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Merry Christmas: rising Covid cases, No Deal Brexit, recession and maybe lockdown – politicalbetting

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  • Foxy said:

    dixiedean said:

    Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain.
    And all the children are insane.
    All the children are insane.
    Waiting for the Summer rain.

    The West is the best!
    It’s Apocalypse Now.
    Or as Brexiteers would have it: Can you picture what we’ll be? So limitless and free.
    Desperately in need of
    some strangers hand
    In a desperate land...
    I actually think the first two Doors albums are so perfect that the four white blokes, keyboard, vocals, lead and bass guitar should have been rietired. No-one was very going to improve on what they’d done.
    They are very good but the line up was vocals, guitar, keyboard and drums.

    The two little known post Jim albums aren't bad either.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,263
    CNN: - For the purposes of this article, CNN spoke with multiple figures within the Conservative party, from Members of Parliament to former advisers and campaigners. Most agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, in order that they could be candid about what they perceive as the failures of their leader.

    More than 20 Conservative sources across the party believe a significant catalyst for the gulf in trust between the PM and his party was the decision to hire Dominic Cummings...to serve as his most senior adviser. They believed Cummings was a ticking timebomb whose unpredictability would inevitably land the PM in trouble.

    The numerous U-turns of 2020 have mostly related to Johnson's handling of the pandemic, which many Conservatives believe has been too stringent and unnecessarily hard. "All that good will he had for delivering our Brexit dream is being overwritten by the fact he's not behaving like a Conservative," explained a veteran Tory on the right of the party.

    The criticism that Johnson has taken too many of these decisions without consulting his MPs comes up again and again.

    One year on from their triumph, the Conservatives' champagne has well and truly lost its fizz. Johnson spent most of 2020 making decisions that seemed tailor-made to irritate many of the Conservatives who backed him to get the UK put of the EU.

    Johnson could find that minor grumbles grow into outright mutiny. And he may find himself increasingly isolated at a crucial moment in British history.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 43,066
    OllyT said:

    The worst peacetime conditions for any Government in a century and their polling is still quite strong. Maybe, just maybe, the obsessions of a certain class of fault-finders are not shared quite as universally as they imagine?

    70+ million still voted for Trump. Doesn't mean that anyone in their right mind believes he's right.
    Quite. And in any case, if a political leader who so clearly cares only for his own interests and fucks up almost everything he touches somehow manages to retain the support of much of the public, this is no cause for celebration for anybody who truly loves this country.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 24,252
    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    Those herrings are seriously nice. I've no idea what Gauke is on about.
    I agree, but a certain conservative mentality - the classic Brexiter modality - really, really will nto touch them. Some years ago some older friends came round for dinner - pickled herring, M&S chicken pie, pud. Wouldn't look at the herring. Disaster easily averted - each got a one and a third portion of pie and I had four portions of herring for my starter and main.
    Interesting. I have not tried pickled herring. I don't think of pickled things out of a jar as more than a garnish, even though I have a dozen different pickled things in the kitchen.

    OTOH I have 2kg of kippers in the freezer.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    I can think of an English speaking city that might not be a bad fit.
    Too cold and dark
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 43,066
    ydoethur said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I shall dabble sparingly (as Frodo said when he took on the burden of The Ring).

    I have just seen a thing on Twitter that is amazing

    People watch the LOTR films in order, and every time somebody on screen eats something, they eat along. Dozens of courses, all of them themed to the movies.

    It's remarkable
    Do they also smoke every time someone lights up?

    If so, lung and bowel cancer INCOMING...
    Don't say that! I still haven't quit.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,724
    edited December 2020
    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    Those herrings are seriously nice. I've no idea what Gauke is on about.
    I agree, but a certain conservative mentality - the classic Brexiter modality - really, really will nto touch them. Some years ago some older friends came round for dinner - pickled herring, M&S chicken pie, pud. Wouldn't look at the herring. Disaster easily averted - each got a one and a third portion of pie and I had four portions of herring for my starter and main.
    Interesting. I have not tried pickled herring. I don't think of pickled things out of a jar as more than a garnish, even though I have a dozen different pickled things in the kitchen.

    OTOH I have 2kg of kippers in the freezer.
    Yum re the kippers.

    Well worth trying the herring sometime. It's not usually very vinegary. Also keeps well in the fridge for months. Best eaten I think with some sort of veg or salad to cut its oiliness. I often have pickled (not just boiled) beetroot and fresh tomato with it which are both sharp in their different ways. Served with brown/wholemeal bread or boiled potatoes. Maybe yourt fishmonger sells pots of pickled herring. Or you can buy jars at IKEA for instance (in the food shop near the doors).
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,288
    The £3.50 London car entry fee is the first Sadiq policy that I could get on board with. As long as exemptions or heavy discounts are available for people who work in London but live outside and all of the money raised is ploughed back into TfL instead of some pet project that the mayor wants to fund.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,508
    Meanwhile. If anyone is thinking of earning some Xmas cash on a game show.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/12/police-investigate-suspected-voyeur-over-fake-nude-gameshow
  • Carnyx said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    That's actually Danish herring ...
    Even worse! Its probably poisoned.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331

    Foxy said:

    dixiedean said:

    Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain.
    And all the children are insane.
    All the children are insane.
    Waiting for the Summer rain.

    The West is the best!
    It’s Apocalypse Now.
    Or as Brexiteers would have it: Can you picture what we’ll be? So limitless and free.
    Desperately in need of
    some strangers hand
    In a desperate land...
    I actually think the first two Doors albums are so perfect that the four white blokes, keyboard, vocals, lead and bass guitar should have been rietired. No-one was very going to improve on what they’d done.
    They are very good but the line up was vocals, guitar, keyboard and drums.

    The two little known post Jim albums aren't bad either.
    Of course! Posted in rather too much of a hurry. But in 50 years no-one has been able to surpass them in terms of the basic rock music formula.
  • kinabalu said:

    Covid: Christmas five-day relaxation period 'a mistake'

    Prof Bauld told BBC Breakfast that "from a public health perspective, I have to be perfectly honest, I think this is a mistake and I think people, even though we're permitted to do this, I think people have to think very carefully whether they can see loved ones outside or do it in a very, very modest way".

    She added there was "nothing to stop" governments reversing the rules, "but the problem is they've made that commitment to people across the UK, and that may affect trust in government if they roll back on that".

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55279371

    I'm beginning to suspect that it will make little difference - once covid is in the country it will steadily circulate.

    All governments can do is 'flatten the curve'.
    But "flattening the curve" IS making a difference. Keep a lid on the virus and prevent the NHS falling over until the vaccine is rolled out. That's the strategy and it's the only feasible one. There is no realistic option to eradicate it. Nobody thinks that's possible.
    There's plenty of people who do think the government should be able to eradicate it - remember when mask wearing was believed to be the 'magic bullet' ?

    And there's plenty of people who oppose any restriction on things they like to do - most of the oldies I know seem to be on a suicide mission.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
  • GaussianGaussian Posts: 831
    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,263
    kinabalu said:

    OllyT said:

    The worst peacetime conditions for any Government in a century and their polling is still quite strong. Maybe, just maybe, the obsessions of a certain class of fault-finders are not shared quite as universally as they imagine?

    70+ million still voted for Trump. Doesn't mean that anyone in their right mind believes he's right.
    Quite. And in any case, if a political leader who so clearly cares only for his own interests and fucks up almost everything he touches somehow manages to retain the support of much of the public, this is no cause for celebration for anybody who truly loves this country.
    Agreed. And Trump is no better.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,457
    Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    Those herrings are seriously nice. I've no idea what Gauke is on about.
    I agree, but a certain conservative mentality - the classic Brexiter modality - really, really will nto touch them. Some years ago some older friends came round for dinner - pickled herring, M&S chicken pie, pud. Wouldn't look at the herring. Disaster easily averted - each got a one and a third portion of pie and I had four portions of herring for my starter and main.
    Interesting. I have not tried pickled herring. I don't think of pickled things out of a jar as more than a garnish, even though I have a dozen different pickled things in the kitchen.

    OTOH I have 2kg of kippers in the freezer.
    Yum re the kippers.

    Well worth trying the herring sometime. It's not usually very vinegary. Also keeps well in the fridge for months. Best eaten I think with some sort of veg or salad to cut its oiliness. I often have pickled (not just boiled) beetroot and fresh tomato with it which are both sharp in their different ways. Served with brown/wholemeal bread or boiled potatoes. Maybe yourt fishmonger sells pots of pickled herring. Or you can buy jars at IKEA for instance (in the food shop near the doors).
    The best way to prepare kippers is to get them cooked in someone else's kitchen.

