@CD13 - "Have you ever read the Foundation trio of sci-fi novels by Isaac Asimov?"
Yes, when I was about 12yrs old. I hadn't realised they were life skills self help books.
Just by having a third party make assumption helps when it comes to your assumptions. Yes of course, they are assumptions, but they assist in the decision-making process.
As far as I can see, the government seems to be operating on the basis of the people voted for it so we will do it whatever the consequences.
Which of course would be all very well if the people had voted for, say, a 90% tax rate. But in this instance, the people voted to Leave the EU which includes any number of different outcomes and I believe it was beholden upon the government to work out for themselves which might be least bad.
I'm far from convinced that any politician, or any team of politicians, could ever get a sane Brexit through. The fervent Leavers are understandably noisy about their own visions of Brexit, and still campaign for them. The problem is that those visions are incompatible and, in some cases, potentially ruinous to the country.
I cannot see how any Conservative could pull together those strands in a way that would be electable. Labour might find it hard as well.
It's alright saying "If someone else was in charge and they went for my vision it'd be hunky dory." That's just desperate wishful thinking. I don't think Churchill or Blair at the height of their powers could sort this mess out.
The price of the stock went up over the course of a single year from about £100 to almost £1000 per share. Its success caused a country-wide frenzy—herd behavior —as all types of people, from peasants to lords, developed a feverish interest in investing: in South Seas primarily, but in stocks generally. Among the many companies to go public in 1720 is—famously—one that advertised itself as "a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is".
However, my feeling is that almost all of the 13 Red Bull DNFs in 2017 [that were down to reliability (as opposed to crashing)] were engine-related. Ricciardo definitely had a hydraulic problem last race and I think there were 1-2 other such problems, but almost all of them were down to the engine.
My point on the odds divergence stands, though. It doesn't make any sense for Red Bull to be over 9 when Verstappen is around 4 for the title.
Edited extra bit: that Verstappen odds in Betfair Sportsbook, he's actually 6.8 on the Exchange. If that were available each way for top 3 it *might* be worth looking at.
"Side-splitting as always. Your 'experts' remark is still based on wilful misinterpretation of a partial quote though, but you keep trotting it out because it suits your worldview."
"Thing is, if you are a politician, you are aware of the mood music that your pronouncements are set to. You know what impression you want to make. You drop words and phrases into a general comment and are aware of exactly what conclusion people will come to.
Or you should do, if you are a competent politician."
Gove's mistake here was to think he could get more than a soundbite across before Faisal bloody Islam talked over him.
The fact remains that Gove's complete quote and subsequent clarifications show that he didn't say anything like what Remainers claim he did, but that doesn't stop them from repeating the partial quote all the same.
TSE If May and Davis go prepare for Boris and Gove or even Rees Mogg and Leadsom to replace them, not forgetting Corbyn and McDonnell waiting in the wings too
*** Incompetent too. Surely she's 200+ on a sensible list of Tories for Labour to target, starting with unpleasantly right-wing ones with smaller majorities, then unpleasant ones who work for companies based in tax havens but have huge majorities.
However, if John Cleese can call for Juncker to be shot and presumably would claim it was done for comic effect, it seems this is considered the acceptable side of the dividing line:
Cyclefree, SO: the limits of Momentum's influence are well-illustrated by the "reopen councillor selection" proposal from Lansmann. He'd like it to happen. Shrug. It won't.
TSE: If May had a plan to introduce Ed Miliband lite policies that would be a distinct advance on having no discernible agenda at all. In fact, if we all had a choice today of being governed by May or EdM, wouldn't EdM seem a sensible choice to most?
The Remainers’ favourite Leaver agrees with what @archer101au has been saying on here all week - that the machinations about the Irish border have everything to do with the EU wanting regulatory oversight of the UK post-Brexit.
Agreed, and tbh, if they wanted to come up with a report that concluded leaving customs union is favourable, then I'm sure they could have done so. Almost all the research I have seen says that staying in the customs union outside of the EU is not favourable.
