"The deal will largely replicate the existing EU-Japan free trade agreement, which will cease to apply to the UK when the Brexit transition period runs out at the end of this year." and "it is unclear whether the UK has won an export quota to match the one it had as a member of the EU."
Yay! A best case scenario of a deal thats almost as good as the one it replaces. Top job.
I made the point earlier in the week that this place has regressed from being a balanced mix to an overwhelming pro EU, anti Boris abbatoir. No problem with that I'm not pro Boris but it makes for very dull, one sided conversation.
I log on 2 or 3 days later and see more of the same in a header from Alastair Meeks.
Mr Smithson this is your site and your prerogative but you might wonder why the number of posters and contributions has fallen.
I think the problem has been that a number of vocal leavers - say @MaxPB, @Casino_Royale, @Richard_Tyndall, @DavidL and myself - have found ourselves in the position of criticising the government over their proposed Internal Markets Bill.
So, I don't think the issue is that Leavers have left the site (are there any that you can think of that were here three months ago, that are not here now?), but more the government is behaving in an incompetent and self defeating manner.
I have been very vocal in condemning Boris on this to the extent I believe he should resign and I absolutely agree HMG is behaving in an incompetent and self defeating manner.
However, I still want the divorce from the EU confirmed at the end of the year and continue as a conservative party member
Well yes. And this is the bit I find most objectionable, it's a "all people who are not with me are against me" attitude. If you don't back us passing a stupid law, then you must be a closet Remainer.
I am not the biggest Boris fan. I thought him better than May, but have never loved the "lovable rogue" image he's created for himself.
But the slipshod way that the Internal Markets Bill has been drafted (being incompatible with our membership of a bunch of international bodeies), that it has been released at a time when the UK is trying to replicate existing tax treaties with individual EU states, make me rather cross.
If you think the EU is being unreasonable, then say so and withdraw from the Withdrawal Agreement. Don't attempt to make domestic law incompatible with Treaty Obligations. Because that's just being a wanker.
Also, the closest Remainers are more likely to be the ones supporting it since such madness is far more likely to blow up the UK's reputation and ability to make a success of Brexit, potentially catapulting back into the EU out of desperation (Euro, EU army, social and fiscal union, crime & justice increasingly centralised, full federalis, free blue and gold star flags for kids, the works..) in less than 10 years.
You want British independence to stick?
You have to do it sensibly, sustainably and moderately so it beds in safely and a new consensus is built.
There is no sensible, sustainable and moderate Brexit. The sensible ones are simply not sustainable. The extreme position is always in the driving seat, as @AlastairMeeks covers in the header. That goes for Rejoiners too. Quasi-EEA will be in manifestos next GE, I expect, but seen by both Leavers and Remainers as a way back to full membership.
Completely disagree. This is just confirmation bias on your part.
A good close collaborative FTA with the EU is there *RIGHT NOW* for the taking.
It needs 6-18 months of transition and bedding in and then we're all set to go.
You don't want it to be of course (which is why you're secretly glad that a few key loons in Government are trying to blow it up) but that's quite a separate matter.
18 months of No Deal and the EU will take us much more seriously and perhaps be willing to agree a trade deal as sovereign equals and not demand things they've never demanded from any sovereign country ever before.
@DavidL probably better not to meet Grandma if possible. Better safe than sorry!
Have the discharged you yet or are you waiting on the consultant and pharmacy?
Consultant this morning has said I can go home today. I guess I now have to let the cogs turn (very slowly)!
My news was far better than expected, the tumors are shrinking which was a surprise as they had led me to expect only spread limitation. The negative is I now have a thrombosis in the abdomen, apparently not unusual, and have to inject myself Every day for the next three months.
I had to inject myself with blood thinners for 4 weeks after my bowel surgery. Is it the same stuff for you? They’re not too bad.
Great news on the tumours though! Fingers crossed they keep shrinking.
A form of heparin BEMIPARINA 359 euros worth ! I pay 4.24
Yes great news.
My cousin with Breast Ca had soft tissue metastases 4 years ago, but also a great response to chemo, and looks her usual self. Not out of the woods, but great news. Where there is life there is hope.
Thanks I’m actually sat in the chemo suite now, the bio therapy has gone in and we’ve moved on to the chemo, another two and a half hours should do it. There are 48 stations here and are 80% occupied, I was shocked the first time I came at how prevalent cancer was, they must be treating 400/week most on 2 or 3 week cycles Without counting those on tablets. No sign of any Covid slow down and feel quite safe as everybody gets covid tested in the routine blood tests done two days before treatment.
I don't think we'll end up back in the EU. But I agree that there are a number of Remainers rubbing their hands at the fact that the UK has managed to screw up relations with the rest of the world.
I don't think working out something was going to be a huge mess and being proved right is exactly the same as "rubbing hands in glee".
In better news For Global Britain the UK has just signed its first Brexit trade deal with Japan. Decent deal as far as I can tell, even though the hype is in overdrive. The deal is a bit less good overall than the one it replaces.
I've heard a couple of people say this week "I'm bored of covid".
Its not the disease for a low attention world.
And brings to my mind the worries that lockdown would break down.
Fortunate then, that Boris Johnson, who is leading us out from this dreadful pandemic, doesn't fall into the category of easily bored with a low attention span.
I made the point earlier in the week that this place has regressed from being a balanced mix to an overwhelming pro EU, anti Boris abbatoir. No problem with that I'm not pro Boris but it makes for very dull, one sided conversation.
I log on 2 or 3 days later and see more of the same in a header from Alastair Meeks.
Mr Smithson this is your site and your prerogative but you might wonder why the number of posters and contributions has fallen.
I think the problem has been that a number of vocal leavers - say @MaxPB, @Casino_Royale, @Richard_Tyndall, @DavidL and myself - have found ourselves in the position of criticising the government over their proposed Internal Markets Bill.
So, I don't think the issue is that Leavers have left the site (are there any that you can think of that were here three months ago, that are not here now?), but more the government is behaving in an incompetent and self defeating manner.
I have been very vocal in condemning Boris on this to the extent I believe he should resign and I absolutely agree HMG is behaving in an incompetent and self defeating manner.
However, I still want the divorce from the EU confirmed at the end of the year and continue as a conservative party member
Well yes. And this is the bit I find most objectionable, it's a "all people who are not with me are against me" attitude. If you don't back us passing a stupid law, then you must be a closet Remainer.
I am not the biggest Boris fan. I thought him better than May, but have never loved the "lovable rogue" image he's created for himself.
But the slipshod way that the Internal Markets Bill has been drafted (being incompatible with our membership of a bunch of international bodeies), that it has been released at a time when the UK is trying to replicate existing tax treaties with individual EU states, make me rather cross.
If you think the EU is being unreasonable, then say so and withdraw from the Withdrawal Agreement. Don't attempt to make domestic law incompatible with Treaty Obligations. Because that's just being a wanker.
Also, the closest Remainers are more likely to be the ones supporting it since such madness is far more likely to blow up the UK's reputation and ability to make a success of Brexit, potentially catapulting back into the EU out of desperation (Euro, EU army, social and fiscal union, crime & justice increasingly centralised, full federalis, free blue and gold star flags for kids, the works..) in less than 10 years.
You want British independence to stick?
You have to do it sensibly, sustainably and moderately so it beds in safely and a new consensus is built.
There is no sensible, sustainable and moderate Brexit. The sensible ones are simply not sustainable. The extreme position is always in the driving seat, as @AlastairMeeks covers in the header. That goes for Rejoiners too. Quasi-EEA will be in manifestos next GE, I expect, but seen by both Leavers and Remainers as a way back to full membership.
Completely disagree. This is just confirmation bias on your part.
A good close collaborative FTA with the EU is there *RIGHT NOW* for the taking.
It needs 6-18 months of transition and bedding in and then we're all set to go.
You don't want it to be of course (which is why you're secretly glad that a few key loons in Government are trying to blow it up) but that's quite a separate matter.
Giving in on fishing, state aid, Irish sea customs etc is doable, but not sustainable. The Faragists would be apoplectic.
Exactly, if the government did all that it would be a breach of the Tory manifesto to regain control of our fishing waters and end EU sovereignty and many Leavers would defect back to Farage and the Brexit Party giving Labour a clear poll lead despite no increase in voteshare
Catching up with some things, can anyone confirm that this Andrew Murray quote from the Maguire / Pogrund book is accurate:
"He is very empathetic, Jeremy, but he’s empathetic with the poor, the disadvantaged, the migrant, the marginalised, the people at the bottom of the heap. Happily, that is not the Jewish community in Britain today."
Source is Harry's Place, who normally get that sort of straight sourcing thing right.
Far be it for me to defend Andrew Murray but out of context that looks horrid, but in context, it's an ok sentiment.
He meant it as happily that the Jewish community doesn't face the hardships it did in the early 20th Century, there's no battle of Cable Street.
