.
If a company is strategic than that should be clearly known upfront and the government's interest protected (e.g. via preference shares with a subscription right at a nominal value in the event of a change of control).
That way investors can make their investment decision based on full knowledge that their ability to sell on may be restricted.
Theresa must be just a little tempted by an election, 10 points ahead and with the opposition in chaos and denial. She won't go for it, but the thought must have crossed her mind in the last few days.
Given the success of the feminist t shirt, she must also be tempted to have a 'this is what a credible leader looks like' top...
I wonder whether instead, either Owen Smith or Angela Eagle might adopt such a tee shirt?
The EU wants rid of us as quickly and quietly as possible. But we're hanging around like a bad smell and the risk of contagion will only grow. We have the high cards. We can ignore the EU demands (France often do and they are a member) and ratchet up the pressure on Juncker.
There have been four attacks in France recently - one was unsuccessful (the gunman on the train who was beaten up by those Americans). I suggest the French have every reason to assume that their government and security services are simply not doing their jobs properly. That is the real danger if Le Pen decides to put Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite up against Securite. It could easily prove a winner.
Other than that slight criticism, great post.
The more attacks there are, the more the indigenous French will flock to a modern day Jean d'Arc to save them from the enemy in their midst, who will be looking towards a 1492 solution to solve the problem. There are clearly different possibilities to stop her. A respected conservative native French politician like Juppe would offer the best odds, but he is nearly 71 years old. A socialist, or Sarkozy (with his previous failure in 2012 and part foreign background - 50% Magyar, 25% Turkish-Jewish), will have less chance.
If there are two present day trends which make me realise I'm getting older, much older, it's the number of men under 40 who grow beards, probably around 25% I reckon, as well as the number of men (and women) in the same age group who have chosen to adorn their bodies to a greater or lesser extent with tattoos. Here it's more difficult to assess numbers since usually only their hands, arms, faces and neck are on display, but I suspect approximately the same 25% applies overall.
When I was a kid, the only people with tattoos were current/ex-services or merchant seamen. All blue and blurry. And biker sorts. Plus skinheads. It's a fashion I expected to die out after a short blip - but given the popularity of TV shows about tattoos - I guess not.
No, I am not proposing that. The government should look at what is good for the country, not the whole, and avoid blood-sucking financial parasites who make comments such as yours above.
That sort of comment's unlike you JJ.
I'm simply saying that there are clearly externalities involved in the situation. The government may decide that it is important than ARM is kept in the UK because of those externalities. If so, it is restricting the rights of private individuals to dispose of their property as they see fit - the value of the externalities should be shared rather than expropriated.
Charles: your comment implied that shareholders should be compensated for any deal the government does not allow to go through.
Think through what that would mean: unscrupulous shareholders could arrange a deal for CriticalBusiness.com to be taken over by ChineseMegaCorp.Evil for a gazillion dollars, in the knowledge that the government would have to block it 'for the public good'. If the government were to compensate them, it would lead to profit for the shareholders, and they even retain the shares in the end.
It's made worse by the fact that many shareholders (though not all by a long means) invest only in the short- and medium- term, and have no interest in the long-term good of the company they've invested in; only in what they can get out. The government will sometimes need to act as a brake against that.
Oh, and I'm saying that as a modest shareholder in ARM for many, many years, who might do rather well from this deal.
I'm undecided atm whether this deal is good or bad for the UK in the long term - hopefully we'll learn more about it later. Certainly SO's questions and comments below should be answered in public.
Retrospective action by a government is always a bad thing because it is arbitrary.
If a company is strategic than that should be clearly known upfront and the government's interest protected (e.g. via preference shares with a subscription right at a nominal value in the event of a change of control).
That way investors can make their investment decision based on full knowledge that their ability to sell on may be restricted.
I don't even see the problem tbh. ARM shareholders are getting a huge premium and SoftBank are a decent owner of foreign companies. Japanese companies all tend to have long term plans to protect and grow their investments. I'd much rather SoftBank than Intel.
If there are two present day trends which make me realise I'm getting older, much older, it's the number of men under 40 who grow beards, probably around 25% I reckon, as well as the number of men (and women) in the same age group who have chosen to adorn their bodies to a greater or lesser extent with tattoos. Here it's more difficult to assess numbers since usually only their hands, arms, faces and neck are on display, but I suspect approximately the same 25% applies overall.
And both beards and tattoos look totally fucking stupid.
A tattoo is the sign of someone who either suffers from chronic short-termism (and an alien to delayed gratification) or is having some sort of identity crisis. They almost all look shit.
A beard - except on a select few - is just a scruffy, lazy and inelegant mess.
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
It's a stupid thing to say. The UK can have trade negotiations with anyone they like. What they cannot do - and remain a part of the EU - is to enter into an active trade agreement.
I think Juncker is desperately trying to remain relevant as the Germans, Spanish, and co manoeuvre to have him removed.
Surely every single one of his statements make it more likely Germany, Spain and co will find a justification for removing him...
The cornered beast always lashes out. It's disappointing that the EU Commission always manages to engage in behaviour that is antithetical to its stated aims. Oh well plus ca change...
