Do labour not do any vetting of candidates these days? Or it is that sticking likes Alex jones and dislikes the Jews on the application form get you fast tracked!
"Labour figures reacted with horror after Ms Richards - who claims to have worked previously for shadow equalities minister Dawn Butler - was chosen to fight the Tory-held marginal seat of Worcester at the next election."
I wonder what it was about Ms Butler which attracted her....
One of my simple party tracks for kids is to give them an unpeeled banana to eat, and when they peel it, it is already sliced. It's an oldie, but really gives them a surprise. I tell them it's a special - and very expensive - variety.
I did flag up yesterday that it was particularly brave of Labour to have selected her.
Or the whole selection process for marginal seats has gone to rat-shit under Corbyn. One or the other.
Perhaps they are selecting the candidates that match their values? I mean the leader spent weeks happily emboldening conspiracy theories about Russian involvement in Salisbury nerve agent attack and Assad chemical attack.
If hardliner Brexit Tories ensure the fall of the government and make Corbyn PM they'll be marked for eternity for their betrayal like Cain, Judas, and Mark Reckless.
These traitors need to be forced out of the Tory party.
By the time you and Max have finished rooting out the diverse infidels, there won’t be a Tory party (on whose behalf some of us in the poor bloody infantry - county council platoon - are out most days for May 3rd). Harrumph.
I know, I was extracting the Michael.
But Theresa May is fortunate that especially in light of the events in Salisbury no Tory MP will do anything that will make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister.
I shall be out trying to get the vote out in Sheffield on May the 3rd. We're going to South Yorkshire blue in the near future.
Sadly my plans to be Yorkshire's first directly elected Dictator Mayor are on hold.
In the long term, the biggest news of the day might well be Martin Lewis's defamation suit against Facebook. If he succeeds, it could change a lot of online life.
I can well understand why he would be incredibly hacked off about this.
The less said about the targeted ads I receive the better.
What ever happened to that poster who got on his high horse and lectured OGH on how it was completely inappropriate for his site to carry ads for Romanian mail-order brides?
In the long term, the biggest news of the day might well be Martin Lewis's defamation suit against Facebook. If he succeeds, it could change a lot of online life.
I can well understand why he would be incredibly hacked off about this.
The less said about the targeted ads I receive the better.
What ever happened to that poster who got on his high horse and lectured OGH on how it was completely inappropriate for his site to carry ads for Romanian mail-order brides?
Left in embarrassment after Robert pointed out the ads you see are based on your own search history.
I did flag up yesterday that it was particularly brave of Labour to have selected her.
Or the whole selection process for marginal seats has gone to rat-shit under Corbyn. One or the other.
Reading some of her statements, she genuinely appears to need help.
" My disclosures to date regarding state-sponsored organised crime have the potential to trigger a major national public scandal"
"members of my own political party have indeed acted unlawfully against me in this respect having colluded in the facilitation of this type of mistreatment and manipulation, and in the process undermining my political, professional and personal life"
"the harassment has escalated including increased surveillance conducted via electronic communications, surface mail, mobile phone, landline telephone, human surveillace and most worryingly home intrusions. Electrical tampering has made my home and car inhospitable environments having received second degree burns as a result of static electrical emissions. There have also been frequent electrical surges and outages, as well as boiler and circuitry issues generating emissions that have been measured on professional monitoring equipment and deemed severely detrimental to my health and which are potentially life threatening."
As Diane Abbott said to the judge:"To be honest with you, Ms. Richards has become an obsessive."
Like Jared O'Mara, it appears that there are some serious deficiencies in Labour's parliamentary selection process.
In the long term, the biggest news of the day might well be Martin Lewis's defamation suit against Facebook. If he succeeds, it could change a lot of online life.
I can well understand why he would be incredibly hacked off about this.
The less said about the targeted ads I receive the better.
What ever happened to that poster who got on his high horse and lectured OGH on how it was completely inappropriate for his site to carry ads for Romanian mail-order brides?
When was that, and were they value for money? Does anyone know?
I did flag up yesterday that it was particularly brave of Labour to have selected her.