Here's the rest of the quote
“He is very empathetic, Jeremy, but he’s empathetic with the poor, the disadvantaged, the migrant, the marginalised, the people at the bottom of the heap. Happily, that is not the Jewish community in Britain today. He would have had massive empathy with the Jewish community in Britain in the 1930s and he would have been there at Cable Street, there’s no question. But, of course, the Jewish community today is relatively prosperous.
Racism in British society since the Second World War – what does it mean? It means discrimination at work, discrimination in housing, hounding by the police on the streets, discrimination and disadvantage in education, demonisation and mischaracterisation in the mass media. That is what has happened to Afro-Caribbean and Asian immigrants and their descendants … for a whole generation – that’s now quite an influential cohort in the Labour Party and around Jeremy personally – that is what racism is.
They would say, ‘Of course, Jewish migrants to Britain in the first half of the 20th century – they lived in appalling conditions. They had it rough, they were attacked by the fascists. But, you know, that was then. The Jewish community’s moved on. It’s developed, it’s integrated and …’ This is where the failure to understand comes in – that, actually, antisemitism has different aspects to other forms of racism.”
I made the point earlier in the week that this place has regressed from being a balanced mix to an overwhelming pro EU, anti Boris abbatoir. No problem with that I'm not pro Boris but it makes for very dull, one sided conversation.
I log on 2 or 3 days later and see more of the same in a header from Alastair Meeks.
Mr Smithson this is your site and your prerogative but you might wonder why the number of posters and contributions has fallen.
Checks PB's stats.
The number of site visits and comments is what we'd see for a typical August and September.
Up until last week I thought that wouldn't happen (we'd build a full FTA, Starmer would probably add bits to it in future and that would be that) but as of this week I could see everything turning on its head quickly if we don't change course soon.
A "scorched earth" Brexit is extremely high risk.
You thought Brexit wouldn't happen at multiple points; you're just not sufficiently invested in Brexit as a doxastic venture.
There is no way England will ever rejoin. Even if we get full on Last of Us grade Brexit the EU will be blamed for it not seen as the solution. The English quite like to suffer if they can be convinced it's somebody else's fault. Hence Eastenders and the enduring fascination with WW2.
I could see the Democratic People's Republic of Scotland in the EU and the Six Counties liberated though.
"The deal will largely replicate the existing EU-Japan free trade agreement, which will cease to apply to the UK when the Brexit transition period runs out at the end of this year." and "it is unclear whether the UK has won an export quota to match the one it had as a member of the EU."
Yay! A best case scenario of a deal thats almost as good as the one it replaces. Top job.
Why is more free trade always assumed to be good ?
The UK has had a continuous trade deficit for over two decades.
Perhaps ever more free trade hasn't worked as well for the UK as it has for other countries.
I think the real problem is this: Boris wants a deal and would sorely like to seal this one. But, he knows that compromising on State Aid would precipitate Cummings resignation and he can't survive as PM without him.
So he's stuck. He'll follow the path of least resistance in the short-term. That means No Deal, I'm afraid, because it kicks the problem on 4 months and he can hope something turns up in the meantime and bullshit his way through.
The only alternative I can think of is that he feels at serious risk of being ejected from office by his MPs so he realises he has to act now or lose in ignominy.
Not holding my breath on that one.
Boris has essentially 2 choices.
He can go down the road of no deal which means that the default provisions of the WA will apply but these are very limited and would leave large areas of trade not covered at all. There would be some disruption and no doubt further deals and arrangements over time but we could live with this and, frankly, we have more important things to worry about.
Or he can agree a deal with LPF provisions which, let's face it, we have tended to apply a lot more rigorously than almost anyone else in the EU anyway.
I would have been tempted by the first but gone for the second. What we should not do (even although we can) is trash our reputation for reliability and trust by seeking to disapply the WA signed earlier this year. As I said yesterday the price is far too high.
I may also say that Boris and or Cummings has contrived to engage where his troops are once again marching steeply uphill against fortified emplacements. I really don't get why he did not select more even territory, a level playing field, even.
The LPF provisions are utterly unacceptable.
The EU don't define just state aid as an LPF. They're also including domestic law and tax rates.
When Osborne became Chancellor he cut Corporation Tax in order to attract investment, the EU could under their proposals deign that to be 'state aid' and their courts would adjudicate that not ours.
@Casino_Royale can I ask you a question please - notwithstanding the "international law" elements which I can understand being a concern on their own right . . . you seem very keen on the idea of compromising to get a deal, even if it means compromising on the LPF.
Would you be OK with the EU telling the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer that a tax cut that Parliament had passed in the Budget was unacceptable "state aid"? Is that in your view an acceptable price worth paying in order to get a deal, or does the idea of that disturb you?
@Casino_Royale can I ask you a question please - notwithstanding the "international law" elements which I can understand being a concern on their own right . . . you seem very keen on the idea of compromising to get a deal, even if it means compromising on the LPF.
Would you be OK with the EU telling the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer that a tax cut that Parliament had passed in the Budget was unacceptable "state aid"? Is that in your view an acceptable price worth paying in order to get a deal, or does the idea of that disturb you?
Where's the evidence we wouldn't be able to do that in a no deal scenario without these retrograde measures?
Johnson either did not know what he was agreeing to when he signed the Withdrawal Agreement or he lied to the EU, Parliament and the British people about the content of the agreement. Which do people think it is? For me, it is becoming clearer that the it was the latter.
...er.....The remain massive on here reckoned no reputable country would want to do trade deals with 'rogue state' Britain!
It normally takes a while for remainer scaremongering to turn out to be complete garbage.
Its gratifying when in this case its just a day!
That post makes perfect sense if you think that the Japan deal was thought of, proposed, negotiated, finalised and announced in under 48 hours. Otherwise, less so.
Brexit has an abstract idea commands support of over 50% of the electorate - but as soon as you define, it the support disappears. We have seen this in poll after poll.
We saw recently that No Deal is a minority viewpoint (source: YouGov) and so Johnson is implementing something the majority don't want.
Right now the Tory base remains strong because Brexit is still seen to have not been delivered (I guess) but once it is delivered, the contradictions in the base must surely come to light.
@Casino_Royale can I ask you a question please - notwithstanding the "international law" elements which I can understand being a concern on their own right . . . you seem very keen on the idea of compromising to get a deal, even if it means compromising on the LPF.
Would you be OK with the EU telling the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer that a tax cut that Parliament had passed in the Budget was unacceptable "state aid"? Is that in your view an acceptable price worth paying in order to get a deal, or does the idea of that disturb you?
I made the point earlier in the week that this place has regressed from being a balanced mix to an overwhelming pro EU, anti Boris abbatoir. No problem with that I'm not pro Boris but it makes for very dull, one sided conversation.
I log on 2 or 3 days later and see more of the same in a header from Alastair Meeks.
Mr Smithson this is your site and your prerogative but you might wonder why the number of posters and contributions has fallen.
Checks PB's stats.
The number of site visits and comments is what we'd see for a typical August and September.
Don't you get tired of being wrong?
To be honest I am surprised it has not increased with all the WFH. I have certainly been on a lot more than I would if I was properly working.
We've seen a pretty consistent swing across state polling. In this case it's a reduction in the Trump lead by 5 pp since 2016.
Though remember Obama got 49% in Indiana in 2008 (when he carried it) and 43% in 2012, 39% for Biden in Indiana would be the same voteshare Kerry got in the state in 2004
Johnson either did not know what he was agreeing to when he signed the Withdrawal Agreement or he lied to the EU, Parliament and the British people about the content of the agreement. Which do people think it is? For me, it is becoming clearer that the it was the latter.
He read it, he said he could change it afterwards and that was it.
It is nice to have agreement - of course PB Tories won't acknowledge it - that the deal Johnson negotiated is agreed to be rubbish and in many ways inferior to May's deal (which I also didn't like).
I made the point earlier in the week that this place has regressed from being a balanced mix to an overwhelming pro EU, anti Boris abbatoir. No problem with that I'm not pro Boris but it makes for very dull, one sided conversation.
I log on 2 or 3 days later and see more of the same in a header from Alastair Meeks.
Mr Smithson this is your site and your prerogative but you might wonder why the number of posters and contributions has fallen.
I think the problem has been that a number of vocal leavers - say @MaxPB, @Casino_Royale, @Richard_Tyndall, @DavidL and myself - have found ourselves in the position of criticising the government over their proposed Internal Markets Bill.
So, I don't think the issue is that Leavers have left the site (are there any that you can think of that were here three months ago, that are not here now?), but more the government is behaving in an incompetent and self defeating manner.
I have been very vocal in condemning Boris on this to the extent I believe he should resign and I absolutely agree HMG is behaving in an incompetent and self defeating manner.
However, I still want the divorce from the EU confirmed at the end of the year and continue as a conservative party member
Well yes. And this is the bit I find most objectionable, it's a "all people who are not with me are against me" attitude. If you don't back us passing a stupid law, then you must be a closet Remainer.
I am not the biggest Boris fan. I thought him better than May, but have never loved the "lovable rogue" image he's created for himself.
