I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
Oh Dear God. Tesco are NOT paying more. The cost is being clawed from the suppliers who use Tesco Primary distribution to move products from their factories into Tesco's distribution network.
As I keep pointing out, the huge shortage in drivers cannot be filled by paying the remaining ones more cash. A scheme to offer incentives to bring people in to replace this year's retirees is not "new drivers". It is replacement drivers.
It's not even replacement drivers, given the time frame involved, it's just stealing drivers from elsewhere (ironically, it will probably be the agency drivers that everyone is trying to find to fill their rotas).
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
Supermarkets have kept costs low by some pretty startling tactics. Tesco building a negotiation centre, custom designed so that suppliers can be brow-beaten by teams of negotiators, using room designs from books on interrogations....
Fuck 'em if they can't take the joke.
Happily the same companies train both the suppliers and the retailers. Its a game.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
They were told Brexit was done in the 2019 GE, that's why many voted for Johnson. Yet it's evidently not done, patience will surely run out
I think you misunderstand Brexit voters. For everyone in Great Britain, we are no longer subject to the rule of the European Commission, we can and are limiting EU immigration, and we can sign trade deals around the world. That is Brexit done, regardless of the endless difficulties in Northern Ireland.
Why is Boris Johnson trying to rewrite his own Brexit deal if Brexit is finished?
He's not.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
What about the "oven ready" deal including the Protocol?
Everyone knew there would be issues with the GFA, it is incompatible with a non-frictionless trade deal with the EU. Mrs May knew this and she tried to accommodate as best she could. Johnson said he had all the answers and stuck a border in the North Channel/ Irish Sea. Your boy is changing the rules because he FAILED!
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
Triggering Article 16 buys you one month before the other party can clobber your with countervailing measures - which won't be normal WTO tariffs, but much more focused and punitive ones. In principle A16 is designed for temporary and unforeseen crises, which isn't what the UK government intends on the NIP.
If the UKG goes down this route I would suggest stopping all Irish Sea checks without telling the EU. It will take them a couple of weeks to work out what's going on. Which is what the Soviet Union did with the Berlin Blockade. Of course that gambit didn't pay off.
A16 rules out punitive measures. The have to be proportionate and strictly limited to rebalancing.
Also A16 says nothing about dealing with temporary or unforeseen circumstances. If the application of the protocol causes serious societal difficulties that are liable to persist, or leads to trade diversion, then A16 can be used.
BoJo is absolutely hated by Remainers, goodbye Tory southern seats!
You do know, most Southern Tory seats voted Leave?
The general problem Remainers have is that, although the overall vote was pretty close back in 2016, the seat distribution was not. If it had been a General Election, it would have been almost 2:1 Leave:Remain.
Simply, Remain seats were often urban and very Remainy, while Leave seats were often just a little Leavey.
That being said... I do think the LibDems will make some progress in the South East next time around. Not like tens of seats, but I could easily see them moving from 12 today to 19/20 in 2024.
Philip is so deep into the cult that he won't acknowledge that the deal his leader personally negotiated and signed has been a disaster for NI. That's when you know you're deep down the rabbit hole, I found myself there with Corbyn a few times
Maybe you've developed a bit since then but your posts on here show how far you still have to go.
You're young, and your posts make you out to be obviously young like an excited twelve-year old coming out of the cinema having seen the latest Marvel film; "Kewl!"
Be a bit more measured and sober, and you'll be worth reading.
I'm glad you've finally stopped crying after Trump lost, welcome back Casino, wishing you well!
They were told Brexit was done in the 2019 GE, that's why many voted for Johnson. Yet it's evidently not done, patience will surely run out
I think you misunderstand Brexit voters. For everyone in Great Britain, we are no longer subject to the rule of the European Commission, we can and are limiting EU immigration, and we can sign trade deals around the world. That is Brexit done, regardless of the endless difficulties in Northern Ireland.
Why is Boris Johnson trying to rewrite his own Brexit deal if Brexit is finished?
He's not.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
Why is Boris Johnson trying to rewrite the NI Protocol he asked for and negotiated? NI is part of Brexit, I know you don't like to admit that but the people of NI understand that
NI is not part of Brexit. NI is part of the UK. A pretty trivial and minor part of it, lets be honest, but still a part all the same.
If the voters in NI are unhappy then they can vote accordingly and not vote Conservative at the next election.
Yes - clever point. how long before the penny drops for CHB on that one.
Another little Englander, what an utterly despicable attitude you have to the people of NI.
People have to take responsibility for their actions. The people in NI have repeatedly made appalling choices. The notion that NI can dictate the entire Brexit arrangement is simply not sustainable. Some form of Irish unification is both inevitable and the right future for the people of NI. The most despicable attitude to the province seen in recent times was when the EU came within a hair's breath of invoking Article 16 through their blind rage at being comprehensively out-manouevred on vaccines. Their attitude remains still one which seeks to weaponise the issue as a stick with which to punish the UK. The term you need is 'lttle European'.
Point of order - the EU were not out-manoeuvred on vaccines. We were not in a zero-sum contest with them on vaccine delivery. They simply prioritised the wrong things (price) when they negotiated their initial contracts, while the UK prioritised the important things (speed, expanding supply, securing the supply chain).
This was definitely a major grilling on their part and they were shown up because Britain had not failed in the same way, but nothing Britain did directly impacted their performance.
The revelations on misleading hospitalisation number are astounding enough in themselves, but they do not reveal whether the data has been completely bogus just for this wave, or for all waves.
If true hospitalisations because of covid were bogus for all waves, for example, then the peak of hospitalisations primarily owing to covid was not more than 4,000 a day, it was actually less than two thousand a day....??
If that is the case, then the notion the NHS was going to be overwhelmed at any stage in the pandemic was one of the biggest lies ever told to the people of Britain by its own government...??
Am I missing something?
I think so. You're missing that the NHS was on the very edge of being overwhelmed - and arguably was in places - at 2 stages during the pandemic.
Fear of being overwhelmed. Let us not forget that it is supposed to be overwhelmed without fail every year according to the Graun.
But yes, we saw the pictures of Northern Italy and any sane government would have thought: we can't have that here, not in the slightest. And hence they cleared the decks, as @Malmesbury noted. Was it the right decision? Not sure.
They got to 100%+ of nominal capacity in a number of areas. In some cases massively over 100%.
No they didn't.
Yes, they did.
Quite literally - intensive care beds were increased beyond original capacity. Staff found anywhere and everywhere to man them....
In some hospitals they were well beyond 100% of original capacity and getting close to the limits of the new, duct-tape-and-string capacity.
Having gone through the regional quarterly breakdowns, I can't find any region in any quarter that had occupancy over 100% (one or two at 100% from the smaller trusts.
Am I looking in the wrong place, in which case would appreciate a steer.
I suppose it depends how "original capacity" is defined. Current capacity likely includes temporary arrangements.
The increased capacity was used in the published figures, IIRC. Because the published figures were supposed to give an idea of how close to breaking point things were getting.
The numbers in that time series have been pretty consistent for the past decade.
Do you think they added in Nightingale? Doesn't have a capacity bump for them in terms of available beds - consistently 118-122k beds over the period.
In any case, they weren't "over 100%" in many places. At all. Not close. Or rather, no different from normal.
I suggest you ask some medical people what was happening - they thought they were max'd out, with all the beds full in a number of hospitals. With leave cancelled and people working insane shifts.
I'm sure they would be glad to know that it was all imaginary.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
Triggering Article 16 buys you one month before the other party can clobber your with countervailing measures - which won't be normal WTO tariffs, but much more focused and punitive ones. In principle A16 is designed for temporary and unforeseen crises, which isn't what the UK government intends on the NIP.
If the UKG goes down this route I would suggest stopping all Irish Sea checks without telling the EU. It will take them a couple of weeks to work out what's going on. Which is what the Soviet Union did with the Berlin Blockade. Of course that gambit didn't pay off.
A16 rules out punitive measures. The have to be proportionate and strictly limited to rebalancing.
The risk, of course, is that you end up in a series of tit-for-tat manoeuvres.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
Triggering Article 16 buys you one month before the other party can clobber your with countervailing measures - which won't be normal WTO tariffs, but much more focused and punitive ones. In principle A16 is designed for temporary and unforeseen crises, which isn't what the UK government intends on the NIP.
If the UKG goes down this route I would suggest stopping all Irish Sea checks without telling the EU. It will take them a couple of weeks to work out what's going on. Which is what the Soviet Union did with the Berlin Blockade. Of course that gambit didn't pay off.
A16 rules out punitive measures. The have to be proportionate and strictly limited to rebalancing.
Indeed, it can only be within the scope of what action the other side has taken. This idea that the EU could suspend the TCA or lock up UK citizens in the EU because of A16 is for the birds. Only true believers like FF43 think the EU are all powerful. He's still failed to recognise that the TCA is a huge disaster for the EU as it's handed a hugely powerful regional competitor a mechanism for divergence with low or zero chance of retaliation given the downside risks of deal dilution from an EU perspective. He thinks it is inevitable that the UK will be forced into alignment deals but there is little evidence to support that view, other than blind faith that the EU will inevitably win.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
Triggering Article 16 buys you one month before the other party can clobber your with countervailing measures - which won't be normal WTO tariffs, but much more focused and punitive ones. In principle A16 is designed for temporary and unforeseen crises, which isn't what the UK government intends on the NIP.
If the UKG goes down this route I would suggest stopping all Irish Sea checks without telling the EU. It will take them a couple of weeks to work out what's going on. Which is what the Soviet Union did with the Berlin Blockade. Of course that gambit didn't pay off.
A16 rules out punitive measures. The have to be proportionate and strictly limited to rebalancing.
Yeah but each side gets to choose their own measures until arbitration, which takes months or years, tells them to stop. A16 doesn't serve the UKG purpose. If they want to go down this route, and I don't recommend it, they are better just stopping the checks.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
Oh Dear God. Tesco are NOT paying more. The cost is being clawed from the suppliers who use Tesco Primary distribution to move products from their factories into Tesco's distribution network.
As I keep pointing out, the huge shortage in drivers cannot be filled by paying the remaining ones more cash. A scheme to offer incentives to bring people in to replace this year's retirees is not "new drivers". It is replacement drivers.
It's not even replacement drivers, given the time frame involved, it's just stealing drivers from elsewhere (ironically, it will probably be the agency drivers that everyone is trying to find to fill their rotas).
Steal is already well underway and getting increasingly desperate. There aren't anywhere near enough drivers - or vehicles - and that situation isn't going to significantly improve for a year or more without a u-turn from the government.
Supermarkets all jockey for position in a hugely competitive retail sector, trying to find a bit of profit margin somewhere even as the race to the bottom in food prices makes operating margins wafer thin at best.
One of Tesco's ace tricks was its distribution network is still in-house. They made a bundle on backhaul collection from manufacturer sites and in consolidation of orders to NI/ROI. The latter has gone in the bin, the former can't reliably function, so they're desperately smashing costs up and telling manufacturers to pay for it.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Fascinating piece. Instinctively I agree with the "fight fire with fire, radicalise the Democratic Party" notion - as the GOP keep slugging away and keep pushing decency back. However, what happens when the extreme polarisation pushes too far and society breaks down?
It is a fiction. And there have been many similar fictions. But what is remarkably believable about the Republic of Gilead as portrayed in The Handmaid's Tale isn't so much the extreme "Christian" ethos adopted as one side realising the only way for national salvation was to take out the other side. Whilst the attempted coup in January ended in farce, it could have been significantly worse. And thats without the backing of the military.
America needs to calm down and remember that the enemy of America is not the half of Americans who voted for the other party. How they achieve that I do not know.
And you will see the size and scale of the forthcoming disaster.
Were I able to write a lead piece (I can't write that well and seriously don't have the time) that article has plenty of reasons why the Democrats are going to do badly in 2022 and 24 unless they find a fix..
The revelations on misleading hospitalisation number are astounding enough in themselves, but they do not reveal whether the data has been completely bogus just for this wave, or for all waves.