Or the whole selection process for marginal seats has gone to rat-shit under Corbyn. One or the other.
Reading some of her statements, she genuinely appears to need help.
" My disclosures to date regarding state-sponsored organised crime have the potential to trigger a major national public scandal"
"members of my own political party have indeed acted unlawfully against me in this respect having colluded in the facilitation of this type of mistreatment and manipulation, and in the process undermining my political, professional and personal life"
"the harassment has escalated including increased surveillance conducted via electronic communications, surface mail, mobile phone, landline telephone, human surveillace and most worryingly home intrusions. Electrical tampering has made my home and car inhospitable environments having received second degree burns as a result of static electrical emissions. There have also been frequent electrical surges and outages, as well as boiler and circuitry issues generating emissions that have been measured on professional monitoring equipment and deemed severely detrimental to my health and which are potentially life threatening."
Her cat hasn’t been microchipped with a transmitter though.
I did flag up yesterday that it was particularly brave of Labour to have selected her.
Or the whole selection process for marginal seats has gone to rat-shit under Corbyn. One or the other.
Reading some of her statements, she genuinely appears to need help.
" My disclosures to date regarding state-sponsored organised crime have the potential to trigger a major national public scandal"
"members of my own political party have indeed acted unlawfully against me in this respect having colluded in the facilitation of this type of mistreatment and manipulation, and in the process undermining my political, professional and personal life"
"the harassment has escalated including increased surveillance conducted via electronic communications, surface mail, mobile phone, landline telephone, human surveillace and most worryingly home intrusions. Electrical tampering has made my home and car inhospitable environments having received second degree burns as a result of static electrical emissions. There have also been frequent electrical surges and outages, as well as boiler and circuitry issues generating emissions that have been measured on professional monitoring equipment and deemed severely detrimental to my health and which are potentially life threatening."
She’s the voter who after you canvass you decide never to target again.
I remember one voter who was convinced we were all controlled by the Pope and aliens.
I did flag up yesterday that it was particularly brave of Labour to have selected her.
Or the whole selection process for marginal seats has gone to rat-shit under Corbyn. One or the other.
Reading some of her statements, she genuinely appears to need help.
" My disclosures to date regarding state-sponsored organised crime have the potential to trigger a major national public scandal"
"members of my own political party have indeed acted unlawfully against me in this respect having colluded in the facilitation of this type of mistreatment and manipulation, and in the process undermining my political, professional and personal life"
"the harassment has escalated including increased surveillance conducted via electronic communications, surface mail, mobile phone, landline telephone, human surveillace and most worryingly home intrusions. Electrical tampering has made my home and car inhospitable environments having received second degree burns as a result of static electrical emissions. There have also been frequent electrical surges and outages, as well as boiler and circuitry issues generating emissions that have been measured on professional monitoring equipment and deemed severely detrimental to my health and which are potentially life threatening."
She’s the voter who after you canvass you decide never to target again.
I remember one voter who was convinced we were all controlled by the Pope and aliens.
That Jesus was an alien.
Well, if you will go canvassing in Yorkshire.......
In the long term, the biggest news of the day might well be Martin Lewis's defamation suit against Facebook. If he succeeds, it could change a lot of online life.
I can well understand why he would be incredibly hacked off about this.
The less said about the targeted ads I receive the better.
What ever happened to that poster who got on his high horse and lectured OGH on how it was completely inappropriate for his site to carry ads for Romanian mail-order brides?
Left in embarrassment after Robert pointed out the ads you see are based on your own search history.
Facebook is worse. It anticipates. I used to get ads for adult incontinence products (mercifully not (yet?) required) - having just turned 60 I'm now getting Funeral Insurance emails. As my granny said 'I'm no bothered, they'll bury me because of the smell..."
Anyone know how much progress the disgraced Liam Fox has made on securing new trade deals for the UK?
If he looks like delivering the square root of bugger all then remaining in the customs union maybe the only option for the UK.
I thought the pens were poised to sign ones with Australia, New Zealand and Ghana.
How much trade do with those three countries compared to how much we do with the rest of the EU?
It's like no-one in politics even owns a map of the world. Australia's bloody miles away. We need more geographers ... oh, hold on.
