Johnson is clearly the most dishonest, incompetent, corrupt and unserious prime minister of recent times. He doesn't bother to hide it. If any of those things mattered to the 40% of the people that intend to vote for Johnson, Starmer would win, because he is none of those things.
Given that, there is nothing Starmer can do to win those people over. Johnson will always outdo him on incompetence, dishonesty and corruption.
Many of us are simply resigned to the fact that 40% of our electorate don't actually care that their leaders are incompetent and lie.
We accept we live on a land dominated by Farage, the Daly Mail and the Brexiteers. There is nothing we can do about it but let them get on with it. Enjoy the "victory" and stop sounding so f**g miserable about it, anyone would think you didn't believe the leaver's guff either
If I was a polish lorry driver (for example) when someone wants a load delivered to UK in new year I would be putting a pretty high extra premium on the costs for the risk involved. Or just flatly refusing.
No doubt Gove has thought all this through in his meticulous No Deal planning.
Meanwhile, we hold out for a few more fish.
The queues from 1st Jan won't go away if we sod fish and do a deal. We are leaving the customs union. We have required France to join us imposing a hard border at a crossing than does up to 10k trucks a day each way.
Average processing time at external EU land border crossings is 45 minutes per vehicle. Which creates queues of 20 hours plus elsewhere with a fraction of our throughput.
Deal or no deal, the queues will be there and will be catastrophic.
How long will we hold out before rejoining customs union?
Forever. We are never rejoining the customs union.
Rochdale needs to have a coffee and move on. That battle is over.
Is that a genuine prediction or merely your personal bias?
It isn't exactly fanciful to suggest a future government may see a closer trading relationship with continental Europe as desirable and go down that road. It might or might not be the right thing to do, but it's hardly some kind of Remaniac fantasy to suggest it's possible, even probable at some point.
Genuine prediction. We're signing trade agreements around the world now, we'd need to renounce them if we rejoined the customs union.
Once we're through any disruption with Europe and have new trade agreements with the Rest of the World then that changes the dynamics dramatically. There is a very good reason why even the EFTA nations are not in a customs union with the EU.
They're largely cut and paste jobs with the most trivial of tweaks. I agree that it could be the case in 20 or 30 years time that there has been substantial divergence in the structures of the continental European and UK economies, and deals have moved on a long way, and this might make a customs union difficult. But we're nowhere near that at present. We're looking at losing the opportunity to sell trivial amounts of Stilton into a market that doesn't really buy cheese.
Talks are already underway with quite a few countries to get new agreements. Forget 20-30 years, 2-3 is a more realistic timescale with the way the fantastic Truss is working if she stays in the Trade Department.
In particular talks are getting advanced with a fair few countries in liberating trade restrictions on Services like Finance etc that are our key exports and something the EU has not prioritised in its agreements.
Well, fingers crossed, although I think you're living in a fantasy world. It seems a heck of a lot more fun than the real one, though, so best of luck to you and I might join you there.
I think it's absolutely shameful that the government are relying on charity to ensure that truck drivers aren't going hungry because of a situation of their own creation.
Good on Khalsa Aid for recognising it and helping out but it shouldn't have been necessary.
Completely agree
The unbelievable thing is that this has obviously been partially prepared for with the possibility of no deal Brexit being ever present. OK, hauliers can sleep in their cabs and frequently do - so a hotel perhaps isn't needed, but food and toilet facilities clearly are if people are stuck there any length of time. These aren't people travelling here because they're on a jolly or economic migrants or anything of the sort. They're delivering the food and goods that we all rely on. And Macron might be blocking their return, and yes we're in a pandemic (Which makes adequate facilities even more pressing) but I reiterate these are people this country can't really do without. And the Gov'ts attitude and lack of action, whether borne through incompetence or otherwise has been disgraceful.
Yes, and once again goes to show that the government's priorities for testing and the vaccine being based around old people rather than key workers which includes delivery and freight.
Everything the government is doing is to avoid bad headlines from the daily mail ("my granny died but truckers have been vaccinated") but it means we have got rubbish policy as a result.
Completely disagreed.
The vaccinations are about easing pressure on the hospitals and mortuaries by vaccinating those most likely to get sick and hospitalised and die - and those most who work in superspreader jobs most likely to spread it to them.
How would vaccinating a Polish lorry driver who is in the UK today but Germany tomorrow and Sweden next week a great use of our limited vaccines?
Because that polish driver brings fresh food into the country and we can't afford for that supply chain to break down.
Yes we can, this is the Frech over-reacting and we've already found a solution that is getting rolled out.
These Polish drivers are providing next to zero pressure on the NHS - the evidence is that lorry drivers are actually one of the very safest professions of them all. Unsurprisingly because they're naturally extremely socially distanced.
Vaccinating the elderly removes the pressure on the NHS that is what is causing lockdowns. Vaccinating people who don't get sick and are extremely unlikely to even catch the virus, are very healthy if they do and will spend almost all of their time out of the country . . . is not the best return on investment.
If I was a polish lorry driver (for example) when someone wants a load delivered to UK in new year I would be putting a pretty high extra premium on the costs for the risk involved. Or just flatly refusing.
No doubt Gove has thought all this through in his meticulous No Deal planning.
Meanwhile, we hold out for a few more fish.
The queues from 1st Jan won't go away if we sod fish and do a deal. We are leaving the customs union. We have required France to join us imposing a hard border at a crossing than does up to 10k trucks a day each way.
Average processing time at external EU land border crossings is 45 minutes per vehicle. Which creates queues of 20 hours plus elsewhere with a fraction of our throughput.
Deal or no deal, the queues will be there and will be catastrophic.
How long will we hold out before rejoining customs union?
Forever. We are never rejoining the customs union.
Rochdale needs to have a coffee and move on. That battle is over.
Is that a genuine prediction or merely your personal bias?
It isn't exactly fanciful to suggest a future government may see a closer trading relationship with continental Europe as desirable and go down that road. It might or might not be the right thing to do, but it's hardly some kind of Remaniac fantasy to suggest it's possible, even probable at some point.
Genuine prediction. We're signing trade agreements around the world now, we'd need to renounce them if we rejoined the customs union.
Once we're through any disruption with Europe and have new trade agreements with the Rest of the World then that changes the dynamics dramatically. There is a very good reason why even the EFTA nations are not in a customs union with the EU.
They're largely cut and paste jobs with the most trivial of tweaks. I agree that it could be the case in 20 or 30 years time that there has been substantial divergence in the structures of the continental European and UK economies, and deals have moved on a long way, and this might make a customs union difficult. But we're nowhere near that at present. We're looking at losing the opportunity to sell trivial amounts of Stilton into a market that doesn't really buy cheese.
Talks are already underway with quite a few countries to get new agreements. Forget 20-30 years, 2-3 is a more realistic timescale with the way the fantastic Truss is working if she stays in the Trade Department.
In particular talks are getting advanced with a fair few countries in liberating trade restrictions on Services like Finance etc that are our key exports and something the EU has not prioritised in its agreements.
Well, fingers crossed, although I think you're living in a fantasy world. It seems a heck of a lot more fun than the real one, though, so best of luck to you and I might join you there.
Japan, Canada, Australia and more in particular are already in relatively advanced talks to take trade agreements further - in particular on Services. The point with Japan and Canada is it isn't just replicating the EU's agreements with them but building on them too.
The EU has been protectionist on Services and hasn't looked to prioritise them. It is what we're world leaders in and we are looking to sign agreements on that. Once we get them, throwing that away to join a customs agreement even the EFTA don't want to be in won't be cost free.
Eat out to help out was a genius policy, God knows how many jobs it has saved in the hospitality industry. Sunak is the only guy in parliament who looks like a PM in waiting IMO. Only 40 years old too.
If I was a polish lorry driver (for example) when someone wants a load delivered to UK in new year I would be putting a pretty high extra premium on the costs for the risk involved. Or just flatly refusing.
No doubt Gove has thought all this through in his meticulous No Deal planning.
Meanwhile, we hold out for a few more fish.
The queues from 1st Jan won't go away if we sod fish and do a deal. We are leaving the customs union. We have required France to join us imposing a hard border at a crossing than does up to 10k trucks a day each way.
Average processing time at external EU land border crossings is 45 minutes per vehicle. Which creates queues of 20 hours plus elsewhere with a fraction of our throughput.
Deal or no deal, the queues will be there and will be catastrophic.
How long will we hold out before rejoining customs union?
I don't know - there is a fundamental lack of understanding on the subject: 1. We hold all the cards - the EU will let us through 2. German car manufacturers need us too much - the EU will let us through 3. We've had enough of experts. As Philip rightly says they can all be ignored 4. If we get a deal it means we Win which means we carry on like before only Better
The reason why you create a customs union is to remove the physical border. By physical border I mean a barrier where traffic has to stop for inspection by customs officers. Even if we agreed the kind of standstill deal that Shagger insists we won't sign (we might - he is a liar...) if we want full checks then that creates the problem. And we DO want the checks apparently.
Unless the deal is that we maintain complete alignment with the EU and do not have a physical border - and it almost certainly won't be - then our border with the EU will cease to function. You cannot process 10k trucks a day each way through a physical border. Do the maths. 10k trucks (per day each way) x 45 minutes (average crossing time at external EU borders) per truck = 312 man days on each side of the border assuming an even flow of vehicles 24 hours a day. As we have a sea crossing between the two sides of the border those vehicles cannot queue to the border which means they get corralled in Kent / Pas-de-Calais.
Operation Brock will do two things. Vehicles bound for the Channel Tunnel will be queued first on the M20 between Junctions 8 and 9, then at Ashford, then there was an M26 option previously looked at. Vehicles bound for Dover go to Manston, then into an M20 style queue on both the A256 and A2. So at these locations they will need to provide food, toilets, showers.
They will not. Because despite Brock existing the cabinet still think nothing will happen.
What evidence do you have that it takes 45 minutes with the EU borders within the Common Transit Convention which we are members of in our own right (and will remain so even under No Deal)?
You seem to be contrasting our arrangements with non-CTC nations which is a bit of a schoolboy error.