If true hospitalisations because of covid were bogus for all waves, for example, then the peak of hospitalisations primarily owing to covid was not more than 4,000 a day, it was actually less than two thousand a day....??
If that is the case, then the notion the NHS was going to be overwhelmed at any stage in the pandemic was one of the biggest lies ever told to the people of Britain by its own government...??
Am I missing something?
I think so. You're missing that the NHS was on the very edge of being overwhelmed - and arguably was in places - at 2 stages during the pandemic.
Fear of being overwhelmed. Let us not forget that it is supposed to be overwhelmed without fail every year according to the Graun.
But yes, we saw the pictures of Northern Italy and any sane government would have thought: we can't have that here, not in the slightest. And hence they cleared the decks, as @Malmesbury noted. Was it the right decision? Not sure.
They got to 100%+ of nominal capacity in a number of areas. In some cases massively over 100%.
No they didn't.
Yes, they did.
Quite literally - intensive care beds were increased beyond original capacity. Staff found anywhere and everywhere to man them....
In some hospitals they were well beyond 100% of original capacity and getting close to the limits of the new, duct-tape-and-string capacity.
Having gone through the regional quarterly breakdowns, I can't find any region in any quarter that had occupancy over 100% (one or two at 100% from the smaller trusts.
Am I looking in the wrong place, in which case would appreciate a steer.
I suppose it depends how "original capacity" is defined. Current capacity likely includes temporary arrangements.
The increased capacity was used in the published figures, IIRC. Because the published figures were supposed to give an idea of how close to breaking point things were getting.
The numbers in that time series have been pretty consistent for the past decade.
Do you think they added in Nightingale? Doesn't have a capacity bump for them in terms of available beds - consistently 118-122k beds over the period.
In any case, they weren't "over 100%" in many places. At all. Not close. Or rather, no different from normal.
I suggest you ask some medical people what was happening - they thought they were max'd out, with all the beds full in a number of hospitals. With leave cancelled and people working insane shifts.
I'm sure they would be glad to know that it was all imaginary.
Ahhhhh.
So "some medical people" vs government stats. Pretty comprehensive government stats.
They were told Brexit was done in the 2019 GE, that's why many voted for Johnson. Yet it's evidently not done, patience will surely run out
I think you misunderstand Brexit voters. For everyone in Great Britain, we are no longer subject to the rule of the European Commission, we can and are limiting EU immigration, and we can sign trade deals around the world. That is Brexit done, regardless of the endless difficulties in Northern Ireland.
Why is Boris Johnson trying to rewrite his own Brexit deal if Brexit is finished?
He's not.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
Why is Boris Johnson trying to rewrite the NI Protocol he asked for and negotiated? NI is part of Brexit, I know you don't like to admit that but the people of NI understand that
NI is not part of Brexit. NI is part of the UK. A pretty trivial and minor part of it, lets be honest, but still a part all the same.
If the voters in NI are unhappy then they can vote accordingly and not vote Conservative at the next election.
Yes - clever point. how long before the penny drops for CHB on that one.
Another little Englander, what an utterly despicable attitude you have to the people of NI.
People have to take responsibility for their actions. The people in NI have repeatedly made appalling choices. The notion that NI can dictate the entire Brexit arrangement is simply not sustainable. Some form of Irish unification is both inevitable and the right future for the people of NI. The most despicable attitude to the province seen in recent times was when the EU came within a hair's breath of invoking Article 16 through their blind rage at being comprehensively out-manouevred on vaccines. Their attitude remains still one which seeks to weaponise the issue as a stick with which to punish the UK. The term you need is 'lttle European'.
Point of order - the EU were not out-manoeuvred on vaccines. We were not in a zero-sum contest with them on vaccine delivery. They simply prioritised the wrong things (price) when they negotiated their initial contracts, while the UK prioritised the important things (speed, expanding supply, securing the supply chain).
This was definitely a major grilling on their part and they were shown up because Britain had not failed in the same way, but nothing Britain did directly impacted their performance.
Spot on. They could easily* have subsidised local production - and one only has to look at how Pfizer has ramped manufacturing - but chose to penny pinch instead.
* I say "easily", but the reality is that the EU would have ended up squabbling over which countries got the capacity expansion orders.
The revelations on misleading hospitalisation number are astounding enough in themselves, but they do not reveal whether the data has been completely bogus just for this wave, or for all waves.
If true hospitalisations because of covid were bogus for all waves, for example, then the peak of hospitalisations primarily owing to covid was not more than 4,000 a day, it was actually less than two thousand a day....??
If that is the case, then the notion the NHS was going to be overwhelmed at any stage in the pandemic was one of the biggest lies ever told to the people of Britain by its own government...??
Am I missing something?
I think so. You're missing that the NHS was on the very edge of being overwhelmed - and arguably was in places - at 2 stages during the pandemic.
Fear of being overwhelmed. Let us not forget that it is supposed to be overwhelmed without fail every year according to the Graun.
But yes, we saw the pictures of Northern Italy and any sane government would have thought: we can't have that here, not in the slightest. And hence they cleared the decks, as @Malmesbury noted. Was it the right decision? Not sure.
They got to 100%+ of nominal capacity in a number of areas. In some cases massively over 100%.
No they didn't.
Yes, they did.
Quite literally - intensive care beds were increased beyond original capacity. Staff found anywhere and everywhere to man them....
In some hospitals they were well beyond 100% of original capacity and getting close to the limits of the new, duct-tape-and-string capacity.
The astonishing revelation that more than half of covid 'admissions' caught covid whilst in hospital for something else should have informed policy much earlier than it did though, right?
The overriding propaganda message of a health service flooded by patients who contracted covid in the community was completely bogus. Hospitals were in some senses their own overwhelmers.
The NHS never admitted that they had a large part in their own overwhelming and that rampant covid in their own hospitals was a big, big driver of the numbers. They were quite happy to see ordinary Britons carry the can via completely unnecessary losses to their liberty, health and education.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
I doubt you will find absolutes to prove either position. If your job is fixed hours then showing holiday entitlement is easy. As soon as its part time or shifts, less easy.
The revelations on misleading hospitalisation number are astounding enough in themselves, but they do not reveal whether the data has been completely bogus just for this wave, or for all waves.
If true hospitalisations because of covid were bogus for all waves, for example, then the peak of hospitalisations primarily owing to covid was not more than 4,000 a day, it was actually less than two thousand a day....??
If that is the case, then the notion the NHS was going to be overwhelmed at any stage in the pandemic was one of the biggest lies ever told to the people of Britain by its own government...??
Am I missing something?
I think so. You're missing that the NHS was on the very edge of being overwhelmed - and arguably was in places - at 2 stages during the pandemic.
Fear of being overwhelmed. Let us not forget that it is supposed to be overwhelmed without fail every year according to the Graun.
But yes, we saw the pictures of Northern Italy and any sane government would have thought: we can't have that here, not in the slightest. And hence they cleared the decks, as @Malmesbury noted. Was it the right decision? Not sure.
They got to 100%+ of nominal capacity in a number of areas. In some cases massively over 100%.
No they didn't.
Yes, they did.
Quite literally - intensive care beds were increased beyond original capacity. Staff found anywhere and everywhere to man them....
In some hospitals they were well beyond 100% of original capacity and getting close to the limits of the new, duct-tape-and-string capacity.
Having gone through the regional quarterly breakdowns, I can't find any region in any quarter that had occupancy over 100% (one or two at 100% from the smaller trusts.
Am I looking in the wrong place, in which case would appreciate a steer.
I suppose it depends how "original capacity" is defined. Current capacity likely includes temporary arrangements.
The increased capacity was used in the published figures, IIRC. Because the published figures were supposed to give an idea of how close to breaking point things were getting.
The numbers in that time series have been pretty consistent for the past decade.
Do you think they added in Nightingale? Doesn't have a capacity bump for them in terms of available beds - consistently 118-122k beds over the period.
In any case, they weren't "over 100%" in many places. At all. Not close. Or rather, no different from normal.
I suggest you ask some medical people what was happening - they thought they were max'd out, with all the beds full in a number of hospitals. With leave cancelled and people working insane shifts.
I'm sure they would be glad to know that it was all imaginary.
Ahhhhh.
So "some medical people" vs government stats. Pretty comprehensive government stats.
The problem with simple statistics is that they don't tell the whole story.
So, you are saying that the whole private sector medical system was shut down, to add it's capacity to the NHS, retired staff called in, medical students called in etc etc... and nothing happened? It just got busy like a Flu Winter?
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
When I was a trainee we had a cartoon on the wall of someone sitting at a desk with 3 baskets. In, out and too hard. The last was of course the one that was overflowing and where the NI protocol would undoubtedly be found.
Three things are true:
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change (2) HMG should not have signed it (3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
Triggering Article 16 buys you one month before the other party can clobber your with countervailing measures - which won't be normal WTO tariffs, but much more focused and punitive ones. In principle A16 is designed for temporary and unforeseen crises, which isn't what the UK government intends on the NIP.
If the UKG goes down this route I would suggest stopping all Irish Sea checks without telling the EU. It will take them a couple of weeks to work out what's going on. Which is what the Soviet Union did with the Berlin Blockade. Of course that gambit didn't pay off.
A16 rules out punitive measures. The have to be proportionate and strictly limited to rebalancing.
Yeah but each side gets to choose their own measures until arbitration, which takes months or years, tells them to stop. A16 doesn't serve the UKG purpose. If they want to go down this route, and I don't recommend it, they are better just stopping the checks.
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
I'd have no idea if it was correct or not, and I'd be surprised how most normal people could be certain it was either, unless theyd personally experienced each place, but I'm guessing people are more certain than that.
OT, what these charts show is that Brexit has so come to dominate political identity that polls like these are almost circular references.
The Tories are the Brexit party and Labour are (one of the) Remain party(ies). So these approval ratings are little different in effect from what you woudl get comparing results between Conservative voters and Labour/Lib Dem/SNP/Green voters. That Starmer's ratings among remainers are not as high as Johnson's ratings are low is because the anti-Brexit vote is split so it's logocally possible to be unfavourable towards both Brexit and Starmer. Whereas that's not the case for leavers and Boris.
Fascinating piece. Instinctively I agree with the "fight fire with fire, radicalise the Democratic Party" notion - as the GOP keep slugging away and keep pushing decency back. However, what happens when the extreme polarisation pushes too far and society breaks down?
It is a fiction. And there have been many similar fictions. But what is remarkably believable about the Republic of Gilead as portrayed in The Handmaid's Tale isn't so much the extreme "Christian" ethos adopted as one side realising the only way for national salvation was to take out the other side. Whilst the attempted coup in January ended in farce, it could have been significantly worse. And thats without the backing of the military.
America needs to calm down and remember that the enemy of America is not the half of Americans who voted for the other party. How they achieve that I do not know.
And you will see the size and scale of the forthcoming disaster.
Were I able to write a lead piece (I can't write that well and seriously don't have the time) that article has plenty of reasons why the Democrats are going to do badly in 2022 and 24 unless they find a fix..
Thanks. The US voting system is absurd anyway, so the GOP trying to stop the other side from legally having a vote makes sense...
They were told Brexit was done in the 2019 GE, that's why many voted for Johnson. Yet it's evidently not done, patience will surely run out
I think you misunderstand Brexit voters. For everyone in Great Britain, we are no longer subject to the rule of the European Commission, we can and are limiting EU immigration, and we can sign trade deals around the world. That is Brexit done, regardless of the endless difficulties in Northern Ireland.
Why is Boris Johnson trying to rewrite his own Brexit deal if Brexit is finished?
He's not.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
Why is Boris Johnson trying to rewrite the NI Protocol he asked for and negotiated? NI is part of Brexit, I know you don't like to admit that but the people of NI understand that
NI is not part of Brexit. NI is part of the UK. A pretty trivial and minor part of it, lets be honest, but still a part all the same.
If the voters in NI are unhappy then they can vote accordingly and not vote Conservative at the next election.