If theres one individual who reminds me why I voted leave in the first place, it has to be Juncker. How did we get ourselves into a situation where he - and his 'commission'- were ever able to assert authority and and control over us. I mean - who is he? What has he ever done?
They're showing us every day why we voted to leave. If Britain makes a success of it there will be more countries following us out.
If there are two present day trends which make me realise I'm getting older, much older, it's the number of men under 40 who grow beards, probably around 25% I reckon, as well as the number of men (and women) in the same age group who have chosen to adorn their bodies to a greater or lesser extent with tattoos. Here it's more difficult to assess numbers since usually only their hands, arms, faces and neck are on display, but I suspect approximately the same 25% applies overall.
Inking is one of the more depressing trends - it's common in people even if my age in SoCal but seems to have spread to the UK as well.
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
Seems like a good opening negotiating position from his point of view. Get used it.
Not really. It will be ignored and he will lose credibility.
PB Brexitory thinks Juncker has credibility to lose? Wow.
If there are two present day trends which make me realise I'm getting older, much older, it's the number of men under 40 who grow beards, probably around 25% I reckon, as well as the number of men (and women) in the same age group who have chosen to adorn their bodies to a greater or lesser extent with tattoos. Here it's more difficult to assess numbers since usually only their hands, arms, faces and neck are on display, but I suspect approximately the same 25% applies overall.
And both beards and tattoos look totally fucking stupid.
A tattoo is the sign of someone who either suffers from chronic short-termism (and an alien to delayed gratification) or is having some sort of identity crisis. They almost all look shit.
A beard - except on a select few - is just a scruffy, lazy and inelegant mess.
Have a bloody shave.
Excuse me, my beard is perfectly neat and tidy. It's called a beard trimmer!
The EU wants rid of us as quickly and quietly as possible. But we're hanging around like a bad smell and the risk of contagion will only grow. We have the high cards. We can ignore the EU demands (France often do and they are a member) and ratchet up the pressure on Juncker.
Apres nous le deluge.
Does Juncker make public his tax return I wonder and if so does this show all his income from all sources? If not, shouldn't he do so?
Mr. P, saw somewhere (maybe the papers) that Thornberry, apparently Shadow Defence Secretary, has called for Labour MPs to abstain on Trident.
What's the point of the party if it's official stance on a significant piece of defence policy is to have no opinion?
Despite the majority of only 12, the government could get pretty much anything through the Commons now. It must be tempting to put up something controversial (several billion of cuts in tax credits?) just to see if the opposition can unite for anything!
They would have to notice the significance of the motion first (as shown by the tribunal fee hike last Monday)..
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
That is fair game, to be honest. The EU rules are clear on the matter.
All it means is that the UK will either ignore him (with the possible risk that there'll be consequences for the negotiations with the EU), or that the 'negotiations' with third parties will simply be redesignated as 'informal exploratory talks'.
But Juncker, in his position, can't really be expected to say much different.
As is often the case, I find myself on the wrong side of most opinion on here. I think it's been an unimpressive start by the Prime Minister who, as far as I can see, gets 58% approval ratings for a) not being Cameron (the novelty will soon fade) and b) not doing anything at all.
Her damascene conversion to Heathite interventionism seems to be gaining her praise aplenty though I imagine if she had simply read pages from the Maidenhead phone book, the response would have been equally euphoric.
The fact remains the problems with the public finances and a range of other issues haven't melted away with the departure of the Dave and George Show and once again the insidious tax cutters are muttering away in the undergrowth. With the abandonment of Osborne's plan for fiscal surplus, it seems we are committed to a long term policy of debt management.
The quality of some of her Cabinet picks (Rudd in particular) will be tested in the fire of day to day banalities, indiscretions and events beyond control. We'll see - I'll reserve judgement if that's okay.
Labour may or may not be moving to schism - Corbyn is not interested in tacking or trimming to obtain power - he has his beliefs and he won't change them to win a point or five in the polls. He would rather talk to the electorate and try to change them one voter at a time. In many ways, that's an honest and honourable position but ultimately futile.
The Conservatives are the exact opposite - they will trim, tack, indeed do a complete about-turn on a policy if it is seen to be a) popular and b) guarantees their continuation in Government. The ultimate end is policy by focus group or perhaps policy by referendum.
You're just thinking ahead. That sort of behaviour will get you nowhere.
Most of us are still celebrating the departure of the posh boys (ex Boris).
There have been four attacks in France recently - one was unsuccessful (the gunman on the train who was beaten up by those Americans). I suggest the French have every reason to assume that their government and security services are simply not doing their jobs properly. That is the real danger if Le Pen decides to put Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite up against Securite. It could easily prove a winner.
Other than that slight criticism, great post.
And the police chief/his girlfriend who were beheaded on video and uploaded to Facebook.
I hadn't heard about that one! When was it?
It was a few weeks back. The police officer was attacked and killed as he came home. The killer then held his wife (herself a police officer) and three year old child hostage and live streamed this on Facebook. After a bit he killed the wife and was then killed by the police. One orphaned child saw this all. It was just outside Paris.