Have the Irish or the EU produced an impact assessment of the cost and practicalities of building a border with Ulster - and how long will it take the EU to build it - and can it be built in time ?
On topic, I'm sure this point has been made downthread but I'm afraid I haven't had time to read it so apologies if I'm duplicating but -
It suits a lot of people to have a weak prime minister.
Whether that's good for the country is another matter (it's not) but as has been obvious this week, a weak PM can be made to bend to the prevailing breeze, which is a handy feature if you think the breeze is coming from a favourable direction. It's also handy if you think that others - the opposition, for example - are less capable of harnessing it.
@HYUFD "... and the DUP still having to be reconciled on the Irish border."
I think the DUP would be happy for the phrase "continued regulatory alignment" to apply to ROI and UK rather than ROI and NI. So would the Irish Government, - they would be delighted. And the UK Government have already conceded there will be no division between NI and GB. So this should not be a problem (except with the hard Brexiteers).
But there is problem with the fallback provision that in the case of no deal, there would be continued alignment between NI and ROI. That can't be changed to UK and ROI. But it can be fudged by pointing out that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. So this fall back provision would fall in the case of no deal. The DUP could secretly be given comfort on this (shades of Good Friday Agreement) and I think the ROI realises that it can't push any further and will be glad to help get the UK off the hook. They will have achieved a big concession - namely continued alignment between UK and ROI and therefore between UK and EU. Job done.
A friend of mine described Shanghai as like Dubai but with worse traffic and more pollution. Mr Dancer will recall that the smog curtailed Friday practice at the F1 race this year, as the medical helicopter was grounded.
@williamglenn Hannan is making the point that trade (especially in food) with the rest of the world was curtailed after we joined the CAP and put up tariff barriers where none existed before.
Mr. Sandpit, was that this year or last? It was a bit weird in any event.
Mr. Barnesian, having the EU set regulations here when we've left is ridiculous.
It's important that the outcome, whatever it is, enables divisions to be healed rather than fester and deepen. If we end up half-in, half-out, with the disadvantages of membership having lost the benefits, that'll only prolong and worsen political polarisation in this country.
@rcs "You know, I always thought that Liam Fox was the most incompetent of the Three Brexiteers. He has, after all, completely failed in his remit at DfID, messing around with position papers on "Tariffs for a 21st Century Britain", rather than getting down to the hard grind of replicating the EU's existing trade agreements."
This has already been done. 60 roll-overs have been agreed (per former trade minister Mark Price and confirmed by Greg Hands)
It's a bit more complicated than that.
1. Trade agreements are typically treaties, except in specific cases such as EU Regional Framework agreements. As the contracting party is typically the EU (although there are specific exceptions), agreeing a 'roll-over' is usually insufficient. We need a new treaty, which requires ratification at both ends*.
2. We're not going to simply replicate, term-for-term, existing agreements. Why? Because we'll still need to agree (and create) dispute resolution mechanisms.
* A signed, but unratified, treaty would probably be sufficient, as it could be deemed to be provisionally in place.
Never in my political lifetime have the politicians of all parties been so useless and incompetent. Never has a useless government been faced with an opposition which would be even worse, never an inept prime minister faced with an opposition leader of staggering incompetence.
@Morris_Dancer " ... having the EU set regulations here when we've left is ridiculous."
TMay has already conceded continued regulatory alignment between NI and ROI and no distinction between NI and UK so you need to address your remarks to her. I did point out that she will have problems with the hard Brexiteers.
I was pointing out a possible (probable?) solution in the next 24 hours to the impasse on the Irish border.
I would argue that the countries that lost out most were in the Commonwealth, who lost their free trade with the UK.
Mercosur currently has four free trade agreements: with Egypt, Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. This doesn't, to me, suggest they are particularly keen on them in general.
@rcs1000@Deafbloke - another reason the UK will not get rollover terms in EU-negotiated trade deals is because we are a much smaller entity than the EU, so the other side will not want to concede to us what it has conceded to a market of 450 million.