    Pickled herring is delicious, and the jars in IKEA good value and keep well. Serve with crispbread and sour cream.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,587
    Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    Those herrings are seriously nice. I've no idea what Gauke is on about.
    I agree, but a certain conservative mentality - the classic Brexiter modality - really, really will nto touch them. Some years ago some older friends came round for dinner - pickled herring, M&S chicken pie, pud. Wouldn't look at the herring. Disaster easily averted - each got a one and a third portion of pie and I had four portions of herring for my starter and main.
    Interesting. I have not tried pickled herring. I don't think of pickled things out of a jar as more than a garnish, even though I have a dozen different pickled things in the kitchen.

    OTOH I have 2kg of kippers in the freezer.
    Yum re the kippers.

    Well worth trying the herring sometime. It's not usually very vinegary. Also keeps well in the fridge for months. Best eaten I think with some sort of veg or salad to cut its oiliness. I often have pickled (not just boiled) beetroot and fresh tomato with it which are both sharp in their different ways. Served with brown/wholemeal bread or boiled potatoes. Maybe yourt fishmonger sells pots of pickled herring. Or you can buy jars at IKEA for instance (in the food shop near the doors).
    I'm a fan - you can get them in Waitrose too, next to the lumpen caviar (which is also good). They're tangy, not a taste the British diet has much of, so a genuine change of flavour.
  • Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    They need to take action now, not wait until a week after Christmas.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 43,066

    The worst peacetime conditions for any Government in a century and their polling is still quite strong. Maybe, just maybe, the obsessions of a certain class of fault-finders are not shared quite as universally as they imagine?

    I think one problem Labour have is people like their Shadow Education Secretary

    She fell into a massive trap yesterday spouting off against the Empire, Falklands War and demanding the curriculum be "decolonised".

    This will have been heard loud and clear in the Red Wall and will have set Starmer even further back.
    I liked the way she deigned to allow - even though she was a founding member of Labour Against Private Schools - that abolition would 'not be a priority' under a Labour Government.

    It takes some talent to lose both the Red and the Blue Wall at the same time.
    It's simply real politik. Abolition can be presented by bad actors as both authoritarian and class war at the same time and it would probably cost votes. Just leave it. I do hope they will summon up the immense courage required to retain the ending of the tax breaks, though. It will be disappointing to me if they feel they can't even go that far.
  • LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    I wonder if we could settle a million Hong Kongers in Northern Ireland.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    That two week Welsh circuit breaker worked a treat.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,724
    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    Those herrings are seriously nice. I've no idea what Gauke is on about.
    I agree, but a certain conservative mentality - the classic Brexiter modality - really, really will nto touch them. Some years ago some older friends came round for dinner - pickled herring, M&S chicken pie, pud. Wouldn't look at the herring. Disaster easily averted - each got a one and a third portion of pie and I had four portions of herring for my starter and main.
    Interesting. I have not tried pickled herring. I don't think of pickled things out of a jar as more than a garnish, even though I have a dozen different pickled things in the kitchen.

    OTOH I have 2kg of kippers in the freezer.
    Yum re the kippers.

    Well worth trying the herring sometime. It's not usually very vinegary. Also keeps well in the fridge for months. Best eaten I think with some sort of veg or salad to cut its oiliness. I often have pickled (not just boiled) beetroot and fresh tomato with it which are both sharp in their different ways. Served with brown/wholemeal bread or boiled potatoes. Maybe yourt fishmonger sells pots of pickled herring. Or you can buy jars at IKEA for instance (in the food shop near the doors).
    The best way to prepare kippers is to get them cooked in someone else's kitchen.

    Pickled herring is delicious, and the jars in IKEA good value and keep well. Serve with crispbread and sour cream.
    That is a nice idea - the required tartness to balance the fish. Must try that.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,288

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    They need to take action now, not wait until a week after Christmas.
    January is going to be a disaster and it's totally avoidable. It's literally snatching defeat from the jaws of victory given that we've got another vaccine due to be approved soon and deliveries of both ramping up. It doesn't make any sense.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,748
    Explains much about the politics of Brexit, too...

    What the Science of Addiction Tells Us About Trump
    It turns out that your brain on grievances looks a lot like your brain on drugs. And that’s a problem not just for the outgoing president, but for the rest of us.
    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/12/trump-grievance-addiction-444570
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,457
    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    Drifting up in my part of the world too, and still a bit early to show the effects of ending lockdown. No way am I joining the shopping crowds.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,546
    edited December 2020
    LadyG said:

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    That two week Welsh circuit breaker worked a treat.
    But but but but the model said it would say 100k lives.....well between 800 and 100k lives....
  • MaxPB said:

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    They need to take action now, not wait until a week after Christmas.
    January is going to be a disaster and it's totally avoidable. It's literally snatching defeat from the jaws of victory given that we've got another vaccine due to be approved soon and deliveries of both ramping up. It doesn't make any sense.
    We are all going to be in lockdown come Jan / Feb.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,263
    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    But you are simply trying to project past history forwards.

    Mr Dancer of this parish will be able to summon up multiple examples of those from later Rome who cited its previous glories as reasons as to why it would continue to go from strength to strength. Whereas in real history it was sacked by Vandals and Vikings and never recovered its predominant position.

    That the city of London survived 17th century plague is of minimal reassurance in the 21st century.
  • Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    Looks like Wales will get a Christmas lockdown.

    But I fear it would have little effect in any case.

    Because I suspect that lockdowns follow the law of diminishing marginal returns.

    Its quite clear now that those people who advocated a two week 'circuit breaker' were wrong.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 43,066
    edited December 2020

    kinabalu said:

    Covid: Christmas five-day relaxation period 'a mistake'

    Prof Bauld told BBC Breakfast that "from a public health perspective, I have to be perfectly honest, I think this is a mistake and I think people, even though we're permitted to do this, I think people have to think very carefully whether they can see loved ones outside or do it in a very, very modest way".

    She added there was "nothing to stop" governments reversing the rules, "but the problem is they've made that commitment to people across the UK, and that may affect trust in government if they roll back on that".

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55279371

    I'm beginning to suspect that it will make little difference - once covid is in the country it will steadily circulate.

    All governments can do is 'flatten the curve'.
    But "flattening the curve" IS making a difference. Keep a lid on the virus and prevent the NHS falling over until the vaccine is rolled out. That's the strategy and it's the only feasible one. There is no realistic option to eradicate it. Nobody thinks that's possible.
    There's plenty of people who do think the government should be able to eradicate it - remember when mask wearing was believed to be the 'magic bullet' ?

    And there's plenty of people who oppose any restriction on things they like to do - most of the oldies I know seem to be on a suicide mission.
    Agree on the 2nd point. There are plenty of those, yes. But, no, I'm not aware there are many who genuinely believe we can eradicate this virus. Once it got to a certain level - which was ages ago - that possibility vanished. Almost everyone realizes this, don't they? Surely they do.
  • Super fit professional athletes....

    Newcastle boss Steve Bruce, speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, on what he has had to deal with since his side last played: "It's been very difficult because we weren't at the training ground for something like 10 days.

    "We've had one or two players in particular who have had side-effects.

    "They couldn't walk to the end of the street before being fatigued.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,263

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    I wonder if we could settle a million Hong Kongers in Northern Ireland.
    It could be sold to them on the basis that in the reasonably near future they can anticipate becoming EU citizens.
  • Do pickled herring go well with sauerkraut ?

    Or are they too similar ?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,724
    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    But you are simply trying to project past history forwards.

    Mr Dancer of this parish will be able to summon up multiple examples of those from later Rome who cited its previous glories as reasons as to why it would continue to go from strength to strength. Whereas in real history it was sacked by Vandals and Vikings and never recovered its predominant position.

    That the city of London survived 17th century plague is of minimal reassurance in the 21st century.
    Not a happy precedent, with the Great Fire coming next, not to mention De Ruyter.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221

    LadyG said:

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    That two week Welsh circuit breaker worked a treat.
    But but but but the model said it would say 100k lives.....well between 800 and 100k lives....
    The basic fact is that this virus never really goes away: even a very strict lockdown of months merely squashes it, and as soon as the pressure is released, it returns. This is especially true in winter.