No wonder morale within the French police is said to be low. Incidentally, on my recent quick visit through Paris I saw groups of soldiers patrolling the streets and metro. I've never seen this before, even when Algerian terrorists were blowing people up on the streets of Paris in the 1980's. What have we come to when a major civilised country is forced to do this?
One final point: the Nice killer moved to France in 2005. He had no skills. Why was he let in? What conceivable reason could there have been for permitting the immigration of a no-skilled person from North Africa? In all the talk about Schengen and the radicalisation of 2nd/3rd generation immigrants it is often forgotten that countries might do well not to permit continued immigration of people who bring no apparent discernible benefit to the host country (and may well bring certain disadvantages).
Western policy towards Islamism has toughened up a little bit in recent years (for example, in the UK with counter extremism in schools and now shunning the Muslim brotherhood) but that might not be enough.
In the future, I can see Western governments moving (probably quite controversially, but commanding majority support) to become actively culturally interventionist.
That might mean forcibly closing radical mosques, schools, ensuring children attend mixed faith schools, restricting family immigration and being much firmer on deporting preachers and terrorist sympathisers.
I thought this was the sort of thing our new PM wanted to stop? Or does this not matter as most people will never have heard of ARM?
Allowing our pension funds to sell an asset for more than it's intrinsic worth, crystallize the gain, redeploy the capital into other opportunities and pocket the difference?
Why would she want to stop that?
Because some might see ARM as a critical business for the UK. We don't have many tech success stories on their scale. (*) Long-term it could harm the Cambridge phenomena, especially if tech and expertise is leached away from the UK.
I don't know much about Softbank: I can only hope that they're independent enough to be able to persuade licensees they'll treat them all equally.
(*) And it all happened by glorious accident, which Robin Saxby exploited fully.
Are you proposing the UK taxpayer should compensate ARM shareholders? After all they are being asked to give up a significant capital gain in return for some notion of the public good
No, I am not proposing that. The government should look at what is good for the country, not the whole, and avoid blood-sucking financial parasites who make comments such as yours above.
Doesn't look like the government is minded to stand in the way:
Hopefully binding reassurances have been asked for and given. If they have, there's no problem. If they haven't, it's negligence pure and simple.
All the £24bn value of ARM is sat in the heads of the people working in Cambridge.
That's not quite true. Because they licence their IP for others to alter, there are plenty of people around the world with deep-down knowledge of ARM's IP, from Apple to Qualcomm.
Yep. And just because people live in or around Cambridge now does not mean they always will.
It's a fairly mobile workforce. We'd certainly move away from the area - reluctantly - if Mrs J's work meant she had to. Although we did turn down an opportunity to move to Switzerland a few years ago.
ARM is one of the hubs that makes the Cambridge tech sector. Remove it (or downgrade its importance), and it becomes less of a hub.
If there are two present day trends which make me realise I'm getting older, much older, it's the number of men under 40 who grow beards, probably around 25% I reckon, as well as the number of men (and women) in the same age group who have chosen to adorn their bodies to a greater or lesser extent with tattoos. Here it's more difficult to assess numbers since usually only their hands, arms, faces and neck are on display, but I suspect approximately the same 25% applies overall.
When I was a kid, the only people with tattoos were current/ex-services or merchant seamen. All blue and blurry. And biker sorts. Plus skinheads. It's a fashion I expected to die out after a short blip - but given the popularity of TV shows about tattoos - I guess not.
Never really understood why people would want to deface themselves like that, but it's certainly becoming more common among younger generations. Can just about see why an Olympic athlete might have the rings inked on their shoulder blade, but beyond that it just looks ugly.
No, I am not proposing that. The government should look at what is good for the country, not the whole, and avoid blood-sucking financial parasites who make comments such as yours above.
That sort of comment's unlike you JJ.
I'm simply saying that there are clearly externalities involved in the situation. The government may decide that it is important than ARM is kept in the UK because of those externalities. If so, it is restricting the rights of private individuals to dispose of their property as they see fit - the value of the externalities should be shared rather than expropriated.
Charles: your comment implied that shareholders should be compensated for any deal the government does not allow to go through.
Think through what that would mean: unscrupulous shareholders could arrange a deal for CriticalBusiness.com to be taken over by ChineseMegaCorp.Evil for a gazillion dollars, in the knowledge that the government would have to block it 'for the public good'. If the government were to compensate them, it would lead to profit for the shareholders, and they even retain the shares in the end.
It's made worse by the fact that many shareholders (though not all by a long means) invest only in the short- and medium- term, and have no interest in the long-term good of the company they've invested in; only in what they can get out. The government will sometimes need to act as a brake against that.
Oh, and I'm saying that as a modest shareholder in ARM for many, many years, who might do rather well from this deal.
I'm undecided atm whether this deal is good or bad for the UK in the long term - hopefully we'll learn more about it later. Certainly SO's questions and comments below should be answered in public.
Retrospective action by a government is always a bad thing because it is arbitrary.
If a company is strategic than that should be clearly known upfront and the government's interest protected (e.g. via preference shares with a subscription right at a nominal value in the event of a change of control).
That way investors can make their investment decision based on full knowledge that their ability to sell on may be restricted.
I don't even see the problem tbh. ARM shareholders are getting a huge premium and SoftBank are a decent owner of foreign companies. Japanese companies all tend to have long term plans to protect and grow their investments. I'd much rather SoftBank than Intel.