@Morris_Dancer - I always come back from China with some kind of cough and sore throat. I have been to Shanghai four times and seen the once. The last time I flew back, it was an hour into the flight before we got to a point where you could clearly see the land below. Before that it was obscured by the haze. In short, it's getting worse. It's a problem throughout that part of Asia. Hong Kong is also really bad these days because of what comes down from Shenzhen and Guangdong.
@Topping and perhaps others - I think I have been misunderstood. I think impact assessments are useful. They force governments to set out their reasoning and provide some quantitative analysis.
They can not prevent bad policy - particularly if a Minister is determined and doesn’t even read the summary!
@stevef "Never in my political lifetime have the politicians of all parties been so useless and incompetent. " Although some sort of Brexit is no doubt possible, what the government is trying to achieve is simply contradictory. Just one example - The Good Friday Agreement was very difficult to achieve but made much easier because both UK and Eire were in the EU.
Let's step back a moment. We are saying that long standing, senior politicians are all incompetent fools. We knew about Boris and Fox's limitations, but TMay and Davis came in with some degree of reputation. Epigoni, perhaps, but not knowing that the DUP would scupper Monday's deal, I don't quite buy that.
Remember, a couple weeks ago TMay got an exiting payment of 50bn past cabinet and party with barely a murmer of dissent. Think about that - had that looked remotely possible? It's a lot of money, a loss, but, in terms of political squaring, what an achievement!
To me, May be is playing Brexit rather like Brucie ran Play Your Cards Right, his most formulaic and, for that very reason, one of his best loved shows. She adopts a sequence of ridiculous poses and catchphrases, to the pleasure of the different wings of her party, just long enough for everyone to see that they are ridiculous, before moving on to an inevitable end game. Thus she has postured on citizens rights, never a red line, yet made a 50bn exit, always a red line, possible.
Of course, the election wasn't part of this plan, but it was a risque event that brought a newlywed's honeymoon to an excruciating end, thus introducing the current show.
So, we are along the first row of the star prize board, cards offset in a shape that, if you squint, resembles Ireland. The catchphrases and postures keep coming as Brucie May steers her contestants to the end of the board. Two of the three barriers are surmounted as the end titles approach, but, of course, this is not a case of 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Will they win or will it be: you don't get anything for a pair, not in this game.
@Morris_Dancer " ... having the EU set regulations here when we've left is ridiculous."
No, the EU will continue to set its own regulations, and we will shadow them (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on what we're able to negotiate).
...And there's no real reason this needs to be a permanent arrangement, in any case.
Mr @rcs1000, dare I suggest you try to log in with an account that isn’t a Vanilla admin account. It looks like Vanilla is only allowing admins to reply.
I tried log out, clear cookies, flush cache, reopen browser, log in. Still not working. Right-clicking on quote button and opening in new page gives 401 permission error. (Firefox on OSX)
FrancisUrquhart Posts: 25,072 10:04AM @rural_voter John Cleese hasn't been funny for many years. He is a very mad and sad individual these days.
***
Three failed marriages may have an effect, especially if you think one ex- married you for your $millions - 20 in her case - and exploited California's divorce laws.
I agree with him that political correctness is killing comedy. He just goes a tad too far.
So did the folk in Totnes and they clearly don't know the differences between Tory MPs. How would they like to have Mogg, Bone, Davies, Chope or Wiggin?
"I tried log out, clear cookies, flush cache, reopen browser, log in. Still not working. Right-clicking on quote button and opening in new page gives 401 permission error. (Firefox on OSX)"
If its a permission issue, then probably wont matter which OS we are using?
"On topic: we should press the pause button on Brexit and, in light of what we now know, decide whether we really want to go through with it. If we do, then we start again with a competent ie different team in charge and having done all the necessary preparatory work first."
No. If the Brexit button is paused it will never be unpaused again. "Remain" will be even worse than Dave's deal and the UK would never be taken seriously again.