45 minutes is the number quoted by logistics experts as opposed to keyboard warrior experts. You seem to be contrasting what they know with what you know and considering them equal. Which is a total schoolboy error.
Deeply unpleasant way to behave - publicly shaming your father.
Poor guy will never be able to show his face on Twitter again. We had a couple of old blokes dropping off a piano for us last week, who invited themselves to stay for a coffee and a bit of light racism. But they also told us a story about Prince Michael of Kent too libelous to repeat here so I let them off.
I don't think she was shaming her father, just compassionately describing him. My dad is a couple of decades older than hers (mid 70s) and is what I would describe as passively racist and homophobic. He doesn't actively dislike people, but he absolutely sees them as different and labels them as such. If he went to see a doctor they'll be described as an asian doctor (if they are BAME obviously). And he has for decades told stories about the "wooly woofters" he worked with at Manchester council. Which is why he has no idea he has a bisexual son and a bi/pansexual (depends what mood he's in) grandson.
So I totally got what she was saying. Its not people who are monsters. It is ordinary people stuck in a time that has happily receded into the past. I don't think it is right to try and apply 2020 morality onto people from previous generations, but I do try to help educate my dad (gently) by pointing out that they can't say things like that any more.
It is a real problem for Labour - people who feel the world they are comfortable in having slipped away from them. Its also a problem for the Tories pandering to their prejudices...
Agreed on all counts.
I'm mildly curious whether @Charles actually believes his views are shameful, or if that was just a rhetorical stance on his part.
Some good and interesting posts in this thread on what Labour should be doing.
For me, you address those issues that matter most to the clichéd 'hard working families up and down the country':
- Well paid, secure jobs - A good school for their kids - An NHS they can rely on when they need it - A safe neighbourhood, where crime is dealt with and the villains punished - Dignity and care for their elderly relatives
You can add to that others such as affordable housing, a clean and pleasant land and future, a sense of fairness in society where others don't have privilege and advantage they don't have.
Demonstrate to voters that you understand what matters to them, and you have policies that will address these issues and improve their lives, and the rest falls into place.
Renaming the OBE may be a topic of conversation around north London dinner party tables. I don't think it matters to families in Bishop Auckland sitting down to their tea.
We have turned into the party of the guilty well-healed, wishing to provide charity to the deserving poor. As I've said before, fixating on the top 10% and the bottom 10% is not the way to win elections. It also betrays the purpose and values on which the Labour Party was founded.
BTW, I also feel that we should celebrate the fact that people who are BAME and/or LGBT+ not only feel at home in the Conservative Party but can reach senior positions in a Conservative government. It shows how society has moved on, that such factors do not predetermine who someone will vote for.
I voted for Nandy because I was not convinced that Starmer gets it. I still have plenty of doubts.
Very true , the Lib dems following Cameron over Libya and Syria whilst in government. Certainly changed from the days of Charles Kennedy. I find it hard to know what they are about. A protest vote in an election , which I have done but beyond that hard to say. I know it is hard for them to get coverage as a third or fourth party. However Labour would need them to do well in Conservative seats , to have a chance of government. Not happening at the moment.
How do you know that?
There's been no Parliamentary by-election since 2019: my evidence from local canvassing is that the LibDem vote in this Tory constituency is doing well because the Tory vote has totally collapsed: from about 45% to less than its catastrophic position in the Euros.
If most national opinion polls are showing a poor LD performance, the evidence here is that it must be because the LDs are doing VERY badly in Labour seats and in Red Wall seats.
Which shouldn't surprise, because Starmer's a star
Deeply unpleasant way to behave - publicly shaming your father.
Poor guy will never be able to show his face on Twitter again. We had a couple of old blokes dropping off a piano for us last week, who invited themselves to stay for a coffee and a bit of light racism. But they also told us a story about Prince Michael of Kent too libelous to repeat here so I let them off.
I don't think she was shaming her father, just compassionately describing him. My dad is a couple of decades older than hers (mid 70s) and is what I would describe as passively racist and homophobic. He doesn't actively dislike people, but he absolutely sees them as different and labels them as such. If he went to see a doctor they'll be described as an asian doctor (if they are BAME obviously). And he has for decades told stories about the "wooly woofters" he worked with at Manchester council. Which is why he has no idea he has a bisexual son and a bi/pansexual (depends what mood he's in) grandson.
So I totally got what she was saying. Its not people who are monsters. It is ordinary people stuck in a time that has happily receded into the past. I don't think it is right to try and apply 2020 morality onto people from previous generations, but I do try to help educate my dad (gently) by pointing out that they can't say things like that any more.
It is a real problem for Labour - people who feel the world they are comfortable in having slipped away from them. Its also a problem for the Tories pandering to their prejudices...
Publicly calling her father an "asshole" is disgusting. Only a piece of scum does that.
3. People are loyal to values, but not to parties 4. They will stick to a party if they think it shares its values, even if they don't think much of its leaders, but switch away rapidly if they cease to think so (look at the way that support for the Conservatives, Brexit Party, and UKIP oscillated).
As a good and loyal scouser, I will tell you that in Merseyside, points 3 and 4 are completely wrong. The Labour loyalty is so embedded, that people think nothing of voting for a Blair led Labour party or a Corbyn led one. And will do just that.
Of course, eight seats doesn't get you a majority, but I did love the last General Election being in Bootle.
Not one of the parties made even a basic attempt to campaign in the seat. Labour knew they'd won and ignored us. The others knew they'd lost and also ignored us.
If I was a polish lorry driver (for example) when someone wants a load delivered to UK in new year I would be putting a pretty high extra premium on the costs for the risk involved. Or just flatly refusing.
No doubt Gove has thought all this through in his meticulous No Deal planning.
Meanwhile, we hold out for a few more fish.
The queues from 1st Jan won't go away if we sod fish and do a deal. We are leaving the customs union. We have required France to join us imposing a hard border at a crossing than does up to 10k trucks a day each way.
Average processing time at external EU land border crossings is 45 minutes per vehicle. Which creates queues of 20 hours plus elsewhere with a fraction of our throughput.
Deal or no deal, the queues will be there and will be catastrophic.
How long will we hold out before rejoining customs union?
I don't know - there is a fundamental lack of understanding on the subject: 1. We hold all the cards - the EU will let us through 2. German car manufacturers need us too much - the EU will let us through 3. We've had enough of experts. As Philip rightly says they can all be ignored 4. If we get a deal it means we Win which means we carry on like before only Better
The reason why you create a customs union is to remove the physical border. By physical border I mean a barrier where traffic has to stop for inspection by customs officers. Even if we agreed the kind of standstill deal that Shagger insists we won't sign (we might - he is a liar...) if we want full checks then that creates the problem. And we DO want the checks apparently.
Unless the deal is that we maintain complete alignment with the EU and do not have a physical border - and it almost certainly won't be - then our border with the EU will cease to function. You cannot process 10k trucks a day each way through a physical border. Do the maths. 10k trucks (per day each way) x 45 minutes (average crossing time at external EU borders) per truck = 312 man days on each side of the border assuming an even flow of vehicles 24 hours a day. As we have a sea crossing between the two sides of the border those vehicles cannot queue to the border which means they get corralled in Kent / Pas-de-Calais.
Operation Brock will do two things. Vehicles bound for the Channel Tunnel will be queued first on the M20 between Junctions 8 and 9, then at Ashford, then there was an M26 option previously looked at. Vehicles bound for Dover go to Manston, then into an M20 style queue on both the A256 and A2. So at these locations they will need to provide food, toilets, showers.
They will not. Because despite Brock existing the cabinet still think nothing will happen.
What evidence do you have that it takes 45 minutes with the EU borders within the Common Transit Convention which we are members of in our own right (and will remain so even under No Deal)?
You seem to be contrasting our arrangements with non-CTC nations which is a bit of a schoolboy error.
45 minutes is the number quoted by logistics experts as opposed to keyboard warrior experts. You seem to be contrasting what they know with what you know and considering them equal. Which is a total schoolboy error.
Turkey is in a customs union with the EU, that is what you want to replicate and you're linking that as something that doesn't work? 🤣🤣🤣
Citation please on 45 minutes being quoted within the CTC because whenever you've been quoting borders recently you've been doing so for non-CTC nations which is not what the UK will be.
How many hours long is the queue between EFTA and EU nations? They aren't in a customs union but are in the CTC.
Labour is a left-wing party, the electorate know that. We all know that.
The idea they can ever be more socially conservative than the Tories is frankly ridiculous.
There are some battles they should have and some they shouldn't. They need to pick those battles more wisely, that's the start.
Yes. Let's not get sucked into the culture war swamp - little chance of that with Starmer imo - but I really don't think we need to pander to attitudes we find outdated and objectionable or (worse) switch sides on these "values" issues.
Like, ok, we stop obsessing about trans rights. But we don't start chuckling at the tedious anti-trans jokes. And we definitely don't start making them.
To be honest in most cases it comes down to good manners.
Why would you laugh at someone’s life choices? It gets more difficult when you are getting into the area of conflicting rights (ie trans-rights vs born-female rights especially where it raises questions of security) but that’s why we have politics - to resolve difficult questions in a broadly peaceful manner
Some good and interesting posts in this thread on what Labour should be doing.
For me, you address those issues that matter most to the clichéd 'hard working families up and down the country':
- Well paid, secure jobs - A good school for their kids - An NHS they can rely on when they need it - A safe neighbourhood, where crime is dealt with and the villains punished - Dignity and care for their elderly relatives
You can add to that others such as affordable housing, a clean and pleasant land and future, a sense of fairness in society where others don't have privilege and advantage they don't have.
Demonstrate to voters that you understand what matters to them, and you have policies that will address these issues and improve their lives, and the rest falls into place.
Renaming the OBE may be a topic of conversation around north London dinner party tables. I don't think it matters to families in Bishop Auckland sitting down to their tea.
We have turned into the party of the guilty well-healed, wishing to provide charity to the deserving poor. As I've said before, fixating on the top 10% and the bottom 10% is not the way to win elections. It also betrays the purpose and values on which the Labour Party was founded.