    The only way to beat it is total national quarantine (Taiwan, NZ) or brilliant track and trace (Korea), or nailing people to their sofas (China). None of these are options for us now.

    Vaccines are the only hope for the West (and springtime sunshine). We will therefore suffer various degrees of lockdown for months.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,263
    LadyG said:

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    That two week Welsh circuit breaker worked a treat.
    If they had run it for a week or two more, they would be well placed for Xmas.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 53,202

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    Looks like Wales will get a Christmas lockdown.

    But I fear it would have little effect in any case.

    Because I suspect that lockdowns follow the law of diminishing marginal returns.

    Its quite clear now that those people who advocated a two week 'circuit breaker' were wrong.
    I expect Starmer will give a fulsome apology....
  • LadyG said:

    LadyG said:

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    That two week Welsh circuit breaker worked a treat.
    But but but but the model said it would say 100k lives.....well between 800 and 100k lives....
    The basic fact is that this virus never really goes away: even a very strict lockdown of months merely squashes it, and as soon as the pressure is released, it returns. This is especially true in winter.

    The only way to beat it is total national quarantine (Taiwan, NZ) or brilliant track and trace (Korea), or nailing people to their sofas (China). None of these are options for us now.

    Vaccines are the only hope for the West (and springtime sunshine). We will therefore suffer various degrees of lockdown for months.
    South Korea, 950 cases today.....
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 43,066
    IanB2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    OllyT said:

    The worst peacetime conditions for any Government in a century and their polling is still quite strong. Maybe, just maybe, the obsessions of a certain class of fault-finders are not shared quite as universally as they imagine?

    70+ million still voted for Trump. Doesn't mean that anyone in their right mind believes he's right.
    Quite. And in any case, if a political leader who so clearly cares only for his own interests and fucks up almost everything he touches somehow manages to retain the support of much of the public, this is no cause for celebration for anybody who truly loves this country.
    Agreed. And Trump is no better.
    :smile: - That's the punchline I was looking for.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,031
    LadyG said:


    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.

    Every city has had its share of disasters. Berlin was a pile of rubble in 1945 and divided for 40 years after but now it is a thriving European capital. Warsaw, Budapest, Prague and Vienna to name but four all endured occupation, destruction, Communism (not Vienna of course) but have all emerged to become modern cities.

    Cities have shown themselves to be wondrously adaptable and will need to continue to demonstrate that in the decades to come. As melting pots for human ingenuity they will be in the forefront of technological and sociological changes - the future won't be like the present but it's absurd to assume the city won't prosper.
  • Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    Those herrings are seriously nice. I've no idea what Gauke is on about.
    I agree, but a certain conservative mentality - the classic Brexiter modality - really, really will nto touch them. Some years ago some older friends came round for dinner - pickled herring, M&S chicken pie, pud. Wouldn't look at the herring. Disaster easily averted - each got a one and a third portion of pie and I had four portions of herring for my starter and main.
    Interesting. I have not tried pickled herring. I don't think of pickled things out of a jar as more than a garnish, even though I have a dozen different pickled things in the kitchen.

    OTOH I have 2kg of kippers in the freezer.
    Yum re the kippers.

    Well worth trying the herring sometime. It's not usually very vinegary. Also keeps well in the fridge for months. Best eaten I think with some sort of veg or salad to cut its oiliness. I often have pickled (not just boiled) beetroot and fresh tomato with it which are both sharp in their different ways. Served with brown/wholemeal bread or boiled potatoes. Maybe yourt fishmonger sells pots of pickled herring. Or you can buy jars at IKEA for instance (in the food shop near the doors).
    I'm a fan - you can get them in Waitrose too, next to the lumpen caviar (which is also good). They're tangy, not a taste the British diet has much of, so a genuine change of flavour.
    Lumpen caviar for the proletariat?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,546
    edited December 2020
    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    That two week Welsh circuit breaker worked a treat.
    If they had run it for a week or two more, they would be well placed for Xmas.
    Not with the policy when they came out of banning oven glove sales they wouldn't....the no tier approach, lets all go back to basically the equivalent of the lowest tier in England, was criminal.

    It was pure playing politics. Attempting to make a distinction of look at us in Wales, we did two weeks of lockdown and now we are all freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, while England is in lockdown. And they are still playing politics now, with the insistence now decision on new proper restrictions until after Christmas, as they just can't admit it has failed, and failed miserably.
  • GaussianGaussian Posts: 831

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    I wonder if we could settle a million Hong Kongers in Northern Ireland.
    Great idea, make it a three-way fight.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    But you are simply trying to project past history forwards.

    Mr Dancer of this parish will be able to summon up multiple examples of those from later Rome who cited its previous glories as reasons as to why it would continue to go from strength to strength. Whereas in real history it was sacked by Vandals and Vikings and never recovered its predominant position.

    That the city of London survived 17th century plague is of minimal reassurance in the 21st century.
    But the many predictions by Remainer "finance experts" - not newt painters - of a massive swift exodus from the City, have been proven to be wildly wrong. So, there's that. The Remainers got it wrong.


    And I suppose you could say they might still get it right.... but at some point they become cultists predicting Doomsday who keep shifting the date when it doesn't happen.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,263

    kinabalu said:

    Covid: Christmas five-day relaxation period 'a mistake'

    Prof Bauld told BBC Breakfast that "from a public health perspective, I have to be perfectly honest, I think this is a mistake and I think people, even though we're permitted to do this, I think people have to think very carefully whether they can see loved ones outside or do it in a very, very modest way".

    She added there was "nothing to stop" governments reversing the rules, "but the problem is they've made that commitment to people across the UK, and that may affect trust in government if they roll back on that".

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55279371

    I'm beginning to suspect that it will make little difference - once covid is in the country it will steadily circulate.

    All governments can do is 'flatten the curve'.
    But "flattening the curve" IS making a difference. Keep a lid on the virus and prevent the NHS falling over until the vaccine is rolled out. That's the strategy and it's the only feasible one. There is no realistic option to eradicate it. Nobody thinks that's possible.
    There's plenty of people who do think the government should be able to eradicate it - remember when mask wearing was believed to be the 'magic bullet' ?

    And there's plenty of people who oppose any restriction on things they like to do - most of the oldies I know seem to be on a suicide mission.
    My prediction: politics will eventually arrive at the point where people of working age and younger face up to the oldies and say: “fine, we sacrificed our futures to save you from the virus, now is the time for you to make sacrifices to save the future environment of our planet”. Once the COVID crisis is behind us, climate change is going to dominate our politics.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,806

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    I wonder if we could settle a million Hong Kongers in Northern Ireland.
    As someone who was born in NI - I'm quite sure the Hong Kongers in question have done nothing to deserve the "ordinary decent folk*" of the province.

    *You know, the one who go "I wouldn't support violence" - but vote for parties that have fat men in balaclavas on speed dial.
  • LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    Will be intriguing to see how the leave coalition keeps together with half a million immigrants from Hong Kong alone.
  • kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Covid: Christmas five-day relaxation period 'a mistake'

    Prof Bauld told BBC Breakfast that "from a public health perspective, I have to be perfectly honest, I think this is a mistake and I think people, even though we're permitted to do this, I think people have to think very carefully whether they can see loved ones outside or do it in a very, very modest way".

    She added there was "nothing to stop" governments reversing the rules, "but the problem is they've made that commitment to people across the UK, and that may affect trust in government if they roll back on that".

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55279371

    I'm beginning to suspect that it will make little difference - once covid is in the country it will steadily circulate.

    All governments can do is 'flatten the curve'.
    But "flattening the curve" IS making a difference. Keep a lid on the virus and prevent the NHS falling over until the vaccine is rolled out. That's the strategy and it's the only feasible one. There is no realistic option to eradicate it. Nobody thinks that's possible.
    There's plenty of people who do think the government should be able to eradicate it - remember when mask wearing was believed to be the 'magic bullet' ?

    And there's plenty of people who oppose any restriction on things they like to do - most of the oldies I know seem to be on a suicide mission.
    Agree on the 2nd point. There are plenty of those, yes. But, no, I'm not aware there are many who genuinely believe we can eradicate this virus. Once it got to a certain level - which was ages ago - that possibility vanished. Almost everyone realizes this, don't they? Surely they do.
    Not in my experience.

    I've heard many times "when's it going to be sorted".

    The people who are angriest / most demanding are holiday obsessives and oldies.