We are fully committed now, We have to hunker down, see it through, and then re-build our relationships from the outside.
A lot of piss and wind at the moment but the core is this: the cabinet Remainers (Rudd and Hammond) have moved and the Leavers (Gove and Boris) might also move on alignment on agriculture, and energy regulatory alignment. That's the ground for cabinet consensus.
It's fully consistent with May's Florence speech where she split the UK's future regulation into three categories.
I still think there's a sustainable Brexit deal to be struck here, if the UK can get the EU onto phase 2 (transition and trade) that gives something to everyone, is pragmatic, and holds the UK together.
A Momentum spokesman said: "Much of the Electoral Commission investigation refers to a series of administrative errors that can be easily rectified.
"Momentum put a lot of effort and resources into detailed budgeting and financial procedures during the election to ensure full compliance.
"Our election campaign was delivered on a low budget because it tapped into the energy and enthusiasm of tens of thousands of volunteers across the country.
"We have a good working relationship with the Electoral Commission, and will fully comply with the investigation going forward."
So they put extensive financial auditing efforts into their £38k election spend? Are they sure the £38k wasn't just the accountant's bill?
On the quote issue, with the 401 unauthorized error the ajax response also includes a html message which i can see in firebug as "Permission Problem - You don't have permission to do that." but for some reason the site doesn't display it.
The House of Lords has said that a no-deal Brexit would "deeply damage" the UK, impacting not only the economy, but also aviation, counter terrorism and nuclear safety.
The damning report said it is "difficult, if not impossible, to envisage a worse outcome for the UK" than a no-deal scenario.
The EU Committee went on to warn that there would be a "grave" impact on trade in goods, UK ports would find themselves "overwhelmed" and Irish land borders would be introduced.
On the quote issue, with the 401 unauthorized error the ajax response also includes a html message which i can see in firebug as "Permission Problem - You don't have permission to do that." but for some reason the site doesn't display it.
Can't work out why anyone would give me permission
"Registered non-party campaigners are only entitled to spend above these limits if they have the authorisation of the political party they are promoting, the commission said." Did Labour not authorise them?
In case this becomes relevant in the next few days, there is a huge difference between 'regulatory equivalence' and 'regulatory alignment'. This is not just splitting hairs.
Equivalence is what is used in FTAs - for example CETA requires equivalence and there is a committee that has to address claims of non-equivalence. Equivalence is where each side sets its own regulations but agrees that the others are not so substantially different to interfere with trade. It is usually sector by sector. The degree of equivalence relates to the freedom or otherwise of the trade.
Alignment is what is used in the SM. It means that all the regulations have to be the same.
Is this a way out for NI? Agreeing to 'regulatory equivalence' between the EU and UK would be no concession at all as long as there was ambiguity as to which sectors are involved. The EU and UK will have to get to equivalence even for a CETA style FTA.
Of course, if I am right and this is all a ruse to lock the UK into EU regulations rather than solve the NI border problem, the EU will not accept equivalence as a solution.
On Bitcoin - obviously a bubble waiting to burst...but when? I bought at 5,000 and am reasonably happy with current price...So I am cashing half in for a small immediate profit and letting the other half ride until price reaches 1,000,000.
Comments
Yes, when I was about 12yrs old. I hadn't realised they were life skills self help books.
Just by having a third party make assumption helps when it comes to your assumptions. Yes of course, they are assumptions, but they assist in the decision-making process.
As far as I can see, the government seems to be operating on the basis of the people voted for it so we will do it whatever the consequences.
Which of course would be all very well if the people had voted for, say, a 90% tax rate. But in this instance, the people voted to Leave the EU which includes any number of different outcomes and I believe it was beholden upon the government to work out for themselves which might be least bad.
I cannot see how any Conservative could pull together those strands in a way that would be electable. Labour might find it hard as well.
It's alright saying "If someone else was in charge and they went for my vision it'd be hunky dory." That's just desperate wishful thinking. I don't think Churchill or Blair at the height of their powers could sort this mess out.