But the slipshod way that the Internal Markets Bill has been drafted (being incompatible with our membership of a bunch of international bodeies), that it has been released at a time when the UK is trying to replicate existing tax treaties with individual EU states, make me rather cross.
If you think the EU is being unreasonable, then say so and withdraw from the Withdrawal Agreement. Don't attempt to make domestic law incompatible with Treaty Obligations. Because that's just being a wanker.
Also, the closest Remainers are more likely to be the ones supporting it since such madness is far more likely to blow up the UK's reputation and ability to make a success of Brexit, potentially catapulting back into the EU out of desperation (Euro, EU army, social and fiscal union, crime & justice increasingly centralised, full federalis, free blue and gold star flags for kids, the works..) in less than 10 years.
You want British independence to stick?
You have to do it sensibly, sustainably and moderately so it beds in safely and a new consensus is built.
There is no sensible, sustainable and moderate Brexit. The sensible ones are simply not sustainable. The extreme position is always in the driving seat, as @AlastairMeeks covers in the header. That goes for Rejoiners too. Quasi-EEA will be in manifestos next GE, I expect, but seen by both Leavers and Remainers as a way back to full membership.
Completely disagree. This is just confirmation bias on your part.
A good close collaborative FTA with the EU is there *RIGHT NOW* for the taking.
It needs 6-18 months of transition and bedding in and then we're all set to go.
You don't want it to be of course (which is why you're secretly glad that a few key loons in Government are trying to blow it up) but that's quite a separate matter.
Giving in on fishing, state aid, Irish sea customs etc is doable, but not sustainable. The Faragists would be apoplectic.
Exactly, if the government did all that it would be a breach of the Tory manifesto to regain control of our fishing waters and end EU sovereignty and many Leavers would defect back to Farage and the Brexit Party giving Labour a clear poll lead despite no increase in voteshare
Yep - and, as we know, for the vast majority of Tory MPs, party will always come before country.
@Casino_Royale can I ask you a question please - notwithstanding the "international law" elements which I can understand being a concern on their own right . . . you seem very keen on the idea of compromising to get a deal, even if it means compromising on the LPF.
Would you be OK with the EU telling the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer that a tax cut that Parliament had passed in the Budget was unacceptable "state aid"? Is that in your view an acceptable price worth paying in order to get a deal, or does the idea of that disturb you?
Where's the evidence we wouldn't be able to do that in a no deal scenario without these retrograde measures?
We might be able to in a no deal scenario. There's multiple reports it could have been an issue, but that's murky and not what I was trying to get at.
That's why I said notwithstanding that, he seems to want a deal even if we weren't doing these measures whereas you seem to be against both these measures and against compromising on the LPF - he seems (if I understand correctly) to be happy to compromise on the LPF itself in order to get a deal which is why I wanted to ask the question. Does that make sense?
I made the point earlier in the week that this place has regressed from being a balanced mix to an overwhelming pro EU, anti Boris abbatoir. No problem with that I'm not pro Boris but it makes for very dull, one sided conversation.
I log on 2 or 3 days later and see more of the same in a header from Alastair Meeks.
Mr Smithson this is your site and your prerogative but you might wonder why the number of posters and contributions has fallen.
Checks PB's stats.
The number of site visits and comments is what we'd see for a typical August and September.
Don't you get tired of being wrong?
To be honest I am surprised it has not increased with all the WFH. I have certainly been on a lot more than I would if I was properly working.
Well it higher than most years, however last August/September saw phenomenal site traffic with that prorogation and the subsequent legal action.
Labour are now close to as dominant in London as the SNP are in Scotland, London is the new Labour heartland, unfortunately it does not have nearly enough seats to put them into Government
Johnson either did not know what he was agreeing to when he signed the Withdrawal Agreement or he lied to the EU, Parliament and the British people about the content of the agreement. Which do people think it is? For me, it is becoming clearer that the it was the latter.
Johnson either did not know what he was agreeing to when he signed the Withdrawal Agreement or he lied to the EU, Parliament and the British people about the content of the agreement. Which do people think it is? For me, it is becoming clearer that the it was the latter.
Definitely. He lied to the EU to get the deal he needed for a winning election platform. Then he lied to the public that the deal Got Brexit Done. Now, with power secured, he reneges. It's not what one expects of a British PM. But it is (sadly) what one expects of this one.
“It’s one of the reasons why I am very bullish on Donald Trump’s prospects in Pennsylvania. I think he will win again, and I think he will win by more votes than he did in 2016,” said Charlie Gerow, a Harrisburg-based Republican strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns in the state. “Trump is doing what Ronald Reagan did 40 years ago, which is moving a lot of traditional Democrats into the Republican column.”
The GOP has also seen a larger boost in registrations than Democrats in three critical areas across Pennsylvania: Erie, Luzerne and Northampton counties, all of which helped Trump flip the state by backing him after supporting former President Barack Obama in 2012.
Overall, registered Democrats now make up 47 percent of the state’s electorate, down from 49 percent in September 2016. Republicans comprise 39 percent, up from 38 percent four years ago. Many party officials credit Trump himself for narrowing the gap.
“It’s Trump, Trump, Trump,” said Gloria Lee Snover, chair of the Northampton County Republican Party. When she has signed up voters, she added, “They’re like, ‘Oh, I want to be in the Trump party.’ It’s kind of funny. ... I’m like, ‘You mean the Republican Party?’ They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah.’” https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/10/trump-gop-voter-registration-pennsylvania-411232
I don't want to bore people with my family circumstances but I think that they are a good example of the problems. My daughter went to the restaurant (now closed) in Glasgow on Wednesday night. Yesterday she met her brother's girlfriend in another restaurant in Dundee for 3 hours without masks. Today that girlfriend will have gone into school...
What can we draw from this? The most obvious point is that my daughter has a much better social life than me but more fundamentally and generally track and trace is just never going to keep up with these contacts and possible trails of infection. It's just impossible. T&T may identify some of the potential infection and thus reduce the R number but it cannot be the answer. It's always going to be too slow.
I think its this conclusion which has driven the government to the mass testing talked about yesterday. It is logistically challenging and frighteningly expensive but nothing else is going to work.
@Casino_Royale can I ask you a question please - notwithstanding the "international law" elements which I can understand being a concern on their own right . . . you seem very keen on the idea of compromising to get a deal, even if it means compromising on the LPF.
Would you be OK with the EU telling the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer that a tax cut that Parliament had passed in the Budget was unacceptable "state aid"? Is that in your view an acceptable price worth paying in order to get a deal, or does the idea of that disturb you?
Where's the evidence we wouldn't be able to do that in a no deal scenario without these retrograde measures?
We might be able to in a no deal scenario. There's multiple reports it could have been an issue, but that's murky and not what I was trying to get at.
That's why I said notwithstanding that, he seems to want a deal even if we weren't doing these measures whereas you seem to be against both these measures and against compromising on the LPF - he seems (if I understand correctly) to be happy to compromise on the LPF itself in order to get a deal which is why I wanted to ask the question. Does that make sense?
Again, that's not evidence. It's bullshit chatter from overzealous Eurocrats. We're in a position where we've use first strike capability and in doing so handed the initiative to the opposing side.
Just because we have the ability to go for a first strike, it doesn't mean we should. The fact is neither of us know what the EU would do if we cut corporation tax to 10% in a no deal scenario. Chances are they would just live with it and the theoretical ability to block it via the NI protocol remains theoretical because they wouldn't want to be in a first strike position either.
@Casino_Royale can I ask you a question please - notwithstanding the "international law" elements which I can understand being a concern on their own right . . . you seem very keen on the idea of compromising to get a deal, even if it means compromising on the LPF.
Would you be OK with the EU telling the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer that a tax cut that Parliament had passed in the Budget was unacceptable "state aid"? Is that in your view an acceptable price worth paying in order to get a deal, or does the idea of that disturb you?
We shouldnt accept such a broad LPF. Easy to solve with an independent panel and/or an exit path agreed if the parties cant resolve a future dispute over state aid.
In practice, even if we did sign up to what you say, the Chancellor could do the tax cut, it would apply in the UK regardless, and if it was ruled as state aid unfairly by the EU, break the rules and repudiate the treaty at that point. Then we would get the benefits of a trade deal for however many years before this unlikely hypothetical scenario comes into play.
However, the UK's economy is still 11.7% smaller than it was in February and growth in July was smaller than the 8.7% expansion seen in June.
Thomas Pugh, UK economist at Capital Economics, said the reopening of restaurants and pubs meant the accommodation and food services sector "rose by a whopping 140.8%" between June and July.
Still decent news, I am sure we can all be happy about this.
"The deal will largely replicate the existing EU-Japan free trade agreement, which will cease to apply to the UK when the Brexit transition period runs out at the end of this year." and "it is unclear whether the UK has won an export quota to match the one it had as a member of the EU."
Yay! A best case scenario of a deal thats almost as good as the one it replaces. Top job.
Tariff Rate Quotas (TRQs) appear to be a sticking point for rolling over EU arrangements. It happened for the Japan deal and the same issue is hitting a deal with Canada.