BTW, I also feel that we should celebrate the fact that people who are BAME and/or LGBT+ not only feel at home in the Conservative Party but can reach senior positions in a Conservative government. It shows how society has moved on, that such factors do not predetermine who someone will vote for.
I voted for Nandy because I was not convinced that Starmer gets it. I still have plenty of doubts.
Yes, the top and bottom 10% line is spot on. As bad as Jezbollah was Labour had serious issues under Milliband as well driven by the same hard left nutters. The 2015 manifesto had headline policies to go after the toffs to fix bedroom tax, and something about energy bills - and that was it. Almost nothing of any substance to offer the vast majority in the middle and no real grasp as to what their concerns were. As witnessed by knee-jerk stupidity like the immigration mug pledge.
Eat out to help out was a genius policy, God knows how many jobs it has saved in the hospitality industry. Sunak is the only guy in parliament who looks like a PM in waiting IMO. Only 40 years old too.
Killed lots of people too, from the increase in infection rate, we were told.
Nah. It’s his incompetence with money that will mean he’s yesterday’s man in 12 months time. VFM and bang for buck has gone out the window under him. The big spat that sinks him was giving eye watering sums of tax payers cash to banks to distribute to business and eye watering sums lost in Fraud. Rishi will attempt to say ‘not my fault, the banks should have prevented the fraud better than they did’ the rest of the world will just look at him incredulously.
3. People are loyal to values, but not to parties 4. They will stick to a party if they think it shares its values, even if they don't think much of its leaders, but switch away rapidly if they cease to think so (look at the way that support for the Conservatives, Brexit Party, and UKIP oscillated).
As a good and loyal scouser, I will tell you that in Merseyside, points 3 and 4 are completely wrong. The Labour loyalty is so embedded, that people think nothing of voting for a Blair led Labour party or a Corbyn led one. And will do just that.
Of course, eight seats doesn't get you a majority, but I did love the last General Election being in Bootle.
Not one of the parties made even a basic attempt to campaign in the seat. Labour knew they'd won and ignored us. The others knew they'd lost and also ignored us.
Merseyside is an unusual case, I admit. The region began moving left in 1964, and then never stopped.
As for the crux of Casino_Royale's point, I've often spoken about that myself. I don't agree that the solution is to out social conservative Labour (which Labour can't ever do anyway), the solution is to not get involved in culture wars.
Blair was very good on this topic.
I am not calling for Labour to “out socially conservative” the Tories. Just to attack them on issues which are currently seen as “right”.
Remember tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime?
That, for starters.
Yes that was good. However new Labour in government had some bad habits . Such as announcing half baked plans every week, like the police marching people down to cash points for instant justice on minor breaches of the law. I am sure SkS is more considered in his views.
Yeh, well that’s why I vote LD. However, I want to see this government defeated and it is essential that Labour is seen as electable again.
It's an interesting discussion and I'm not blind to the points that you, Sean Fear, Casino and others are making. I won a seat that had had a Tory majority of 17,000 (29%) just 10 years earlier and held it for 13 years by paying unrelenting attention to constituents as people, never giving up on a single one of them and always trying to understand where they were coming from and looking for common ground. I've never deliberately and seriously insulted anyone in my life - not fascists, not anti-vaxxers, not climate change deniers. We all get our ideas from somewhere and it doesn't make us monsters.
I have two reservations, though:
1. One has to consider where one draws the line without abandoning the reason why one took up politics. I'm ready to listen sympathetically to people who dislike the speed of change and are afraid of it, including change caused by large-scale immigration. But if someone says to me that "Immigrants are dirty" or something like that (as I've occasionally experienced), I won't pretend to agree. I'll politely say that I think that's too generalised, and people in every group vary in how they look after themselves. If that puts the voter off, it can't be helped. Writ large, the party needs to show understanding and sympathy and address practical fears without mock-pandering.
2. How far are people actually winnable? I get that you'd like Labour to be electable. I get that Casino is sincere in wanting an opposition that he respects. But would either of you actually vote Labour? The risk that Starmer takes if he focuses on patriotism and traditional values is being generally accepted as a perfectly decent opposition leader, without actually winning, because people who put those valuues first feel (even) more at home with the Conservatives. They're pleased if other parties are a bit similar, without wanting to vote for them.
I think Starmer is absolutely right to work hard to reassure people about patriotism and respect. But when that's been reasonably broadly accepted, he needs to use that as a basis to move on to wider practical issues that change people's lives. Many people are willing to accept quite a left-wing programme if they feel OK about the general values.
It’s that late 5% Labour needs.
They don’t need to ignore or pander to racism to win them, they need to appeal to the values and issues important to this group (who tend to be white working class).
Would I vote Labour? Under the right circumstances, yes. It was not possible under Corbyn, and frankly under Miliband either. Starmer is more palatable than both of them.
Why not under Miliband?
Too wonky, lacked gravitas (at the time), made some stupid policy calls, too “beta”, stabbed his brother in the back etc.
Ok thanks. Certainly had image problems. He was too timid on policy imo. Don't know if you meant that but I agree if so.
I don’t think he was too timid per se.
I think he had the right instinct - which is that neo-liberal economics was passing its use-by date - but I think he then wonkified and triangulated that instinct to a pile of mush.
That is what I meant yes.
Identified a fundamental problem and named it well - predator capitalism.
Policy response - a temporary cap on household energy prices.
Still called "Marxist" of course, that particular thrilling initiative.
Because they wanted to wait until xmas eve to announce the next set of lockdowns?
To quote Benjamin Franklin:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
This government - to their credit - is reluctant to lock people into their houses as it is a substantial diminution of personal liberty.
There becomes a point at which it is unavoidable.
When that is becomes a matter of judgement.
That is "why" they haven't expanded Tier 4 beyond the current areas, but keep it under review.
Their judgement has been wrong from day 1. Always too late to impose restrictions. Always too quick to relax them.
National lockdown from Boxing Day is needed.
Well, really it is needed now, but that is too much to hope for.
Nope - they just put a higher value on Liberty than you do.
I’m not sure there is a “right” or “wrong” here. There is a spectrum and where on the spectrum you think is right is a value judgement
Yes there is a valid debate around values. But many - I'd say most - of those loudest on the "liberty" side repeatedly fail to grasp basic and incontrovertible truths about the nature of the virus.
To be fair most of them are idiots and controversialists rather than making a coherent argument in favour of Liberty
Oh sure. In fact I think this applies to many in the Toby Young and Lozza Fox space. Even in the more unsavoury Katie Hopkins wing of it much of the time. The motive is profile and money. If anything this makes it worse imo.
*cough* Owen Jones *cough* Laurie Penny *cough* Ash whatshername
No clue who Penny is. But Jones and Sarkar are not guilty of talking crap about the virus.
Laurie Penny is “Penny Red” from the Guardian. I was referring more broadly to shit-stirring for money rather than necessarily about the virus
Eat out to help out was a genius policy, God knows how many jobs it has saved in the hospitality industry. Sunak is the only guy in parliament who looks like a PM in waiting IMO. Only 40 years old too.
Killed lots of people too, from the increase in infection rate, we were told.
Nah. It’s his incompetence with money that will mean he’s yesterday’s man in 12 months time. VFM and bang for buck has gone out the window under him. The big spat that sinks him was giving eye watering sums of tax payers cash to banks to distribute to business and eye watering sums lost in Fraud. Rishi will attempt to say ‘not my fault, the banks should have prevented the fraud better than they did’ the rest of the world will just look at him incredulously.
If I was a polish lorry driver (for example) when someone wants a load delivered to UK in new year I would be putting a pretty high extra premium on the costs for the risk involved. Or just flatly refusing.
No doubt Gove has thought all this through in his meticulous No Deal planning.
Meanwhile, we hold out for a few more fish.
The queues from 1st Jan won't go away if we sod fish and do a deal. We are leaving the customs union. We have required France to join us imposing a hard border at a crossing than does up to 10k trucks a day each way.
Average processing time at external EU land border crossings is 45 minutes per vehicle. Which creates queues of 20 hours plus elsewhere with a fraction of our throughput.
Deal or no deal, the queues will be there and will be catastrophic.
How long will we hold out before rejoining customs union?
I don't know - there is a fundamental lack of understanding on the subject: 1. We hold all the cards - the EU will let us through 2. German car manufacturers need us too much - the EU will let us through 3. We've had enough of experts. As Philip rightly says they can all be ignored 4. If we get a deal it means we Win which means we carry on like before only Better
The reason why you create a customs union is to remove the physical border. By physical border I mean a barrier where traffic has to stop for inspection by customs officers. Even if we agreed the kind of standstill deal that Shagger insists we won't sign (we might - he is a liar...) if we want full checks then that creates the problem. And we DO want the checks apparently.
Unless the deal is that we maintain complete alignment with the EU and do not have a physical border - and it almost certainly won't be - then our border with the EU will cease to function. You cannot process 10k trucks a day each way through a physical border. Do the maths. 10k trucks (per day each way) x 45 minutes (average crossing time at external EU borders) per truck = 312 man days on each side of the border assuming an even flow of vehicles 24 hours a day. As we have a sea crossing between the two sides of the border those vehicles cannot queue to the border which means they get corralled in Kent / Pas-de-Calais.
Operation Brock will do two things. Vehicles bound for the Channel Tunnel will be queued first on the M20 between Junctions 8 and 9, then at Ashford, then there was an M26 option previously looked at. Vehicles bound for Dover go to Manston, then into an M20 style queue on both the A256 and A2. So at these locations they will need to provide food, toilets, showers.
They will not. Because despite Brock existing the cabinet still think nothing will happen.
What evidence do you have that it takes 45 minutes with the EU borders within the Common Transit Convention which we are members of in our own right (and will remain so even under No Deal)?
You seem to be contrasting our arrangements with non-CTC nations which is a bit of a schoolboy error.
45 minutes is the number quoted by logistics experts as opposed to keyboard warrior experts. You seem to be contrasting what they know with what you know and considering them equal. Which is a total schoolboy error.