It's like they need to look ever farther afield to find the last redoubt keeping the flame of empire alive. The British people have let them down with their decadent European ways but somewhere over the ocean, the true spirit of England lives on...
In the long term, the biggest news of the day might well be Martin Lewis's defamation suit against Facebook. If he succeeds, it could change a lot of online life.
I can well understand why he would be incredibly hacked off about this.
The less said about the targeted ads I receive the better.
What ever happened to that poster who got on his high horse and lectured OGH on how it was completely inappropriate for his site to carry ads for Romanian mail-order brides?
Left in embarrassment after Robert pointed out the ads you see are based on your own search history.
I don't have any ads up top at the moment, and am not using an ad-blocker for the site.
I don't know about that. Stalling until the reality of the situation forces the loons to compromise remains a pretty good plan.
...but the loons don't want to compromise! Redwood, IDS, Rees-Mogg and Co. will only accept 'fire and brimstone ' Brexit.
I'd hope they become increasingly marginalised. I suppose you're always going to have a number of ultras, but if their hangers-on can be peeled away and reintroduced to sanity then their influence will evaporate.
Deep down they will want to be marginalised, for fear of losing their lifetime obsession with moaning about the EU.
He was born in Scotland. Unfortunately he couldn't stand the place and spent as little time there as possible, which is really where all the trouble started.
Edit: hang on, shouldn't you be rooting for Saint Alban?
If hardliner Brexit Tories ensure the fall of the government and make Corbyn PM they'll be marked for eternity for their betrayal like Cain, Judas, and Mark Reckless.
These traitors need to be forced out of the Tory party.
I think they are fucking stupid enough to think a Corbyn government will go down in flames in short order and a desperate electorate will then opt for generation of blue in tooth and claw Tory rule.
In the long term, the biggest news of the day might well be Martin Lewis's defamation suit against Facebook. If he succeeds, it could change a lot of online life.
I can well understand why he would be incredibly hacked off about this.
The less said about the targeted ads I receive the better.
What ever happened to that poster who got on his high horse and lectured OGH on how it was completely inappropriate for his site to carry ads for Romanian mail-order brides?
Left in embarrassment after Robert pointed out the ads you see are based on your own search history.
I don't have any ads up top at the moment, and am not using an ad-blocker for the site.
I'm getting KLM ads, possibly because I printed a friends Ryanair boarding pass out on Friday.
My wife is off for the first two and half weeks of the summer holidays. (This is LA, so this is from about the 6th of June.)
This leaves me with 16 days to entertain an 8 and a 10 year old.
I'm not going to stay home, because I'd go mad, so am going to bundle them onto a plane and do something. Specifically something awesome that they'll love. I don't mind jumping on a plane for 12 hours if I have to, and I have two million airmiles, so can afford to go practically anywhere.
Suggestions?
Queenstown in the south island of New Zealand. Spectacular landscapes and midwinter snow
Costa Rica - live volcanoes(though better in Nicaragua) and great scenery, jungle adventures like ziplining, wildlife tours etc, great beaches/ snorkelling and it's even safe enough for adventurous Americans. Go via Panama and see the canal as well.
In the long term, the biggest news of the day might well be Martin Lewis's defamation suit against Facebook. If he succeeds, it could change a lot of online life.
I can well understand why he would be incredibly hacked off about this.
The less said about the targeted ads I receive the better.
What ever happened to that poster who got on his high horse and lectured OGH on how it was completely inappropriate for his site to carry ads for Romanian mail-order brides?
Left in embarrassment after Robert pointed out the ads you see are based on your own search history.
Facebook is worse. It anticipates. I used to get ads for adult incontinence products (mercifully not (yet?) required) - having just turned 60 I'm now getting Funeral Insurance emails. As my granny said 'I'm no bothered, they'll bury me because of the smell..."
When I got my parents iPads and iPhones I let them use my iTunes and YouTube account
Basically their search histories would appear on my devices and vice versa.
Thank God Apple set up family sharing accounts instead so that problem ended.
In the long term, the biggest news of the day might well be Martin Lewis's defamation suit against Facebook. If he succeeds, it could change a lot of online life.