Yes - clever point. how long before the penny drops for CHB on that one.
Another little Englander, what an utterly despicable attitude you have to the people of NI.
People have to take responsibility for their actions. The people in NI have repeatedly made appalling choices. The notion that NI can dictate the entire Brexit arrangement is simply not sustainable. Some form of Irish unification is both inevitable and the right future for the people of NI. The most despicable attitude to the province seen in recent times was when the EU came within a hair's breath of invoking Article 16 through their blind rage at being comprehensively out-manouevred on vaccines. Their attitude remains still one which seeks to weaponise the issue as a stick with which to punish the UK. The term you need is 'lttle European'.
Point of order - the EU were not out-manoeuvred on vaccines. We were not in a zero-sum contest with them on vaccine delivery. They simply prioritised the wrong things (price) when they negotiated their initial contracts, while the UK prioritised the important things (speed, expanding supply, securing the supply chain).
This was definitely a major grilling on their part and they were shown up because Britain had not failed in the same way, but nothing Britain did directly impacted their performance.
Not what they were saying at the time. They claimed we were stealing vaccines from them - namely AZT - ironically the same vaccine they subsequently trashed!
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
Supermarkets have kept costs low by some pretty startling tactics. Tesco building a negotiation centre, custom designed so that suppliers can be brow-beaten by teams of negotiators, using room designs from books on interrogations....
They were told Brexit was done in the 2019 GE, that's why many voted for Johnson. Yet it's evidently not done, patience will surely run out
I think you misunderstand Brexit voters. For everyone in Great Britain, we are no longer subject to the rule of the European Commission, we can and are limiting EU immigration, and we can sign trade deals around the world. That is Brexit done, regardless of the endless difficulties in Northern Ireland.
The *act* of Brexit is done. The *effects* of Brexit are ongoing.
That's fair. And they'll be ongoing for the rest of our lives. History doesn't end.
Whither "get Brexit done". From a practical perspective, we've barely begun...
Brexit is done.
Post-Brexit isn't done and won't end.
Brexit is going to be the equivalent of Orban's monstering of George Soros for Boris and the Tories - a permanent bogeyman to blame everything on, and a fig leaf to cover their power grabs.
They were told Brexit was done in the 2019 GE, that's why many voted for Johnson. Yet it's evidently not done, patience will surely run out
I think you misunderstand Brexit voters. For everyone in Great Britain, we are no longer subject to the rule of the European Commission, we can and are limiting EU immigration, and we can sign trade deals around the world. That is Brexit done, regardless of the endless difficulties in Northern Ireland.
Why is Boris Johnson trying to rewrite his own Brexit deal if Brexit is finished?
He's not.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
Why is Boris Johnson trying to rewrite the NI Protocol he asked for and negotiated? NI is part of Brexit, I know you don't like to admit that but the people of NI understand that
NI is not part of Brexit. NI is part of the UK. A pretty trivial and minor part of it, lets be honest, but still a part all the same.
If the voters in NI are unhappy then they can vote accordingly and not vote Conservative at the next election.
Yes - clever point. how long before the penny drops for CHB on that one.
Another little Englander, what an utterly despicable attitude you have to the people of NI.
People have to take responsibility for their actions. The people in NI have repeatedly made appalling choices. The notion that NI can dictate the entire Brexit arrangement is simply not sustainable. Some form of Irish unification is both inevitable and the right future for the people of NI. The most despicable attitude to the province seen in recent times was when the EU came within a hair's breath of invoking Article 16 through their blind rage at being comprehensively out-manouevred on vaccines. Their attitude remains still one which seeks to weaponise the issue as a stick with which to punish the UK. The term you need is 'lttle European'.
Point of order - the EU were not out-manoeuvred on vaccines. We were not in a zero-sum contest with them on vaccine delivery. They simply prioritised the wrong things (price) when they negotiated their initial contracts, while the UK prioritised the important things (speed, expanding supply, securing the supply chain).
This was definitely a major grilling on their part and they were shown up because Britain had not failed in the same way, but nothing Britain did directly impacted their performance.
Spot on. They could easily* have subsidised local production - and one only has to look at how Pfizer has ramped manufacturing - but chose to penny pinch instead.
* I say "easily", but the reality is that the EU would have ended up squabbling over which countries got the capacity expansion orders.
Yes, that's why they never had the discussion. Can you imagine the interminable negotiations and summits to decide which companies get what level of subsidy from the EU. A scenario where France blocked the whole deal until Sanofi was given the same subsidy as Pfizer/BioNTech was very plausible and not getting any Brexit Britain AZ at all because Brexit Britain would benefit from an EU subsidy etc...
I'd have no idea if it was correct or not, and I'd be surprised how most normal people could be certain it was either, unless theyd personally experienced each place, but I'm guessing people are more certain than that.
It's not a stupid piece of analysis: it looks at personal financial and non-financial assets by country. So, in the UK, we have a lot of wealth per person, to a large extent due to house price accumulation. Places where housing prices have stagnated for a long time (Japan, Italy) don't. Nor do places where renting is more common than owning (Germany).
Of course, if the UK were to go through a protracted period of stagnant house prices, then other places would likely pass us on the "wealth per person" metric, even though it would undoubtedly be the right thing for the country, as it would avoid pricing the young out of the housing market.
The revelations on misleading hospitalisation number are astounding enough in themselves, but they do not reveal whether the data has been completely bogus just for this wave, or for all waves.
If true hospitalisations because of covid were bogus for all waves, for example, then the peak of hospitalisations primarily owing to covid was not more than 4,000 a day, it was actually less than two thousand a day....??
If that is the case, then the notion the NHS was going to be overwhelmed at any stage in the pandemic was one of the biggest lies ever told to the people of Britain by its own government...??
Am I missing something?
I think so. You're missing that the NHS was on the very edge of being overwhelmed - and arguably was in places - at 2 stages during the pandemic.
Fear of being overwhelmed. Let us not forget that it is supposed to be overwhelmed without fail every year according to the Graun.
But yes, we saw the pictures of Northern Italy and any sane government would have thought: we can't have that here, not in the slightest. And hence they cleared the decks, as @Malmesbury noted. Was it the right decision? Not sure.
They got to 100%+ of nominal capacity in a number of areas. In some cases massively over 100%.
No they didn't.
Yes, they did.
Quite literally - intensive care beds were increased beyond original capacity. Staff found anywhere and everywhere to man them....
In some hospitals they were well beyond 100% of original capacity and getting close to the limits of the new, duct-tape-and-string capacity.
Having gone through the regional quarterly breakdowns, I can't find any region in any quarter that had occupancy over 100% (one or two at 100% from the smaller trusts.
Am I looking in the wrong place, in which case would appreciate a steer.
I suppose it depends how "original capacity" is defined. Current capacity likely includes temporary arrangements.
The increased capacity was used in the published figures, IIRC. Because the published figures were supposed to give an idea of how close to breaking point things were getting.
The numbers in that time series have been pretty consistent for the past decade.
Do you think they added in Nightingale? Doesn't have a capacity bump for them in terms of available beds - consistently 118-122k beds over the period.
In any case, they weren't "over 100%" in many places. At all. Not close. Or rather, no different from normal.
I suggest you ask some medical people what was happening - they thought they were max'd out, with all the beds full in a number of hospitals. With leave cancelled and people working insane shifts.
I'm sure they would be glad to know that it was all imaginary.
Ahhhhh.
So "some medical people" vs government stats. Pretty comprehensive government stats.
The problem with simple statistics is that they don't tell the whole story.
So, you are saying that the whole private sector medical system was shut down, to add it's capacity to the NHS, retired staff called in, medical students called in etc etc... and nothing happened? It just got busy like a Flu Winter?
Covid was always going to be a big challenge to the NHS, but the fact is that we have been lied to completely about the type of challenge that it was.
Hospitals were never going to be overwhelmed by patients getting covid in the community and needing treatment.
The truth is that the supply of treatment from the NHS was always going to slow to a trickle because covid was rampant in hospitals and destroyed the normal working of hospitals.
The gap between ABC1 Leavers and C2DE Leavers is interesting. The current Tory party is basically a party of, by and for ABC1 Leavers, masquerading as one that has the interests of C2DE Leavers at heart (it doesn't give two shits about Remainers of any background).
Are C2DE Leavers starting to get this? It would be nice to think so, but I'm sceptical for now.
Is it necessarily a masquerade? They might genuinely care about C2DE leaver interests - indeed electorally it makes more sense to genuinely care - but simply mistaken about their solutions.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Yet a public sector job will likely give you a minimum of 25 days - the issue that a lot of firms have is that drivers have seen that other sectors offer equivalent or better pay without the hassle of being away from home in a tin can overnight.
Remember the main complaint about driving is not just that the pay is bad, but every other part of the job is bad as well.
What I find interesting is that your viewpoint is that 22 days is great, mine is that it really, really isn't.
There is a firm currently trying to recruitment me who are offering 30 days with bank holidays on top (38 total) - and I'm not that interested....
NHS:
Life isn't all about work, and working for the NHS means that you enjoy a generous holiday allowance. Staff can expect at least 35 days off a year, including bank holidays. Long-serving members of staff get up to 41 days a year. Generally you can take holiday when you like, but you need to agree it with your manager. https://digital.nhs.uk/about-nhs-digital/welcome-to-nhs-digital/time-off
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
When I was a trainee we had a cartoon on the wall of someone sitting at a desk with 3 baskets. In, out and too hard. The last was of course the one that was overflowing and where the NI protocol would undoubtedly be found.
Three things are true:
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change (2) HMG should not have signed it (3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
The fault, IMO, is with Theresa May and Olly Robbins who agreed to a lot of EU maximalist positions without second thought on the basis that the UK would not ever diverge from the UK. Robbins, in particular, seems like he was tasked with ensuring that the UK would find it impossible to diverge from EU standards post-Brexit, either by May or by remainers in the civil service who hated and still hate Brexit.
OT, what these charts show is that Brexit has so come to dominate political identity that polls like these are almost circular references.
The Tories are the Brexit party and Labour are (one of the) Remain party(ies). So these approval ratings are little different in effect from what you woudl get comparing results between Conservative voters and Labour/Lib Dem/SNP/Green voters. That Starmer's ratings among remainers are not as high as Johnson's ratings are low is because the anti-Brexit vote is split so it's logocally possible to be unfavourable towards both Brexit and Starmer. Whereas that's not the case for leavers and Boris.
Excellent point, if I may.
On a pedantic point, we do have the Reform UK party but AIUI that is comparable to the PC or SNP in terms of overall share of the UK vote - that is, not a lot, so probably not making much difference to your analysis (though its potential threat is much more of an issue).
OT, what these charts show is that Brexit has so come to dominate political identity that polls like these are almost circular references.
The Tories are the Brexit party and Labour are (one of the) Remain party(ies). So these approval ratings are little different in effect from what you woudl get comparing results between Conservative voters and Labour/Lib Dem/SNP/Green voters. That Starmer's ratings among remainers are not as high as Johnson's ratings are low is because the anti-Brexit vote is split so it's logocally possible to be unfavourable towards both Brexit and Starmer. Whereas that's not the case for leavers and Boris.
There's also the fact that, from a remainer POV, Labour (and Starmer) effed up either stopping Brexit (probably never democratically viable) or softening Brexit (extremely viable, at least on HoC maths). Hardcore Brexiteers dislike Labour/Starmer for being too remainery; hardcore remainers dislike Labour/Starmer for being too brexity and mostly for being too incompetent.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
The TT scheme (which was in the Political Declaration that accompanied the Treaty) gets rid of 99% of the problems.
The EU side need to either implement that, or accept that the UK will conduct cross-border trade between GB and NI as they see fit.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
Supermarkets have kept costs low by some pretty startling tactics. Tesco building a negotiation centre, custom designed so that suppliers can be brow-beaten by teams of negotiators, using room designs from books on interrogations....
Fuck 'em if they can't take the joke.
Wow, really?