    My parents hit the roof when I told them things wouldn't improve until April.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221

    LadyG said:

    LadyG said:

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    That two week Welsh circuit breaker worked a treat.
    But but but but the model said it would say 100k lives.....well between 800 and 100k lives....
    The basic fact is that this virus never really goes away: even a very strict lockdown of months merely squashes it, and as soon as the pressure is released, it returns. This is especially true in winter.

    The only way to beat it is total national quarantine (Taiwan, NZ) or brilliant track and trace (Korea), or nailing people to their sofas (China). None of these are options for us now.

    Vaccines are the only hope for the West (and springtime sunshine). We will therefore suffer various degrees of lockdown for months.
    South Korea, 950 cases today.....
    Compared to Germany's 30,000 or the UK's 22,000..... And Germany was meant to be doing well
  • IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    I wonder if we could settle a million Hong Kongers in Northern Ireland.
    It could be sold to them on the basis that in the reasonably near future they can anticipate becoming EU citizens.
    Settle a million of them and they become the swing electorate.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,263
    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    But you are simply trying to project past history forwards.

    Mr Dancer of this parish will be able to summon up multiple examples of those from later Rome who cited its previous glories as reasons as to why it would continue to go from strength to strength. Whereas in real history it was sacked by Vandals and Vikings and never recovered its predominant position.

    That the city of London survived 17th century plague is of minimal reassurance in the 21st century.
    But the many predictions by Remainer "finance experts" - not newt painters - of a massive swift exodus from the City, have been proven to be wildly wrong. So, there's that. The Remainers got it wrong.


    And I suppose you could say they might still get it right.... but at some point they become cultists predicting Doomsday who keep shifting the date when it doesn't happen.
    The mistake remain campaigners made was to try and big up the economic and financial consequences of Brexit - particularly with no deal - such that we’d all be foraging for mushrooms and boiling up weeds within days of our exit. Whereas the reality was always that a no deal Brexit would be slow acting poison, progressively killing trade, business and jobs.

    As others have pointed out, the real message of the ‘crying wolf’ parable is that the wolf does actually turn up at the end.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,546
    edited December 2020
    LadyG said:

    LadyG said:

    LadyG said:

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    That two week Welsh circuit breaker worked a treat.
    But but but but the model said it would say 100k lives.....well between 800 and 100k lives....
    The basic fact is that this virus never really goes away: even a very strict lockdown of months merely squashes it, and as soon as the pressure is released, it returns. This is especially true in winter.

    The only way to beat it is total national quarantine (Taiwan, NZ) or brilliant track and trace (Korea), or nailing people to their sofas (China). None of these are options for us now.

    Vaccines are the only hope for the West (and springtime sunshine). We will therefore suffer various degrees of lockdown for months.
    South Korea, 950 cases today.....
    Compared to Germany's 30,000 or the UK's 22,000..... And Germany was meant to be doing well
    Germany 2nd half of the year, decisions just absolute madness. Its like they looked at France or the UK and went so what did those idiots do wrong in the spring and we will copy it. Foreign holidays, yeah great idea, not locking down hard enough, go for it, lets call it Diet Lockdown...
  • GaussianGaussian Posts: 831
    LadyG said:

    LadyG said:

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    That two week Welsh circuit breaker worked a treat.
    But but but but the model said it would say 100k lives.....well between 800 and 100k lives....
    The basic fact is that this virus never really goes away: even a very strict lockdown of months merely squashes it, and as soon as the pressure is released, it returns. This is especially true in winter.

    The only way to beat it is total national quarantine (Taiwan, NZ) or brilliant track and trace (Korea), or nailing people to their sofas (China). None of these are options for us now.

    Vaccines are the only hope for the West (and springtime sunshine). We will therefore suffer various degrees of lockdown for months.
    Gallingly, things are back to normal in China, except of course that they do take rapid authoritarian measures where the virus does show up.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    stodge said:

    LadyG said:


    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.

    Every city has had its share of disasters. Berlin was a pile of rubble in 1945 and divided for 40 years after but now it is a thriving European capital. Warsaw, Budapest, Prague and Vienna to name but four all endured occupation, destruction, Communism (not Vienna of course) but have all emerged to become modern cities.

    Cities have shown themselves to be wondrously adaptable and will need to continue to demonstrate that in the decades to come. As melting pots for human ingenuity they will be in the forefront of technological and sociological changes - the future won't be like the present but it's absurd to assume the city won't prosper.
    Tokyo is another great example. Utterly flattened in WW2 - just completely devastated. Now a thriving world city once again, full of life and ingenuity. And hot girls in plaid skirts
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,806
    kinabalu said:

    The worst peacetime conditions for any Government in a century and their polling is still quite strong. Maybe, just maybe, the obsessions of a certain class of fault-finders are not shared quite as universally as they imagine?

    I think one problem Labour have is people like their Shadow Education Secretary

    She fell into a massive trap yesterday spouting off against the Empire, Falklands War and demanding the curriculum be "decolonised".

    This will have been heard loud and clear in the Red Wall and will have set Starmer even further back.
    I liked the way she deigned to allow - even though she was a founding member of Labour Against Private Schools - that abolition would 'not be a priority' under a Labour Government.

    It takes some talent to lose both the Red and the Blue Wall at the same time.
    It's simply real politik. Abolition can be presented by bad actors as both authoritarian and class war at the same time and it would probably cost votes. Just leave it. I do hope they will summon up the immense courage required to retain the ending of the tax breaks, though. It will be disappointing to me if they feel they can't even go that far.
    The major problem that policy would have is that quite a number of charities do less charitable work* than many private schools. Bursaries and scholarships etc.

    So, either the bar of charitable status would have to be raised. Or a deluge of lawsuits on the basis of equality of application of the law**....

    *There a quite a few charities that are essentially corporations that campaign on issues. Actually feeding the hungry etc, not so much.

    **Oxford City Council once tried to declare that all the boatclubs on the river were businesses and would be charged business rates on their properties. This foundered on the fact, that in law, this was technically bollocks.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 24,252
    edited December 2020
    IanB2 said:

    MattW said:

    Scott_xP said:
    er... That's Danish.

    But we should eat more herring, just about the best dietary source of vitamin D. We're about the only Northern European nation to have lost it from our diet.
    Had mackerel for breakfast yesterday. Have kippers regularly. Delicious.
    The problem is that our catch - herring, mackerel, crab - is seen as a novelty, which Brits will at best try “for a change”, as we know here on the island where all manner of crab delights are on offer to visitors. But very few are prepared to build any of these into their regular weekly diet. Many don’t really eat fish at all; those that make their regular trip to the chippie want cod (mostly imported) or haddock (where we still rely on imports to meet demand).
    I think from where I am (as far from the sea as possible - Nottingham) products may be seen as either old-fashioned (ie grandad food), delicacies or treats (depends on price), or alien / difficult (how do i fillet a flatfish, peel a prawn, or cook a lobster?).

    We have a couple of good supermarket fish stalls. Perhaps 1 or 2 fishmongers in our town of 45k. Plus there are several fish vans doing rounds direct from Grimsby or similar. Plus all the pre-prepped stuff in supermarkets.

    If it is more than say £20/kg especially in its raw state (ie I will lose half before I eat it), then it crosses over to be a delicacy/treat for me, roughly.

    I guess I do perhaps 3 £60-70 fish orders a year, plus kippers direct from the seaport, and processed eg fishcakes and mackerel from Aldi. No idea if that is a lot for one person, or different to others.

  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,806
    nico679 said:

    Can you imagine the reaction in the UK if France said it was sending in its navy to stop UK fishermen .

    Leavers never look at things from the other point of view . Why antagonize matters when there’s still a chance of a deal unless that is the plan all along was no deal .

    The EU have shown huge restraint in not reacting to the constant barrage of idiocy and showboating from this pathetic government .

    The UK is now a global laughing stock thanks to Bozo and his lapdog cabinet .

    https://www.reuters.com/article/britain-eu-norway-fisheries/norway-warns-it-could-block-eu-british-fishing-vessels-from-jan-1-idINKBN28L1ZP
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 53,202
    IanB2 said:

    More Leave voters than Remainers have swung from the Tories to Labour since the last election, according to a major polling project that suggests Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has made some early progress in bridging the Brexit divide.

    A large 7,000-strong poll, designed to examine the political changes that have taken place since Labour’s disastrous result, found that the party was showing signs of winning over some of those who backed the Tories last year.

    ....signs......some.....