I agree. Was just trying to move on to a theoretical discussion
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
That is fair game, to be honest. The EU rules are clear on the matter.
All it means is that the UK will either ignore him (with the possible risk that there'll be consequences for the negotiations with the EU), or that the 'negotiations' with third parties will simply be redesignated as 'informal exploratory talks'.
As Robert pointed out, the EU can only stop us from entering a trade deal unilaterally while we are members. They have no mechanism to stop us from talking to others and preparing trade deals to supplement or replace the EU trade we may lose from our exit. If we delay Article 50 until 2017 it will give the nation a fighting chance of getting the relatively simple trade deals prepared. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, SK, Japan and South Africa should all be easy to get done with good terms as well.
There have been four attacks in France recently - one was unsuccessful (the gunman on the train who was beaten up by those Americans). I suggest the French have every reason to assume that their government and security services are simply not doing their jobs properly. That is the real danger if Le Pen decides to put Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite up against Securite. It could easily prove a winner.
Other than that slight criticism, great post.
The more attacks there are, the more the indigenous French will flock to a modern day Jean d'Arc to save them from the enemy in their midst, who will be looking towards a 1492 solution to solve the problem. There are clearly different possibilities to stop her. A respected conservative native French politician like Juppe would offer the best odds, but he is nearly 71 years old. A socialist, or Sarkozy (with his previous failure in 2012 and part foreign background - 50% Magyar, 25% Turkish-Jewish), will have less chance.
Remind me what happened to Ms d'Arc....?
The French immolated her
A novel interpretation of the nationality of those who had her tried and burnt.
I'm sure if you dug about long enough you'd find some family connection amongst her prosecutors.
No, I am not proposing that. The government should look at what is good for the country, not the whole, and avoid blood-sucking financial parasites who make comments such as yours above.
That sort of comment's unlike you JJ.
I'm simply saying that there are clearly externalities involved in the situation. The government may decide that it is important than ARM is kept in the UK because of those externalities. If so, it is restricting the rights of private individuals to dispose of their property as they see fit - the value of the externalities should be shared rather than expropriated.
Charles: your comment implied that shareholders should be compensated for any deal the government does not allow to go through.
Think through what that would mean: unscrupulous shareholders could arrange a deal for CriticalBusiness.com to be taken over by ChineseMegaCorp.Evil for a gazillion dollars, in the knowledge that the government would have to block it 'for the public good'. If the government were to compensate them, it would lead to profit for the shareholders, and they even retain the shares in the end.
It's made worse by the fact that many shareholders (though not all by a long means) invest only in the short- and medium- term, and have no interest in the long-term good of the company they've invested in; only in what they can get out. The government will sometimes need to act as a brake against that.
Oh, and I'm saying that as a modest shareholder in ARM for many, many years, who might do rather well from this deal.
I'm undecided atm whether this deal is good or bad for the UK in the long term - hopefully we'll learn more about it later. Certainly SO's questions and comments below should be answered in public.
Retrospective action by a government is always a bad thing because it is arbitrary.
If a company is strategic than that should be clearly known upfront and the government's interest protected (e.g. via preference shares with a subscription right at a nominal value in the event of a change of control).
That way investors can make their investment decision based on full knowledge that their ability to sell on may be restricted.
There are several problems with that. Firstly, it might be perfectly fine for (say) a British company to take over another British one, or maybe even an American one to take over the British one. But to take a ludicrous example, we might be rather reluctant to let a North Koran one take it over.
Secondly, companies that are strategic vary over time. ARM would probably not have been seen as such ten or twenty years ago - it *might* be now. Certainly the government should get assurances - but UK governments have IMO been rather poor at that in the past.
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
That is fair game, to be honest. The EU rules are clear on the matter.
All it means is that the UK will either ignore him (with the possible risk that there'll be consequences for the negotiations with the EU), or that the 'negotiations' with third parties will simply be redesignated as 'informal exploratory talks'.
But Juncker, in his position, can't really be expected to say much different.
He'd had done better to say nothing.
Talks are going to happen, so why tell everyone that you can't stop them?
The Front National just has too much baggage (at the moment) to win 50%+1 in the second round of a presidential election, and Le Pen lacks something that candidates like Hofer seem to have in Austria.
Except that's not what the polls suggest. There's a reasonable chance that she'll win the first round and it's near certain that she'll make the final two. Her problem, as you rightly point out, is in gaining transfers, but she may not need all that many if there are mass abstentions in the second round, something which some polls - particularly Hollande-Le Pen head-to-heads - suggest could well happen.
That said, I really don't see how she gets past Juppe.
thanks for the article david. seems like a lot rests on the juppe/sarkozy call. who and how exactly is that choice made? If i'm reading it correctly the general public vote on it in november?
Yes, it's a national primary, although I must admit, I don't know what (if any) the qualification rules are. From what I have seen, I agree: it does sound like a full, general public vote, but I wouldn't take my view as definitive.
Even if Sarkozy wins the primary - which he's some way off being likely to at the moment - he should still go on to win, but both the first and second rounds would become much more open affairs.