Turkey is in a customs union with the EU, that is what you want to replicate and you're linking that as something that doesn't work? 🤣🤣🤣
Citation please on 45 minutes being quoted within the CTC because whenever you've been quoting borders recently you've been doing so for non-CTC nations which is not what the UK will be.
How many hours long is the queue between EFTA and EU nations? They aren't in a customs union but are in the CTC.
Turkey is in the CTC you tool. That is is also in a customs union should reduce the transit time more than we will get not in a customs union.
Tell you what, you tell us what the average wait time is and what that means. Then we will compare and contrast what you said with all your logistics expertise against actual logistics professionals.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock will lead a Downing Street press conference at 15:00 GMT, when he is expected to announce changes to some tier restrictions in England.
He will be joined by deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries and Dr Susan Hopkins of Public Health England.
Deeply unpleasant way to behave - publicly shaming your father.
Poor guy will never be able to show his face on Twitter again. We had a couple of old blokes dropping off a piano for us last week, who invited themselves to stay for a coffee and a bit of light racism. But they also told us a story about Prince Michael of Kent too libelous to repeat here so I let them off.
Did they strike you as having a deep and abiding love of country?
3. People are loyal to values, but not to parties 4. They will stick to a party if they think it shares its values, even if they don't think much of its leaders, but switch away rapidly if they cease to think so (look at the way that support for the Conservatives, Brexit Party, and UKIP oscillated).
As a good and loyal scouser, I will tell you that in Merseyside, points 3 and 4 are completely wrong. The Labour loyalty is so embedded, that people think nothing of voting for a Blair led Labour party or a Corbyn led one. And will do just that.
Of course, eight seats doesn't get you a majority, but I did love the last General Election being in Bootle.
Not one of the parties made even a basic attempt to campaign in the seat. Labour knew they'd won and ignored us. The others knew they'd lost and also ignored us.
Merseyside is an unusual case, I admit. The region began moving left in 1964, and then never stopped.
I remember there being Tory MPs until more recently than that. Malcolm Thornton I think?
Being in a safe seat (for either party) is not a good thing. Perhaps you should all vote Tory for one election in Bootle, just so that you get some attention. It seems to have worked for the 'Red Wall'.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock will lead a Downing Street press conference at 15:00 GMT, when he is expected to announce changes to some tier restrictions in England.
He will be joined by deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries and Dr Susan Hopkins of Public Health England.
Some good and interesting posts in this thread on what Labour should be doing.
For me, you address those issues that matter most to the clichéd 'hard working families up and down the country':
- Well paid, secure jobs - A good school for their kids - An NHS they can rely on when they need it - A safe neighbourhood, where crime is dealt with and the villains punished - Dignity and care for their elderly relatives
You can add to that others such as affordable housing, a clean and pleasant land and future, a sense of fairness in society where others don't have privilege and advantage they don't have.
Demonstrate to voters that you understand what matters to them, and you have policies that will address these issues and improve their lives, and the rest falls into place.
Renaming the OBE may be a topic of conversation around north London dinner party tables. I don't think it matters to families in Bishop Auckland sitting down to their tea.
We have turned into the party of the guilty well-healed, wishing to provide charity to the deserving poor. As I've said before, fixating on the top 10% and the bottom 10% is not the way to win elections. It also betrays the purpose and values on which the Labour Party was founded.
BTW, I also feel that we should celebrate the fact that people who are BAME and/or LGBT+ not only feel at home in the Conservative Party but can reach senior positions in a Conservative government. It shows how society has moved on, that such factors do not predetermine who someone will vote for.
I voted for Nandy because I was not convinced that Starmer gets it. I still have plenty of doubts.
My sense is that the guilty well-healed often prefer the underserving poor.
However Brussels say this is unacceptable, as they're planning a ban on the use of all power units from abroad starting in 2027.
EU protectionism...
Nah, it is to ensure we all use Apple cars in the future, apparently Boris Johnson is an Android fan.
Apparently those wanky overpriced Apple headphones, no way of connecting them via a DAC....$550 and I can't even have proper audio.
As with all proprietary Apple tat its lack of connectivity is a design feature that people will pay more for.
There is also no swipe / tap controls...which is standard on the other major brands & you can't fold them away, so you have to carry them in what looks like a cross between a handbag and a bra. Totally impractical for business travel.
I am quite surprised by those two things. You would expect Apple to come out with some cool innovative in those areas.
Because they wanted to wait until xmas eve to announce the next set of lockdowns?
To quote Benjamin Franklin:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
This government - to their credit - is reluctant to lock people into their houses as it is a substantial diminution of personal liberty.
There becomes a point at which it is unavoidable.
When that is becomes a matter of judgement.
That is "why" they haven't expanded Tier 4 beyond the current areas, but keep it under review.
Their judgement has been wrong from day 1. Always too late to impose restrictions. Always too quick to relax them.
National lockdown from Boxing Day is needed.
Well, really it is needed now, but that is too much to hope for.
Nope - they just put a higher value on Liberty than you do.
I’m not sure there is a “right” or “wrong” here. There is a spectrum and where on the spectrum you think is right is a value judgement
Yes there is a valid debate around values. But many - I'd say most - of those loudest on the "liberty" side repeatedly fail to grasp basic and incontrovertible truths about the nature of the virus.
To be fair most of them are idiots and controversialists rather than making a coherent argument in favour of Liberty
Oh sure. In fact I think this applies to many in the Toby Young and Lozza Fox space. Even in the more unsavoury Katie Hopkins wing of it much of the time. The motive is profile and money. If anything this makes it worse imo.
*cough* Owen Jones *cough* Laurie Penny *cough* Ash whatshername
No clue who Penny is. But Jones and Sarkar are not guilty of talking crap about the virus.
Laurie Penny is “Penny Red” from the Guardian. I was referring more broadly to shit-stirring for money rather than necessarily about the virus
General point is fine. But that's not a fair comment re Jones.
If I was a polish lorry driver (for example) when someone wants a load delivered to UK in new year I would be putting a pretty high extra premium on the costs for the risk involved. Or just flatly refusing.
No doubt Gove has thought all this through in his meticulous No Deal planning.
Meanwhile, we hold out for a few more fish.
The queues from 1st Jan won't go away if we sod fish and do a deal. We are leaving the customs union. We have required France to join us imposing a hard border at a crossing than does up to 10k trucks a day each way.
Average processing time at external EU land border crossings is 45 minutes per vehicle. Which creates queues of 20 hours plus elsewhere with a fraction of our throughput.
Deal or no deal, the queues will be there and will be catastrophic.
How long will we hold out before rejoining customs union?
I don't know - there is a fundamental lack of understanding on the subject: 1. We hold all the cards - the EU will let us through 2. German car manufacturers need us too much - the EU will let us through 3. We've had enough of experts. As Philip rightly says they can all be ignored 4. If we get a deal it means we Win which means we carry on like before only Better
The reason why you create a customs union is to remove the physical border. By physical border I mean a barrier where traffic has to stop for inspection by customs officers. Even if we agreed the kind of standstill deal that Shagger insists we won't sign (we might - he is a liar...) if we want full checks then that creates the problem. And we DO want the checks apparently.
Unless the deal is that we maintain complete alignment with the EU and do not have a physical border - and it almost certainly won't be - then our border with the EU will cease to function. You cannot process 10k trucks a day each way through a physical border. Do the maths. 10k trucks (per day each way) x 45 minutes (average crossing time at external EU borders) per truck = 312 man days on each side of the border assuming an even flow of vehicles 24 hours a day. As we have a sea crossing between the two sides of the border those vehicles cannot queue to the border which means they get corralled in Kent / Pas-de-Calais.
Operation Brock will do two things. Vehicles bound for the Channel Tunnel will be queued first on the M20 between Junctions 8 and 9, then at Ashford, then there was an M26 option previously looked at. Vehicles bound for Dover go to Manston, then into an M20 style queue on both the A256 and A2. So at these locations they will need to provide food, toilets, showers.
They will not. Because despite Brock existing the cabinet still think nothing will happen.
What evidence do you have that it takes 45 minutes with the EU borders within the Common Transit Convention which we are members of in our own right (and will remain so even under No Deal)?
You seem to be contrasting our arrangements with non-CTC nations which is a bit of a schoolboy error.
45 minutes is the number quoted by logistics experts as opposed to keyboard warrior experts. You seem to be contrasting what they know with what you know and considering them equal. Which is a total schoolboy error.
Turkey is in a customs union with the EU, that is what you want to replicate and you're linking that as something that doesn't work? 🤣🤣🤣
Citation please on 45 minutes being quoted within the CTC because whenever you've been quoting borders recently you've been doing so for non-CTC nations which is not what the UK will be.
How many hours long is the queue between EFTA and EU nations? They aren't in a customs union but are in the CTC.
Turkey is in the CTC you tool. That is is also in a customs union should reduce the transit time more than we will get not in a customs union.
Tell you what, you tell us what the average wait time is and what that means. Then we will compare and contrast what you said with all your logistics expertise against actual logistics professionals.
Yes Turkey is in the CTC and the Customs Union that you consider to be so important - and still faces problems.
At the Norway/Sweden border on the other hand the average wait time is 10 minutes, with 3-6 minutes of processing and all up the process takes 20 minutes including waiting and processing.
At the French/Swiss border the average time to cross the border is 20 minutes to 2 hours.
So we could be outside a customs union like Norway and Switzerland and have from a 20 minute total (crossing the Channel takes longer than that) or we could be in a customs union like Turkey and face a 24 hour queue.
Because the customs union isn't all you crack it up to be. Norway and Switzerland will be more our border future than third world Turkey will.
However Brussels say this is unacceptable, as they're planning a ban on the use of all power units from abroad starting in 2027.
EU protectionism...
Nah, it is to ensure we all use Apple cars in the future, apparently Boris Johnson is an Android fan.
Apparently those wanky overpriced Apple headphones, no way of connecting them via a DAC....$550 and I can't even have proper audio.
The sound on them is the dog's dangly bits, still not buying them, so impracticable for normal every day use.