Yet is must happen.
With the lack of the Quote function, does that mean that Mr Dancer has won PB?
SeanT's f*cked off. Otherwise it's been pretty quiet.
https://twitter.com/thomasknox/status/938705259152723968
This morning our CEO pointed out he would have been sacked if he hadn’t ordered a qualitative impact assessments on leaving the Customs Union.
The fact that Mrs May made the decision to Leave the Customs Union without such analysis beggars belief.
However, my feeling is that almost all of the 13 Red Bull DNFs in 2017 [that were down to reliability (as opposed to crashing)] were engine-related. Ricciardo definitely had a hydraulic problem last race and I think there were 1-2 other such problems, but almost all of them were down to the engine.
My point on the odds divergence stands, though. It doesn't make any sense for Red Bull to be over 9 when Verstappen is around 4 for the title.
Edited extra bit: that Verstappen odds in Betfair Sportsbook, he's actually 6.8 on the Exchange. If that were available each way for top 3 it *might* be worth looking at.
re. Sean - that is because it is Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedung Thought.
Duhhhh.
BREAKING: Electoral Commission investigating Momentum election spending.
Ho Ho Ho
Fair enough, but don't hold your breath. None of the investigations into GE2015 have yet to come to a head.
"Thing is, if you are a politician, you are aware of the mood music that your pronouncements are set to. You know what impression you want to make. You drop words and phrases into a general comment and are aware of exactly what conclusion people will come to.
Or you should do, if you are a competent politician."
Gove's mistake here was to think he could get more than a soundbite across before Faisal bloody Islam talked over him.
The fact remains that Gove's complete quote and subsequent clarifications show that he didn't say anything like what Remainers claim he did, but that doesn't stop them from repeating the partial quote all the same.
She's going nowhere in the short term.
9:31AM
The new nasty party,
https://order-order.com/2017/12/07/jezza-backs-sick-coffin-stunt-targetting-female-tory-mp/
***
Incompetent too. Surely she's 200+ on a sensible list of Tories for Labour to target, starting with unpleasantly right-wing ones with smaller majorities, then unpleasant ones who work for companies based in tax havens but have huge majorities.
However, if John Cleese can call for Juncker to be shot and presumably would claim it was done for comic effect, it seems this is considered the acceptable side of the dividing line:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3637610/John-Cleese-backs-Brexit-suggests-way-reforming-EU-KILL-European-Commission-President-Jean-Claude-Juncker.html
P.S. Is Cleese still a LibDem supporter?
TSE: If May had a plan to introduce Ed Miliband lite policies that would be a distinct advance on having no discernible agenda at all. In fact, if we all had a choice today of being governed by May or EdM, wouldn't EdM seem a sensible choice to most?
https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2017/12/daniel-hannan-this-latest-row-is-not-really-about-the-border-its-all-about-regulation.html
Bitcoin is so last week, its now all about investing and breading your CryptoKitties....
Agreed, and tbh, if they wanted to come up with a report that concluded leaving customs union is favourable, then I'm sure they could have done so. Almost all the research I have seen says that staying in the customs union outside of the EU is not favourable.
It suits a lot of people to have a weak prime minister.
Whether that's good for the country is another matter (it's not) but as has been obvious this week, a weak PM can be made to bend to the prevailing breeze, which is a handy feature if you think the breeze is coming from a favourable direction. It's also handy if you think that others - the opposition, for example - are less capable of harnessing it.
https://twitter.com/danieljhannan/status/938534763635380227
I think the DUP would be happy for the phrase "continued regulatory alignment" to apply to ROI and UK rather than ROI and NI. So would the Irish Government, - they would be delighted. And the UK Government have already conceded there will be no division between NI and GB. So this should not be a problem (except with the hard Brexiteers).