Because some might see ARM as a critical business for the UK. We don't have many tech success stories on their scale. (*) Long-term it could harm the Cambridge phenomena, especially if tech and expertise is leached away from the UK.
I don't know much about Softbank: I can only hope that they're independent enough to be able to persuade licensees they'll treat them all equally.
(*) And it all happened by glorious accident, which Robin Saxby exploited fully.
Are you proposing the UK taxpayer should compensate ARM shareholders? After all they are being asked to give up a significant capital gain in return for some notion of the public good
No, I am not proposing that. The government should look at what is good for the country, not the whole, and avoid blood-sucking financial parasites who make comments such as yours above.
Doesn't look like the government is minded to stand in the way:
Hopefully binding reassurances have been asked for and given. If they have, there's no problem. If they haven't, it's negligence pure and simple.
All the £24bn value of ARM is sat in the heads of the people working in Cambridge.
That's not quite true. Because they licence their IP for others to alter, there are plenty of people around the world with deep-down knowledge of ARM's IP, from Apple to Qualcomm.
Yep. And just because people live in or around Cambridge now does not mean they always will.
It's a fairly mobile workforce. We'd certainly move away from the area - reluctantly - if Mrs J's work meant she had to. Although we did turn down an opportunity to move to Switzerland a few years ago.
ARM is one of the hubs that makes the Cambridge tech sector. Remove it (or downgrade its importance), and it becomes less of a hub.
Do you know anything about the demographics of the ARM workforce? From what little I know of the company they are very highly skilled but would have a limited number of potential employers. Are they people who would want to relocate to Asia for example? Also, given they're an IP company and the value is their people, what would stop a competitor company forming to employ those who didn't want to relocate with ARM?
There have been four attacks in France recently - one was unsuccessful (the gunman on the train who was beaten up by those Americans). I suggest the French have every reason to assume that their government and security services are simply not doing their jobs properly. That is the real danger if Le Pen decides to put Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite up against Securite. It could easily prove a winner.
Other than that slight criticism, great post.
The more attacks there are, the more the indigenous French will flock to a modern day Jean d'Arc to save them from the enemy in their midst, who will be looking towards a 1492 solution to solve the problem. There are clearly different possibilities to stop her. A respected conservative native French politician like Juppe would offer the best odds, but he is nearly 71 years old. A socialist, or Sarkozy (with his previous failure in 2012 and part foreign background - 50% Magyar, 25% Turkish-Jewish), will have less chance.
Remind me what happened to Ms d'Arc....?
To be fair, that would have been less likely had she been head of state.
Do you know anything about the demographics of the ARM workforce? From what little I know of the company they are very highly skilled but would have a limited number of potential employers. Are they people who would want to relocate to Asia for example? Also, given they're an IP company and the value is their people, what would stop a competitor company forming to employ those who didn't want to relocate with ARM?
Qualcomm and Apple are the major poacher of ARM employees. Maybe Nvidia in the future.
There have been four attacks in France recently - one was unsuccessful (the gunman on the train who was beaten up by those Americans). I suggest the French have every reason to assume that their government and security services are simply not doing their jobs properly. That is the real danger if Le Pen decides to put Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite up against Securite. It could easily prove a winner.
Other than that slight criticism, great post.
The more attacks there are, the more the indigenous French will flock to a modern day Jean d'Arc to save them from the enemy in their midst, who will be looking towards a 1492 solution to solve the problem. There are clearly different possibilities to stop her. A respected conservative native French politician like Juppe would offer the best odds, but he is nearly 71 years old. A socialist, or Sarkozy (with his previous failure in 2012 and part foreign background - 50% Magyar, 25% Turkish-Jewish), will have less chance.
Remind me what happened to Ms d'Arc....?
The French immolated her
A novel interpretation of the nationality of those who had her tried and burnt.
I'm sure if you dug about long enough you'd find some family connection amongst her prosecutors.
The Burgundians?
(A great friend of mine's ancestor didn't set fire to her but they did give the lighted torch to the man who did. My family was still - we think - peasant farmers in Northamptonshire at the time)
I don't even see the problem tbh. ARM shareholders are getting a huge premium and SoftBank are a decent owner of foreign companies. Japanese companies all tend to have long term plans to protect and grow their investments. I'd much rather SoftBank than Intel.
I very much hope you are right. ISTR the Fujitsu experience in the UK has been rather up-and-down.
And I agree with your comment on Intel: if only because ARM must maintain its independence from all the chip manufacturers. Selling them to Intel, Apple, Samsung etc would be a disaster.
The latest French poll - quoted last night - had Hollande in fifth place if Sarkozy was the LR candidate, and four if Juppe was.
Personally, I don't see Sarkozy as the LR candidate - indeed, I'd make it a less than 20% chance. If the polls continue to look as they do now, he'll step back become Juppe's Prime Minister.
The other question is will Macron be the PS candidate?. I'd reckon that is a more than 50% chance.
All in Juppe remains the value play. I think he's at least a 60% chance to be the next French President, and maybe more.
I agree about Juppe. I'm less convinced that Macron is odds-on for the PS nomination. That probably relies on Hollande not standing (which is quite possible), but even then the field would be far from clear. I still think that holding off to run in 2022 would be a better bet for him.