Oh yeah. Physical setting, room layout, power plays are all part of negotiation tactics. Explicitly trained for as well.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
On topic , goes somewhat against the narrative that it is thick poorer Brexiteers who are being duped by Johnson. Maybe some of the snobbier commentators want to focus on their middle class Brexiteer peers....
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
The TT scheme (which was in the Political Declaration that accompanied the Treaty) gets rid of 99% of the problems.
The EU side need to either implement that, or accept that the UK will conduct cross-border trade between GB and NI as they see fit.
Yes, and this is why any EU retaliation would be fairly limited. They know that the arbitration will go down that route with the arbitrator ruling in favour of the UK and allowing the UK suspension of the protocol until such time as the EU holds up its part of the agreement around the trusted trader scheme.
As much as our remainers like to hyperventilate about the NI protocol or A16 and everything else, the EU is in the wrong. They agreed to have a trusted trader scheme up and running by the time the existing grace periods came to an end. They have failed to do that, it's an open and shut case.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
Supermarkets have kept costs low by some pretty startling tactics. Tesco building a negotiation centre, custom designed so that suppliers can be brow-beaten by teams of negotiators, using room designs from books on interrogations....
Fuck 'em if they can't take the joke.
Wow, really?
Oh yeah. Physical setting, room layout, power plays are all part of negotiation tactics. Explicitly trained for as well.
It's almost like you have experience of being on the other side of that desk....
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Yet a public sector job will likely give you a minimum of 25 days - the issue that a lot of firms have is that drivers have seen that other sectors offer equivalent or better pay without the hassle of being away from home in a tin can overnight.
Remember the main complaint about driving is not just that the pay is bad, but every other part of the job is bad as well.
What I find interesting is that your viewpoint is that 22 days is great, mine is that it really, really isn't.
There is a firm currently trying to recruitment me who are offering 30 days with bank holidays on top (38 total) - and I'm not that interested....
NHS:
Life isn't all about work, and working for the NHS means that you enjoy a generous holiday allowance. Staff can expect at least 35 days off a year, including bank holidays. Long-serving members of staff get up to 41 days a year. Generally you can take holiday when you like, but you need to agree it with your manager. https://digital.nhs.uk/about-nhs-digital/welcome-to-nhs-digital/time-off
That is 33 + 8 b/h.
That extra over say 25 is worth a bit.
Doctors can often elect to work part time, too.
So the 'more doctors' thing is in some senses a red herring because it doesn't always lead to more treatment.
As I said recently the NHS has almost ground to a halt, the middle class is leaving in droves in a desperate search for prompt treatment, and I am getting leaflets through my door about our local independent medical services network.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
When I was a trainee we had a cartoon on the wall of someone sitting at a desk with 3 baskets. In, out and too hard. The last was of course the one that was overflowing and where the NI protocol would undoubtedly be found.
Three things are true:
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change (2) HMG should not have signed it (3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
The fault, IMO, is with Theresa May and Olly Robbins who agreed to a lot of EU maximalist positions without second thought on the basis that the UK would not ever diverge from the UK. Robbins, in particular, seems like he was tasked with ensuring that the UK would find it impossible to diverge from EU standards post-Brexit, either by May or by remainers in the civil service who hated and still hate Brexit.
The fundamental problem - to my mind - is that the UK was never really prepared to countenance no deal. Now, while it would have been painful to leave without either a transition or an FTA on the other side, having it as a credible option would have strengthened our hand considerably.
And the reason we took such a stance date back to the immediate aftermath of the referendum, when David Cameron wrote the infamous Nissan letter. The fear, at the highest levels of government, was that a failure to immediately reassure business could lead to a Brexidus. Now, of course, such concerns look overdone. But I think that initial fear and unwillingness to risk No Deal was what fundamentally overshadowed negotiations.
Final point: Boris Johnson was right to get Brexit done. But he also signed something which he either didn't understand, or which he knew was not sustainable. Neither of which reflects particularly well on him.
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
All of that is in scope of the TCA and other agreements. They would need to suspend parts of the TCA in retaliation which just seems extremely unlikely so we come back to what is in scope and that's the NI protocol itself where there are few good options for them.
The gap between ABC1 Leavers and C2DE Leavers is interesting. The current Tory party is basically a party of, by and for ABC1 Leavers, masquerading as one that has the interests of C2DE Leavers at heart (it doesn't give two shits about Remainers of any background).
Are C2DE Leavers starting to get this? It would be nice to think so, but I'm sceptical for now.
Is it necessarily a masquerade? They might genuinely care about C2DE leaver interests - indeed electorally it makes more sense to genuinely care - but simply mistaken about their solutions.
Like most parties.
Just following on from this, as used to be the case in Dungeons and Dragons, there is a difference between someone having Intelligence and someone having Wisdom (let's call it Common Sense).
Many ABC1 voters are probably in the Intelligent camp but not necessary the Wisdom camp. For C2DE, it is probably the opposite - if you are poor, you have to wise up to most things pretty quickly to avoid getting absolutely shafted even if you don't have a degree.
I suspect with BJ, many C2DE voters know exactly what BJ is like but are willing to vote for him because he delivered on what he said (Brexit) and seemed to be dealing ok with Covid. I wonder whether all this ballsing around with changing restrictions is hitting his rating
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
Who is offering less than the legal minimum (which is 20 days + 8 bank holidays).
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
They aren't - 20 days plus bank holidays is the legal minimum.
Plus a "personal day", which sounds like an attempt to trick people into not taking all their holiday by calling it something else. Even though in practice it's a holiday day that you don't have to book off in advance.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
Who is offering less than the legal minimum (which is 20 days + 8 bank holidays).
Oh, so Phillip's numbers were correct? Sorry, I was under the assumption they were not given the replies.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
The TT scheme (which was in the Political Declaration that accompanied the Treaty) gets rid of 99% of the problems.
The EU side need to either implement that, or accept that the UK will conduct cross-border trade between GB and NI as they see fit.
I'm not sure that your definition of such a scheme is the same as how it could operate in practice. The British Retail Consortium and Federation of Wholesale Distributors are pushing hard for TT as a fix to NI. But the fix is that all products shipped into the NI customs territory are certified as compliant with EU standards - just that this is done on a periodic basis rather than per shipment.
It only works if the EU are happy that the products entering the EEA are to EEA standards, with the manufacturer trusted to maintain those standards. That is very different from a TT Scheme where we do what we like and the EU lump it.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
Supermarkets have kept costs low by some pretty startling tactics. Tesco building a negotiation centre, custom designed so that suppliers can be brow-beaten by teams of negotiators, using room designs from books on interrogations....
Fuck 'em if they can't take the joke.
Wow, really?
Oh yeah. Physical setting, room layout, power plays are all part of negotiation tactics. Explicitly trained for as well.
If ever I have to negotiate with them, I’m bringing Jack Bauer!
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
All of that is in scope of the TCA and other agreements. They would need to suspend parts of the TCA in retaliation which just seems extremely unlikely so we come back to what is in scope and that's the NI protocol itself where there are few good options for them.
This is a political matter, not primarily a legal one. It's all about trust, or rather the near-total lack of it thanks to the ludicrous self-harm the UK government has been engaged in. We can't achieve good relations through legal routes, and we desperately need good relations. They don't. It's as simple as that, and has been all along.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
When I was a trainee we had a cartoon on the wall of someone sitting at a desk with 3 baskets. In, out and too hard. The last was of course the one that was overflowing and where the NI protocol would undoubtedly be found.
Three things are true:
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change (2) HMG should not have signed it (3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
The fault, IMO, is with Theresa May and Olly Robbins who agreed to a lot of EU maximalist positions without second thought on the basis that the UK would not ever diverge from the UK. Robbins, in particular, seems like he was tasked with ensuring that the UK would find it impossible to diverge from EU standards post-Brexit, either by May or by remainers in the civil service who hated and still hate Brexit.
The fundamental problem - to my mind - is that the UK was never really prepared to countenance no deal. Now, while it would have been painful to leave without either a transition or an FTA on the other side, having it as a credible option would have strengthened our hand considerably.
And the reason we took such a stance date back to the immediate aftermath of the referendum, when David Cameron wrote the infamous Nissan letter. The fear, at the highest levels of government, was that a failure to immediately reassure business could lead to a Brexidus. Now, of course, such concerns look overdone. But I think that initial fear and unwillingness to risk No Deal was what fundamentally overshadowed negotiations.
Final point: Boris Johnson was right to get Brexit done. But he also signed something which he either didn't understand, or which he knew was not sustainable. Neither of which reflects particularly well on him.
I disagree. I think Boris knew full well that the NI Protocol wasn't sustainable, but that it was a price worth paying to 'Get Brexit Done'.
And in that he was surely right - and such a priority does reflect well on him.
Because it was the lesser evil available at the time before him. Get it done, in a way that maximises our potential while minimising disruption - and by paying an unsustainable price which you know you can revisit then later on at a time that suits us and doesn't hold the entire country to ransom as NI was doing with the ticking clock of Article 50.
The simple question is from the position we were in what better options were there. Europhiles will of course say "continuing to be in the EU" or anything like that, like May's deal, but for a Brexiteer - short of a hard No Deal Brexit which was impossible considering he negotiated this during the 2017-19 Parliament, this was about as good as it could realistically get.
TL;DR - By agreeing to an unsustainable deal, now a sustainable one can be negotiated without Article 50 ticking over our heads, which is how it should have always realistically been.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
Who is offering less than the legal minimum (which is 20 days + 8 bank holidays).
Oh, so Phillip's numbers were correct? Sorry, I was under the assumption they were not given the replies.
Best to be clear
Tesco Delivery driver 20 > 22 days holiday + 8 days bank holidays Manufacturing 25 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Private firms (typical) 26 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Public sector 29 - 33 days + 8 bank holidays.
My original point was that Tesco is offering the bare minimum while pretending it's a great deal and it really isn't.
Many western countries used shielding (extended self-isolation) of people presumed to be at high-risk from COVID-19 to protect them and reduce healthcare demand. To investigate the effectiveness of this strategy, we linked family practitioner, prescribing, laboratory, hospital and death records and compared COVID-19 outcomes among shielded and non-shielded individuals in the West of Scotland. ... Referent to low-risk, the shielded group had higher confirmed infections (RR 8.45, 95% 7.44–9.59), case-fatality (RR 5.62, 95% CI 4.47–7.07) and population mortality (RR 57.56, 95% 44.06–75.19). ... In conclusion, in spite of the shielding strategy, high risk individuals were at increased risk of death.
Shielding was worth doing, but it was a fantasy that vulnerable people could be prevented from encountering a highly contagious novel respiratory pathogen.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
Come to think of it, none of us get any time off from posting here.
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
All of that is in scope of the TCA and other agreements. They would need to suspend parts of the TCA in retaliation which just seems extremely unlikely so we come back to what is in scope and that's the NI protocol itself where there are few good options for them.
This is a political matter, not primarily a legal one. It's all about trust, or rather the near-total lack of it thanks to the ludicrous self-harm the UK government has been engaged in. We can't achieve good relations through legal routes, and we desperately need good relations. They don't. It's as simple as that, and has been all along.
But retaliatory measures would need to be legal and proportional. The TCA completely flummoxes the ability of the EU to retaliate in any meaningful sense as it is a separate deal (by their own insistence, no less) which means it is not within the scope of retaliation. So sure, maybe they can huff and puff a bit and call Boris a wanker and rage at Frost a bit more than they usually do and maybe beg for Olly Robbins to come back but ultimately the retaliation available to them is to put up a border in Ireland. On a scale of 1-10 how likely is that?
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
They aren't - 20 days plus bank holidays is the legal minimum.
Plus a "personal day", which sounds like an attempt to trick people into not taking all their holiday by calling it something else. Even though in practice it's a holiday day that you don't have to book off in advance.
1 paid personal day as a legal minimum? I am aware employees are entitled to reasonable time off for dependents without notice, but never heard of 1 day being available for everyone regardless of dependents.