But there is problem with the fallback provision that in the case of no deal, there would be continued alignment between NI and ROI. That can't be changed to UK and ROI. But it can be fudged by pointing out that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. So this fall back provision would fall in the case of no deal. The DUP could secretly be given comfort on this (shades of Good Friday Agreement) and I think the ROI realises that it can't push any further and will be glad to help get the UK off the hook. They will have achieved a big concession - namely continued alignment between UK and ROI and therefore between UK and EU. Job done.
we free owls for all and a greggs pasty for those who are good (but not predator capitalists).
Mr Dancer will recall that the smog curtailed Friday practice at the F1 race this year, as the medical helicopter was grounded.
I joked earlier this week about creating bittulip where every coin gave you a uniquely coloured picture of a tulip.
Craig Mackinlay would like to say something but then remembers the sub judice laws of this country.
Mr. Barnesian, having the EU set regulations here when we've left is ridiculous.
It's important that the outcome, whatever it is, enables divisions to be healed rather than fester and deepen. If we end up half-in, half-out, with the disadvantages of membership having lost the benefits, that'll only prolong and worsen political polarisation in this country.
1. a department only really there to manage a bill through parliament (Robbins' departure showed negotiating power lies in No10)
2. creating a cabinet post for David Davis that he can resign from at a moment of his choosing
1. Trade agreements are typically treaties, except in specific cases such as EU Regional Framework agreements. As the contracting party is typically the EU (although there are specific exceptions), agreeing a 'roll-over' is usually insufficient. We need a new treaty, which requires ratification at both ends*.
2. We're not going to simply replicate, term-for-term, existing agreements. Why? Because we'll still need to agree (and create) dispute resolution mechanisms.
* A signed, but unratified, treaty would probably be sufficient, as it could be deemed to be provisionally in place.
TMay has already conceded continued regulatory alignment between NI and ROI and no distinction between NI and UK so you need to address your remarks to her. I did point out that she will have problems with the hard Brexiteers.
I was pointing out a possible (probable?) solution in the next 24 hours to the impasse on the Irish border.
Mercosur currently has four free trade agreements: with Egypt, Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. This doesn't, to me, suggest they are particularly keen on them in general.
I can't get it to quote - nothing happening. Tried logging in and out - no joy.
Must only work for these people on their ChromeBooks !!!
I get a 401 unauthorized error when I try to quote. Have some permissions been altered in the background?
Likewise for me.
Yep, me too.
I think impact assessments are useful.
They force governments to set out their reasoning and provide some quantitative analysis.
They can not prevent bad policy - particularly if a Minister is determined and doesn’t even read the summary!
Trump Jr gave up his secret service detail for a week in September just when the Russia stuff was heating up.
Although some sort of Brexit is no doubt possible, what the government is trying to achieve is simply contradictory.
Just one example - The Good Friday Agreement was very difficult to achieve but made much easier because both UK and Eire were in the EU.
You really are channeling David Davis this morning, aren't you ?
Remember, a couple weeks ago TMay got an exiting payment of 50bn past cabinet and party with barely a murmer of dissent. Think about that - had that looked remotely possible? It's a lot of money, a loss, but, in terms of political squaring, what an achievement!
To me, May be is playing Brexit rather like Brucie ran Play Your Cards Right, his most formulaic and, for that very reason, one of his best loved shows. She adopts a sequence of ridiculous poses and catchphrases, to the pleasure of the different wings of her party, just long enough for everyone to see that they are ridiculous, before moving on to an inevitable end game. Thus she has postured on citizens rights, never a red line, yet made a 50bn exit, always a red line, possible.
Of course, the election wasn't part of this plan, but it was a risque event that brought a newlywed's honeymoon to an excruciating end, thus introducing the current show.
So, we are along the first row of the star prize board, cards offset in a shape that, if you squint, resembles Ireland. The catchphrases and postures keep coming as Brucie May steers her contestants to the end of the board. Two of the three barriers are surmounted as the end titles approach, but, of course, this is not a case of 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Will they win or will it be: you don't get anything for a pair, not in this game.
ah - sorry. Yes then we are in agreement!
Not for me.
No, the EU will continue to set its own regulations, and we will shadow them (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on what we're able to negotiate).