There have been four attacks in France recently - one was unsuccessful (the gunman on the train who was beaten up by those Americans). I suggest the French have every reason to assume that their government and security services are simply not doing their jobs properly. That is the real danger if Le Pen decides to put Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite up against Securite. It could easily prove a winner.
Other than that slight criticism, great post.
The more attacks there are, the more the indigenous French will flock to a modern day Jean d'Arc to save them from the enemy in their midst, who will be looking towards a 1492 solution to solve the problem. There are clearly different possibilities to stop her. A respected conservative native French politician like Juppe would offer the best odds, but he is nearly 71 years old. A socialist, or Sarkozy (with his previous failure in 2012 and part foreign background - 50% Magyar, 25% Turkish-Jewish), will have less chance.
Is that 1492 making a treaty with England, 1492 expelling the Jews from Spain or 1492 discovering the New World? Busy old year.
I thought that the 2nd option was implicit from the context: it was all non-Christians (Muslims and Jews) who were expelled from Spain in 1492. France had done that earlier, apart from Comtat Venaissin in Provence, which was under papal control until 1791.
I don't even see the problem tbh. ARM shareholders are getting a huge premium and SoftBank are a decent owner of foreign companies. Japanese companies all tend to have long term plans to protect and grow their investments. I'd much rather SoftBank than Intel.
I very much hope you are right. ISTR the Fujitsu experience in the UK has been rather up-and-down.
And I agree with your comment on Intel: if only because ARM must maintain its independence from all the chip manufacturers. Selling them to Intel, Apple, Samsung etc would be a disaster.
Fujitsu was a badly managed company in general though, not just in the UK.
Retrospective action by a government is always a bad thing because it is arbitrary.
If a company is strategic than that should be clearly known upfront and the government's interest protected (e.g. via preference shares with a subscription right at a nominal value in the event of a change of control).
That way investors can make their investment decision based on full knowledge that their ability to sell on may be restricted.
There are several problems with that. Firstly, it might be perfectly fine for (say) a British company to take over another British one, or maybe even an American one to take over the British one. But to take a ludicrous example, we might be rather reluctant to let a North Koran one take it over.
Secondly, companies that are strategic vary over time. ARM would probably not have been seen as such ten or twenty years ago - it *might* be now. Certainly the government should get assurances - but UK governments have IMO been rather poor at that in the past.
1. Subscription *right* not automatic
2. Golden shares can be issues at any point. If an investor wants to sell when they are he can (it's rate to have bid spec actually in the prove). The wrong time to do it is once an offer has been made and accepted
If there are two present day trends which make me realise I'm getting older, much older, it's the number of men under 40 who grow beards, probably around 25% I reckon, as well as the number of men (and women) in the same age group who have chosen to adorn their bodies to a greater or lesser extent with tattoos. Here it's more difficult to assess numbers since usually only their hands, arms, faces and neck are on display, but I suspect approximately the same 25% applies overall.
When I was a kid, the only people with tattoos were current/ex-services or merchant seamen. All blue and blurry. And biker sorts. Plus skinheads. It's a fashion I expected to die out after a short blip - but given the popularity of TV shows about tattoos - I guess not.
Never really understood why people would want to deface themselves like that, but it's certainly becoming more common among younger generations. Can just about see why an Olympic athlete might have the rings inked on their shoulder blade, but beyond that it just looks ugly.
There are very few people who look good with tattoos IMHO. I met a very pretty French lady who worked for HMRC - she had the classic 70s Vidal Sassoon look and was covered in Chinese flower inking. She looked like a lovely doll.
Most tattoos seem to be poorly executed. I still can't get over a 50yrs old overweight lady I saw in Tesco - she'd a brand new Tigger on her bingo wings. It just looked awful, drew attention to one of her least attractive features and was the sort of billy-stamper illustration that I had as a 9yrs old.
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
That is fair game, to be honest. The EU rules are clear on the matter.
All it means is that the UK will either ignore him (with the possible risk that there'll be consequences for the negotiations with the EU), or that the 'negotiations' with third parties will simply be redesignated as 'informal exploratory talks'.
But Juncker, in his position, can't really be expected to say much different.
He'd had done better to say nothing.
Talks are going to happen, so why tell everyone that you can't stop them?
These are the pathetic bleatings of a self-important non-entity.
"Unemployment is forecast to rise from 5% to 7.1% by the end of 2019, cutting household disposable income. Consumer spending is expected to fall next year – the first decline since 2011."
Cyclefree: "No wonder morale within the French police is said to be low. Incidentally, on my recent quick visit through Paris I saw groups of soldiers patrolling the streets and metro. I've never seen this before, even when Algerian terrorists were blowing people up on the streets of Paris in the 1980's. What have we come to when a major civilised country is forced to do this?"
Surely it's long been common practice, especially in London, for heavily armed police to protect sensitive areas including The Central Criminal Court, Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament, the U.S. Embassy, Heathrow, etc., etc?
Just seen Juncker's announcement that he will not permit the UK to have trade negoatiations with any third country while they are a member of the EU (as it is the exclusive responsibility of the Commisson).
Words fail me sometimes, they really do.