I can well understand why he would be incredibly hacked off about this.
The less said about the targeted ads I receive the better.
What ever happened to that poster who got on his high horse and lectured OGH on how it was completely inappropriate for his site to carry ads for Romanian mail-order brides?
Left in embarrassment after Robert pointed out the ads you see are based on your own search history.
I don't have any ads up top at the moment, and am not using an ad-blocker for the site.
I'm getting KLM ads, possibly because I printed a friends Ryanair boarding pass out on Friday.
I’m getting mortgages (I have a mortgage) and beds (ditto).
Perhaps Mrs Walker is getting ready to throw me out, and the interweb already knows...
In the long term, the biggest news of the day might well be Martin Lewis's defamation suit against Facebook. If he succeeds, it could change a lot of online life.
I can well understand why he would be incredibly hacked off about this.
The less said about the targeted ads I receive the better.
What ever happened to that poster who got on his high horse and lectured OGH on how it was completely inappropriate for his site to carry ads for Romanian mail-order brides?
Left in embarrassment after Robert pointed out the ads you see are based on your own search history.
Facebook is worse. It anticipates. I used to get ads for adult incontinence products (mercifully not (yet?) required) - having just turned 60 I'm now getting Funeral Insurance emails. As my granny said 'I'm no bothered, they'll bury me because of the smell..."
When I got my parents iPads and iPhones I let them use my iTunes and YouTube account
Basically their search histories would appear on my devices and vice versa.
Thank God Apple set up family sharing accounts instead so that problem ended.
It must have driven your folks mad with all the suggestions of AV related videos.
I did flag up yesterday that it was particularly brave of Labour to have selected her.
Or the whole selection process for marginal seats has gone to rat-shit under Corbyn. One or the other.
The media shouldn't have said anything. It would have been much more fun for her to have remained,.
I suspect the WTF????? briefing from within the local Labour Party reached levels that couldn't be ignored. To be beaten by a better candidate is one thing. But here....
Jeremy Corbyn has been forced to unfollow Twitter accounts that liken Israel to the Nazis as Labour continues to struggle with what one senior figure admitted was “sickening” antisemitism in the party.
If hardliner Brexit Tories ensure the fall of the government and make Corbyn PM they'll be marked for eternity for their betrayal like Cain, Judas, and Mark Reckless.
These traitors need to be forced out of the Tory party.
If May makes the customs union votes a confidence matter, surely it will be the europhiles voting in the direction of a Corbyn PM? Also, by using the language of treachery you demean yourself and our party.
I did flag up yesterday that it was particularly brave of Labour to have selected her.
Or the whole selection process for marginal seats has gone to rat-shit under Corbyn. One or the other.
Reading some of her statements, she genuinely appears to need help.
" My disclosures to date regarding state-sponsored organised crime have the potential to trigger a major national public scandal"
"members of my own political party have indeed acted unlawfully against me in this respect having colluded in the facilitation of this type of mistreatment and manipulation, and in the process undermining my political, professional and personal life"
"the harassment has escalated including increased surveillance conducted via electronic communications, surface mail, mobile phone, landline telephone, human surveillace and most worryingly home intrusions. Electrical tampering has made my home and car inhospitable environments having received second degree burns as a result of static electrical emissions. There have also been frequent electrical surges and outages, as well as boiler and circuitry issues generating emissions that have been measured on professional monitoring equipment and deemed severely detrimental to my health and which are potentially life threatening."
She’s the voter who after you canvass you decide never to target again.
I remember one voter who was convinced we were all controlled by the Pope and aliens.
That Jesus was an alien.
One of my first casework visits was to a guy in a semi-detached house who had painted various heraldic shields and other symbols on his front door and garden gate. He wanted help convincing the authorities that his house was a monastic order and hence should be made exempt from council tax. Which was actually quite rational, if rather a long shot. However he then went on to claim that his brother had already been murdered by the secret service and his life was in danger.... etc.
Mr. 43, Edward I's dickishness in his decision-making and elderly lack of vigour cost him in Scotland. That said, he could've won had he simply made smarter choices. Not rewarding the nobles (with land) who were risking life and limb cost him a lot.