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
All of that is in scope of the TCA and other agreements. They would need to suspend parts of the TCA in retaliation which just seems extremely unlikely so we come back to what is in scope and that's the NI protocol itself where there are few good options for them.
This is a political matter, not primarily a legal one. It's all about trust, or rather the near-total lack of it thanks to the ludicrous self-harm the UK government has been engaged in. We can't achieve good relations through legal routes, and we desperately need good relations. They don't. It's as simple as that, and has been all along.
But retaliatory measures would need to be legal and proportional. The TCA completely flummoxes the ability of the EU to retaliate in any meaningful sense as it is a separate deal (by their own insistence, no less) which means it is not within the scope of retaliation. So sure, maybe they can huff and puff a bit and call Boris a wanker and rage at Frost a bit more than they usually do and maybe beg for Olly Robbins to come back but ultimately the retaliation available to them is to put up a border in Ireland. On a scale of 1-10 how likely is that?
It's the EU - so it has to be 8 based on their recent past form of doing things without thinking.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
Who is offering less than the legal minimum (which is 20 days + 8 bank holidays).
Oh, so Phillip's numbers were correct? Sorry, I was under the assumption they were not given the replies.
Best to be clear
Tesco Delivery driver 20 > 22 days holiday + 8 days bank holidays Manufacturing 25 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Private firms (typical) 26 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Public sector 29 - 33 days + 8 bank holidays.
My original point was that Tesco is offering the bare minimum while pretending it's a great deal and it really isn't.
Cheers, I was too focused on the numbers, rather than the claim it was standard. Probably standard at the lower-paying end of the spectrum.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
The TT scheme (which was in the Political Declaration that accompanied the Treaty) gets rid of 99% of the problems.
The EU side need to either implement that, or accept that the UK will conduct cross-border trade between GB and NI as they see fit.
I'm not sure that your definition of such a scheme is the same as how it could operate in practice. The British Retail Consortium and Federation of Wholesale Distributors are pushing hard for TT as a fix to NI. But the fix is that all products shipped into the NI customs territory are certified as compliant with EU standards - just that this is done on a periodic basis rather than per shipment.
It only works if the EU are happy that the products entering the EEA are to EEA standards, with the manufacturer trusted to maintain those standards. That is very different from a TT Scheme where we do what we like and the EU lump it.
Is there *anything* that might be currently entering the EEA between GB and NI, that isn’t compliant with EEA standards?
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
Come to think of it, none of us get any time off from posting here.
We should join a union.
Where's HYUFD today? Has he married a wife and therefore cannot come?
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
They aren't - 20 days plus bank holidays is the legal minimum.
Plus a "personal day", which sounds like an attempt to trick people into not taking all their holiday by calling it something else. Even though in practice it's a holiday day that you don't have to book off in advance.
1 paid personal day as a legal minimum? I am aware employees are entitled to reasonable time off for dependents without notice, but never heard of 1 day being available for everyone regardless of dependents.
Sorry - to be clear, there is no legal requirement to offer personal days. The Tesco ad states they give one in addition to the legal minimum time off, which presumably persists when the employee gains more time off due to length of service.
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
All of that is in scope of the TCA and other agreements. They would need to suspend parts of the TCA in retaliation which just seems extremely unlikely so we come back to what is in scope and that's the NI protocol itself where there are few good options for them.
This is a political matter, not primarily a legal one. It's all about trust, or rather the near-total lack of it thanks to the ludicrous self-harm the UK government has been engaged in. We can't achieve good relations through legal routes, and we desperately need good relations. They don't. It's as simple as that, and has been all along.
But retaliatory measures would need to be legal and proportional. The TCA completely flummoxes the ability of the EU to retaliate in any meaningful sense as it is a separate deal (by their own insistence, no less) which means it is not within the scope of retaliation. So sure, maybe they can huff and puff a bit and call Boris a wanker and rage at Frost a bit more than they usually do and maybe beg for Olly Robbins to come back but ultimately the retaliation available to them is to put up a border in Ireland. On a scale of 1-10 how likely is that?
What retaliatory measures? They can just 'work to rule', in the old 1970s trade union style, and refuse to cooperate in all the large number of areas not covered by the TCA.
Any further collapse in goodwill will hurt us a hell of a lot more than it hurts them. It's already bad enough, for heaven's sake.
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
There is very little formal restraint on either party in the Northern Ireland Protocol. Unfortunately with all of this, Northern Ireland gets damaged the most. The Irish definitely have an agenda, but they also have a vastly bigger consideration for issues in Northern Ireland than the UKG does, despite the latter nominally running the place.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
Who is offering less than the legal minimum (which is 20 days + 8 bank holidays).
Oh, so Phillip's numbers were correct? Sorry, I was under the assumption they were not given the replies.
Best to be clear
Tesco Delivery driver 20 > 22 days holiday + 8 days bank holidays Manufacturing 25 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Private firms (typical) 26 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Public sector 29 - 33 days + 8 bank holidays.
My original point was that Tesco is offering the bare minimum while pretending it's a great deal and it really isn't.
As I said, in much of the private sector (not all of it) people can only get 20 days + 8 bank holidays.
22 days + 8 bank holidays will be more than many people in this country get. It may not be as good as many others get, but its not uniform or standard by any means. More than one thing can be true simultaneously.
20+8 is the legal minimum so 22+8 is more than that.
Many western countries used shielding (extended self-isolation) of people presumed to be at high-risk from COVID-19 to protect them and reduce healthcare demand. To investigate the effectiveness of this strategy, we linked family practitioner, prescribing, laboratory, hospital and death records and compared COVID-19 outcomes among shielded and non-shielded individuals in the West of Scotland. ... Referent to low-risk, the shielded group had higher confirmed infections (RR 8.45, 95% 7.44–9.59), case-fatality (RR 5.62, 95% CI 4.47–7.07) and population mortality (RR 57.56, 95% 44.06–75.19). ... In conclusion, in spite of the shielding strategy, high risk individuals were at increased risk of death.
Shielding was worth doing, but it was a fantasy that vulnerable people could be prevented from encountering a highly contagious novel respiratory pathogen.
--AS
They will have had a higher 'Confirmed' infection rate, because everything one of them was infected they will have got very ill and therefor been tested when hospitalised and/or lying sick in be at home. in comparison for the fully fit 'reference group' often would not even have systems or might have had milled systems and just stayed at home.
If it was a bad stratagem it would not have worked so well in Sweden or in some US states.
At the end of the day we have damaged a generations education and put £400 billion on the national debut. for a policy that we can not say with any certaty has on net over 18 months saved any lives, and even if it has it a small number. far less than just spending a fraction of that amount extra on other healthcare issues like cancer.
It looks like the pandemic is subsiding....Boris is talking about chain gangs, Labour are back promising non-jobs to all and PB is arguing which side actually was right about Brexit.
Many western countries used shielding (extended self-isolation) of people presumed to be at high-risk from COVID-19 to protect them and reduce healthcare demand. To investigate the effectiveness of this strategy, we linked family practitioner, prescribing, laboratory, hospital and death records and compared COVID-19 outcomes among shielded and non-shielded individuals in the West of Scotland. ... Referent to low-risk, the shielded group had higher confirmed infections (RR 8.45, 95% 7.44–9.59), case-fatality (RR 5.62, 95% CI 4.47–7.07) and population mortality (RR 57.56, 95% 44.06–75.19). ... In conclusion, in spite of the shielding strategy, high risk individuals were at increased risk of death.
Shielding was worth doing, but it was a fantasy that vulnerable people could be prevented from encountering a highly contagious novel respiratory pathogen.
--AS
IF the Barrington Declaration was flawed, it was perhaps because it assumed care environments were in some sense 'safe'.
We now know that, after yesterday's astonishing revelations in the Telegraph, that far from being safe, most care environments were the opposite.
Indeed, if we are having vaccination passports, we should have them for care homes and hospitals, that's where the real problem is. Not nightclubs or football matches.
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
All of that is in scope of the TCA and other agreements. They would need to suspend parts of the TCA in retaliation which just seems extremely unlikely so we come back to what is in scope and that's the NI protocol itself where there are few good options for them.
This is a political matter, not primarily a legal one. It's all about trust, or rather the near-total lack of it thanks to the ludicrous self-harm the UK government has been engaged in. We can't achieve good relations through legal routes, and we desperately need good relations. They don't. It's as simple as that, and has been all along.
But retaliatory measures would need to be legal and proportional. The TCA completely flummoxes the ability of the EU to retaliate in any meaningful sense as it is a separate deal (by their own insistence, no less) which means it is not within the scope of retaliation. So sure, maybe they can huff and puff a bit and call Boris a wanker and rage at Frost a bit more than they usually do and maybe beg for Olly Robbins to come back but ultimately the retaliation available to them is to put up a border in Ireland. On a scale of 1-10 how likely is that?
What retaliatory measures? They can just 'work to rule', in the old 1970s trade union style, and refuse to cooperate in all the large number of areas not covered by the TCA.
Any further collapse in goodwill will hurt us a hell of a lot more than it hurts them. It's already bad enough, for heaven's sake.
Again, those rules are already pretty tightly defined in the TCA and they're already doing that. You're not talking about huge changes in attitude from the EU here. There is already zero goodwill on both sides so I'm not sure what you expect to change. Post-TCA in actual terms not a lot can change unless they give their 12 months notice of withdrawal from the deal, again that's just not very likely.
Within the scope of the NI protocol and specifically A16 there is not a lot the EU can do except huff and puff which they're already doing anyway. It's literally a no change situation in practical terms for either side.
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
All of that is in scope of the TCA and other agreements. They would need to suspend parts of the TCA in retaliation which just seems extremely unlikely so we come back to what is in scope and that's the NI protocol itself where there are few good options for them.
This is a political matter, not primarily a legal one. It's all about trust, or rather the near-total lack of it thanks to the ludicrous self-harm the UK government has been engaged in. We can't achieve good relations through legal routes, and we desperately need good relations. They don't. It's as simple as that, and has been all along.
But retaliatory measures would need to be legal and proportional. The TCA completely flummoxes the ability of the EU to retaliate in any meaningful sense as it is a separate deal (by their own insistence, no less) which means it is not within the scope of retaliation. So sure, maybe they can huff and puff a bit and call Boris a wanker and rage at Frost a bit more than they usually do and maybe beg for Olly Robbins to come back but ultimately the retaliation available to them is to put up a border in Ireland. On a scale of 1-10 how likely is that?
What retaliatory measures? They can just 'work to rule', in the old 1970s trade union style, and refuse to cooperate in all the large number of areas not covered by the TCA.
Any further collapse in goodwill will hurt us a hell of a lot more than it hurts them. It's already bad enough, for heaven's sake.
Not at all since this bothers them more than us.
If we invoke Article 16, have the TCA and they 'work to rule' and there are no checks whatsoever from GB to NI (because Article 16 has been invoked) then what cards have they got left?
We don't want checks from NI to GB or vice-versa and don't particularly want checks from Eire to NI or vice-versa either.
They don't want checks from NI to Eire or vice-versa but do want checks from GB to NI. In your proposed scenario they're getting absolutely nothing of what they want, and we're getting everything that we want, so how is that hurting us? Its giving us what we want free of charge.
They're powerless and impotent if we invoke Article 16 and they can't properly retaliate. Which is what Frost and Johnson rightly have recognised and why they're letting this play out.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
When I was a trainee we had a cartoon on the wall of someone sitting at a desk with 3 baskets. In, out and too hard. The last was of course the one that was overflowing and where the NI protocol would undoubtedly be found.
Three things are true:
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change (2) HMG should not have signed it (3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
The fault, IMO, is with Theresa May and Olly Robbins who agreed to a lot of EU maximalist positions without second thought on the basis that the UK would not ever diverge from the UK. Robbins, in particular, seems like he was tasked with ensuring that the UK would find it impossible to diverge from EU standards post-Brexit, either by May or by remainers in the civil service who hated and still hate Brexit.