    The Tories should be W-A-Y underwater, given the shit year they have just had. That they are still nip and tuck - with favourable boundary changes still to come - gives Labour little room for optimism.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 62,056
    edited December 2020
    The stories of Rome being sacked (was that by Halfdan) would be later, after the Empire fell.

    Complacency is a very serious foe. It's a big problem for us, and the EU.

    If there's a deal to be done then done it should be, not only for the sake of immediate national interest but because if you institute a division it will grow by nature unless arrested by significant deliberate efforts of multiple entities or by the compulsion of world-changing circumstances.

    There is far less incentive for the UK to subsequently agree a deal with the EU if we've suffered all the turbulence and economic shock of leaving with no deal. The best time for both sides to sign a deal is now. The UK averts turmoil, the EU will never have more leverage.*

    And for those arch-remainers gleeful of oncoming difficulties and full of finger-wagging certainty that demanding heretics repent and intent upon our returning to the EU fold, I'd argue the vast majority, when presented with the prospect of years and decades more of what we've had for the last four years, will retort with a concise and distinctly Anglo-Saxon response.

    Edited extra bit: *Possibly excepting a couple of months into turmoil, after which it will recede rapidly.
  • GaussianGaussian Posts: 831
    LadyG said:

    LadyG said:

    LadyG said:

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    That two week Welsh circuit breaker worked a treat.
    But but but but the model said it would say 100k lives.....well between 800 and 100k lives....
    The basic fact is that this virus never really goes away: even a very strict lockdown of months merely squashes it, and as soon as the pressure is released, it returns. This is especially true in winter.

    The only way to beat it is total national quarantine (Taiwan, NZ) or brilliant track and trace (Korea), or nailing people to their sofas (China). None of these are options for us now.

    Vaccines are the only hope for the West (and springtime sunshine). We will therefore suffer various degrees of lockdown for months.
    South Korea, 950 cases today.....
    Compared to Germany's 30,000 or the UK's 22,000..... And Germany was meant to be doing well
    They got complacent after getting off lightly in the first wave. Particularly in East Germany.

    Maybe their better testing at the time helped a bit, but I think the first wave severity was primarily a function of how far the virus had spread by the time everyone locked down towards the end of March.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,263
    Scott_xP said:
    +1 a good article. The sad fact is that Brexiters glibly assumed that Brexit would be followed by other members wanting out, and that the EU would quickly collapse. It never envisaged the scenario where we would be outside in the cold, while the union continues with, if anything, greater support from its member populations.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,806
    Carnyx said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    That's actually Danish herring ...
    Lutefisk would be a direct breach of the Biological Weapons Treaty.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 43,066

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Covid: Christmas five-day relaxation period 'a mistake'

    Prof Bauld told BBC Breakfast that "from a public health perspective, I have to be perfectly honest, I think this is a mistake and I think people, even though we're permitted to do this, I think people have to think very carefully whether they can see loved ones outside or do it in a very, very modest way".

    She added there was "nothing to stop" governments reversing the rules, "but the problem is they've made that commitment to people across the UK, and that may affect trust in government if they roll back on that".

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55279371

    I'm beginning to suspect that it will make little difference - once covid is in the country it will steadily circulate.

    All governments can do is 'flatten the curve'.
    But "flattening the curve" IS making a difference. Keep a lid on the virus and prevent the NHS falling over until the vaccine is rolled out. That's the strategy and it's the only feasible one. There is no realistic option to eradicate it. Nobody thinks that's possible.
    There's plenty of people who do think the government should be able to eradicate it - remember when mask wearing was believed to be the 'magic bullet' ?

    And there's plenty of people who oppose any restriction on things they like to do - most of the oldies I know seem to be on a suicide mission.
    Agree on the 2nd point. There are plenty of those, yes. But, no, I'm not aware there are many who genuinely believe we can eradicate this virus. Once it got to a certain level - which was ages ago - that possibility vanished. Almost everyone realizes this, don't they? Surely they do.
    Not in my experience.

    I've heard many times "when's it going to be sorted".

    The people who are angriest / most demanding are holiday obsessives and oldies.

    My parents hit the roof when I told them things wouldn't improve until April.
    Ok, yes, I'm sure that's true - where "sorted" is in the general sense of things back to normal rather than meeting the technical definition of a virus being "eradicated".
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 11,002

    Do pickled herring go well with sauerkraut ?

    Or are they too similar ?

    Pickled Herrings are quite subtle. Saurkraut quite unsubtle. So I'd say that that the latter would overwhelm the first.

    Like steak tartar with gravy.
  • Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    Those herrings are seriously nice. I've no idea what Gauke is on about.
    I agree, but a certain conservative mentality - the classic Brexiter modality - really, really will nto touch them. Some years ago some older friends came round for dinner - pickled herring, M&S chicken pie, pud. Wouldn't look at the herring. Disaster easily averted - each got a one and a third portion of pie and I had four portions of herring for my starter and main.
    Interesting. I have not tried pickled herring. I don't think of pickled things out of a jar as more than a garnish, even though I have a dozen different pickled things in the kitchen.

    OTOH I have 2kg of kippers in the freezer.
    Yum re the kippers.

    Well worth trying the herring sometime. It's not usually very vinegary. Also keeps well in the fridge for months. Best eaten I think with some sort of veg or salad to cut its oiliness. I often have pickled (not just boiled) beetroot and fresh tomato with it which are both sharp in their different ways. Served with brown/wholemeal bread or boiled potatoes. Maybe yourt fishmonger sells pots of pickled herring. Or you can buy jars at IKEA for instance (in the food shop near the doors).
    Lidl do a good herring in sour cream sauce "Hausfraue Art" (although they don't call it that)
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,457

    Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    Those herrings are seriously nice. I've no idea what Gauke is on about.
    I agree, but a certain conservative mentality - the classic Brexiter modality - really, really will nto touch them. Some years ago some older friends came round for dinner - pickled herring, M&S chicken pie, pud. Wouldn't look at the herring. Disaster easily averted - each got a one and a third portion of pie and I had four portions of herring for my starter and main.
    Interesting. I have not tried pickled herring. I don't think of pickled things out of a jar as more than a garnish, even though I have a dozen different pickled things in the kitchen.

    OTOH I have 2kg of kippers in the freezer.
    Yum re the kippers.

    Well worth trying the herring sometime. It's not usually very vinegary. Also keeps well in the fridge for months. Best eaten I think with some sort of veg or salad to cut its oiliness. I often have pickled (not just boiled) beetroot and fresh tomato with it which are both sharp in their different ways. Served with brown/wholemeal bread or boiled potatoes. Maybe yourt fishmonger sells pots of pickled herring. Or you can buy jars at IKEA for instance (in the food shop near the doors).
    I'm a fan - you can get them in Waitrose too, next to the lumpen caviar (which is also good). They're tangy, not a taste the British diet has much of, so a genuine change of flavour.
    Lumpen caviar for the proletariat?
    Lumpfish caviar, I think. It comes in small pots in the fish section for a couple of quid. Not as nice as real caviar, but not bad.

  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    But you are simply trying to project past history forwards.

    Mr Dancer of this parish will be able to summon up multiple examples of those from later Rome who cited its previous glories as reasons as to why it would continue to go from strength to strength. Whereas in real history it was sacked by Vandals and Vikings and never recovered its predominant position.

    That the city of London survived 17th century plague is of minimal reassurance in the 21st century.
    But the many predictions by Remainer "finance experts" - not newt painters - of a massive swift exodus from the City, have been proven to be wildly wrong. So, there's that. The Remainers got it wrong.


    And I suppose you could say they might still get it right.... but at some point they become cultists predicting Doomsday who keep shifting the date when it doesn't happen.
    The mistake remain campaigners made was to try and big up the economic and financial consequences of Brexit - particularly with no deal - such that we’d all be foraging for mushrooms and boiling up weeds within days of our exit. Whereas the reality was always that a no deal Brexit would be slow acting poison, progressively killing trade, business and jobs.

    As others have pointed out, the real message of the ‘crying wolf’ parable is that the wolf does actually turn up at the end.
    Remainers made many mistakes. One of them was presuming that Brexit was a one-way process that would just be done to us, by powerful Europeans, and we would passively suffer, Hence the mad predictions of huge unemployment, a momentous recession, collapsing house prices, emergency budgets in a week, and so on,

    None of these materialised, partly because the UK was reactive and proactive, the Bank of England got to work, money was made available, the UK slowed but it did not implode.