...And there's no real reason this needs to be a permanent arrangement, in any case.
Quote button doesn't work for me
Right-clicking on quote button and opening in new page gives 401 permission error.
(Firefox on OSX)
10:04AM
@rural_voter John Cleese hasn't been funny for many years. He is a very mad and sad individual these days.
***
Three failed marriages may have an effect, especially if you think one ex- married you for your $millions - 20 in her case - and exploited California's divorce laws.
I agree with him that political correctness is killing comedy. He just goes a tad too far.
So did the folk in Totnes and they clearly don't know the differences between Tory MPs. How would they like to have Mogg, Bone, Davies, Chope or Wiggin?
Did they miss a zero off the end? Or was it in fact 38,000 Ether?
Kinder.
FAIRER.
Right-clicking on quote button and opening in new page gives 401 permission error.
(Firefox on OSX)"
If its a permission issue, then probably wont matter which OS we are using?
As it happens I am Google Chome on OSX
Hmmm.
What else might have benefited from a clear plan?
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/938729022313435136
No. If the Brexit button is paused it will never be unpaused again. "Remain" will be even worse than Dave's deal and the UK would never be taken seriously again.
We are fully committed now, We have to hunker down, see it through, and then re-build our relationships from the outside.
A lot of piss and wind at the moment but the core is this: the cabinet Remainers (Rudd and Hammond) have moved and the Leavers (Gove and Boris) might also move on alignment on agriculture, and energy regulatory alignment. That's the ground for cabinet consensus.
It's fully consistent with May's Florence speech where she split the UK's future regulation into three categories.
I still think there's a sustainable Brexit deal to be struck here, if the UK can get the EU onto phase 2 (transition and trade) that gives something to everyone, is pragmatic, and holds the UK together.
Perhaps Mrs May gets her landslide after all!
"Momentum put a lot of effort and resources into detailed budgeting and financial procedures during the election to ensure full compliance.
"Our election campaign was delivered on a low budget because it tapped into the energy and enthusiasm of tens of thousands of volunteers across the country.
"We have a good working relationship with the Electoral Commission, and will fully comply with the investigation going forward."
So they put extensive financial auditing efforts into their £38k election spend? Are they sure the £38k wasn't just the accountant's bill?
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=this+is+fine&client=safari&rls=en&dcr=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-14fr5_fXAhVN6KQKHciHBIUQ_AUICigB&biw=1030&bih=887
The Electoral Commission’s accountants are a little more forensic though.
https://www.ft.com/content/e06b372d-6803-3c45-8fd2-eba40e6e566a
The damning report said it is "difficult, if not impossible, to envisage a worse outcome for the UK" than a no-deal scenario.
The EU Committee went on to warn that there would be a "grave" impact on trade in goods, UK ports would find themselves "overwhelmed" and Irish land borders would be introduced.
https://news.sky.com/story/no-brexit-deal-will-deeply-damage-uk-lords-report-warns-11159628
Did Labour not authorise them?
Equivalence is what is used in FTAs - for example CETA requires equivalence and there is a committee that has to address claims of non-equivalence. Equivalence is where each side sets its own regulations but agrees that the others are not so substantially different to interfere with trade. It is usually sector by sector. The degree of equivalence relates to the freedom or otherwise of the trade.
Alignment is what is used in the SM. It means that all the regulations have to be the same.
Is this a way out for NI? Agreeing to 'regulatory equivalence' between the EU and UK would be no concession at all as long as there was ambiguity as to which sectors are involved. The EU and UK will have to get to equivalence even for a CETA style FTA.
Of course, if I am right and this is all a ruse to lock the UK into EU regulations rather than solve the NI border problem, the EU will not accept equivalence as a solution.
I won't be investing in cryptpkitties. .
http://brexitcentral.com/regulatory-divergence-not-require-hard-border-northern-ireland-republic/
https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/YRZvdurN-The-target-of-current-bubble-lays-between-40k-and-110k/