I bought a set of Bowers and Wilkins P7 cans to go with the B&W system in the Volvo. As headphones they are absolutely brilliant. They come with a charging cable and a 3.5mm cable and will work with everything giving the highest fidelity sound.
So why would Apple fans want a set 200 notes more expensive with no practical case a third less battery life and no connectivity at all? Oh year - fo show
However Brussels say this is unacceptable, as they're planning a ban on the use of all power units from abroad starting in 2027.
EU protectionism...
Nah, it is to ensure we all use Apple cars in the future, apparently Boris Johnson is an Android fan.
Apparently those wanky overpriced Apple headphones, no way of connecting them via a DAC....$550 and I can't even have proper audio.
As with all proprietary Apple tat its lack of connectivity is a design feature that people will pay more for.
There is also no swipe / tap controls...which is standard on the other major brands & you can't fold them away, so you have to carry them in what looks like a cross between a handbag and a bra. Totally impractical for business travel.
I am quite surprised by those two things. You would expect Apple to come out with some cool innovative in those areas.
3. People are loyal to values, but not to parties 4. They will stick to a party if they think it shares its values, even if they don't think much of its leaders, but switch away rapidly if they cease to think so (look at the way that support for the Conservatives, Brexit Party, and UKIP oscillated).
As a good and loyal scouser, I will tell you that in Merseyside, points 3 and 4 are completely wrong. The Labour loyalty is so embedded, that people think nothing of voting for a Blair led Labour party or a Corbyn led one. And will do just that.
Of course, eight seats doesn't get you a majority, but I did love the last General Election being in Bootle.
Not one of the parties made even a basic attempt to campaign in the seat. Labour knew they'd won and ignored us. The others knew they'd lost and also ignored us.
Merseyside is an unusual case, I admit. The region began moving left in 1964, and then never stopped.
I remember there being Tory MPs until more recently than that. Malcolm Thornton I think?
Being in a safe seat (for either party) is not a good thing. Perhaps you should all vote Tory for one election in Bootle, just so that you get some attention. It seems to have worked for the 'Red Wall'.
Within Merseyside, Esther McVey managed to win back Wirral West in 2010 before losing in 2015. The only other Tory seat is Southport which the Tories took off the LibDems in 2017 and still hold though Labour surged into second at the last election. But, overall, definitely an area of long-term advance for Labour and Tory retreat. Contrasts markedly with North Wales.
We all know the Russians and Chinese spooks are trying to hack our vaccine stuff so why in the name of holy chuffery buggery is he doing important calls like that on his private zoom account
However Brussels say this is unacceptable, as they're planning a ban on the use of all power units from abroad starting in 2027.
EU protectionism...
Nah, it is to ensure we all use Apple cars in the future, apparently Boris Johnson is an Android fan.
Apparently those wanky overpriced Apple headphones, no way of connecting them via a DAC....$550 and I can't even have proper audio.
The sound on them is the dog's dangly bits, still not buying them, so impracticable for normal every day use.
I bought a set of Bowers and Wilkins P7 cans to go with the B&W system in the Volvo. As headphones they are absolutely brilliant. They come with a charging cable and a 3.5mm cable and will work with everything giving the highest fidelity sound.
So why would Apple fans want a set 200 notes more expensive with no practical case a third less battery life and no connectivity at all? Oh year - fo show
You can connect the AirPods Max to a 3.5mm cable with an adaptor.
Deeply unpleasant way to behave - publicly shaming your father.
Poor guy will never be able to show his face on Twitter again. We had a couple of old blokes dropping off a piano for us last week, who invited themselves to stay for a coffee and a bit of light racism. But they also told us a story about Prince Michael of Kent too libelous to repeat here so I let them off.
I don't think she was shaming her father, just compassionately describing him. My dad is a couple of decades older than hers (mid 70s) and is what I would describe as passively racist and homophobic. He doesn't actively dislike people, but he absolutely sees them as different and labels them as such. If he went to see a doctor they'll be described as an asian doctor (if they are BAME obviously). And he has for decades told stories about the "wooly woofters" he worked with at Manchester council. Which is why he has no idea he has a bisexual son and a bi/pansexual (depends what mood he's in) grandson.
So I totally got what she was saying. Its not people who are monsters. It is ordinary people stuck in a time that has happily receded into the past. I don't think it is right to try and apply 2020 morality onto people from previous generations, but I do try to help educate my dad (gently) by pointing out that they can't say things like that any more.
It is a real problem for Labour - people who feel the world they are comfortable in having slipped away from them. Its also a problem for the Tories pandering to their prejudices...
Publicly calling her father an "asshole" is disgusting. Only a piece of scum does that.
That really does depend a bit, doesn't it? Second-guessing what may be a very complicated family relationship is never a great idea. There may be a lot she hasn't shared.
If I was a polish lorry driver (for example) when someone wants a load delivered to UK in new year I would be putting a pretty high extra premium on the costs for the risk involved. Or just flatly refusing.
No doubt Gove has thought all this through in his meticulous No Deal planning.
Meanwhile, we hold out for a few more fish.
The queues from 1st Jan won't go away if we sod fish and do a deal. We are leaving the customs union. We have required France to join us imposing a hard border at a crossing than does up to 10k trucks a day each way.
Average processing time at external EU land border crossings is 45 minutes per vehicle. Which creates queues of 20 hours plus elsewhere with a fraction of our throughput.
Deal or no deal, the queues will be there and will be catastrophic.
How long will we hold out before rejoining customs union?
I don't know - there is a fundamental lack of understanding on the subject: 1. We hold all the cards - the EU will let us through 2. German car manufacturers need us too much - the EU will let us through 3. We've had enough of experts. As Philip rightly says they can all be ignored 4. If we get a deal it means we Win which means we carry on like before only Better
The reason why you create a customs union is to remove the physical border. By physical border I mean a barrier where traffic has to stop for inspection by customs officers. Even if we agreed the kind of standstill deal that Shagger insists we won't sign (we might - he is a liar...) if we want full checks then that creates the problem. And we DO want the checks apparently.
Unless the deal is that we maintain complete alignment with the EU and do not have a physical border - and it almost certainly won't be - then our border with the EU will cease to function. You cannot process 10k trucks a day each way through a physical border. Do the maths. 10k trucks (per day each way) x 45 minutes (average crossing time at external EU borders) per truck = 312 man days on each side of the border assuming an even flow of vehicles 24 hours a day. As we have a sea crossing between the two sides of the border those vehicles cannot queue to the border which means they get corralled in Kent / Pas-de-Calais.
Operation Brock will do two things. Vehicles bound for the Channel Tunnel will be queued first on the M20 between Junctions 8 and 9, then at Ashford, then there was an M26 option previously looked at. Vehicles bound for Dover go to Manston, then into an M20 style queue on both the A256 and A2. So at these locations they will need to provide food, toilets, showers.
They will not. Because despite Brock existing the cabinet still think nothing will happen.
What evidence do you have that it takes 45 minutes with the EU borders within the Common Transit Convention which we are members of in our own right (and will remain so even under No Deal)?
You seem to be contrasting our arrangements with non-CTC nations which is a bit of a schoolboy error.
45 minutes is the number quoted by logistics experts as opposed to keyboard warrior experts. You seem to be contrasting what they know with what you know and considering them equal. Which is a total schoolboy error.
Turkey is in a customs union with the EU, that is what you want to replicate and you're linking that as something that doesn't work? 🤣🤣🤣
Citation please on 45 minutes being quoted within the CTC because whenever you've been quoting borders recently you've been doing so for non-CTC nations which is not what the UK will be.
How many hours long is the queue between EFTA and EU nations? They aren't in a customs union but are in the CTC.
Turkey is in the CTC you tool. That is is also in a customs union should reduce the transit time more than we will get not in a customs union.
Tell you what, you tell us what the average wait time is and what that means. Then we will compare and contrast what you said with all your logistics expertise against actual logistics professionals.
Yes Turkey is in the CTC and the Customs Union that you consider to be so important - and still faces problems.
At the Norway/Sweden border on the other hand the average wait time is 10 minutes, with 3-6 minutes of processing and all up the process takes 20 minutes including waiting and processing.
At the French/Swiss border the average time to cross the border is 20 minutes to 2 hours.
So we could be outside a customs union like Norway and Switzerland and have from a 20 minute total (crossing the Channel takes longer than that) or we could be in a customs union like Turkey and face a 24 hour queue.
Because the customs union isn't all you crack it up to be. Norway and Switzerland will be more our border future than third world Turkey will.
Good, so you've dropped your CTC strawman and started talking numbers? Great.
Lets take your best case scenario - Norway / Sweden. Not that we can be like them because we aren't EEA members so it won't be as effortless. Their busiest crossing does 1,300 trucks a day total. Vs 18-20k per day total at Dover - Calais. Because they have automated it they manage to whip vehicles through in 20 minutes.
We won't be as automated as them as EEA membership makes it easier - they don't have to check standards as we do. So 20 minutes JUST to do customs and we have to do standards as well. And 1,300 HGV moves vs 13 to 15 times that volume. With a sea crossing for added fun.
Sage - Britain's coronavirus R rate is UP to 1.5 in London, 1.3 across the UK and RISING in all southern regions.
Does this indicate that people just don;t give a monkeys any more and are doing whatever they want?
No.
Does it indicate Tiering just doesn;t work?
No.
Then what does it indicate?
That we have a variant that is 70%. more infectious.
No other factors? Like what the government calls measures for control = go to the gym, then Christmas shopping, then spend evening at the football?
There's very good social distancing at the soccer.
There's other factors at play, but I think the big chunk of the increase in the R number is down to the mutant variant.
Soccer?
You watched any soccer games lately? There’s better social distancing in a rugby scrum than in the one open stand.
The clubs are verifying that people live together, that's why they let them sit together.
Fair enough. It’s a subject thing. As one of the first to renew season tic I was offered the chance. I took a keen eye into those stands on the telly pictures and felt it’s still a bit too cosy for me. Singing and shouting etc. And I think there is nothing better on this earth than an evening out at the football.
My overall point really is what we call 2.0 and tiered measures imo not strong enough for this virus in winter time, mutant or not. Any rises of anything can’t solely be blamed on mutant, if we haven’t really been doing nearly enough to control it before during and after mutation.