    The same mistake is being made in perceptions of the future from Jan 1. No Deal (if it happens) will be tough, but it will also bring opportunities for Britain to exploit, or ways to mitigate damage.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,263

    IanB2 said:

    More Leave voters than Remainers have swung from the Tories to Labour since the last election, according to a major polling project that suggests Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has made some early progress in bridging the Brexit divide.

    A large 7,000-strong poll, designed to examine the political changes that have taken place since Labour’s disastrous result, found that the party was showing signs of winning over some of those who backed the Tories last year.

    ....signs......some.....

    The Tories should be W-A-Y underwater, given the shit year they have just had. That they are still nip and tuck - with favourable boundary changes still to come - gives Labour little room for optimism.
    I’m no cheerleader for Labour.

    But in the midst of a global pandemic, and with the government summoning up every last ounce of faux jingoism to counter the impending self-inflicted calamity, and with Labour still struggling with its past divisions, I don’t think the current state of the polls is all that surprising.

    I wouldn’t fancy being a Tory councillor thinking about defending my seat in May’s super Thursday.
  • IanB2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Covid: Christmas five-day relaxation period 'a mistake'

    Prof Bauld told BBC Breakfast that "from a public health perspective, I have to be perfectly honest, I think this is a mistake and I think people, even though we're permitted to do this, I think people have to think very carefully whether they can see loved ones outside or do it in a very, very modest way".

    She added there was "nothing to stop" governments reversing the rules, "but the problem is they've made that commitment to people across the UK, and that may affect trust in government if they roll back on that".

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55279371

    I'm beginning to suspect that it will make little difference - once covid is in the country it will steadily circulate.

    All governments can do is 'flatten the curve'.
    But "flattening the curve" IS making a difference. Keep a lid on the virus and prevent the NHS falling over until the vaccine is rolled out. That's the strategy and it's the only feasible one. There is no realistic option to eradicate it. Nobody thinks that's possible.
    There's plenty of people who do think the government should be able to eradicate it - remember when mask wearing was believed to be the 'magic bullet' ?

    And there's plenty of people who oppose any restriction on things they like to do - most of the oldies I know seem to be on a suicide mission.
    My prediction: politics will eventually arrive at the point where people of working age and younger face up to the oldies and say: “fine, we sacrificed our futures to save you from the virus, now is the time for you to make sacrifices to save the future environment of our planet”. Once the COVID crisis is behind us, climate change is going to dominate our politics.
    And what does that amount to in practice ?

    A wealth tax on oldies ?
  • LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    But you are simply trying to project past history forwards.

    Mr Dancer of this parish will be able to summon up multiple examples of those from later Rome who cited its previous glories as reasons as to why it would continue to go from strength to strength. Whereas in real history it was sacked by Vandals and Vikings and never recovered its predominant position.

    That the city of London survived 17th century plague is of minimal reassurance in the 21st century.
    But the many predictions by Remainer "finance experts" - not newt painters - of a massive swift exodus from the City, have been proven to be wildly wrong. So, there's that. The Remainers got it wrong.


    And I suppose you could say they might still get it right.... but at some point they become cultists predicting Doomsday who keep shifting the date when it doesn't happen.
    2021 onwards is when we'll see the true reckoning of Brexit. Until now everything's rather been on hold, but the consequences (whatever they may be) will soon be inescapable.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    IanB2 said:

    Scott_xP said:
    +1 a good article. The sad fact is that Brexiters glibly assumed that Brexit would be followed by other members wanting out, and that the EU would quickly collapse. It never envisaged the scenario where we would be outside in the cold, while the union continues with, if anything, greater support from its member populations.
    lol. Fintan O'Toole. He writes the same obsessive Britain-hating article every week. He's monomaniacal
  • LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    So now you believe it will survive COVID19?

    You were the loudest cheerleader for its demise supposedly occuring recently.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,263

    IanB2 said:

    CNN:
    The numerous U-turns of 2020 have mostly related to Johnson's handling of the pandemic, which many Conservatives believe has been too stringent and unnecessarily hard. "All that good will he had for delivering our Brexit dream is being overwritten by the fact he's not behaving like a Conservative," explained a veteran Tory on the right of the party.

    Who writes this rubbish?

    I am almost the last person who wants to be seen defending Bojo ... but in dealing with a completely unknown disease, a U-turn is the most natural thing in the world.

    It is just trial and error if you know little about a disease -- the most basic scientific empiricism. Try something, see if it works; if not change it.

    Of all the stupid things journalists go on about, U-turns in the middle of a pandemic of an unknown disease with unknown characteristics is the stupidest.

    If a politician has not U-turned multiple times this year, they are surely completely unfit for office.
    There is truth in what you say, but the reality we have faced is equally disastrous. A government that chops and changes depending upon who last sat on it, that has announced several new regimes that never got as far as being implemented, and that has moved toward abandoning others within days of their adoption, such that most ordinary folk have given up trying to understand the intricacies of what we are and aren’t supposed to be doing at any time, is not responding to the pandemic in a responsible way.

    We should have had a clear set of restrictions and stuck to them, with appropriate enforcement, rather than inventing a new policy for each week of the year.
  • OnboardG1OnboardG1 Posts: 1,589

    IanB2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Covid: Christmas five-day relaxation period 'a mistake'

    Prof Bauld told BBC Breakfast that "from a public health perspective, I have to be perfectly honest, I think this is a mistake and I think people, even though we're permitted to do this, I think people have to think very carefully whether they can see loved ones outside or do it in a very, very modest way".

    She added there was "nothing to stop" governments reversing the rules, "but the problem is they've made that commitment to people across the UK, and that may affect trust in government if they roll back on that".

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55279371

    I'm beginning to suspect that it will make little difference - once covid is in the country it will steadily circulate.

    All governments can do is 'flatten the curve'.
    But "flattening the curve" IS making a difference. Keep a lid on the virus and prevent the NHS falling over until the vaccine is rolled out. That's the strategy and it's the only feasible one. There is no realistic option to eradicate it. Nobody thinks that's possible.
    There's plenty of people who do think the government should be able to eradicate it - remember when mask wearing was believed to be the 'magic bullet' ?

    And there's plenty of people who oppose any restriction on things they like to do - most of the oldies I know seem to be on a suicide mission.
    My prediction: politics will eventually arrive at the point where people of working age and younger face up to the oldies and say: “fine, we sacrificed our futures to save you from the virus, now is the time for you to make sacrifices to save the future environment of our planet”. Once the COVID crisis is behind us, climate change is going to dominate our politics.
    And what does that amount to in practice ?

    A wealth tax on oldies ?
    I’d settle for just ignoring their madder, Nimbyish tendencies. Every time a bike lane or city centre pedestrian zone is proposed there’s a sea of white hair and bad faith arguments from the suburbs. Lots of political power in old peeps with an axe to grind and time to organise. That needs to stop being humoured so often (and is one reason I stan Edinburgh council for telling them all to piss off over their Spaces for People initiative).
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,457

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    Will be intriguing to see how the leave coalition keeps together with half a million immigrants from Hong Kong alone.
    Well, the ones entitled to visas will be the British overseas passport holders. That is an older population, and one more likely to have been in manufacturing jobs than finance.

    In practice, few will come, I think. It is good though that we are reversing Maggies exclusion of them.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,263
    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    Scott_xP said:
    +1 a good article. The sad fact is that Brexiters glibly assumed that Brexit would be followed by other members wanting out, and that the EU would quickly collapse. It never envisaged the scenario where we would be outside in the cold, while the union continues with, if anything, greater support from its member populations.
    lol. Fintan O'Toole. He writes the same obsessive Britain-hating article every week. He's monomaniacal
    You of all people might usefully reflect on whether consistency is a virtue.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 43,066

    kinabalu said:

    The worst peacetime conditions for any Government in a century and their polling is still quite strong. Maybe, just maybe, the obsessions of a certain class of fault-finders are not shared quite as universally as they imagine?

    I think one problem Labour have is people like their Shadow Education Secretary

    She fell into a massive trap yesterday spouting off against the Empire, Falklands War and demanding the curriculum be "decolonised".

    This will have been heard loud and clear in the Red Wall and will have set Starmer even further back.
    I liked the way she deigned to allow - even though she was a founding member of Labour Against Private Schools - that abolition would 'not be a priority' under a Labour Government.