That is fair game, to be honest. The EU rules are clear on the matter.
All it means is that the UK will either ignore him (with the possible risk that there'll be consequences for the negotiations with the EU), or that the 'negotiations' with third parties will simply be redesignated as 'informal exploratory talks'.
But Juncker, in his position, can't really be expected to say much different.
He'd had done better to say nothing.
Talks are going to happen, so why tell everyone that you can't stop them?
These are the pathetic bleatings of a self-important non-entity.
Comments
You are of course correct that we don't know how many success stories there are in either country (although they periodically make claims of having disrupted X number of plots). But with that you are talking about ratios, which is a slightly different idea.
A more useful source would be to find out the relative probability of attacks. But for that we would need more information than we have even to do a proper Bayesian rather than frequentist calculation.
Corbyn leads on both boring and nasty.
Lovely, lovely stuff.
Oh wait.......?
Think through what that would mean: unscrupulous shareholders could arrange a deal for CriticalBusiness.com to be taken over by ChineseMegaCorp.Evil for a gazillion dollars, in the knowledge that the government would have to block it 'for the public good'. If the government were to compensate them, it would lead to profit for the shareholders, and they even retain the shares in the end.
It's made worse by the fact that many shareholders (though not all by a long means) invest only in the short- and medium- term, and have no interest in the long-term good of the company they've invested in; only in what they can get out. The government will sometimes need to act as a brake against that.
Oh, and I'm saying that as a modest shareholder in ARM for many, many years, who might do rather well from this deal.
I'm undecided atm whether this deal is good or bad for the UK in the long term - hopefully we'll learn more about it later. Certainly SO's questions and comments below should be answered in public.
The leader is divorced from the MPs but fairly in tune with the members (especially those who have joined because of him). However, everyone (regardless of what MPs think) is divorced from their traditional voters and while that's been the case for 20 odd years it didn't matter then but is starting to now....
Also half the voters (traditional Labour, live up north) are utterly divorced from the other half (left wing trendy - London, Brighton and other metropolitan places).. That is a big issue as if you trend towards one group you may well lose the other...
Edit .... bloody fat fingers ....
What's the point of the party if it's official stance on a significant piece of defence policy is to have no opinion?
I can summarise them as follows
1. Prattish prat prattishly over reaches and is slapped down PDQ*
2. Great British company is bought by crazy Japanese investor for more than it's worth
* DD's response was superb - "what are they going to do - sling us out?"
Britain will be free to trade with the world.
The Establishment got a smack in the knackers and is being forced into a major reset.
Labour is destroying itself.
We look set for a period of sensible, business friendly, confident rule.
The sun is shining.
I'm on holiday next week.
We are a lucky country.
If the EU ditched the commission, or made it subservient to the council of ministers or European council, it might have a much more stable long-term future.
If there are two present day trends which make me realise I'm getting older, much older, it's the number of men under 40 who grow beards, probably around 25% I reckon, as well as the number of men (and women) in the same age group who have chosen to adorn their bodies to a greater or lesser extent with tattoos. Here it's more difficult to assess numbers since usually only their hands, arms, faces and neck are on display, but I suspect approximately the same 25% applies overall.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/12/why-good-europeans-despair-jean-claude-juncker-commission
"BBC's Panorama uncovered documents that neatly illustrated how the companies redistribute wealth. The UK headquarters of GlaxoSmithKline established a Luxembourg branch in 2009. The subsidiary lent £6.34bn to GSK in the UK. The UK company paid nearly £124m in interest back to the Luxembourg subsidiary. The revenue could not tax the interest at the then UK level of 28% and collect £34m. Instead, the Luxembourg tax authorities levied a tax of 0.5%, or £300,000. The deal was pin money by Luxembourg's standards."
Mr. Charles, hadn't heard Davis' riposte, but it's rather good.
Tattoos baffle me. But then, so do people who fail to appreciate the joys of differential front end grip or classical history.
Edited extra bit: Mr. Sandpit, if May were really Machiavellian, she'd return to the union reforms Cameron abandoned for their referendum support.
Win or lose, it'd bolster Corbyn's position.
No wonder morale within the French police is said to be low. Incidentally, on my recent quick visit through Paris I saw groups of soldiers patrolling the streets and metro. I've never seen this before, even when Algerian terrorists were blowing people up on the streets of Paris in the 1980's. What have we come to when a major civilised country is forced to do this?
One final point: the Nice killer moved to France in 2005. He had no skills. Why was he let in? What conceivable reason could there have been for permitting the immigration of a no-skilled person from North Africa? In all the talk about Schengen and the radicalisation of 2nd/3rd generation immigrants it is often forgotten that countries might do well not to permit continued immigration of people who bring no apparent discernible benefit to the host country (and may well bring certain disadvantages).
"Mr Davis’s greatest liability in the job is that for all his reputation as a bruising operator at Westminster, he is regarded as unserious and unreasonable by many of those he will have to negotiate with. His greatest asset, meanwhile, is that he is regarded as unserious and unreasonable by many of those he will have to negotiate with. Reasonable men strike reasonable deals. Unreasonable ones strike outrageous ones.