TRQs effectively limit the amount of imported competition facing domestic suppliers of sensitive products. So the EU may have agreed with the third country a TRQ of 20 000 tons for a product, to be shared amongst EU members. Anything up to the 20 000 tons goes in at an affordable tarrif; above it the tariff makes imports unviable.
Problem is the EU having agreed the FTA with the third country won't share its 20 000 tons with a Brexited UK. Domestic producers in the third country who have already grudgingly conceded 20 000 tons of competition are in no mood to allow more for UK. UK doesn't want a trade deal where it loses its current access.
The compromise in the Japan FTA is that the UK will eligible for any leftover EU TRQs that members don't take up. UK exporters will have less access than before but how much less depends on what their EU competitors do.
I made the point earlier in the week that this place has regressed from being a balanced mix to an overwhelming pro EU, anti Boris abbatoir. No problem with that I'm not pro Boris but it makes for very dull, one sided conversation.
I log on 2 or 3 days later and see more of the same in a header from Alastair Meeks.
Mr Smithson this is your site and your prerogative but you might wonder why the number of posters and contributions has fallen.
I think the problem has been that a number of vocal leavers - say @MaxPB, @Casino_Royale, @Richard_Tyndall, @DavidL and myself - have found ourselves in the position of criticising the government over their proposed Internal Markets Bill.
So, I don't think the issue is that Leavers have left the site (are there any that you can think of that were here three months ago, that are not here now?), but more the government is behaving in an incompetent and self defeating manner.
I have been very vocal in condemning Boris on this to the extent I believe he should resign and I absolutely agree HMG is behaving in an incompetent and self defeating manner.
However, I still want the divorce from the EU confirmed at the end of the year and continue as a conservative party member
Well yes. And this is the bit I find most objectionable, it's a "all people who are not with me are against me" attitude. If you don't back us passing a stupid law, then you must be a closet Remainer.
I am not the biggest Boris fan. I thought him better than May, but have never loved the "lovable rogue" image he's created for himself.
But the slipshod way that the Internal Markets Bill has been drafted (being incompatible with our membership of a bunch of international bodeies), that it has been released at a time when the UK is trying to replicate existing tax treaties with individual EU states, make me rather cross.
If you think the EU is being unreasonable, then say so and withdraw from the Withdrawal Agreement. Don't attempt to make domestic law incompatible with Treaty Obligations. Because that's just being a wanker.
Also, the closest Remainers are more likely to be the ones supporting it since such madness is far more likely to blow up the UK's reputation and ability to make a success of Brexit, potentially catapulting back into the EU out of desperation (Euro, EU army, social and fiscal union, crime & justice increasingly centralised, full federalis, free blue and gold star flags for kids, the works..) in less than 10 years.
You want British independence to stick?
You have to do it sensibly, sustainably and moderately so it beds in safely and a new consensus is built.
There is no sensible, sustainable and moderate Brexit. The sensible ones are simply not sustainable. The extreme position is always in the driving seat, as @AlastairMeeks covers in the header. That goes for Rejoiners too. Quasi-EEA will be in manifestos next GE, I expect, but seen by both Leavers and Remainers as a way back to full membership.
Completely disagree. This is just confirmation bias on your part.
A good close collaborative FTA with the EU is there *RIGHT NOW* for the taking.
It needs 6-18 months of transition and bedding in and then we're all set to go.
You don't want it to be of course (which is why you're secretly glad that a few key loons in Government are trying to blow it up) but that's quite a separate matter.
Giving in on fishing, state aid, Irish sea customs etc is doable, but not sustainable. The Faragists would be apoplectic.
Yes, which is why no deal would have won in the end, the government has now said no deal to the whole world. We're lucky that the Japan trade talks were so advanced and had already been agreed before this. Deals with Canada, Australia and New Zealand are going to be tougher to sign now and a deal with the US (even in a limited capacity) looks impossible, Congress will never approve a deal with the UK while it is flouting international law.
About the Japan deal... we can just ignore it / alter it any time we like.
@Casino_Royale can I ask you a question please - notwithstanding the "international law" elements which I can understand being a concern on their own right . . . you seem very keen on the idea of compromising to get a deal, even if it means compromising on the LPF.
Would you be OK with the EU telling the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer that a tax cut that Parliament had passed in the Budget was unacceptable "state aid"? Is that in your view an acceptable price worth paying in order to get a deal, or does the idea of that disturb you?
Where's the evidence we wouldn't be able to do that in a no deal scenario without these retrograde measures?
We might be able to in a no deal scenario. There's multiple reports it could have been an issue, but that's murky and not what I was trying to get at.
That's why I said notwithstanding that, he seems to want a deal even if we weren't doing these measures whereas you seem to be against both these measures and against compromising on the LPF - he seems (if I understand correctly) to be happy to compromise on the LPF itself in order to get a deal which is why I wanted to ask the question. Does that make sense?
Again, that's not evidence. It's bullshit chatter from overzealous Eurocrats. We're in a position where we've use first strike capability and in doing so handed the initiative to the opposing side.
Just because we have the ability to go for a first strike, it doesn't mean we should. The fact is neither of us know what the EU would do if we cut corporation tax to 10% in a no deal scenario. Chances are they would just live with it and the theoretical ability to block it via the NI protocol remains theoretical because they wouldn't want to be in a first strike position either.
Nevermind.
I wasn't trying to discuss this 'strike' as you put it. Just ask the question in isolation as to whether handing the EU power to determine that a UK tax cut passed by the Chancellor is acceptable in exchange for a deal, or if that is troublesome.
I made the point earlier in the week that this place has regressed from being a balanced mix to an overwhelming pro EU, anti Boris abbatoir. No problem with that I'm not pro Boris but it makes for very dull, one sided conversation.
I log on 2 or 3 days later and see more of the same in a header from Alastair Meeks.
Mr Smithson this is your site and your prerogative but you might wonder why the number of posters and contributions has fallen.
I think the problem has been that a number of vocal leavers - say @MaxPB, @Casino_Royale, @Richard_Tyndall, @DavidL and myself - have found ourselves in the position of criticising the government over their proposed Internal Markets Bill.
So, I don't think the issue is that Leavers have left the site (are there any that you can think of that were here three months ago, that are not here now?), but more the government is behaving in an incompetent and self defeating manner.
I have been very vocal in condemning Boris on this to the extent I believe he should resign and I absolutely agree HMG is behaving in an incompetent and self defeating manner.
However, I still want the divorce from the EU confirmed at the end of the year and continue as a conservative party member
Well yes. And this is the bit I find most objectionable, it's a "all people who are not with me are against me" attitude. If you don't back us passing a stupid law, then you must be a closet Remainer.
I am not the biggest Boris fan. I thought him better than May, but have never loved the "lovable rogue" image he's created for himself.
But the slipshod way that the Internal Markets Bill has been drafted (being incompatible with our membership of a bunch of international bodeies), that it has been released at a time when the UK is trying to replicate existing tax treaties with individual EU states, make me rather cross.
If you think the EU is being unreasonable, then say so and withdraw from the Withdrawal Agreement. Don't attempt to make domestic law incompatible with Treaty Obligations. Because that's just being a wanker.
Also, the closest Remainers are more likely to be the ones supporting it since such madness is far more likely to blow up the UK's reputation and ability to make a success of Brexit, potentially catapulting back into the EU out of desperation (Euro, EU army, social and fiscal union, crime & justice increasingly centralised, full federalis, free blue and gold star flags for kids, the works..) in less than 10 years.
You want British independence to stick?
You have to do it sensibly, sustainably and moderately so it beds in safely and a new consensus is built.
There is no sensible, sustainable and moderate Brexit. The sensible ones are simply not sustainable. The extreme position is always in the driving seat, as @AlastairMeeks covers in the header. That goes for Rejoiners too. Quasi-EEA will be in manifestos next GE, I expect, but seen by both Leavers and Remainers as a way back to full membership.
Completely disagree. This is just confirmation bias on your part.
A good close collaborative FTA with the EU is there *RIGHT NOW* for the taking.
It needs 6-18 months of transition and bedding in and then we're all set to go.
You don't want it to be of course (which is why you're secretly glad that a few key loons in Government are trying to blow it up) but that's quite a separate matter.
There is a deal to be done in the abstract. But the reality is that because of those involved, no deal is now possible. There is no way that the ERG will allow Johnson to rein back, even if he wanted to - in fact, they will demand and get more; while on the EU side a direct UK decsion to abandon international law means that the issue has now become political in the capitals and so cannot be subject to any compromise.
A very safe way to view Brexit is at each stage to imagine the worst possible outcome, watch it play out and then watch it get worse. As with retaining the Union, the only way this conceivably changes is with a change of occupant at Number 10. And that is not going to happen for at least four years.
I don't want to bore people with my family circumstances but I think that they are a good example of the problems. My daughter went to the restaurant (now closed) in Glasgow on Wednesday night. Yesterday she met her brother's girlfriend in another restaurant in Dundee for 3 hours without masks. Today that girlfriend will have gone into school...