    It takes some talent to lose both the Red and the Blue Wall at the same time.
    It's simply real politik. Abolition can be presented by bad actors as both authoritarian and class war at the same time and it would probably cost votes. Just leave it. I do hope they will summon up the immense courage required to retain the ending of the tax breaks, though. It will be disappointing to me if they feel they can't even go that far.
    The major problem that policy would have is that quite a number of charities do less charitable work* than many private schools. Bursaries and scholarships etc.

    So, either the bar of charitable status would have to be raised. Or a deluge of lawsuits on the basis of equality of application of the law**....

    *There a quite a few charities that are essentially corporations that campaign on issues. Actually feeding the hungry etc, not so much.

    **Oxford City Council once tried to declare that all the boatclubs on the river were businesses and would be charged business rates on their properties. This foundered on the fact, that in law, this was technically bollocks.
    Yes. It's far from the only loophole, I'm sure. Perhaps some others can be closed too. Not easy, I don't suppose. Then again, few policies that make a difference and go against the wishes of powerful vested interests are easy. But if Labour, the main party of the Left in this country, were to shy away from that task, it would be a bit sad.
  • OnboardG1OnboardG1 Posts: 1,589
    Foxy said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    Will be intriguing to see how the leave coalition keeps together with half a million immigrants from Hong Kong alone.
    Well, the ones entitled to visas will be the British overseas passport holders. That is an older population, and one more likely to have been in manufacturing jobs than finance.

    In practice, few will come, I think. It is good though that we are reversing Maggies exclusion of them.
    Depends where they are in their careers. A few hundred thousand retirees would be a headache. A few hundred thousand mid-senior professionals might actually be extremely helpful at a time when The Lady High Executioner is going to cut off our supply of European engineers.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,783

    Gaussian said:

    Wales with another 50% week-to-week rise: 1645 last Saturday to 2494 today. And Scotland now trending up as well: 777 to 1064.

    They need to take action now, not wait until a week after Christmas.
    The same mistake over and over and over again.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 53,202
    murali_s said:

    As I said from day one, Brexit is a calamity and Brexiteers are thick ignorant xenophobic dreamers.

    Four years on and "nothing has changed".

    Nope. You are still as offensive as you were in 2016.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,353

    Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    Those herrings are seriously nice. I've no idea what Gauke is on about.
    I agree, but a certain conservative mentality - the classic Brexiter modality - really, really will nto touch them. Some years ago some older friends came round for dinner - pickled herring, M&S chicken pie, pud. Wouldn't look at the herring. Disaster easily averted - each got a one and a third portion of pie and I had four portions of herring for my starter and main.
    Interesting. I have not tried pickled herring. I don't think of pickled things out of a jar as more than a garnish, even though I have a dozen different pickled things in the kitchen.

    OTOH I have 2kg of kippers in the freezer.
    Yum re the kippers.

    Well worth trying the herring sometime. It's not usually very vinegary. Also keeps well in the fridge for months. Best eaten I think with some sort of veg or salad to cut its oiliness. I often have pickled (not just boiled) beetroot and fresh tomato with it which are both sharp in their different ways. Served with brown/wholemeal bread or boiled potatoes. Maybe yourt fishmonger sells pots of pickled herring. Or you can buy jars at IKEA for instance (in the food shop near the doors).
    I'm a fan - you can get them in Waitrose too, next to the lumpen caviar (which is also good). They're tangy, not a taste the British diet has much of, so a genuine change of flavour.
    Caviar from Waitrose.

    Remind me why we lost the red wall?

  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,031
    Afternoon all :)

    Thank you as always, @david_herdson, for the weekend piece. As always, thought-provoking and not much with which one can disagree.

    East Ham High Street was the usual hustle and bustle this lunchtime but mask wearing at no more than 50% and patchy enforcement at shops despite all the notices.

    Christmas has a special meaning for many beyond the immediately religious. It is the time, for many the only time, when they spend an extended period with family and/or loved ones. There were many who, I think, would ignore any rule to restrict that and in the absence of meaningful enforcement, the Government has had no practical option but to relax restrictions.

    Johnson has always cited his Parliamentary heroes as Churchill and Thatcher rather than Cromwell and being known to history as "the man who cancelled Christmas" isn't perhaps the epitaph Johnson would wish.

    Perhaps we all know there will be a price to pay in terms of renewed restrictions in January even as the vaccine is rolled out. The problem is many don't think that far ahead - Christmas is what matters, the reckoning isn't in the mind for now.

    With Brexit, it's much the same. - the jingoistic tub-thumping notwithstanding, there's little practical understanding of what might happen once we move to a different economic relationship with the EU (I don't really have a clue to be honest). I voted for us to leave the EU but not for the position we have now reached - the problems now have been there since 2016. We don't want the SM and we can't have the CU yet we still expect an FTA.

    Neither May nor Johnson (nor anyone else prominent on the LEAVE side) has ever been honest about the potential negatives of leaving the EU. It's been largely upbeat bordering on mightily utopian (part of that is politics - Prime Ministers don't do well when they are honest and Johnson in particular struggles with telling people what they don't want to hear. Imagine if Churchill had been honest in June 1940).

    I'm optimistic for next year especially the second half and one of the frustrating things is we can see the light at the end of the tunnel but there's a lot of darkness to get through first.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,457
    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    But you are simply trying to project past history forwards.

    Mr Dancer of this parish will be able to summon up multiple examples of those from later Rome who cited its previous glories as reasons as to why it would continue to go from strength to strength. Whereas in real history it was sacked by Vandals and Vikings and never recovered its predominant position.

    That the city of London survived 17th century plague is of minimal reassurance in the 21st century.
    But the many predictions by Remainer "finance experts" - not newt painters - of a massive swift exodus from the City, have been proven to be wildly wrong. So, there's that. The Remainers got it wrong.


    And I suppose you could say they might still get it right.... but at some point they become cultists predicting Doomsday who keep shifting the date when it doesn't happen.
    The mistake remain campaigners made was to try and big up the economic and financial consequences of Brexit - particularly with no deal - such that we’d all be foraging for mushrooms and boiling up weeds within days of our exit. Whereas the reality was always that a no deal Brexit would be slow acting poison, progressively killing trade, business and jobs.

    As others have pointed out, the real message of the ‘crying wolf’ parable is that the wolf does actually turn up at the end.
    I have always said that Brexit will be a damp squib, disappointing nearly everyone.

    Brexitism will end in rust rather than bust.
  • OnboardG1OnboardG1 Posts: 1,589

    Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    Those herrings are seriously nice. I've no idea what Gauke is on about.
    I agree, but a certain conservative mentality - the classic Brexiter modality - really, really will nto touch them. Some years ago some older friends came round for dinner - pickled herring, M&S chicken pie, pud. Wouldn't look at the herring. Disaster easily averted - each got a one and a third portion of pie and I had four portions of herring for my starter and main.
    Interesting. I have not tried pickled herring. I don't think of pickled things out of a jar as more than a garnish, even though I have a dozen different pickled things in the kitchen.

    OTOH I have 2kg of kippers in the freezer.
    Yum re the kippers.

    Well worth trying the herring sometime. It's not usually very vinegary. Also keeps well in the fridge for months. Best eaten I think with some sort of veg or salad to cut its oiliness. I often have pickled (not just boiled) beetroot and fresh tomato with it which are both sharp in their different ways. Served with brown/wholemeal bread or boiled potatoes. Maybe yourt fishmonger sells pots of pickled herring. Or you can buy jars at IKEA for instance (in the food shop near the doors).
    I'm a fan - you can get them in Waitrose too, next to the lumpen caviar (which is also good). They're tangy, not a taste the British diet has much of, so a genuine change of flavour.
    Caviar from Waitrose.

    Remind me why we lost the red wall?

    Because the people eating it pretended they actually liked beer and fags.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,724

    Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Clearly behind with the scare stories. We have already been assured that we won't be able to import anything from Norway because our ports will all be blocked with dead rotting sheep carcasses.
    Those herrings are seriously nice. I've no idea what Gauke is on about.
    I agree, but a certain conservative mentality - the classic Brexiter modality - really, really will nto touch them. Some years ago some older friends came round for dinner - pickled herring, M&S chicken pie, pud. Wouldn't look at the herring. Disaster easily averted - each got a one and a third portion of pie and I had four portions of herring for my starter and main.
    Interesting. I have not tried pickled herring. I don't think of pickled things out of a jar as more than a garnish, even though I have a dozen different pickled things in the kitchen.

    OTOH I have 2kg of kippers in the freezer.
    Yum re the kippers.