When there is the promised public enquiry it’s certain to conclude government put the economy ahead of saving lives.
Sage - Britain's coronavirus R rate is UP to 1.5 in London, 1.3 across the UK and RISING in all southern regions.
Does this indicate that people just don;t give a monkeys any more and are doing whatever they want?
Quite possibly, but those R number estimates reflect infections that happened two to three weeks ago as they're based on cases found in tests. I wish that was emphasised more when they're reported. If the (unknowable) realtime R number in London hasn't cratered since the lockdown and avalanche of bad news on the weekend, we're in deep deep trouble.
If I was a polish lorry driver (for example) when someone wants a load delivered to UK in new year I would be putting a pretty high extra premium on the costs for the risk involved. Or just flatly refusing.
No doubt Gove has thought all this through in his meticulous No Deal planning.
Meanwhile, we hold out for a few more fish.
The queues from 1st Jan won't go away if we sod fish and do a deal. We are leaving the customs union. We have required France to join us imposing a hard border at a crossing than does up to 10k trucks a day each way.
Average processing time at external EU land border crossings is 45 minutes per vehicle. Which creates queues of 20 hours plus elsewhere with a fraction of our throughput.
Deal or no deal, the queues will be there and will be catastrophic.
How long will we hold out before rejoining customs union?
I don't know - there is a fundamental lack of understanding on the subject: 1. We hold all the cards - the EU will let us through 2. German car manufacturers need us too much - the EU will let us through 3. We've had enough of experts. As Philip rightly says they can all be ignored 4. If we get a deal it means we Win which means we carry on like before only Better
The reason why you create a customs union is to remove the physical border. By physical border I mean a barrier where traffic has to stop for inspection by customs officers. Even if we agreed the kind of standstill deal that Shagger insists we won't sign (we might - he is a liar...) if we want full checks then that creates the problem. And we DO want the checks apparently.
Unless the deal is that we maintain complete alignment with the EU and do not have a physical border - and it almost certainly won't be - then our border with the EU will cease to function. You cannot process 10k trucks a day each way through a physical border. Do the maths. 10k trucks (per day each way) x 45 minutes (average crossing time at external EU borders) per truck = 312 man days on each side of the border assuming an even flow of vehicles 24 hours a day. As we have a sea crossing between the two sides of the border those vehicles cannot queue to the border which means they get corralled in Kent / Pas-de-Calais.
Operation Brock will do two things. Vehicles bound for the Channel Tunnel will be queued first on the M20 between Junctions 8 and 9, then at Ashford, then there was an M26 option previously looked at. Vehicles bound for Dover go to Manston, then into an M20 style queue on both the A256 and A2. So at these locations they will need to provide food, toilets, showers.
They will not. Because despite Brock existing the cabinet still think nothing will happen.
What evidence do you have that it takes 45 minutes with the EU borders within the Common Transit Convention which we are members of in our own right (and will remain so even under No Deal)?
You seem to be contrasting our arrangements with non-CTC nations which is a bit of a schoolboy error.
45 minutes is the number quoted by logistics experts as opposed to keyboard warrior experts. You seem to be contrasting what they know with what you know and considering them equal. Which is a total schoolboy error.
Turkey is in a customs union with the EU, that is what you want to replicate and you're linking that as something that doesn't work? 🤣🤣🤣
Citation please on 45 minutes being quoted within the CTC because whenever you've been quoting borders recently you've been doing so for non-CTC nations which is not what the UK will be.
How many hours long is the queue between EFTA and EU nations? They aren't in a customs union but are in the CTC.
Turkey is in the CTC you tool. That is is also in a customs union should reduce the transit time more than we will get not in a customs union.
Tell you what, you tell us what the average wait time is and what that means. Then we will compare and contrast what you said with all your logistics expertise against actual logistics professionals.
Yes Turkey is in the CTC and the Customs Union that you consider to be so important - and still faces problems.
At the Norway/Sweden border on the other hand the average wait time is 10 minutes, with 3-6 minutes of processing and all up the process takes 20 minutes including waiting and processing.
At the French/Swiss border the average time to cross the border is 20 minutes to 2 hours.
So we could be outside a customs union like Norway and Switzerland and have from a 20 minute total (crossing the Channel takes longer than that) or we could be in a customs union like Turkey and face a 24 hour queue.
Because the customs union isn't all you crack it up to be. Norway and Switzerland will be more our border future than third world Turkey will.
You do realise Norway and Sweden are in the Single Market and Turkey isn't?
Some good and interesting posts in this thread on what Labour should be doing.
For me, you address those issues that matter most to the clichéd 'hard working families up and down the country':
- Well paid, secure jobs - A good school for their kids - An NHS they can rely on when they need it - A safe neighbourhood, where crime is dealt with and the villains punished - Dignity and care for their elderly relatives
You can add to that others such as affordable housing, a clean and pleasant land and future, a sense of fairness in society where others don't have privilege and advantage they don't have.
Demonstrate to voters that you understand what matters to them, and you have policies that will address these issues and improve their lives, and the rest falls into place.
Renaming the OBE may be a topic of conversation around north London dinner party tables. I don't think it matters to families in Bishop Auckland sitting down to their tea.
We have turned into the party of the guilty well-healed, wishing to provide charity to the deserving poor. As I've said before, fixating on the top 10% and the bottom 10% is not the way to win elections. It also betrays the purpose and values on which the Labour Party was founded.
BTW, I also feel that we should celebrate the fact that people who are BAME and/or LGBT+ not only feel at home in the Conservative Party but can reach senior positions in a Conservative government. It shows how society has moved on, that such factors do not predetermine who someone will vote for.
I voted for Nandy because I was not convinced that Starmer gets it. I still have plenty of doubts.
Yes, the top and bottom 10% line is spot on. As bad as Jezbollah was Labour had serious issues under Milliband as well driven by the same hard left nutters. The 2015 manifesto had headline policies to go after the toffs to fix bedroom tax, and something about energy bills - and that was it. Almost nothing of any substance to offer the vast majority in the middle and no real grasp as to what their concerns were. As witnessed by knee-jerk stupidity like the immigration mug pledge.
A Corbynite of my acquaintance was proud of his version of "its all about the bottom 10%" - in his view anyone with a job was "middle class".
Strangely, his well paid job didn't effect his position in the revolution.....
Sage - Britain's coronavirus R rate is UP to 1.5 in London, 1.3 across the UK and RISING in all southern regions.
Does this indicate that people just don;t give a monkeys any more and are doing whatever they want?
Quite possibly, but those R number estimates reflect infections that happened two to three weeks ago as they're based on cases found in tests. I wish that was emphasised more when they're reported. If the (unknowable) realtime R number in London hasn't cratered since the lockdown and avalanche of bad news on the weekend, we're in deep deep trouble.
And it doesn't help that those R estimates always seem to be outdated even compared to the case data that is available. The 7-day average for London has been up by over 100% week-on-week for the last few days, which suggests an R closer to 2 than 1.5, depending on what average time from infection to infection you assume.
If I was a polish lorry driver (for example) when someone wants a load delivered to UK in new year I would be putting a pretty high extra premium on the costs for the risk involved. Or just flatly refusing.
No doubt Gove has thought all this through in his meticulous No Deal planning.
Meanwhile, we hold out for a few more fish.
The queues from 1st Jan won't go away if we sod fish and do a deal. We are leaving the customs union. We have required France to join us imposing a hard border at a crossing than does up to 10k trucks a day each way.
Average processing time at external EU land border crossings is 45 minutes per vehicle. Which creates queues of 20 hours plus elsewhere with a fraction of our throughput.
Deal or no deal, the queues will be there and will be catastrophic.
How long will we hold out before rejoining customs union?
I don't know - there is a fundamental lack of understanding on the subject: 1. We hold all the cards - the EU will let us through 2. German car manufacturers need us too much - the EU will let us through 3. We've had enough of experts. As Philip rightly says they can all be ignored 4. If we get a deal it means we Win which means we carry on like before only Better
The reason why you create a customs union is to remove the physical border. By physical border I mean a barrier where traffic has to stop for inspection by customs officers. Even if we agreed the kind of standstill deal that Shagger insists we won't sign (we might - he is a liar...) if we want full checks then that creates the problem. And we DO want the checks apparently.
Unless the deal is that we maintain complete alignment with the EU and do not have a physical border - and it almost certainly won't be - then our border with the EU will cease to function. You cannot process 10k trucks a day each way through a physical border. Do the maths. 10k trucks (per day each way) x 45 minutes (average crossing time at external EU borders) per truck = 312 man days on each side of the border assuming an even flow of vehicles 24 hours a day. As we have a sea crossing between the two sides of the border those vehicles cannot queue to the border which means they get corralled in Kent / Pas-de-Calais.
Operation Brock will do two things. Vehicles bound for the Channel Tunnel will be queued first on the M20 between Junctions 8 and 9, then at Ashford, then there was an M26 option previously looked at. Vehicles bound for Dover go to Manston, then into an M20 style queue on both the A256 and A2. So at these locations they will need to provide food, toilets, showers.
They will not. Because despite Brock existing the cabinet still think nothing will happen.
What evidence do you have that it takes 45 minutes with the EU borders within the Common Transit Convention which we are members of in our own right (and will remain so even under No Deal)?
You seem to be contrasting our arrangements with non-CTC nations which is a bit of a schoolboy error.
45 minutes is the number quoted by logistics experts as opposed to keyboard warrior experts. You seem to be contrasting what they know with what you know and considering them equal. Which is a total schoolboy error.
Turkey is in a customs union with the EU, that is what you want to replicate and you're linking that as something that doesn't work? 🤣🤣🤣
Citation please on 45 minutes being quoted within the CTC because whenever you've been quoting borders recently you've been doing so for non-CTC nations which is not what the UK will be.
How many hours long is the queue between EFTA and EU nations? They aren't in a customs union but are in the CTC.
Turkey is in the CTC you tool. That is is also in a customs union should reduce the transit time more than we will get not in a customs union.