His son being pretty inept was also helpful to the Scots.
This was the dilemma of the invading English king. Edward III had the same problem and Henry V had a variation on this with the ransom for James I. Do you reward your own nobles who are reliable but ineffective against the combined opposition of Scottish society or do you try to co-opt the native nobility, who are effective but unreliable? One grant of land is at the expense of the other. You can't do both. Whenever things need sorting out, Scotland has always been good at getting informal working groups to rally round, consisting of younger sons of the nobility and bishops and later lawyers and business people. I guess that's why Scotland has never effectively been occupied long term, unlike Ireland or Wales, with the exception of Cromwell.
If hardliner Brexit Tories ensure the fall of the government and make Corbyn PM they'll be marked for eternity for their betrayal like Cain, Judas, and Mark Reckless.
These traitors need to be forced out of the Tory party.
I think they are fucking stupid enough to think a Corbyn government will go down in flames in short order and a desperate electorate will then opt for generation of blue in tooth and claw Tory rule.
It *will* run out of money, Labour Governments always do. But to just expect the above would be ridiculous. I think they possibly thought the same with Blair.
He was born in Scotland. Unfortunately he couldn't stand the place and spent as little time there as possible, which is really where all the trouble started.
Edit: hang on, shouldn't you be rooting for Saint Alban?
I would say the majority in the Commons wants to stay in "A" customs union rather than "THE" customs union.
Somewhere between "the" and "a" is where this will end up I suspect.
A customs "arrangement" is what TM seem's to be aiming for which is the compromise between "THE" "A" and "NO"
These are the WTO definitions of "free trade agreement" and "customs union". They have defined meaning in terms of treaties and WTO commitments and is all we need to know. "customs arrangements" and "the/a customs unions" are terms designed to confuse and have no meaning:
(a) A customs union shall be understood to mean the substitution of a single customs territory for two or more customs territories, so that
(i) duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce (except, blah) are eliminated with respect to substantially all the trade between the constituent territories of the union or at least with respect to substantially all the trade in products originating in such territories, and,
(ii) ... substantially the same duties and other regulations of commerce are applied by each of the members of the union to the trade of territories not included in the union;
(b) A free-trade area shall be understood to mean a group of two or more customs territories in which the duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce (except blah) are eliminated on substantially all the trade between the constituent territories in products originating in such territories.
So the UK will have a specific WTO-endorsed customs union with the EU that is "substantially" the same (and possibly exactly the same) as the one it already has as a EU member.
How can we be sure that some dinosaurs did not develop higher intelligence, or even societies?
The average pigeon doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent. Non-avian dinosaurs did however rule the earth for a staggeringly long period of time, we'll be doing well to match their 177 million year rule.
I would say the majority in the Commons wants to stay in "A" customs union rather than "THE" customs union.
Somewhere between "the" and "a" is where this will end up I suspect.
A customs "arrangement" is what TM seem's to be aiming for which is the compromise between "THE" "A" and "NO"
These are the WTO definitions of "free trade agreement" and "customs union". They have defined meaning in terms of treaties and WTO commitments and is all we need to know. "customs arrangements" and "the/a customs unions" are terms designed to confuse and have no meaning:
(a) A customs union shall be understood to mean the substitution of a single customs territory for two or more customs territories, so that
(i) duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce (except, blah) are eliminated with respect to substantially all the trade between the constituent territories of the union or at least with respect to substantially all the trade in products originating in such territories, and,
(ii) ... substantially the same duties and other regulations of commerce are applied by each of the members of the union to the trade of territories not included in the union;
(b) A free-trade area shall be understood to mean a group of two or more customs territories in which the duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce (except blah) are eliminated on substantially all the trade between the constituent territories in products originating in such territories.
So the UK will have a specific WTO-endorsed customs union with the EU that is "substantially" the same (and possibly exactly the same) as the one it already has as a EU member.
Except as Turkey shows us it cannot be the same. The Turkey CU means that 3rd party country goods can enter Turkey tariff free is the EU has a free trade deal with that country but Turkish goods do not have the same benefits on reverse. It is not a clever situation to get into.