The fundamental problem - to my mind - is that the UK was never really prepared to countenance no deal. Now, while it would have been painful to leave without either a transition or an FTA on the other side, having it as a credible option would have strengthened our hand considerably.
And the reason we took such a stance date back to the immediate aftermath of the referendum, when David Cameron wrote the infamous Nissan letter. The fear, at the highest levels of government, was that a failure to immediately reassure business could lead to a Brexidus. Now, of course, such concerns look overdone. But I think that initial fear and unwillingness to risk No Deal was what fundamentally overshadowed negotiations.
Final point: Boris Johnson was right to get Brexit done. But he also signed something which he either didn't understand, or which he knew was not sustainable. Neither of which reflects particularly well on him.
I disagree. I think Boris knew full well that the NI Protocol wasn't sustainable, but that it was a price worth paying to 'Get Brexit Done'.
And in that he was surely right - and such a priority does reflect well on him.
Because it was the lesser evil available at the time before him. Get it done, in a way that maximises our potential while minimising disruption - and by paying an unsustainable price which you know you can revisit then later on at a time that suits us and doesn't hold the entire country to ransom as NI was doing with the ticking clock of Article 50.
The simple question is from the position we were in what better options were there. Europhiles will of course say "continuing to be in the EU" or anything like that, like May's deal, but for a Brexiteer - short of a hard No Deal Brexit which was impossible considering he negotiated this during the 2017-19 Parliament, this was about as good as it could realistically get.
TL;DR - By agreeing to an unsustainable deal, now a sustainable one can be negotiated without Article 50 ticking over our heads, which is how it should have always realistically been.
If we had no intention of abiding by it, we shouldn't have signed it.
It's like only mentioning to your spouse after the marriage that the whole monogamy thing isn't for you, and you plan to have other lovers. "I would have mentioned it before, but I didn't want the whole 'not getting married to you' hanging over the discussion."
Leaving without a Deal would have been painful. Not fatal, and a lot less bad than Covid. But it would have been a little painful.
But it would have been honest. Signing up to something you have no intention of respecting is fundamentally dishonest.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
Who is offering less than the legal minimum (which is 20 days + 8 bank holidays).
Oh, so Phillip's numbers were correct? Sorry, I was under the assumption they were not given the replies.
Best to be clear
Tesco Delivery driver 20 > 22 days holiday + 8 days bank holidays Manufacturing 25 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Private firms (typical) 26 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Public sector 29 - 33 days + 8 bank holidays.
My original point was that Tesco is offering the bare minimum while pretending it's a great deal and it really isn't.
As I said, in much of the private sector (not all of it) people can only get 20 days + 8 bank holidays.
22 days + 8 bank holidays will be more than many people in this country get. It may not be as good as many others get, but its not uniform or standard by any means. More than one thing can be true simultaneously.
20+8 is the legal minimum so 22+8 is more than that.
Yet the article you quote states
On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So 20 days cannot be "more than many people" if the average is 26 days.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
Who is offering less than the legal minimum (which is 20 days + 8 bank holidays).
Oh, so Phillip's numbers were correct? Sorry, I was under the assumption they were not given the replies.
Best to be clear
Tesco Delivery driver 20 > 22 days holiday + 8 days bank holidays Manufacturing 25 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Private firms (typical) 26 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Public sector 29 - 33 days + 8 bank holidays.
My original point was that Tesco is offering the bare minimum while pretending it's a great deal and it really isn't.
As I said, in much of the private sector (not all of it) people can only get 20 days + 8 bank holidays.
22 days + 8 bank holidays will be more than many people in this country get. It may not be as good as many others get, but its not uniform or standard by any means. More than one thing can be true simultaneously.
20+8 is the legal minimum so 22+8 is more than that.
Any indication on how "much" of the private sector offers the minimum legal amount of days off? Say, in % terms?
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
There is very little formal restraint on either party in the Northern Ireland Protocol. Unfortunately with all of this, Northern Ireland gets damaged the most. The Irish definitely have an agenda, but they also have a vastly bigger consideration for issues in Northern Ireland than the UKG does, despite the latter nominally running the place.
Chief of which is ensuring UKG keeps paying the bills and NI doesn't decide it would be better off as part of Ireland.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
When I was a trainee we had a cartoon on the wall of someone sitting at a desk with 3 baskets. In, out and too hard. The last was of course the one that was overflowing and where the NI protocol would undoubtedly be found.
Three things are true:
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change (2) HMG should not have signed it (3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
The fault, IMO, is with Theresa May and Olly Robbins who agreed to a lot of EU maximalist positions without second thought on the basis that the UK would not ever diverge from the UK. Robbins, in particular, seems like he was tasked with ensuring that the UK would find it impossible to diverge from EU standards post-Brexit, either by May or by remainers in the civil service who hated and still hate Brexit.
The fundamental problem - to my mind - is that the UK was never really prepared to countenance no deal. Now, while it would have been painful to leave without either a transition or an FTA on the other side, having it as a credible option would have strengthened our hand considerably.
And the reason we took such a stance date back to the immediate aftermath of the referendum, when David Cameron wrote the infamous Nissan letter. The fear, at the highest levels of government, was that a failure to immediately reassure business could lead to a Brexidus. Now, of course, such concerns look overdone. But I think that initial fear and unwillingness to risk No Deal was what fundamentally overshadowed negotiations.
Final point: Boris Johnson was right to get Brexit done. But he also signed something which he either didn't understand, or which he knew was not sustainable. Neither of which reflects particularly well on him.
I disagree. I think Boris knew full well that the NI Protocol wasn't sustainable, but that it was a price worth paying to 'Get Brexit Done'.
And in that he was surely right - and such a priority does reflect well on him.
Because it was the lesser evil available at the time before him. Get it done, in a way that maximises our potential while minimising disruption - and by paying an unsustainable price which you know you can revisit then later on at a time that suits us and doesn't hold the entire country to ransom as NI was doing with the ticking clock of Article 50.
The simple question is from the position we were in what better options were there. Europhiles will of course say "continuing to be in the EU" or anything like that, like May's deal, but for a Brexiteer - short of a hard No Deal Brexit which was impossible considering he negotiated this during the 2017-19 Parliament, this was about as good as it could realistically get.
TL;DR - By agreeing to an unsustainable deal, now a sustainable one can be negotiated without Article 50 ticking over our heads, which is how it should have always realistically been.
If we had no intention of abiding by it, we shouldn't have signed it.
It's like only mentioning to your spouse after the marriage that the whole monogamy thing isn't for you, and you plan to have other lovers. "I would have mentioned it before, but I didn't want the whole 'not getting married to you' hanging over the discussion."
Leaving without a Deal would have been painful. Not fatal, and a lot less bad than Covid. But it would have been a little painful.
But it would have been honest. Signing up to something you have no intention of respecting is fundamentally dishonest.
Any more dishonest than saying we'll renegotiate the CAP if we give away half the rebate, then afterwards saying that CAP reform isn't happening? 🤔
Besides Boris literally said before the EU ratified this deal that he wouldn't implement it in the way they wanted him to do so and people could 'tear up' paperwork.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
When I was a trainee we had a cartoon on the wall of someone sitting at a desk with 3 baskets. In, out and too hard. The last was of course the one that was overflowing and where the NI protocol would undoubtedly be found.
Three things are true:
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change (2) HMG should not have signed it (3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
The fault, IMO, is with Theresa May and Olly Robbins who agreed to a lot of EU maximalist positions without second thought on the basis that the UK would not ever diverge from the UK. Robbins, in particular, seems like he was tasked with ensuring that the UK would find it impossible to diverge from EU standards post-Brexit, either by May or by remainers in the civil service who hated and still hate Brexit.
The fundamental problem - to my mind - is that the UK was never really prepared to countenance no deal. Now, while it would have been painful to leave without either a transition or an FTA on the other side, having it as a credible option would have strengthened our hand considerably.
And the reason we took such a stance date back to the immediate aftermath of the referendum, when David Cameron wrote the infamous Nissan letter. The fear, at the highest levels of government, was that a failure to immediately reassure business could lead to a Brexidus. Now, of course, such concerns look overdone. But I think that initial fear and unwillingness to risk No Deal was what fundamentally overshadowed negotiations.
Final point: Boris Johnson was right to get Brexit done. But he also signed something which he either didn't understand, or which he knew was not sustainable. Neither of which reflects particularly well on him.
I disagree. I think Boris knew full well that the NI Protocol wasn't sustainable, but that it was a price worth paying to 'Get Brexit Done'.
And in that he was surely right - and such a priority does reflect well on him.
Because it was the lesser evil available at the time before him. Get it done, in a way that maximises our potential while minimising disruption - and by paying an unsustainable price which you know you can revisit then later on at a time that suits us and doesn't hold the entire country to ransom as NI was doing with the ticking clock of Article 50.
The simple question is from the position we were in what better options were there. Europhiles will of course say "continuing to be in the EU" or anything like that, like May's deal, but for a Brexiteer - short of a hard No Deal Brexit which was impossible considering he negotiated this during the 2017-19 Parliament, this was about as good as it could realistically get.
TL;DR - By agreeing to an unsustainable deal, now a sustainable one can be negotiated without Article 50 ticking over our heads, which is how it should have always realistically been.
If we had no intention of abiding by it, we shouldn't have signed it.
It's like only mentioning to your spouse after the marriage that the whole monogamy thing isn't for you, and you plan to have other lovers. "I would have mentioned it before, but I didn't want the whole 'not getting married to you' hanging over the discussion."
Leaving without a Deal would have been painful. Not fatal, and a lot less bad than Covid. But it would have been a little painful.
But it would have been honest. Signing up to something you have no intention of respecting is fundamentally dishonest.
Which means Boris is either dishonest (signing something that doesn't work) or lazy / incompetent (as he didn't know it wouldn't work).
It's difficult to work out which option is more likely and preferable.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
Who is offering less than the legal minimum (which is 20 days + 8 bank holidays).
Oh, so Phillip's numbers were correct? Sorry, I was under the assumption they were not given the replies.
Best to be clear
Tesco Delivery driver 20 > 22 days holiday + 8 days bank holidays Manufacturing 25 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Private firms (typical) 26 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Public sector 29 - 33 days + 8 bank holidays.
My original point was that Tesco is offering the bare minimum while pretending it's a great deal and it really isn't.
As I said, in much of the private sector (not all of it) people can only get 20 days + 8 bank holidays.
22 days + 8 bank holidays will be more than many people in this country get. It may not be as good as many others get, but its not uniform or standard by any means. More than one thing can be true simultaneously.
20+8 is the legal minimum so 22+8 is more than that.
Yet the article you quote states
On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So 20 days cannot be "more than many people" if the average is 26 days.
Yes it can.
Is it a mean, median or mode average? How is it calculated?
Even if the median average was 20 days the mean average would be higher than 20 days since 20 is the legal minimum and people can have more than the minimum but not less than it.
Its no different to saying that many people work for minimum wage - doesn't mean the average salary is minimum wage. Pretty much by definition it can't be.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
When I was a trainee we had a cartoon on the wall of someone sitting at a desk with 3 baskets. In, out and too hard. The last was of course the one that was overflowing and where the NI protocol would undoubtedly be found.
Three things are true:
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change (2) HMG should not have signed it (3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
The fault, IMO, is with Theresa May and Olly Robbins who agreed to a lot of EU maximalist positions without second thought on the basis that the UK would not ever diverge from the UK. Robbins, in particular, seems like he was tasked with ensuring that the UK would find it impossible to diverge from EU standards post-Brexit, either by May or by remainers in the civil service who hated and still hate Brexit.
The fundamental problem - to my mind - is that the UK was never really prepared to countenance no deal. Now, while it would have been painful to leave without either a transition or an FTA on the other side, having it as a credible option would have strengthened our hand considerably.
And the reason we took such a stance date back to the immediate aftermath of the referendum, when David Cameron wrote the infamous Nissan letter. The fear, at the highest levels of government, was that a failure to immediately reassure business could lead to a Brexidus. Now, of course, such concerns look overdone. But I think that initial fear and unwillingness to risk No Deal was what fundamentally overshadowed negotiations.