Just ask Recep Tayyip Erdogan: the Turkish president jails journalists and kills Kurds, but the EU still does deals with him. Remember that realpolitik when you hear patrician Europeans insisting the EU cannot compromise on its values to strike a Brexit agreement. In politics, there’s always a deal to be done. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/17/in-theresa-mays-government-the-macho-men-make-the-noise-and-the/
As is often the case, I find myself on the wrong side of most opinion on here. I think it's been an unimpressive start by the Prime Minister who, as far as I can see, gets 58% approval ratings for a) not being Cameron (the novelty will soon fade) and b) not doing anything at all.
Her damascene conversion to Heathite interventionism seems to be gaining her praise aplenty though I imagine if she had simply read pages from the Maidenhead phone book, the response would have been equally euphoric.
The fact remains the problems with the public finances and a range of other issues haven't melted away with the departure of the Dave and George Show and once again the insidious tax cutters are muttering away in the undergrowth. With the abandonment of Osborne's plan for fiscal surplus, it seems we are committed to a long term policy of debt management.
The quality of some of her Cabinet picks (Rudd in particular) will be tested in the fire of day to day banalities, indiscretions and events beyond control. We'll see - I'll reserve judgement if that's okay.
Labour may or may not be moving to schism - Corbyn is not interested in tacking or trimming to obtain power - he has his beliefs and he won't change them to win a point or five in the polls. He would rather talk to the electorate and try to change them one voter at a time. In many ways, that's an honest and honourable position but ultimately futile.
The Conservatives are the exact opposite - they will trim, tack, indeed do a complete about-turn on a policy if it is seen to be a) popular and b) guarantees their continuation in Government. The ultimate end is policy by focus group or perhaps policy by referendum.
If a company is strategic than that should be clearly known upfront and the government's interest protected (e.g. via preference shares with a subscription right at a nominal value in the event of a change of control).
That way investors can make their investment decision based on full knowledge that their ability to sell on may be restricted.
Apres nous le deluge.
A tattoo is the sign of someone who either suffers from chronic short-termism (and an alien to delayed gratification) or is having some sort of identity crisis. They almost all look shit.
A beard - except on a select few - is just a scruffy, lazy and inelegant mess.
Have a bloody shave.
All it means is that the UK will either ignore him (with the possible risk that there'll be consequences for the negotiations with the EU), or that the 'negotiations' with third parties will simply be redesignated as 'informal exploratory talks'.
But Juncker, in his position, can't really be expected to say much different.
Most of us are still celebrating the departure of the posh boys (ex Boris).
In the future, I can see Western governments moving (probably quite controversially, but commanding majority support) to become actively culturally interventionist.
That might mean forcibly closing radical mosques, schools, ensuring children attend mixed faith schools, restricting family immigration and being much firmer on deporting preachers and terrorist sympathisers.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/18/uk-economy-must-endure-short-sharp-shock-after-brexit-vote?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
ARM is one of the hubs that makes the Cambridge tech sector. Remove it (or downgrade its importance), and it becomes less of a hub.
What's Juncker going to do? Barge into every meeting Fox, Davis and Boris have with a foreign leader?
I'm sure if you dug about long enough you'd find some family connection amongst her prosecutors.
Secondly, companies that are strategic vary over time. ARM would probably not have been seen as such ten or twenty years ago - it *might* be now. Certainly the government should get assurances - but UK governments have IMO been rather poor at that in the past.
Talks are going to happen, so why tell everyone that you can't stop them?
He mentioned his wife being a primary school teacher, having three kids blah blah - didn't mention lobbying for Pfizer...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/who-owen-smith-everything-you-8413993
Even if Sarkozy wins the primary - which he's some way off being likely to at the moment - he should still go on to win, but both the first and second rounds would become much more open affairs.
PB's loss is the BBC's gain ....
(A great friend of mine's ancestor didn't set fire to her but they did give the lighted torch to the man who did. My family was still - we think - peasant farmers in Northamptonshire at the time)
And I agree with your comment on Intel: if only because ARM must maintain its independence from all the chip manufacturers. Selling them to Intel, Apple, Samsung etc would be a disaster.
Of course, predicting a trough's end is not an easy task.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/17/brexit-impact-horrible-uk-economy-richard-buxton?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard. < Slightly more nuanced that the headline.
2. Golden shares can be issues at any point. If an investor wants to sell when they are he can (it's rate to have bid spec actually in the prove). The wrong time to do it is once an offer has been made and accepted
Most tattoos seem to be poorly executed. I still can't get over a 50yrs old overweight lady I saw in Tesco - she'd a brand new Tigger on her bingo wings. It just looked awful, drew attention to one of her least attractive features and was the sort of billy-stamper illustration that I had as a 9yrs old.
Cheery.
"No wonder morale within the French police is said to be low. Incidentally, on my recent quick visit through Paris I saw groups of soldiers patrolling the streets and metro. I've never seen this before, even when Algerian terrorists were blowing people up on the streets of Paris in the 1980's. What have we come to when a major civilised country is forced to do this?"
Surely it's long been common practice, especially in London, for heavily armed police to protect sensitive areas including The Central Criminal Court, Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament, the U.S. Embassy, Heathrow, etc., etc?