Tell you what, you tell us what the average wait time is and what that means. Then we will compare and contrast what you said with all your logistics expertise against actual logistics professionals.
Yes Turkey is in the CTC and the Customs Union that you consider to be so important - and still faces problems.
At the Norway/Sweden border on the other hand the average wait time is 10 minutes, with 3-6 minutes of processing and all up the process takes 20 minutes including waiting and processing.
At the French/Swiss border the average time to cross the border is 20 minutes to 2 hours.
So we could be outside a customs union like Norway and Switzerland and have from a 20 minute total (crossing the Channel takes longer than that) or we could be in a customs union like Turkey and face a 24 hour queue.
Because the customs union isn't all you crack it up to be. Norway and Switzerland will be more our border future than third world Turkey will.
Good, so you've dropped your CTC strawman and started talking numbers? Great.
Lets take your best case scenario - Norway / Sweden. Not that we can be like them because we aren't EEA members so it won't be as effortless. Their busiest crossing does 1,300 trucks a day total. Vs 18-20k per day total at Dover - Calais. Because they have automated it they manage to whip vehicles through in 20 minutes.
We won't be as automated as them as EEA membership makes it easier - they don't have to check standards as we do. So 20 minutes JUST to do customs and we have to do standards as well. And 1,300 HGV moves vs 13 to 15 times that volume. With a sea crossing for added fun.
Let me know when you comprehend the issue.
Richard Tyndall speaks very well against CUs. Despite the attack on how it works, I think the key dislike of it is how much sovereignty and democracy it sucks from U.K. to Brussels. That in itself is a fair enough position, though not actually an effective attack on a CU itself if you are unbothered by the amount of sovereignty it sucks up for membership.
When I described it before Phillip you gave me kudos for understanding it. But you claim it was rejected in 2016 and subsequent elections, which I disagree with, I don’t think CU membership was properly discussed and rejected. In fact the time for that is yet to come. This is the new phase this never ending struggle is entering, where Brexit is in defence and under attack.
This is how I described it last time
The moment Britain quits the CU and starts a FTA our commerce instantly becomes more expensive. A customs union is the removal of tariff barriers between members, together with acceptance of a common tariff against non-members. Countries that export to the customs union only need to make a single payment once the goods have passed through the border. Once inside goods can move freely without additional tariffs. Tariff revenue may then be shared between members, with the possibility that the country that collects the duty retaining a share, between 20 and 25% in the European customs union to cover the additional administration costs associated with border trade. That is an awful lot of money that helps with administration costs to be surrendering at stroke of a pen to be absorbed by our businesses.
One of the strongest arguments for a customs union over a simple free-trade agreement, is that it solves the problem of trade deflection. Trade deflection occurs when non-members ship goods to a low tariff FTA member (or set up a subsidiary in the low tariff country) and re-ship to a high tariff FTA member. Hence, without a unified external tariff, trade flows become one-sided and further action is taken to deal with that. For example, assuming Europe operated a simple FTA, rather than a customs union, and if Germany imposes a high 40% tariff on Japanese cars, while France imposes just a 10% tariff, Japan would export its cars to French car dealers, and then re-sell them to Germany on a free-trade basis. This trade deflection is avoided if Germany and France (and others) form a customs union. can Britain outside really compete with Europe on this basis? Inside the EU Britaingains from trade creation massively outweigh the losses from trade diversion, becuase this isn’t just for final goods and resources, this is beneficial for supply chains integral to what the deindustrialising British economy has become, tariff free movement within the customs union for important supply chain.
Some good and interesting posts in this thread on what Labour should be doing.
For me, you address those issues that matter most to the clichéd 'hard working families up and down the country':
- Well paid, secure jobs - A good school for their kids - An NHS they can rely on when they need it - A safe neighbourhood, where crime is dealt with and the villains punished - Dignity and care for their elderly relatives
You can add to that others such as affordable housing, a clean and pleasant land and future, a sense of fairness in society where others don't have privilege and advantage they don't have.
Demonstrate to voters that you understand what matters to them, and you have policies that will address these issues and improve their lives, and the rest falls into place.
Renaming the OBE may be a topic of conversation around north London dinner party tables. I don't think it matters to families in Bishop Auckland sitting down to their tea.
We have turned into the party of the guilty well-healed, wishing to provide charity to the deserving poor. As I've said before, fixating on the top 10% and the bottom 10% is not the way to win elections. It also betrays the purpose and values on which the Labour Party was founded.
BTW, I also feel that we should celebrate the fact that people who are BAME and/or LGBT+ not only feel at home in the Conservative Party but can reach senior positions in a Conservative government. It shows how society has moved on, that such factors do not predetermine who someone will vote for.
I voted for Nandy because I was not convinced that Starmer gets it. I still have plenty of doubts.
My sense is that the guilty well-healed often prefer the underserving poor.
Particularly since they are more remote and can be fantasised about more.
The Proletarian are too available for inspection on Twitter, Facebook etc. The Capite Censi can be idealised - and if one of them comes into view and doesn't meet the requirements - why, they are *really* Proletarian.
Sage - Britain's coronavirus R rate is UP to 1.5 in London, 1.3 across the UK and RISING in all southern regions.
Does this indicate that people just don;t give a monkeys any more and are doing whatever they want?
Quite possibly, but those R number estimates reflect infections that happened two to three weeks ago as they're based on cases found in tests. I wish that was emphasised more when they're reported. If the (unknowable) realtime R number in London hasn't cratered since the lockdown and avalanche of bad news on the weekend, we're in deep deep trouble.
And it doesn't help that those R estimates always seem to be outdated even compared to the case data that is available. The 7-day average for London has been up by over 100% week-on-week for the last few days, which suggests an R closer to 2 than 1.5, depending on what average time from infection to infection you assume.
Sage - Britain's coronavirus R rate is UP to 1.5 in London, 1.3 across the UK and RISING in all southern regions.
Does this indicate that people just don;t give a monkeys any more and are doing whatever they want?
Quite possibly, but those R number estimates reflect infections that happened two to three weeks ago as they're based on cases found in tests. I wish that was emphasised more when they're reported. If the (unknowable) realtime R number in London hasn't cratered since the lockdown and avalanche of bad news on the weekend, we're in deep deep trouble.
And it doesn't help that those R estimates always seem to be outdated even compared to the case data that is available. The 7-day average for London has been up by over 100% week-on-week for the last few days, which suggests an R closer to 2 than 1.5, depending on what average time from infection to infection you assume.
As for the crux of Casino_Royale's point, I've often spoken about that myself. I don't agree that the solution is to out social conservative Labour (which Labour can't ever do anyway), the solution is to not get involved in culture wars.
Blair was very good on this topic.
I am not calling for Labour to “out socially conservative” the Tories. Just to attack them on issues which are currently seen as “right”.
Remember tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime?
That, for starters.
Yes that was good. However new Labour in government had some bad habits . Such as announcing half baked plans every week, like the police marching people down to cash points for instant justice on minor breaches of the law. I am sure SkS is more considered in his views.
Yeh, well that’s why I vote LD. However, I want to see this government defeated and it is essential that Labour is seen as electable again.
It's an interesting discussion and I'm not blind to the points that you, Sean Fear, Casino and others are making. I won a seat that had had a Tory majority of 17,000 (29%) just 10 years earlier and held it for 13 years by paying unrelenting attention to constituents as people, never giving up on a single one of them and always trying to understand where they were coming from and looking for common ground. I've never deliberately and seriously insulted anyone in my life - not fascists, not anti-vaxxers, not climate change deniers. We all get our ideas from somewhere and it doesn't make us monsters.
I have two reservations, though:
1. One has to consider where one draws the line without abandoning the reason why one took up politics. I'm ready to listen sympathetically to people who dislike the speed of change and are afraid of it, including change caused by large-scale immigration. But if someone says to me that "Immigrants are dirty" or something like that (as I've occasionally experienced), I won't pretend to agree. I'll politely say that I think that's too generalised, and people in every group vary in how they look after themselves. If that puts the voter off, it can't be helped. Writ large, the party needs to show understanding and sympathy and address practical fears without mock-pandering.
2. How far are people actually winnable? I get that you'd like Labour to be electable. I get that Casino is sincere in wanting an opposition that he respects. But would either of you actually vote Labour? The risk that Starmer takes if he focuses on patriotism and traditional values is being generally accepted as a perfectly decent opposition leader, without actually winning, because people who put those valuues first feel (even) more at home with the Conservatives. They're pleased if other parties are a bit similar, without wanting to vote for them.
I think Starmer is absolutely right to work hard to reassure people about patriotism and respect. But when that's been reasonably broadly accepted, he needs to use that as a basis to move on to wider practical issues that change people's lives. Many people are willing to accept quite a left-wing programme if they feel OK about the general values.
You’d expect that the experience of 2020 (or 2020/1) would make people more open to - and indeed eager for - collective solutions, pace 1948. There isn’t too much evidence of that at the moment, but then we’re still in the midst of the struggle rather than contemplating what sort of world we might desire afterwards.
All that the crisis has done so far is push the Tories to abandon their individualism and pick all the fruit from the long sought money tree.
Neither LibDems nor Labour is really rising to the challenge of mapping out their visions for a better world for afterwards. Maybe now isn’t the time to be promoting it, but it is certainly the time to be thinking about it.
Spot on, centrists and the centre left politicians are not yet coming up with solutions that drive enthusiasm and vision. Green technology should be at the heart of their plans for the UK's future. We would be very good at it, although hopefully can retain more of the businesses than we have done from UK scientific achievements in the last 50 odd years.
The Green one is interesting.
IMO Ed Milliband was not clear in going about what he wanted to achieve. As Energy Sec he heaped Green Taxes on Energy Bills to fund energy efficiency - fine, but then he proposed to cap prices which would set emissions off again. That does not compute.
Lib Dems have a good history on this - Ed Davey did a lot during the coalition, such as creating an energy efficiency ratchet for private rentals which has caused the PRS now to be more efficient than the owner occupied sector. But there are still shudders inside parts of the party about his coalition "taint".