....Al Gore? Did they all win the popular vote in a Presidential Election? I am guessing Gore couldn't make it, so he sent his Eastern European housekeeper (far right) instead.
Thanks Ishmael and Alastair. That's exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.
The topic came up as a throwaway line on a space podcast I was listening to, and it kept me up a while last night thinking. I'm currently reading Elizabeth Tasker's excellent 'The Planet Factory' about Exoplanets, and I've read books in the past about how, over millions of years, much of the planet's crust gets chewed up and recycled.
I found the question oddly engaging - and the only long-lasting sign of humans I could think of was radioactivity. But we were an intelligent species before we mastered radioactivity, so that pre-nuclear age would not necessarily show.
How can we be sure that some dinosaurs did not develop higher intelligence, or even societies?
The average pigeon doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent. Non-avian dinosaurs did however rule the earth for a staggeringly long period of time, we'll be doing well to match their 177 million year rule.
B.F.Skinner taught pigeons to play wiff-waff and steer guided missiles (genuinely).
How can we be sure that some dinosaurs did not develop higher intelligence, or even societies?
No evidence at all of tool use. Whilst the record is scant we would probably have found something.
60 m years is a long time for evidence of anything to survive. With us, the giveaway will probably be the plastic microbeads from our cosmetics.
We have evdence of tool use amongst primates from 3.4 million years ago. Once you get to that stage in the fossilisation process it doesn't really matter if it is 3.4 or 34 or 134 million. If they used tools then we would find evidence if it. Especially given we find nests, eggs and feathers.
If hardliner Brexit Tories ensure the fall of the government and make Corbyn PM they'll be marked for eternity for their betrayal like Cain, Judas, and Mark Reckless.
These traitors need to be forced out of the Tory party.
The same argument could be applied to "hardliner" Remainers no?
In fact hasn't Hezza already mused that a Corbyn government would be a price worth paying for overturning the referendum and staying in the EU?
As far as I'm aware no Brexiteer has gone that far yet...
Yep. Heseltine would certainly qualify as one of TSE's traitors.
....Al Gore? Did they all win the popular vote in a Presidential Election? I am guessing Gore couldn't make it, so he sent his Eastern European housekeeper (far right) instead.
How the hell does Melania - or any woman, for that matter - walk in those heels? She's basically walking on tiptoes. Must be excruciating......
How can we be sure that some dinosaurs did not develop higher intelligence, or even societies?
No evidence at all of tool use. Whilst the record is scant we would probably have found something.
60 m years is a long time for evidence of anything to survive. With us, the giveaway will probably be the plastic microbeads from our cosmetics.
We have evdence of tool use amongst primates from 3.4 million years ago. Once you get to that stage in the fossilisation process it doesn't really matter if it is 3.4 or 34 or 134 million. If they used tools then we would find evidence if it. Especially given we find nests, eggs and feathers.
Yes, but we *expect* primates to have developed basic stone tools at some time, and therefore are looking for such tools to see when they were first used. We aren't necessarily doing the same for anything from the time of the dinosaurs, even if we knew what to look for.
How can we be sure that some dinosaurs did not develop higher intelligence, or even societies?
The average pigeon doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent. Non-avian dinosaurs did however rule the earth for a staggeringly long period of time, we'll be doing well to match their 177 million year rule.
B.F.Skinner taught pigeons to play wiff-waff and steer guided missiles (genuinely).
How can we be sure that some dinosaurs did not develop higher intelligence, or even societies?
No evidence at all of tool use. Whilst the record is scant we would probably have found something.
60 m years is a long time for evidence of anything to survive. With us, the giveaway will probably be the plastic microbeads from our cosmetics.
We have evdence of tool use amongst primates from 3.4 million years ago. Once you get to that stage in the fossilisation process it doesn't really matter if it is 3.4 or 34 or 134 million. If they used tools then we would find evidence if it. Especially given we find nests, eggs and feathers.
Is that fossil evidence, though, rather than actual stone tools?