What can we draw from this? The most obvious point is that my daughter has a much better social life than me but more fundamentally and generally track and trace is just never going to keep up with these contacts and possible trails of infection. It's just impossible. T&T may identify some of the potential infection and thus reduce the R number but it cannot be the answer. It's always going to be too slow.
I think its this conclusion which has driven the government to the mass testing talked about yesterday. It is logistically challenging and frighteningly expensive but nothing else is going to work.
Stay at home as much as possible? (Which is easier said than done.)
My employer has confirmed that we're not expected in the office until after Easter now.
@Casino_Royale can I ask you a question please - notwithstanding the "international law" elements which I can understand being a concern on their own right . . . you seem very keen on the idea of compromising to get a deal, even if it means compromising on the LPF.
Would you be OK with the EU telling the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer that a tax cut that Parliament had passed in the Budget was unacceptable "state aid"? Is that in your view an acceptable price worth paying in order to get a deal, or does the idea of that disturb you?
Where's the evidence we wouldn't be able to do that in a no deal scenario without these retrograde measures?
We might be able to in a no deal scenario. There's multiple reports it could have been an issue, but that's murky and not what I was trying to get at.
That's why I said notwithstanding that, he seems to want a deal even if we weren't doing these measures whereas you seem to be against both these measures and against compromising on the LPF - he seems (if I understand correctly) to be happy to compromise on the LPF itself in order to get a deal which is why I wanted to ask the question. Does that make sense?
Again, that's not evidence. It's bullshit chatter from overzealous Eurocrats. We're in a position where we've use first strike capability and in doing so handed the initiative to the opposing side.
Just because we have the ability to go for a first strike, it doesn't mean we should. The fact is neither of us know what the EU would do if we cut corporation tax to 10% in a no deal scenario. Chances are they would just live with it and the theoretical ability to block it via the NI protocol remains theoretical because they wouldn't want to be in a first strike position either.
Nevermind.
I wasn't trying to discuss this 'strike' as you put it. Just ask the question in isolation as to whether handing the EU power to determine that a UK tax cut passed by the Chancellor is acceptable in exchange for a deal, or if that is troublesome.
Once again, there's no evidence that we've handed this power over in the WA. Them asking for it in the FTA isn't the same thing. That they are asking for it is pretty good evidence that they don't think they'd have it under a no deal scenario.
The sad thing is that my wife is very conscious that her mother (who is a widow) is really starting to struggle with the lockdown and shielding. She is repeating herself more and more, she is getting more confused and she is not happy. My wife has been trying to get her out more by being a taxi for her so that she is less isolated and the lunch today was a part of that. We will cancel but there are no great solutions to this virus and no cost free options.
Yes, it is sad and difficult. I would think it reasonable to meet, minus grand daughter.
2 covid cases again at my Mother in Laws nursing home, after 6 weeks clear, so all confined to rooms again.
It is getting to be a case of the cure being worse than the disease. We have to live with the virus and accept the consequences. Trashing the economy, taking the joy out of people's lives is no way to live. There might have been a need for drastic measures at the start when little was known about the disease and its consequences but we are ruining ourselves.
@Casino_Royale can I ask you a question please - notwithstanding the "international law" elements which I can understand being a concern on their own right . . . you seem very keen on the idea of compromising to get a deal, even if it means compromising on the LPF.
Would you be OK with the EU telling the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer that a tax cut that Parliament had passed in the Budget was unacceptable "state aid"? Is that in your view an acceptable price worth paying in order to get a deal, or does the idea of that disturb you?
Where's the evidence we wouldn't be able to do that in a no deal scenario without these retrograde measures?
We might be able to in a no deal scenario. There's multiple reports it could have been an issue, but that's murky and not what I was trying to get at.
That's why I said notwithstanding that, he seems to want a deal even if we weren't doing these measures whereas you seem to be against both these measures and against compromising on the LPF - he seems (if I understand correctly) to be happy to compromise on the LPF itself in order to get a deal which is why I wanted to ask the question. Does that make sense?
Again, that's not evidence. It's bullshit chatter from overzealous Eurocrats. We're in a position where we've use first strike capability and in doing so handed the initiative to the opposing side.
Just because we have the ability to go for a first strike, it doesn't mean we should. The fact is neither of us know what the EU would do if we cut corporation tax to 10% in a no deal scenario. Chances are they would just live with it and the theoretical ability to block it via the NI protocol remains theoretical because they wouldn't want to be in a first strike position either.
Nevermind.
I wasn't trying to discuss this 'strike' as you put it. Just ask the question in isolation as to whether handing the EU power to determine that a UK tax cut passed by the Chancellor is acceptable in exchange for a deal, or if that is troublesome.
Once again, there's no evidence that we've handed this power over in the WA. Them asking for it in the FTA isn't the same thing. That they are asking for it is pretty good evidence that they don't think they'd have it under a no deal scenario.
Again, I wasn't trying to suggest we've handed this power over in the WA!
I was asking as to whether he thought it would be worth handing that power over for a FTA deal or not?
However, the UK's economy is still 11.7% smaller than it was in February and growth in July was smaller than the 8.7% expansion seen in June.
Thomas Pugh, UK economist at Capital Economics, said the reopening of restaurants and pubs meant the accommodation and food services sector "rose by a whopping 140.8%" between June and July.
Still decent news, I am sure we can all be happy about this.
The new regulations will strangle that recovery at birth.
The sad thing is that my wife is very conscious that her mother (who is a widow) is really starting to struggle with the lockdown and shielding. She is repeating herself more and more, she is getting more confused and she is not happy. My wife has been trying to get her out more by being a taxi for her so that she is less isolated and the lunch today was a part of that. We will cancel but there are no great solutions to this virus and no cost free options.
Yes, it is sad and difficult. I would think it reasonable to meet, minus grand daughter.
2 covid cases again at my Mother in Laws nursing home, after 6 weeks clear, so all confined to rooms again.
It is getting to be a case of the cure being worse than the disease. We have to live with the virus and accept the consequences. Trashing the economy, taking the joy out of people's lives is no way to live. There might have been a need for drastic measures at the start when little was known about the disease and its consequences but we are ruining ourselves.
How does behaving responsibly take the joy out of peoples lives?
I rather like the hamburger scene in Falling Down, I've never seen the movie I must admit but seen that scene before on YouTube. I always hated it when it was 10:31 and a certain burger restaurant insists they won't do breakfast too.
Apropos of nothing they do end up offering to sort out his breakfast afterall.
I should probably watch the rest of the movie at some point.
The movie is really good.
Bizarrely, the thing that I think is most similar to it would be one of Stewart Lee's best sets, where he has the audience unsure of whether the joke is at their expense or someone else's and they don't know if they ought to be laughing.
On topic. It's easy to blame Leavers, but it's worth remembering that May was a Remainer. It was May who made the decision to choose restricting immigration as the first principle of her Brexit policy. It was May who decided to play the whole issue as an opportunity for partisan advantage, rather than a defining event for the country as a whole. It was May who explicitly created division.
Also, where were the Remainers that free trade Leavers might have allied with? With some notable exceptions, as a group they chose to repudiate the referendum result rather than accept it. Remainers refused to accept the chance to take most of what they wanted, in a practical sense, in favour of holding out for what they wanted in identity terms.
My assumption in the aftermath of the referendum was that pragmatic people on both sides would ensure continued Single Market membership, the Norway option, as a compromise.
But the populist nonsense that is Brexit also exists on the other side, and there simply aren't enough pragmatic people left. We're in dire trouble.
However, the UK's economy is still 11.7% smaller than it was in February and growth in July was smaller than the 8.7% expansion seen in June.
Thomas Pugh, UK economist at Capital Economics, said the reopening of restaurants and pubs meant the accommodation and food services sector "rose by a whopping 140.8%" between June and July.
Still decent news, I am sure we can all be happy about this.
August looks like a better month too, but September is down from the early transaction data. Still growth but nowhere near what we saw from August data. Expect the sentiment indices to come in around the low 50s for September and the composite PMI to be around 52-53 down from 60.
I don't want to bore people with my family circumstances but I think that they are a good example of the problems. My daughter went to the restaurant (now closed) in Glasgow on Wednesday night. Yesterday she met her brother's girlfriend in another restaurant in Dundee for 3 hours without masks. Today that girlfriend will have gone into school...
What can we draw from this? The most obvious point is that my daughter has a much better social life than me but more fundamentally and generally track and trace is just never going to keep up with these contacts and possible trails of infection. It's just impossible. T&T may identify some of the potential infection and thus reduce the R number but it cannot be the answer. It's always going to be too slow.
I think its this conclusion which has driven the government to the mass testing talked about yesterday. It is logistically challenging and frighteningly expensive but nothing else is going to work.
An app, that is much more likely to be used by young people, would certainly help...
I may also say that Boris and or Cummings has contrived to engage where his troops are once again marching steeply uphill against fortified emplacements. I really don't get why he did not select more even territory, a level playing field, even.
Their storming of the Heights of Abraham; I'd like to think that it would lead to the death of one or both of their careers, but..