    Well worth trying the herring sometime. It's not usually very vinegary. Also keeps well in the fridge for months. Best eaten I think with some sort of veg or salad to cut its oiliness. I often have pickled (not just boiled) beetroot and fresh tomato with it which are both sharp in their different ways. Served with brown/wholemeal bread or boiled potatoes. Maybe yourt fishmonger sells pots of pickled herring. Or you can buy jars at IKEA for instance (in the food shop near the doors).
    I'm a fan - you can get them in Waitrose too, next to the lumpen caviar (which is also good). They're tangy, not a taste the British diet has much of, so a genuine change of flavour.
    Caviar from Waitrose.

    Remind me why we lost the red wall?

    Oh, that's below the belt! Lidl and Aldi sell the stuff, too. Even Tesco.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    Here's a counterfactual.

    What if No Deal happens and..... it turns out it's no big deal?


    eg There are a few lorry queues for a few weeks. A brief shortage of prosecco. Camembert increases by 20% in price, so people switch to British versions.

    And that's it.

    So many of us - even on this site - are using words like "calamity", and "disaster". We are all told we are driving off a cliff.

    What if it just turns out we are driving through a muddy field then back on to a normal road? What would that do to politics? Would Remainers change their minds?

    I'm not predicting this, but it is a politically fascinating possibility, in multiple ways.
  • OnboardG1OnboardG1 Posts: 1,589
    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    But you are simply trying to project past history forwards.

    Mr Dancer of this parish will be able to summon up multiple examples of those from later Rome who cited its previous glories as reasons as to why it would continue to go from strength to strength. Whereas in real history it was sacked by Vandals and Vikings and never recovered its predominant position.

    That the city of London survived 17th century plague is of minimal reassurance in the 21st century.
    But the many predictions by Remainer "finance experts" - not newt painters - of a massive swift exodus from the City, have been proven to be wildly wrong. So, there's that. The Remainers got it wrong.


    And I suppose you could say they might still get it right.... but at some point they become cultists predicting Doomsday who keep shifting the date when it doesn't happen.
    The mistake remain campaigners made was to try and big up the economic and financial consequences of Brexit - particularly with no deal - such that we’d all be foraging for mushrooms and boiling up weeds within days of our exit. Whereas the reality was always that a no deal Brexit would be slow acting poison, progressively killing trade, business and jobs.

    As others have pointed out, the real message of the ‘crying wolf’ parable is that the wolf does actually turn up at the end.
    I have always said that Brexit will be a damp squib, disappointing nearly everyone.

    Brexitism will end in rust rather than bust.
    It’s not a car crash, it’s a fender bender that you never get fixed until the rust spreading from the dent forces you to sell the car.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 11,002
    IanB2 said:

    Scott_xP said:
    +1 a good article. The sad fact is that Brexiters glibly assumed that Brexit would be followed by other members wanting out, and that the EU would quickly collapse. It never envisaged the scenario where we would be outside in the cold, while the union continues with, if anything, greater support from its member populations.
    I rather hope that, if nothing else, Brexit may see a degree of telling the Irish (all of them) to shut up. When I was young they were trying to blow us up with bombs, then they started trying to swamp the courts, and now they're trying to de-rail things. I think really that's quite enough.

    The Southern Irish in particular should now stick to Southern Irish or EU affairs.

    I'm especially keen that the Irish element in the US which wants to have an oar in our affairs jumps off a cliff.

    For what it's worth I do think that the Irish are the most wonderful people - just a small break!
  • Foxy said:

    LadyG said:

    IanB2 said:

    LadyG said:

    moonshine said:

    https://www.ft.com/content/0c7c2597-4afd-4ade-bc19-02c3bbc53daf

    Here’s some good news to make the gloomy and doomy more cheerful. Much ado about nothing really.

    “Brexit has failed to deliver a big hit to financial services employment in London, Financial Times research has shown, with international banks maintaining most of their staff since the vote to leave the EU and big asset managers hiring in the UK capital.

    Initial warnings that tens of thousands of jobs would leave the City as a result of the 2016 Brexit vote have been drastically scaled back. An FT survey of 24 large international banks and asset managers found that the majority had increased their London headcount over the past five years.”

    Yet.

    In the meantime over £1.8 trillion pounds worth of assets have been moved from the UK to the EU by the financial services sector down to Brexit.
    We were told hundreds of thousands of City jobs would leave. They haven't.

    As you say, they might still go, but, equally, the City of London under its own UK regulations might actually grow, finding new markets - as it has done over the centuries. We don't know, but the second option is historically the likelier.

    The problem for Europe is that there is not one obvious alternative. Those that have left the City have all gone off in different directions, to cities which all have their own issues

    Paris: great city but French speaking, quite hostile, schools an issue, riots
    Amsterdam: bit small, bit dull
    Dublin: very small, rain
    Frankfurt: boring as fuck, German
    Luxembourg: small, boring as fuck, where even is it?

    Because of this splintering none of them will ever have the critical mass of lawyers, bankers, regulators, financiers, managers, that you get in English-speaking London, making it a world leading finance centre.


    Two years ago I was truly fearful for the City. Now I think, Deal or No Deal, it will endure and eventually thrive. That's what it does.
    Applying your views as a tourist and travel writer to various cities’ financial market prospects is hardly robust or reliable analysis, though, is it?

    Nor is citing historical precedent when our imminent departure from a free trade confederation directly to a position with no trade agreements at all with any of our principal neighbours is without historical precedent.
    The City has endured the Great Plague, the Napoleonic era, the Great War, the Second World War, and the end of Empire. It has endured brutal competition from Amsterdam, followed by New York, and now Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong.

    It has survived them all, and gone on to greater prosperity.

    Relatedly, look at this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/uk-government-underestimates-takeup-hong-kong-resettlement

    Maybe half a million highly skilled Hong Kongers will move to the UK in the next few years. Many of these will be experts in finance, business, etc. A massive boost to the UK economy, esp London.

    The future is cloudy and very unsettled but it is not all dark. Enough shroud waving.
    Will be intriguing to see how the leave coalition keeps together with half a million immigrants from Hong Kong alone.
    Well, the ones entitled to visas will be the British overseas passport holders. That is an older population, and one more likely to have been in manufacturing jobs than finance.

    In practice, few will come, I think. It is good though that we are reversing Maggies exclusion of them.
    It applies to children of BNO passport holders as well. It will also be a way around the salary cap levels for low wage employers.

    I doubt anyone has a good grasp of how many people will apply (and how many of those will actually just come and settle or just keep it as an insurance if HK goes quickly south).
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,546
    edited December 2020
    Nigelb said:

    twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/1337756374403518471

    We strangely also hear less and less about how much better other European countries are doing than the UK.

    The reality is Europe has collectively failed on COVID.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 24,252

    Do pickled herring go well with sauerkraut ?

    Or are they too similar ?

    I would guess (very guess) that pickled herring could go well as something to add zing, used like say Anchovies or Tinned Sardines. Say as an on-the-plate addition to a kedgeree or salad or pasta dish.

    Might go well with a vegetarian version of something like fish fingers or a veg bake.
  • LadyG said:

    Here's a counterfactual.

    What if No Deal happens and..... it turns out it's no big deal?


    eg There are a few lorry queues for a few weeks. A brief shortage of prosecco. Camembert increases by 20% in price, so people switch to British versions.

    And that's it.

    So many of us - even on this site - are using words like "calamity", and "disaster". We are all told we are driving off a cliff.

    What if it just turns out we are driving through a muddy field then back on to a normal road? What would that do to politics? Would Remainers change their minds?

    I'm not predicting this, but it is a politically fascinating possibility, in multiple ways.

    Its what a third of the country already believe, and they elect the govt so nothing much changes.
  • LadyG said:

    Here's a counterfactual.

    What if No Deal happens and..... it turns out it's no big deal?


    eg There are a few lorry queues for a few weeks. A brief shortage of prosecco. Camembert increases by 20% in price, so people switch to British versions.

    And that's it.

    So many of us - even on this site - are using words like "calamity", and "disaster". We are all told we are driving off a cliff.

    What if it just turns out we are driving through a muddy field then back on to a normal road? What would that do to politics? Would Remainers change their minds?

    I'm not predicting this, but it is a politically fascinating possibility, in multiple ways.

    What do you think will happen if No Deal is genuinely disastrous? Will Boris beg forgiveness for his errors and resign, for example?
This discussion has been closed.