There are policy opportunities eg for me water consumption and owner occupied energy efficiency, though the current govt are jumping on some of them.
I am not clear if the need to placate the red wall and coastal communities will make the Tories change some of their spots on these.
Comments
We accept we live on a land dominated by Farage, the Daly Mail and the Brexiteers. There is nothing we can do about it but let them get on with it. Enjoy the "victory" and stop sounding so f**g miserable about it, anyone would think you didn't believe the leaver's guff either
These Polish drivers are providing next to zero pressure on the NHS - the evidence is that lorry drivers are actually one of the very safest professions of them all. Unsurprisingly because they're naturally extremely socially distanced.
Vaccinating the elderly removes the pressure on the NHS that is what is causing lockdowns. Vaccinating people who don't get sick and are extremely unlikely to even catch the virus, are very healthy if they do and will spend almost all of their time out of the country . . . is not the best return on investment.
Where do you set up the testing facility?
The EU has been protectionist on Services and hasn't looked to prioritise them. It is what we're world leaders in and we are looking to sign agreements on that. Once we get them, throwing that away to join a customs agreement even the EFTA don't want to be in won't be cost free.
Especially given we're already in the CTC.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/30/treasury-rejects-theory-eat-out-to-help-out-caused-rise-in-covid
The scheme would have killed lots of people too, from the increase in infection rate, we were told.
F*ck business is the one promise Johnson might actually keep.
45 minutes is the number quoted by logistics experts as opposed to keyboard warrior experts. You seem to be contrasting what they know with what you know and considering them equal. Which is a total schoolboy error.
I'm mildly curious whether @Charles actually believes his views are shameful, or if that was just a rhetorical stance on his part.
As for the tweeter, she has her own views.
https://twitter.com/cakeylaura/status/1341733699411435520
For me, you address those issues that matter most to the clichéd 'hard working families up and down the country':
- Well paid, secure jobs
- A good school for their kids
- An NHS they can rely on when they need it
- A safe neighbourhood, where crime is dealt with and the villains punished
- Dignity and care for their elderly relatives
You can add to that others such as affordable housing, a clean and pleasant land and future, a sense of fairness in society where others don't have privilege and advantage they don't have.
Demonstrate to voters that you understand what matters to them, and you have policies that will address these issues and improve their lives, and the rest falls into place.
Renaming the OBE may be a topic of conversation around north London dinner party tables. I don't think it matters to families in Bishop Auckland sitting down to their tea.
We have turned into the party of the guilty well-healed, wishing to provide charity to the deserving poor. As I've said before, fixating on the top 10% and the bottom 10% is not the way to win elections. It also betrays the purpose and values on which the Labour Party was founded.
BTW, I also feel that we should celebrate the fact that people who are BAME and/or LGBT+ not only feel at home in the Conservative Party but can reach senior positions in a Conservative government. It shows how society has moved on, that such factors do not predetermine who someone will vote for.
I voted for Nandy because I was not convinced that Starmer gets it. I still have plenty of doubts.
EU protectionism...
There's been no Parliamentary by-election since 2019: my evidence from local canvassing is that the LibDem vote in this Tory constituency is doing well because the Tory vote has totally collapsed: from about 45% to less than its catastrophic position in the Euros.
If most national opinion polls are showing a poor LD performance, the evidence here is that it must be because the LDs are doing VERY badly in Labour seats and in Red Wall seats.
Which shouldn't surprise, because Starmer's a star
Of course, eight seats doesn't get you a majority, but I did love the last General Election being in Bootle.
Not one of the parties made even a basic attempt to campaign in the seat. Labour knew they'd won and ignored us. The others knew they'd lost and also ignored us.
Citation please on 45 minutes being quoted within the CTC because whenever you've been quoting borders recently you've been doing so for non-CTC nations which is not what the UK will be.
How many hours long is the queue between EFTA and EU nations? They aren't in a customs union but are in the CTC.
Why would you laugh at someone’s life choices? It gets more difficult when you are getting into the area of conflicting rights (ie trans-rights vs born-female rights especially where it raises questions of security) but that’s why we have politics - to resolve difficult questions in a broadly peaceful manner
Identified a fundamental problem and named it well - predator capitalism.
Policy response - a temporary cap on household energy prices.
Still called "Marxist" of course, that particular thrilling initiative.
Tell you what, you tell us what the average wait time is and what that means. Then we will compare and contrast what you said with all your logistics expertise against actual logistics professionals.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock will lead a Downing Street press conference at 15:00 GMT, when he is expected to announce changes to some tier restrictions in England.
He will be joined by deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries and Dr Susan Hopkins of Public Health England.
There's other factors at play, but I think the big chunk of the increase in the R number is down to the mutant variant.
Being in a safe seat (for either party) is not a good thing. Perhaps you should all vote Tory for one election in Bootle, just so that you get some attention. It seems to have worked for the 'Red Wall'.
You watched any soccer games lately? There’s better social distancing in a rugby scrum than in the one open stand.
I don't think its proven the strain spreads more quickly, still a hypothesis.
I am quite surprised by those two things. You would expect Apple to come out with some cool innovative in those areas.
...
https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1341702387296333824
https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1341702704582811650
At the Norway/Sweden border on the other hand the average wait time is 10 minutes, with 3-6 minutes of processing and all up the process takes 20 minutes including waiting and processing.
At the French/Swiss border the average time to cross the border is 20 minutes to 2 hours.
So we could be outside a customs union like Norway and Switzerland and have from a 20 minute total (crossing the Channel takes longer than that) or we could be in a customs union like Turkey and face a 24 hour queue.
Because the customs union isn't all you crack it up to be. Norway and Switzerland will be more our border future than third world Turkey will.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/23/pfizer-biontech-supply-coronavirus-vaccine-450216
So why would Apple fans want a set 200 notes more expensive with no practical case a third less battery life and no connectivity at all? Oh year - fo show
https://bgr.com/2020/12/22/galaxy-s21-charger-vs-iphone-12-facebook-post-deleted/
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1341755050566234115
Zahawi is the Vaccine Czar
We are so screwed...
We all know the Russians and Chinese spooks are trying to hack our vaccine stuff so why in the name of holy chuffery buggery is he doing important calls like that on his private zoom account
Makes everything easier.
NEW THREAD
Lets take your best case scenario - Norway / Sweden. Not that we can be like them because we aren't EEA members so it won't be as effortless. Their busiest crossing does 1,300 trucks a day total. Vs 18-20k per day total at Dover - Calais. Because they have automated it they manage to whip vehicles through in 20 minutes.
We won't be as automated as them as EEA membership makes it easier - they don't have to check standards as we do. So 20 minutes JUST to do customs and we have to do standards as well. And 1,300 HGV moves vs 13 to 15 times that volume. With a sea crossing for added fun.
Let me know when you comprehend the issue.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6?fbclid=IwAR2JDVCdFA6CLpLnk4pJqHFwOlscRexGEFGmq7uuRuvSVvwUPCo0yaljoNI
My overall point really is what we call 2.0 and tiered measures imo not strong enough for this virus in winter time, mutant or not. Any rises of anything can’t solely be blamed on mutant, if we haven’t really been doing nearly enough to control it before during and after mutation.
When there is the promised public enquiry it’s certain to conclude government put the economy ahead of saving lives.
Oh, you don't?
Strangely, his well paid job didn't effect his position in the revolution.....
I still can't find a good theoretical analysis of the effects of varying levels of accuracy in tests.
Seems strange that the modelling types haven't been all over this....
When I described it before Phillip you gave me kudos for understanding it. But you claim it was rejected in 2016 and subsequent elections, which I disagree with, I don’t think CU membership was properly discussed and rejected. In fact the time for that is yet to come. This is the new phase this never ending struggle is entering, where Brexit is in defence and under attack.
This is how I described it last time
The moment Britain quits the CU and starts a FTA our commerce instantly becomes more expensive. A customs union is the removal of tariff barriers between members, together with acceptance of a common tariff against non-members. Countries that export to the customs union only need to make a single payment once the goods have passed through the border. Once inside goods can move freely without additional tariffs. Tariff revenue may then be shared between members, with the possibility that the country that collects the duty retaining a share, between 20 and 25% in the European customs union to cover the additional administration costs associated with border trade. That is an awful lot of money that helps with administration costs to be surrendering at stroke of a pen to be absorbed by our businesses.
One of the strongest arguments for a customs union over a simple free-trade agreement, is that it solves the problem of trade deflection. Trade deflection occurs when non-members ship goods to a low tariff FTA member (or set up a subsidiary in the low tariff country) and re-ship to a high tariff FTA member. Hence, without a unified external tariff, trade flows become one-sided and further action is taken to deal with that. For example, assuming Europe operated a simple FTA, rather than a customs union, and if Germany imposes a high 40% tariff on Japanese cars, while France imposes just a 10% tariff, Japan would export its cars to French car dealers, and then re-sell them to Germany on a free-trade basis. This trade deflection is avoided if Germany and France (and others) form a customs union.
can Britain outside really compete with Europe on this basis? Inside the EU Britaingains from trade creation massively outweigh the losses from trade diversion, becuase
this isn’t just for final goods and resources, this is beneficial for supply chains integral to what the deindustrialising British economy has become, tariff free movement within the customs union for important supply chain.
The Proletarian are too available for inspection on Twitter, Facebook etc. The Capite Censi can be idealised - and if one of them comes into view and doesn't meet the requirements - why, they are *really* Proletarian.
IMO Ed Milliband was not clear in going about what he wanted to achieve. As Energy Sec he heaped Green Taxes on Energy Bills to fund energy efficiency - fine, but then he proposed to cap prices which would set emissions off again. That does not compute.
Lib Dems have a good history on this - Ed Davey did a lot during the coalition, such as creating an energy efficiency ratchet for private rentals which has caused the PRS now to be more efficient than the owner occupied sector. But there are still shudders inside parts of the party about his coalition "taint".
There are policy opportunities eg for me water consumption and owner occupied energy efficiency, though the current govt are jumping on some of them.
I am not clear if the need to placate the red wall and coastal communities will make the Tories change some of their spots on these.