To further flog a tortuous metaphor, and no great mischief if they (the SCons) fall.
He mentions that major Labour problem many times in that article but fails to draw the obvious conclusion. If Starmer can do what Corbyn failed to do, where do you think the issue might have been?
However, the UK's economy is still 11.7% smaller than it was in February and growth in July was smaller than the 8.7% expansion seen in June.
Thomas Pugh, UK economist at Capital Economics, said the reopening of restaurants and pubs meant the accommodation and food services sector "rose by a whopping 140.8%" between June and July.
Still decent news, I am sure we can all be happy about this.
August looks like a better month too, but September is down from the early transaction data. Still growth but nowhere near what we saw from August data. Expect the sentiment indices to come in around the low 50s for September and the composite PMI to be around 52-53 down from 60.
Considering the expiration of the EOTHO offer I would be very surprised if there's growth in Services in September MoM.
The sad thing is that my wife is very conscious that her mother (who is a widow) is really starting to struggle with the lockdown and shielding. She is repeating herself more and more, she is getting more confused and she is not happy. My wife has been trying to get her out more by being a taxi for her so that she is less isolated and the lunch today was a part of that. We will cancel but there are no great solutions to this virus and no cost free options.
Yes, it is sad and difficult. I would think it reasonable to meet, minus grand daughter.
2 covid cases again at my Mother in Laws nursing home, after 6 weeks clear, so all confined to rooms again.
It is getting to be a case of the cure being worse than the disease. We have to live with the virus and accept the consequences. Trashing the economy, taking the joy out of people's lives is no way to live. There might have been a need for drastic measures at the start when little was known about the disease and its consequences but we are ruining ourselves.
How does behaving responsibly take the joy out of peoples lives?
What a weird question. Some people havent seen their family in six months and wont in a year, others are stressed, depressed and not seeing friends or doing social activities. Of course joy has been taken out of some of our lives in 2020 - it was probably mostly needed imo, but to question whether it has happened is strange.
I made the point earlier in the week that this place has regressed from being a balanced mix to an overwhelming pro EU, anti Boris abbatoir. No problem with that I'm not pro Boris but it makes for very dull, one sided conversation.
I log on 2 or 3 days later and see more of the same in a header from Alastair Meeks.
Mr Smithson this is your site and your prerogative but you might wonder why the number of posters and contributions has fallen.
I think the problem has been that a number of vocal leavers - say @MaxPB, @Casino_Royale, @Richard_Tyndall, @DavidL and myself - have found ourselves in the position of criticising the government over their proposed Internal Markets Bill.
So, I don't think the issue is that Leavers have left the site (are there any that you can think of that were here three months ago, that are not here now?), but more the government is behaving in an incompetent and self defeating manner.
I have been very vocal in condemning Boris on this to the extent I believe he should resign and I absolutely agree HMG is behaving in an incompetent and self defeating manner.
However, I still want the divorce from the EU confirmed at the end of the year and continue as a conservative party member
Well yes. And this is the bit I find most objectionable, it's a "all people who are not with me are against me" attitude. If you don't back us passing a stupid law, then you must be a closet Remainer.
I am not the biggest Boris fan. I thought him better than May, but have never loved the "lovable rogue" image he's created for himself.
But the slipshod way that the Internal Markets Bill has been drafted (being incompatible with our membership of a bunch of international bodeies), that it has been released at a time when the UK is trying to replicate existing tax treaties with individual EU states, make me rather cross.
If you think the EU is being unreasonable, then say so and withdraw from the Withdrawal Agreement. Don't attempt to make domestic law incompatible with Treaty Obligations. Because that's just being a wanker.
Also, the closest Remainers are more likely to be the ones supporting it since such madness is far more likely to blow up the UK's reputation and ability to make a success of Brexit, potentially catapulting back into the EU out of desperation (Euro, EU army, social and fiscal union, crime & justice increasingly centralised, full federalis, free blue and gold star flags for kids, the works..) in less than 10 years.
You want British independence to stick?
You have to do it sensibly, sustainably and moderately so it beds in safely and a new consensus is built.
There is no sensible, sustainable and moderate Brexit. The sensible ones are simply not sustainable. The extreme position is always in the driving seat, as @AlastairMeeks covers in the header. That goes for Rejoiners too. Quasi-EEA will be in manifestos next GE, I expect, but seen by both Leavers and Remainers as a way back to full membership.
Completely disagree. This is just confirmation bias on your part.
A good close collaborative FTA with the EU is there *RIGHT NOW* for the taking.
It needs 6-18 months of transition and bedding in and then we're all set to go.
You don't want it to be of course (which is why you're secretly glad that a few key loons in Government are trying to blow it up) but that's quite a separate matter.
Giving in on fishing, state aid, Irish sea customs etc is doable, but not sustainable. The Faragists would be apoplectic.
Exactly, if the government did all that it would be a breach of the Tory manifesto to regain control of our fishing waters and end EU sovereignty and many Leavers would defect back to Farage and the Brexit Party giving Labour a clear poll lead despite no increase in voteshare
But you are happy for them to breach the Tory manifesto with regards to the Boris deal now being torn up
Brexit has an abstract idea commands support of over 50% of the electorate - but as soon as you define, it the support disappears. We have seen this in poll after poll.
We saw recently that No Deal is a minority viewpoint (source: YouGov) and so Johnson is implementing something the majority don't want.
Right now the Tory base remains strong because Brexit is still seen to have not been delivered (I guess) but once it is delivered, the contradictions in the base must surely come to light.
In these respects Scottish independence is very similar. That does not make the SNP's position unreasonable (though I don't support them). The people as a whole can have a view on broad strategy - and UK out of the EU is just such a view, as is Scottish independence - and it is the unique task of government and parliament then to effect it. Tough game politics.
Parliament acting well could of course have had a soft cross party Brexit and in its wisdom chose not to - mostly by Labour withholding support.
Incidentally having +50% support is quite uncommon in anything with a fairly wide range of options. Most things are done on pluralities really.
That's lower growth than the previous month and the UK is still down 11% on the year. I'm happy the economy is growing but the hyperbole we saw in the predictions last week must be highlighted: this is adequate not world-beating.
I made a mental note specifically when I read that last week to look out for what we got today.
A very safe way to view Brexit is at each stage to imagine the worst possible outcome, watch it play out and then watch it get worse. As with retaining the Union, the only way this conceivably changes is with a change of occupant at Number 10. And that is not going to happen for at least four years.
Relatedly, the GOP are apparently going door-to-door in swing states, while Dems are sticking to online and phone operations to avoid spreading the rona.
It's good news for sure but I wouldn't call it world beating.
Growth trajectory is down, this month was lower than June
If I was Sunak, I would be bricking myself at those numbers. The rebound is clearly slowing and about to run out well, well below the pre-crisis levels.
And that's before we factor in Hatt Mancock's new job destroying regulations, set to smash the Christmas restaurant trade to bits.
Sunak wants to hit an economy like that with tax increases?
I rather like the hamburger scene in Falling Down, I've never seen the movie I must admit but seen that scene before on YouTube. I always hated it when it was 10:31 and a certain burger restaurant insists they won't do breakfast too.
Apropos of nothing they do end up offering to sort out his breakfast afterall.
I should probably watch the rest of the movie at some point.
The movie is really good.
Bizarrely, the thing that I think is most similar to it would be one of Stewart Lee's best sets, where he has the audience unsure of whether the joke is at their expense or someone else's and they don't know if they ought to be laughing.
On topic. It's easy to blame Leavers, but it's worth remembering that May was a Remainer. It was May who made the decision to choose restricting immigration as the first principle of her Brexit policy. It was May who decided to play the whole issue as an opportunity for partisan advantage, rather than a defining event for the country as a whole. It was May who explicitly created division.
Also, where were the Remainers that free trade Leavers might have allied with? With some notable exceptions, as a group they chose to repudiate the referendum result rather than accept it. Remainers refused to accept the chance to take most of what they wanted, in a practical sense, in favour of holding out for what they wanted in identity terms.
My assumption in the aftermath of the referendum was that pragmatic people on both sides would ensure continued Single Market membership, the Norway option, as a compromise.
But the populist nonsense that is Brexit also exists on the other side, and there simply aren't enough pragmatic people left. We're in dire trouble.
As you say the Tories ruled out single market membership immediately and refused to compromise on that. The idea that a compromise deal involving single market membership was proposed to Remainers and they rejected it is pure revisionism. That simply never happened.
That's lower growth than the previous month and the UK is still down 11% on the year. I'm happy the economy is growing but the hyperbole we saw in the predictions last week must be highlighted: this is adequate not world-beating.
I made a mental note specifically when I read that last week to look out for what we got today.
Relatedly, the GOP are apparently going door-to-door in swing states, while Dems are sticking to online and phone operations to avoid spreading the rona.
It's good news for sure but I wouldn't call it world beating.
Growth trajectory is down, this month was lower than June
That's not the way it works, especially considering these are month on month figures not year on year ones.