I think your stipulation as to what constitutes higher intelligence is too narrow, anyway. Tools are initially for killing animals for food and clothing, and building shelters. A vegetarian society of creatures well enough adapted to their surroundings to get by without clothes and houses could spend their time discoursing on philosophy or calculating the value of pi, without leaving much trace.
These are the WTO definitions of "free trade agreement" and "customs union". They have defined meaning in terms of treaties and WTO commitments and is all we need to know. "customs arrangements" and "the/a customs unions" are terms designed to confuse and have no meaning:
(a) A customs union shall be understood to mean the substitution of a single customs territory for two or more customs territories, so that
(i) duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce (except, blah) are eliminated with respect to substantially all the trade between the constituent territories of the union or at least with respect to substantially all the trade in products originating in such territories, and,
(ii) ... substantially the same duties and other regulations of commerce are applied by each of the members of the union to the trade of territories not included in the union;
(b) A free-trade area shall be understood to mean a group of two or more customs territories in which the duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce (except blah) are eliminated on substantially all the trade between the constituent territories in products originating in such territories.
So the UK will have a specific WTO-endorsed customs union with the EU that is "substantially" the same (and possibly exactly the same) as the one it already has as a EU member.
Except as Turkey shows us it cannot be the same. The Turkey CU means that 3rd party country goods can enter Turkey tariff free is the EU has a free trade deal with that country but Turkish goods do not have the same benefits on reverse. It is not a clever situation to get into.
It is the same as far as UK/EU goods are concerned (half the total). It is not necessarily the same for UK/non-EU goods, although if Turkey is a guide, it mostly will be. The problem is that if the third country already has access for its goods to the UK, it won't have an incentive to make the same concessions to incoming UK goods. On the other hand the UK already has a very good set of preferential agreements with third countries through the EU, The UK will be trying to retain as much as possible of the status quo against third countries attempting to recast agreements in their favour. The closer the UK is to the EU, the easier it is to keep the status quo*.
In summary a customs union is very beneficial to the UK/EU half of trade and a mixed bag for the rest.
* Esp if the UK can retain diagonal accumulation on rules of origin. ie it sells a car into Korea containing 40% EU origin and 30% UK origin, can that meet the 60% local content threshold for zero rated duty?
This is the cryptic comment that John Bercow, the Commons speaker, came out with a moment ago. (See 3.25pm.)
"Colleagues needn’t worry. Their questions will be reached. But the chair has to react to the development of events, to which I and some colleagues are privy, and others are not. And if you weren’t already confused, you will now be."
I wonder if the new royal achieves as much as the last thirdborn to be King. William IV ushered in ceremonial monarchy. He even subjugated himself to the Commons by agreeing to, if needed, stack the Lords at the PM's request. The purpose was to stop the unelected Lords from overturning a bill that would bring greater power to the British people.
Comments
I wonder what it was about Ms Butler which attracted her....
Presumably this means she's on the vexatious litigants list.
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/988388803864915968
Or the whole selection process for marginal seats has gone to rat-shit under Corbyn. One or the other.
But Theresa May is fortunate that especially in light of the events in Salisbury no Tory MP will do anything that will make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister.
I shall be out trying to get the vote out in Sheffield on May the 3rd. We're going to South Yorkshire blue in the near future.
Sadly my plans to be Yorkshire's first directly elected Dictator Mayor are on hold.
Being the head of the YMCA* would have been fun.
*Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority.
https://twitter.com/queen_uk/status/988393781241307136?s=21
Saint King Charles the Martyr. An Anglican Saint.
Was he Scottish though?
Edit; Apparently there’s a recent Catholic, possibly N Ireland ,one; St Oliver (Plunkett).
" My disclosures to date regarding state-sponsored organised crime have the potential to trigger a major national public scandal"
"members of my own political party have indeed acted unlawfully against me in this respect having colluded in the facilitation of this type of mistreatment and manipulation, and in the process undermining my political, professional and personal life"
"the harassment has escalated including increased surveillance conducted via electronic communications, surface mail, mobile phone, landline telephone, human surveillace and most worryingly home intrusions. Electrical tampering has made my home and car inhospitable environments having received second degree burns as a result of static electrical emissions. There have also been frequent electrical surges and outages, as well as boiler and circuitry issues generating emissions that have been measured on professional monitoring equipment and deemed severely detrimental to my health and which are potentially life threatening."