Final point: Boris Johnson was right to get Brexit done. But he also signed something which he either didn't understand, or which he knew was not sustainable. Neither of which reflects particularly well on him.
I disagree. I think Boris knew full well that the NI Protocol wasn't sustainable, but that it was a price worth paying to 'Get Brexit Done'.
And in that he was surely right - and such a priority does reflect well on him.
Because it was the lesser evil available at the time before him. Get it done, in a way that maximises our potential while minimising disruption - and by paying an unsustainable price which you know you can revisit then later on at a time that suits us and doesn't hold the entire country to ransom as NI was doing with the ticking clock of Article 50.
The simple question is from the position we were in what better options were there. Europhiles will of course say "continuing to be in the EU" or anything like that, like May's deal, but for a Brexiteer - short of a hard No Deal Brexit which was impossible considering he negotiated this during the 2017-19 Parliament, this was about as good as it could realistically get.
TL;DR - By agreeing to an unsustainable deal, now a sustainable one can be negotiated without Article 50 ticking over our heads, which is how it should have always realistically been.
If we had no intention of abiding by it, we shouldn't have signed it.
It's like only mentioning to your spouse after the marriage that the whole monogamy thing isn't for you, and you plan to have other lovers. "I would have mentioned it before, but I didn't want the whole 'not getting married to you' hanging over the discussion."
Leaving without a Deal would have been painful. Not fatal, and a lot less bad than Covid. But it would have been a little painful.
But it would have been honest. Signing up to something you have no intention of respecting is fundamentally dishonest.
Any more dishonest than saying we'll renegotiate the CAP if we give away half the rebate, then afterwards saying that CAP reform isn't happening? 🤔
Besides Boris literally said before the EU ratified this deal that he wouldn't implement it in the way they wanted him to do so and people could 'tear up' paperwork.
Signing a treaty that you have no intention of respecting is fundamentally dishonest. Comparing it to other peoples' bad behaviour doesn't change that.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
When I was a trainee we had a cartoon on the wall of someone sitting at a desk with 3 baskets. In, out and too hard. The last was of course the one that was overflowing and where the NI protocol would undoubtedly be found.
Three things are true:
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change (2) HMG should not have signed it (3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
The fault, IMO, is with Theresa May and Olly Robbins who agreed to a lot of EU maximalist positions without second thought on the basis that the UK would not ever diverge from the UK. Robbins, in particular, seems like he was tasked with ensuring that the UK would find it impossible to diverge from EU standards post-Brexit, either by May or by remainers in the civil service who hated and still hate Brexit.
The fundamental problem - to my mind - is that the UK was never really prepared to countenance no deal. Now, while it would have been painful to leave without either a transition or an FTA on the other side, having it as a credible option would have strengthened our hand considerably.
And the reason we took such a stance date back to the immediate aftermath of the referendum, when David Cameron wrote the infamous Nissan letter. The fear, at the highest levels of government, was that a failure to immediately reassure business could lead to a Brexidus. Now, of course, such concerns look overdone. But I think that initial fear and unwillingness to risk No Deal was what fundamentally overshadowed negotiations.
Final point: Boris Johnson was right to get Brexit done. But he also signed something which he either didn't understand, or which he knew was not sustainable. Neither of which reflects particularly well on him.
I disagree. I think Boris knew full well that the NI Protocol wasn't sustainable, but that it was a price worth paying to 'Get Brexit Done'.
And in that he was surely right - and such a priority does reflect well on him.
Because it was the lesser evil available at the time before him. Get it done, in a way that maximises our potential while minimising disruption - and by paying an unsustainable price which you know you can revisit then later on at a time that suits us and doesn't hold the entire country to ransom as NI was doing with the ticking clock of Article 50.
The simple question is from the position we were in what better options were there. Europhiles will of course say "continuing to be in the EU" or anything like that, like May's deal, but for a Brexiteer - short of a hard No Deal Brexit which was impossible considering he negotiated this during the 2017-19 Parliament, this was about as good as it could realistically get.
TL;DR - By agreeing to an unsustainable deal, now a sustainable one can be negotiated without Article 50 ticking over our heads, which is how it should have always realistically been.
If we had no intention of abiding by it, we shouldn't have signed it.
It's like only mentioning to your spouse after the marriage that the whole monogamy thing isn't for you, and you plan to have other lovers. "I would have mentioned it before, but I didn't want the whole 'not getting married to you' hanging over the discussion."
Leaving without a Deal would have been painful. Not fatal, and a lot less bad than Covid. But it would have been a little painful.
But it would have been honest. Signing up to something you have no intention of respecting is fundamentally dishonest.
Any more dishonest than saying we'll renegotiate the CAP if we give away half the rebate, then afterwards saying that CAP reform isn't happening? 🤔
Besides Boris literally said before the EU ratified this deal that he wouldn't implement it in the way they wanted him to do so and people could 'tear up' paperwork.
Signing a treaty that you have no intention of respecting is fundamentally dishonest. Comparing it to other peoples' bad behaviour doesn't change that.
Ultimately, I think this is part of dealing with the EU. It's not a trustworthy organisation so you do have to play them at their own game a bit or end up becoming a de facto rule taker because they managed to tie you up in knots and legalist mechanisms that they said wouldn't apply until the moment they decided to apply them by the backdoor.
People have this idealised view of what the EU is and that they're beyond reproach but the reality has never really reflected that. Going in with the attitude you suggest wouldn't have suited either party.
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
All of that is in scope of the TCA and other agreements. They would need to suspend parts of the TCA in retaliation which just seems extremely unlikely so we come back to what is in scope and that's the NI protocol itself where there are few good options for them.
This is a political matter, not primarily a legal one. It's all about trust, or rather the near-total lack of it thanks to the ludicrous self-harm the UK government has been engaged in. We can't achieve good relations through legal routes, and we desperately need good relations. They don't. It's as simple as that, and has been all along.
But retaliatory measures would need to be legal and proportional. The TCA completely flummoxes the ability of the EU to retaliate in any meaningful sense as it is a separate deal (by their own insistence, no less) which means it is not within the scope of retaliation. So sure, maybe they can huff and puff a bit and call Boris a wanker and rage at Frost a bit more than they usually do and maybe beg for Olly Robbins to come back but ultimately the retaliation available to them is to put up a border in Ireland. On a scale of 1-10 how likely is that?
What retaliatory measures? They can just 'work to rule', in the old 1970s trade union style, and refuse to cooperate in all the large number of areas not covered by the TCA.
Any further collapse in goodwill will hurt us a hell of a lot more than it hurts them. It's already bad enough, for heaven's sake.
Not at all since this bothers them more than us.
If we invoke Article 16, have the TCA and they 'work to rule' and there are no checks whatsoever from GB to NI (because Article 16 has been invoked) then what cards have they got left?
We don't want checks from NI to GB or vice-versa and don't particularly want checks from Eire to NI or vice-versa either.
They don't want checks from NI to Eire or vice-versa but do want checks from GB to NI. In your proposed scenario they're getting absolutely nothing of what they want, and we're getting everything that we want, so how is that hurting us? Its giving us what we want free of charge.
They're powerless and impotent if we invoke Article 16 and they can't properly retaliate. Which is what Frost and Johnson rightly have recognised and why they're letting this play out.
Err, you seem to have forgotten that they supply 40% of our food, are the only customer for much of our fishing, seafood and agricultural sectors, and account for the bulk of our exports.
The idea of invoking Article 16 is for the birds. It's just about conceivable that Boris and Frost are stupid enough to do it, but it's not conceivable that it will work out well. Quite apart from anything else, what on earth are we bitching about? It was AT THE INSISTENCE OF BORIS that border was put down the Irish Sea. Invoking a legal process to complain that this wonderful oven-ready deal is working exactly as he intended it to and signed up to is beyond loopy. They are not going to change the rules of Single Market just because Lord Frost is even more unpleasant than usual, even if they could. With goodwill and trust, they could no doubt tweak it a bit at the edges, but that's the limit of it, and unfortunately, goodwill and trust have been trashed by the UK government.
I am surprised the outrage bus hasn't been fired up after Gove has called those who refuse to get vaccinated as selfish.
He isn't wrong, but at the same time, that won't get anymore people to suddenly decide to get jabbed. I am not sure the government has got the messaging right here on how to convert more people to deciding to get vaccinated.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
When I was a trainee we had a cartoon on the wall of someone sitting at a desk with 3 baskets. In, out and too hard. The last was of course the one that was overflowing and where the NI protocol would undoubtedly be found.
Three things are true:
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change (2) HMG should not have signed it (3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
The fault, IMO, is with Theresa May and Olly Robbins who agreed to a lot of EU maximalist positions without second thought on the basis that the UK would not ever diverge from the UK. Robbins, in particular, seems like he was tasked with ensuring that the UK would find it impossible to diverge from EU standards post-Brexit, either by May or by remainers in the civil service who hated and still hate Brexit.
The fundamental problem - to my mind - is that the UK was never really prepared to countenance no deal. Now, while it would have been painful to leave without either a transition or an FTA on the other side, having it as a credible option would have strengthened our hand considerably.
And the reason we took such a stance date back to the immediate aftermath of the referendum, when David Cameron wrote the infamous Nissan letter. The fear, at the highest levels of government, was that a failure to immediately reassure business could lead to a Brexidus. Now, of course, such concerns look overdone. But I think that initial fear and unwillingness to risk No Deal was what fundamentally overshadowed negotiations.
Final point: Boris Johnson was right to get Brexit done. But he also signed something which he either didn't understand, or which he knew was not sustainable. Neither of which reflects particularly well on him.
Essentially BoJo did not understand that there could not be a single resolution point where Brexit was "done", Brexit was, and remains, a process, and by going for a very hard Brexit, there are few simple guard rails to guide this process.
Eventually a new framework will come into being, whether that is by way of a formal renegotiation, or more likely at the moment the next stage will be a fairly complex set of conventions, most of which will not be set from London. The obstreperous and obnoxious way that the current government has handled things has done a lot of damage. The hard Brexit in being today was supported by very few before 2016 and not that many more now. This could lead to a breakdown in legitimacy for the Tories, because the one thing that the UK government has not been able to do is "take back control". We are manifestly weaker and poorer than we would have been, and the uncertainty will continue to damage particularly the SME sector for a long time to come. In 20 years, who knows, but at present it is very hard to regard Brexit as anything but a major failure and quite possibly a cul-de-sac.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
When I was a trainee we had a cartoon on the wall of someone sitting at a desk with 3 baskets. In, out and too hard. The last was of course the one that was overflowing and where the NI protocol would undoubtedly be found.
Three things are true:
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change (2) HMG should not have signed it (3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
The fault, IMO, is with Theresa May and Olly Robbins who agreed to a lot of EU maximalist positions without second thought on the basis that the UK would not ever diverge from the UK. Robbins, in particular, seems like he was tasked with ensuring that the UK would find it impossible to diverge from EU standards post-Brexit, either by May or by remainers in the civil service who hated and still hate Brexit.
The fundamental problem - to my mind - is that the UK was never really prepared to countenance no deal. Now, while it would have been painful to leave without either a transition or an FTA on the other side, having it as a credible option would have strengthened our hand considerably.
And the reason we took such a stance date back to the immediate aftermath of the referendum, when David Cameron wrote the infamous Nissan letter. The fear, at the highest levels of government, was that a failure to immediately reassure business could lead to a Brexidus. Now, of course, such concerns look overdone. But I think that initial fear and unwillingness to risk No Deal was what fundamentally overshadowed negotiations.
Final point: Boris Johnson was right to get Brexit done. But he also signed something which he either didn't understand, or which he knew was not sustainable. Neither of which reflects particularly well on him.
I disagree. I think Boris knew full well that the NI Protocol wasn't sustainable, but that it was a price worth paying to 'Get Brexit Done'.
And in that he was surely right - and such a priority does reflect well on him.