As you get closer to being back to 100% there is less room to catch up so you would expect the MoM growth figures to slow down even if there is a v-shaped recovery. If we had 6.6% growth again in August and September then by end of September the UK economy would be ~100.3% of its pre-COVID amount. The recession would have been eliminated completely.
I don't want to bore people with my family circumstances but I think that they are a good example of the problems. My daughter went to the restaurant (now closed) in Glasgow on Wednesday night. Yesterday she met her brother's girlfriend in another restaurant in Dundee for 3 hours without masks. Today that girlfriend will have gone into school...
What can we draw from this? The most obvious point is that my daughter has a much better social life than me but more fundamentally and generally track and trace is just never going to keep up with these contacts and possible trails of infection. It's just impossible. T&T may identify some of the potential infection and thus reduce the R number but it cannot be the answer. It's always going to be too slow.
I think its this conclusion which has driven the government to the mass testing talked about yesterday. It is logistically challenging and frighteningly expensive but nothing else is going to work.
A quantitative and qualitative boost in testing is necessary. I just wish this government, instead of distractions of moonshots, would stick to what's important: we need to do much more of what we are doing and we need to do it much better.
I had a dream that I had a meeting with Donald Trump at a Trump Hotel, and they insisted I couldn't take my phone into the meeting and they had to hold onto it, then at the end of the meeting they wouldn't give the phone back, Trump sent a smug-looking flunky to say, "we're a hotel, we don't offer the service of looking after phones".
Brexit has an abstract idea commands support of over 50% of the electorate - but as soon as you define, it the support disappears. We have seen this in poll after poll.
We saw recently that No Deal is a minority viewpoint (source: YouGov) and so Johnson is implementing something the majority don't want.
Right now the Tory base remains strong because Brexit is still seen to have not been delivered (I guess) but once it is delivered, the contradictions in the base must surely come to light.
In these respects Scottish independence is very similar. That does not make the SNP's position unreasonable (though I don't support them). The people as a whole can have a view on broad strategy - and UK out of the EU is just such a view, as is Scottish independence - and it is the unique task of government and parliament then to effect it. Tough game politics.
Parliament acting well could of course have had a soft cross party Brexit and in its wisdom chose not to - mostly by Labour withholding support.
Incidentally having +50% support is quite uncommon in anything with a fairly wide range of options. Most things are done on pluralities really.
The ironic thing is that if Labour had backed May's deal then we would likely now have a Labour government.
The sad thing is that my wife is very conscious that her mother (who is a widow) is really starting to struggle with the lockdown and shielding. She is repeating herself more and more, she is getting more confused and she is not happy. My wife has been trying to get her out more by being a taxi for her so that she is less isolated and the lunch today was a part of that. We will cancel but there are no great solutions to this virus and no cost free options.
Yes, it is sad and difficult. I would think it reasonable to meet, minus grand daughter.
2 covid cases again at my Mother in Laws nursing home, after 6 weeks clear, so all confined to rooms again.
It is getting to be a case of the cure being worse than the disease. We have to live with the virus and accept the consequences. Trashing the economy, taking the joy out of people's lives is no way to live. There might have been a need for drastic measures at the start when little was known about the disease and its consequences but we are ruining ourselves.
How does behaving responsibly take the joy out of peoples lives?
What a weird question. Some people havent seen their family in six months and wont in a year, others are stressed, depressed and not seeing friends or doing social activities. Of course joy has been taken out of some of our lives in 2020 - it was probably mostly needed imo, but to question whether it has happened is strange.
Most of that is perfectly doable now it just needs to take place within the published framework. Try a 50 odd day real lockdown where the only people you met were at the supermarket.
I think the govt have made a mess of this. The latest measures will see the public turn against them. The problem is, no one in the HofC (except Steve Baker and Desmond Swayne?) suggested, or is suggesting, doing anything differently.
We are back to the 2010-2015 era when the two main parties were squabbling over how to best to continue EU membership and mass immigration while a large minority, which ended up being a small majority, of the country didn't want either
I rather like the hamburger scene in Falling Down, I've never seen the movie I must admit but seen that scene before on YouTube. I always hated it when it was 10:31 and a certain burger restaurant insists they won't do breakfast too.
Apropos of nothing they do end up offering to sort out his breakfast afterall.
I should probably watch the rest of the movie at some point.
The movie is really good.
Bizarrely, the thing that I think is most similar to it would be one of Stewart Lee's best sets, where he has the audience unsure of whether the joke is at their expense or someone else's and they don't know if they ought to be laughing.
On topic. It's easy to blame Leavers, but it's worth remembering that May was a Remainer. It was May who made the decision to choose restricting immigration as the first principle of her Brexit policy. It was May who decided to play the whole issue as an opportunity for partisan advantage, rather than a defining event for the country as a whole. It was May who explicitly created division.
Also, where were the Remainers that free trade Leavers might have allied with? With some notable exceptions, as a group they chose to repudiate the referendum result rather than accept it. Remainers refused to accept the chance to take most of what they wanted, in a practical sense, in favour of holding out for what they wanted in identity terms.
My assumption in the aftermath of the referendum was that pragmatic people on both sides would ensure continued Single Market membership, the Norway option, as a compromise.
But the populist nonsense that is Brexit also exists on the other side, and there simply aren't enough pragmatic people left. We're in dire trouble.
As you say the Tories ruled out single market membership immediately and refused to compromise on that. The idea that a compromise deal involving single market membership was proposed to Remainers and they rejected it is pure revisionism. That simply never happened.
All party leaders ruled out Single Market before the referendum.
Relatedly, the GOP are apparently going door-to-door in swing states, while Dems are sticking to online and phone operations to avoid spreading the rona.
I don't want to bore people with my family circumstances but I think that they are a good example of the problems. My daughter went to the restaurant (now closed) in Glasgow on Wednesday night. Yesterday she met her brother's girlfriend in another restaurant in Dundee for 3 hours without masks. Today that girlfriend will have gone into school...
What can we draw from this? The most obvious point is that my daughter has a much better social life than me but more fundamentally and generally track and trace is just never going to keep up with these contacts and possible trails of infection. It's just impossible. T&T may identify some of the potential infection and thus reduce the R number but it cannot be the answer. It's always going to be too slow.
I think its this conclusion which has driven the government to the mass testing talked about yesterday. It is logistically challenging and frighteningly expensive but nothing else is going to work.
An app, that is much more likely to be used by young people, would certainly help...
Germany too had problems implementing a track and trace app and did a U-turn in the tracking method to implement. The "Corona-Warn" app was eventually released in mid-June. WTF is going on in the UK so that 3 months after Germany finally got the app working, the UK still has no widely available app. That is a disgrace.
That's lower growth than the previous month and the UK is still down 11% on the year. I'm happy the economy is growing but the hyperbole we saw in the predictions last week must be highlighted: this is adequate not world-beating.
I made a mental note specifically when I read that last week to look out for what we got today.
What was predicted ?
I would have to delve through the posts but the tone was - strongest levels of growth in Europe if not hlobally and that the figures would be stunning with the UK at the very forefront of global growth.
Relatedly, the GOP are apparently going door-to-door in swing states, while Dems are sticking to online and phone operations to avoid spreading the rona.
It's really, really hard to know what the impact of differences like this is going to be.
Reminds me of Labour's ground game in 2015 (hello IOS) and the Tories giving up the fight by going online.
Or the reverse in 2016, Trump was supposed to be horrendously disorganized and have no effective campaigning presence on the ground, while the Dems were supposed to have a meticulously-planned ground game for the swing states.
This may of course have been true, in which case we could be looking at the unwind of that advantage, and then some because of the differential willingness-to-give-voters-covid effect.
Relatedly, the GOP are apparently going door-to-door in swing states, while Dems are sticking to online and phone operations to avoid spreading the rona.
It's really, really hard to know what the impact of differences like this is going to be.
Reminds me of Labour's ground game in 2015 (hello IOS) and the Tories giving up the fight by going online.
Tory ground game in 2017 was weird. Deliver this house, stop head 4 houses up then the next three and only a couple on the other side of the road. 2017 Lib Dem and 2019 Tory were much more traditional. Corbyn wasn't getting into Downing St on my watch
That's lower growth than the previous month and the UK is still down 11% on the year. I'm happy the economy is growing but the hyperbole we saw in the predictions last week must be highlighted: this is adequate not world-beating.
I made a mental note specifically when I read that last week to look out for what we got today.
That's absolutely not the case, these are very good figures. I'd be curious to see you quote what you noted that says otherwise.
Also worth noting that these are for July which was pre-EOTHO. When Max wrote last week about the data he has seen and about the success of the EOTHO scheme that was for August. The ONS won't publish that data for another month.
So next time you make mental notes you might want to note a bit more about what is being written.
Comments
"The deal will largely replicate the existing EU-Japan free trade agreement, which will cease to apply to the UK when the Brexit transition period runs out at the end of this year." and "it is unclear whether the UK has won an export quota to match the one it had as a member of the EU."