As Diane Abbott said to the judge:"To be honest with you, Ms. Richards has become an obsessive."
Like Jared O'Mara, it appears that there are some serious deficiencies in Labour's parliamentary selection process.
I remember one voter who was convinced we were all controlled by the Pope and aliens.
That Jesus was an alien.
https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/988043293576630272
Edit: hang on, shouldn't you be rooting for Saint Alban?
It would also provide the not inconsiderable bonus of sending the DUP mental(er).
Basically their search histories would appear on my devices and vice versa.
Thank God Apple set up family sharing accounts instead so that problem ended.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/apr/23/brexit-makes-no-sense-and-britain-should-vote-again-says-jurgen-klopp
Perhaps Mrs Walker is getting ready to throw me out, and the interweb already knows...
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/corbyn-cleans-up-his-twitter-feed-after-fresh-antisemitic-link-fwqgxdwzr
https://twitter.com/pbergsen/status/988401392829239296
It's like the quiz: What do these people have in common?
(a) A customs union shall be understood to mean the substitution of a single customs territory for two or more customs territories, so that
(i) duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce (except, blah) are eliminated with respect to substantially all the trade between the constituent territories of the union or at least with respect to substantially all the trade in products originating in such territories, and,
(ii) ... substantially the same duties and other regulations of commerce are applied by each of the members of the union to the trade of territories not included in the union;
(b) A free-trade area shall be understood to mean a group of two or more customs territories in which the duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce (except blah) are eliminated on substantially all the trade between the constituent territories in products originating in such territories.
So the UK will have a specific WTO-endorsed customs union with the EU that is "substantially" the same (and possibly exactly the same) as the one it already has as a EU member.
https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/region_e/region_art24_e.htm
A slightly odd question for PB's brains trust:
How can we be sure that some dinosaurs did not develop higher intelligence, or even societies?
https://www.sciencealert.com/this-is-how-astronomers-would-detect-an-ancient-industrial-civilization-on-earth-if-it-existed
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2018/04/18/civilization-before-homo-sapiens/
Mr. Jessop, minor tool use, as per apes with sticks or ravens likewise, might be possible.
Edited extra bit: how long did it take for George and Charlotte to be named?
https://twitter.com/paul__johnson/status/988387491580440576
The topic came up as a throwaway line on a space podcast I was listening to, and it kept me up a while last night thinking. I'm currently reading Elizabeth Tasker's excellent 'The Planet Factory' about Exoplanets, and I've read books in the past about how, over millions of years, much of the planet's crust gets chewed up and recycled.
I found the question oddly engaging - and the only long-lasting sign of humans I could think of was radioactivity. But we were an intelligent species before we mastered radioactivity, so that pre-nuclear age would not necessarily show.
(Note, I am not claiming they were intelligent).
Perhaps the lack of a good fork or two is why they died out?
Minus 200 years?
I think your stipulation as to what constitutes higher intelligence is too narrow, anyway. Tools are initially for killing animals for food and clothing, and building shelters. A vegetarian society of creatures well enough adapted to their surroundings to get by without clothes and houses could spend their time discoursing on philosophy or calculating the value of pi, without leaving much trace.
In summary a customs union is very beneficial to the UK/EU half of trade and a mixed bag for the rest.
* Esp if the UK can retain diagonal accumulation on rules of origin. ie it sells a car into Korea containing 40% EU origin and 30% UK origin, can that meet the 60% local content threshold for zero rated duty?
Does it actually matter much?
This is the cryptic comment that John Bercow, the Commons speaker, came out with a moment ago. (See 3.25pm.)
"Colleagues needn’t worry. Their questions will be reached. But the chair has to react to the development of events, to which I and some colleagues are privy, and others are not. And if you weren’t already confused, you will now be."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/apr/23/brexit-no-10-rejects-claims-customs-union-vote-to-be-made-a-confidence-issue-politics-live
(Probably some big Windrush announcement).
A fine precedent for the British constitution.