Yay! A best case scenario of a deal thats almost as good as the one it replaces. Top job.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/10/trump-gop-voter-registration-pennsylvania-411232
He meant it as happily that the Jewish community doesn't face the hardships it did in the early 20th Century, there's no battle of Cable Street.
Here's the rest of the quote
“He is very empathetic, Jeremy, but he’s empathetic with the poor, the disadvantaged, the migrant, the marginalised, the people at the bottom of the heap. Happily, that is not the Jewish community in Britain today. He would have had massive empathy with the Jewish community in Britain in the 1930s and he would have been there at Cable Street, there’s no question. But, of course, the Jewish community today is relatively prosperous.
Racism in British society since the Second World War – what does it mean? It means discrimination at work, discrimination in housing, hounding by the police on the streets, discrimination and disadvantage in education, demonisation and mischaracterisation in the mass media. That is what has happened to Afro-Caribbean and Asian immigrants and their descendants … for a whole generation – that’s now quite an influential cohort in the Labour Party and around Jeremy personally – that is what racism is.
They would say, ‘Of course, Jewish migrants to Britain in the first half of the 20th century – they lived in appalling conditions. They had it rough, they were attacked by the fascists. But, you know, that was then. The Jewish community’s moved on. It’s developed, it’s integrated and …’ This is where the failure to understand comes in – that, actually, antisemitism has different aspects to other forms of racism.”
The number of site visits and comments is what we'd see for a typical August and September.
Don't you get tired of being wrong?
There is no way England will ever rejoin. Even if we get full on Last of Us grade Brexit the EU will be blamed for it not seen as the solution. The English quite like to suffer if they can be convinced it's somebody else's fault. Hence Eastenders and the enduring fascination with WW2.
I could see the Democratic People's Republic of Scotland in the EU and the Six Counties liberated though.
The UK has had a continuous trade deficit for over two decades.
Perhaps ever more free trade hasn't worked as well for the UK as it has for other countries.
Would you be OK with the EU telling the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer that a tax cut that Parliament had passed in the Budget was unacceptable "state aid"? Is that in your view an acceptable price worth paying in order to get a deal, or does the idea of that disturb you?
Below a (imo) excellent analysis by Owen Jones of Labour's Brexit problem -
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/10/brexit-back-labour-dilemma-keir-starmer
We saw recently that No Deal is a minority viewpoint (source: YouGov) and so Johnson is implementing something the majority don't want.
Right now the Tory base remains strong because Brexit is still seen to have not been delivered (I guess) but once it is delivered, the contradictions in the base must surely come to light.
Even Johnson himself now acknowledges this.
That's why I said notwithstanding that, he seems to want a deal even if we weren't doing these measures whereas you seem to be against both these measures and against compromising on the LPF - he seems (if I understand correctly) to be happy to compromise on the LPF itself in order to get a deal which is why I wanted to ask the question. Does that make sense?
Too lazy to read and understand it.
Lies as a default position on everything.
The GOP has also seen a larger boost in registrations than Democrats in three critical areas across Pennsylvania: Erie, Luzerne and Northampton counties, all of which helped Trump flip the state by backing him after supporting former President Barack Obama in 2012.
Overall, registered Democrats now make up 47 percent of the state’s electorate, down from 49 percent in September 2016. Republicans comprise 39 percent, up from 38 percent four years ago. Many party officials credit Trump himself for narrowing the gap.
“It’s Trump, Trump, Trump,” said Gloria Lee Snover, chair of the Northampton County Republican Party. When she has signed up voters, she added, “They’re like, ‘Oh, I want to be in the Trump party.’ It’s kind of funny. ... I’m like, ‘You mean the Republican Party?’ They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah.’”
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/10/trump-gop-voter-registration-pennsylvania-411232
What can we draw from this? The most obvious point is that my daughter has a much better social life than me but more fundamentally and generally track and trace is just never going to keep up with these contacts and possible trails of infection. It's just impossible. T&T may identify some of the potential infection and thus reduce the R number but it cannot be the answer. It's always going to be too slow.
I think its this conclusion which has driven the government to the mass testing talked about yesterday. It is logistically challenging and frighteningly expensive but nothing else is going to work.
The cabinet are out of step with the public.
Just because we have the ability to go for a first strike, it doesn't mean we should. The fact is neither of us know what the EU would do if we cut corporation tax to 10% in a no deal scenario. Chances are they would just live with it and the theoretical ability to block it via the NI protocol remains theoretical because they wouldn't want to be in a first strike position either.
In practice, even if we did sign up to what you say, the Chancellor could do the tax cut, it would apply in the UK regardless, and if it was ruled as state aid unfairly by the EU, break the rules and repudiate the treaty at that point. Then we would get the benefits of a trade deal for however many years before this unlikely hypothetical scenario comes into play.
Thomas Pugh, UK economist at Capital Economics, said the reopening of restaurants and pubs meant the accommodation and food services sector "rose by a whopping 140.8%" between June and July.
Still decent news, I am sure we can all be happy about this.
TRQs effectively limit the amount of imported competition facing domestic suppliers of sensitive products. So the EU may have agreed with the third country a TRQ of 20 000 tons for a product, to be shared amongst EU members. Anything up to the 20 000 tons goes in at an affordable tarrif; above it the tariff makes imports unviable.
Problem is the EU having agreed the FTA with the third country won't share its 20 000 tons with a Brexited UK. Domestic producers in the third country who have already grudgingly conceded 20 000 tons of competition are in no mood to allow more for UK. UK doesn't want a trade deal where it loses its current access.
The compromise in the Japan FTA is that the UK will eligible for any leftover EU TRQs that members don't take up. UK exporters will have less access than before but how much less depends on what their EU competitors do.
It is the new vogue
I wasn't trying to discuss this 'strike' as you put it. Just ask the question in isolation as to whether handing the EU power to determine that a UK tax cut passed by the Chancellor is acceptable in exchange for a deal, or if that is troublesome.
A very safe way to view Brexit is at each stage to imagine the worst possible outcome, watch it play out and then watch it get worse. As with retaining the Union, the only way this conceivably changes is with a change of occupant at Number 10. And that is not going to happen for at least four years.
?
My employer has confirmed that we're not expected in the office until after Easter now.
I was asking as to whether he thought it would be worth handing that power over for a FTA deal or not?
https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1304299097717964802
Bizarrely, the thing that I think is most similar to it would be one of Stewart Lee's best sets, where he has the audience unsure of whether the joke is at their expense or someone else's and they don't know if they ought to be laughing.
On topic. It's easy to blame Leavers, but it's worth remembering that May was a Remainer. It was May who made the decision to choose restricting immigration as the first principle of her Brexit policy. It was May who decided to play the whole issue as an opportunity for partisan advantage, rather than a defining event for the country as a whole. It was May who explicitly created division.
Also, where were the Remainers that free trade Leavers might have allied with? With some notable exceptions, as a group they chose to repudiate the referendum result rather than accept it. Remainers refused to accept the chance to take most of what they wanted, in a practical sense, in favour of holding out for what they wanted in identity terms.
My assumption in the aftermath of the referendum was that pragmatic people on both sides would ensure continued Single Market membership, the Norway option, as a compromise.
But the populist nonsense that is Brexit also exists on the other side, and there simply aren't enough pragmatic people left. We're in dire trouble.
Growth trajectory is down, this month was lower than June
To further flog a tortuous metaphor, and no great mischief if they (the SCons) fall.
If there is, that would be fantastic news.
Parliament acting well could of course have had a soft cross party Brexit and in its wisdom chose not to - mostly by Labour withholding support.
Incidentally having +50% support is quite uncommon in anything with a fairly wide range of options. Most things are done on pluralities really.
I made a mental note specifically when I read that last week to look out for what we got today.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-voter-turnout-november-elections-democrat-republican-tactics/
It's really, really hard to know what the impact of differences like this is going to be.
And that's before we factor in Hatt Mancock's new job destroying regulations, set to smash the Christmas restaurant trade to bits.
Sunak wants to hit an economy like that with tax increases?
Is he insane?
As you get closer to being back to 100% there is less room to catch up so you would expect the MoM growth figures to slow down even if there is a v-shaped recovery. If we had 6.6% growth again in August and September then by end of September the UK economy would be ~100.3% of its pre-COVID amount. The recession would have been eliminated completely.
We are back to the 2010-2015 era when the two main parties were squabbling over how to best to continue EU membership and mass immigration while a large minority, which ended up being a small majority, of the country didn't want either
This may of course have been true, in which case we could be looking at the unwind of that advantage, and then some because of the differential willingness-to-give-voters-covid effect.
2017 Lib Dem and 2019 Tory were much more traditional. Corbyn wasn't getting into Downing St on my watch
The concern, as Sunak has identified, is that they are based off a period in which employment benefitted from very significant support.
There is jobs data next week, but, of course, it won't be until next month that they will show the effect of furlough ending.
Also worth noting that these are for July which was pre-EOTHO. When Max wrote last week about the data he has seen and about the success of the EOTHO scheme that was for August. The ONS won't publish that data for another month.
So next time you make mental notes you might want to note a bit more about what is being written.