Because it was the lesser evil available at the time before him. Get it done, in a way that maximises our potential while minimising disruption - and by paying an unsustainable price which you know you can revisit then later on at a time that suits us and doesn't hold the entire country to ransom as NI was doing with the ticking clock of Article 50.
The simple question is from the position we were in what better options were there. Europhiles will of course say "continuing to be in the EU" or anything like that, like May's deal, but for a Brexiteer - short of a hard No Deal Brexit which was impossible considering he negotiated this during the 2017-19 Parliament, this was about as good as it could realistically get.
TL;DR - By agreeing to an unsustainable deal, now a sustainable one can be negotiated without Article 50 ticking over our heads, which is how it should have always realistically been.
If we had no intention of abiding by it, we shouldn't have signed it.
It's like only mentioning to your spouse after the marriage that the whole monogamy thing isn't for you, and you plan to have other lovers. "I would have mentioned it before, but I didn't want the whole 'not getting married to you' hanging over the discussion."
Leaving without a Deal would have been painful. Not fatal, and a lot less bad than Covid. But it would have been a little painful.
But it would have been honest. Signing up to something you have no intention of respecting is fundamentally dishonest.
Any more dishonest than saying we'll renegotiate the CAP if we give away half the rebate, then afterwards saying that CAP reform isn't happening? 🤔
Besides Boris literally said before the EU ratified this deal that he wouldn't implement it in the way they wanted him to do so and people could 'tear up' paperwork.
Signing a treaty that you have no intention of respecting is fundamentally dishonest. Comparing it to other peoples' bad behaviour doesn't change that.
Countries are fundamentally dishonest from time to time. Its called realpolitik at it works. 🤷♂️
The EU have done it for decades. We beat them at their own game.
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
All of that is in scope of the TCA and other agreements. They would need to suspend parts of the TCA in retaliation which just seems extremely unlikely so we come back to what is in scope and that's the NI protocol itself where there are few good options for them.
This is a political matter, not primarily a legal one. It's all about trust, or rather the near-total lack of it thanks to the ludicrous self-harm the UK government has been engaged in. We can't achieve good relations through legal routes, and we desperately need good relations. They don't. It's as simple as that, and has been all along.
But retaliatory measures would need to be legal and proportional. The TCA completely flummoxes the ability of the EU to retaliate in any meaningful sense as it is a separate deal (by their own insistence, no less) which means it is not within the scope of retaliation. So sure, maybe they can huff and puff a bit and call Boris a wanker and rage at Frost a bit more than they usually do and maybe beg for Olly Robbins to come back but ultimately the retaliation available to them is to put up a border in Ireland. On a scale of 1-10 how likely is that?
What retaliatory measures? They can just 'work to rule', in the old 1970s trade union style, and refuse to cooperate in all the large number of areas not covered by the TCA.
Any further collapse in goodwill will hurt us a hell of a lot more than it hurts them. It's already bad enough, for heaven's sake.
Not at all since this bothers them more than us.
If we invoke Article 16, have the TCA and they 'work to rule' and there are no checks whatsoever from GB to NI (because Article 16 has been invoked) then what cards have they got left?
We don't want checks from NI to GB or vice-versa and don't particularly want checks from Eire to NI or vice-versa either.
They don't want checks from NI to Eire or vice-versa but do want checks from GB to NI. In your proposed scenario they're getting absolutely nothing of what they want, and we're getting everything that we want, so how is that hurting us? Its giving us what we want free of charge.
They're powerless and impotent if we invoke Article 16 and they can't properly retaliate. Which is what Frost and Johnson rightly have recognised and why they're letting this play out.
Err, you seem to have forgotten that they supply 40% of our food, are the only customer for much of our fishing, seafood and agricultural sectors, and account for the bulk of our exports.
The idea of invoking Article 16 is for the birds. It's just about conceivable that Boris and Frost are stupid enough to do it, but it's not conceivable that it will work out well. Quite apart from anything else, what on earth are we bitching about? It was AT THE INSISTENCE OF BORIS that border was put down the Irish Sea. Invoking a legal process to complain that this wonderful oven-ready deal is working exactly as he intended it to and signed up to is beyond loopy. They are not going to change the rules of Single Market just because Lord Frost is even more unpleasant than usual, even if they could. With goodwill and trust, they could no doubt tweak it a bit at the edges, but that's the limit of it, and unfortunately, goodwill and trust have been trashed by the UK government.
It's worth being clear here.
We agreed a border in the Irish Sea. That border has been implemented as agreed We wish to use Article 16 because it's been implemented and while it's working as it was supposed to we don't like the result.,
The revelations on misleading hospitalisation number are astounding enough in themselves, but they do not reveal whether the data has been completely bogus just for this wave, or for all waves.
If true hospitalisations because of covid were bogus for all waves, for example, then the peak of hospitalisations primarily owing to covid was not more than 4,000 a day, it was actually less than two thousand a day....??
If that is the case, then the notion the NHS was going to be overwhelmed at any stage in the pandemic was one of the biggest lies ever told to the people of Britain by its own government...??
Am I missing something?
I think so. You're missing that the NHS was on the very edge of being overwhelmed - and arguably was in places - at 2 stages during the pandemic.
Fear of being overwhelmed. Let us not forget that it is supposed to be overwhelmed without fail every year according to the Graun.
But yes, we saw the pictures of Northern Italy and any sane government would have thought: we can't have that here, not in the slightest. And hence they cleared the decks, as @Malmesbury noted. Was it the right decision? Not sure.
They got to 100%+ of nominal capacity in a number of areas. In some cases massively over 100%.
No they didn't.
Yes, they did.
Quite literally - intensive care beds were increased beyond original capacity. Staff found anywhere and everywhere to man them....
In some hospitals they were well beyond 100% of original capacity and getting close to the limits of the new, duct-tape-and-string capacity.
Having gone through the regional quarterly breakdowns, I can't find any region in any quarter that had occupancy over 100% (one or two at 100% from the smaller trusts.
Am I looking in the wrong place, in which case would appreciate a steer.
I suppose it depends how "original capacity" is defined. Current capacity likely includes temporary arrangements.
The increased capacity was used in the published figures, IIRC. Because the published figures were supposed to give an idea of how close to breaking point things were getting.
The numbers in that time series have been pretty consistent for the past decade.
Do you think they added in Nightingale? Doesn't have a capacity bump for them in terms of available beds - consistently 118-122k beds over the period.
In any case, they weren't "over 100%" in many places. At all. Not close. Or rather, no different from normal.
I suggest you ask some medical people what was happening - they thought they were max'd out, with all the beds full in a number of hospitals. With leave cancelled and people working insane shifts.
I'm sure they would be glad to know that it was all imaginary.
Ahhhhh.
So "some medical people" vs government stats. Pretty comprehensive government stats.
The problem with simple statistics is that they don't tell the whole story.
So, you are saying that the whole private sector medical system was shut down, to add it's capacity to the NHS, retired staff called in, medical students called in etc etc... and nothing happened? It just got busy like a Flu Winter?
Blimey you are (to your eternal credit) Mr PB Covid stats.
Look at the bed numbers in the link I sent you. Pretty consistently between 118k-122k for the past decade.
No extras for private hospitals, etc it seems like.
He's trying to rewrite the NI Protocol because NI is not finished.
I have to ask in what way is NI not finished yet? Border poll with Ireland not been called or something else?
Assuming you mean the protocol, well the issue there is that it's working perfectly for the EU (unintentionally) but creating way bigger problems than expected for us....
I think the reason why re-negotiation it isn't working out can be seen in the middle part of my previous sentence.
Agreed which is why we need to invoke Article 16 and it seems like that threat is now very much on the table. Hopefully the threat will be enough to see the EU move without requiring us to pull the trigger, in which case its worked. If it doesn't, we need Frost and Boris to have enough backbone to proceed.
What exactly is the downside of triggering Article 16, apart from worsening relations and getting a possible referral to the European Court? Retaliation? (Genuine question - I don't know.)
That 'equivalent' retaliation is 'permitted'. Perhaps also that 'equivalent' can be in unrelated areas.
The referral would not be to the European Court aiui, but to the neutral structures ("joint committee"?) set up to arbitrate disputes.
The role of the European Court is restricted to matters related to the interpretation of EU Law where mentioned in the treaty. I do not think that the ECJ be sure to have jurisdiction over article 16.
That is not all of it, but I think it is a gist. I have read the NIP but not recently.
AIUI the EuCo have so far only begun to take action under areas presided over by the ECJ. Which suggests they are not going all out, or are scared they may not win, if they go for other areas.
The other issue is ability to enforce an ECJ judgement on the UK. The reason the EU wouldn't go down that road is that the ECJ is no longer a recognised court in the UK and they have no ability to enforce any judgement it hands down. The UK government would, rightly, ignore any ruling and just keep on doing what it's doing without a second thought.
As I said at the time, I really was shocked that the EU gave up ECJ jurisdiction over EU/UK matters. I guess for them a bad deal was better than no deal and from an EU perspective the TCA is a pretty awful deal.
What Remainers are struggling with mentally, why they keep relying on the notion of "but Boris agreed this so why is Boris looking to renegotiate" is they're not familiar with the ratchett effect in European politics since it worked in their favour in the past.
Boris having got a good deal in the TCA that removes the ECJ etc can now go back to the negotiating table to get a better deal for NI. Which is what the EU had spent five years prioritising and is now coming undone for them since we have the ability to invoke Article 16 and they have limited room to retaliate.
Previously no sooner had we passed an EU Treaty like Maastricht and the Eurocrats were already planning for the next one. Like Nice and Lisbon. Now that same effect can work to Boris and Frost's favour and there's little Remainers can do about it other than to Tweet each other about how mad it is that Boris is renegotiating his own deal.
The issue is that the retaliation is limited in scope to NI matters and the ultimate sanction is to put up a border on the island of Ireland (as they threatened to do previously). The UK pulling the trigger on A16 would be to ensure no border between GB and NI is erected so within the scope of that it would be tough for them to do something not border related or push into the wider TCA which is an entirely separate deal (on their insistence, no less).
The whole WA/NI protocol is a disaster, there's no doubt about it. The disaster is on both sides, it's not a wholly UK issue or a wholly EU issue. Both sides need to show some level of flexibility and compromise. The UK has already done so by accepting, in principle, a GB/NI border, the EU has not responded in kind with the promised trusted trader scheme so the UK acting to look after its own interests by no longer adhering to the previously agreed principle of a GB/NI border is quite fair.
When I was a trainee we had a cartoon on the wall of someone sitting at a desk with 3 baskets. In, out and too hard. The last was of course the one that was overflowing and where the NI protocol would undoubtedly be found.
Three things are true:
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change (2) HMG should not have signed it (3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
The fault, IMO, is with Theresa May and Olly Robbins who agreed to a lot of EU maximalist positions without second thought on the basis that the UK would not ever diverge from the UK. Robbins, in particular, seems like he was tasked with ensuring that the UK would find it impossible to diverge from EU standards post-Brexit, either by May or by remainers in the civil service who hated and still hate Brexit.
The fundamental problem - to my mind - is that the UK was never really prepared to countenance no deal. Now, while it would have been painful to leave without either a transition or an FTA on the other side, having it as a credible option would have strengthened our hand considerably.
And the reason we took such a stance date back to the immediate aftermath of the referendum, when David Cameron wrote the infamous Nissan letter. The fear, at the highest levels of government, was that a failure to immediately reassure business could lead to a Brexidus. Now, of course, such concerns look overdone. But I think that initial fear and unwillingness to risk No Deal was what fundamentally overshadowed negotiations.
Final point: Boris Johnson was right to get Brexit done. But he also signed something which he either didn't understand, or which he knew was not sustainable. Neither of which reflects particularly well on him.
I disagree. I think Boris knew full well that the NI Protocol wasn't sustainable, but that it was a price worth paying to 'Get Brexit Done'.
And in that he was surely right - and such a priority does reflect well on him.
Because it was the lesser evil available at the time before him. Get it done, in a way that maximises our potential while minimising disruption - and by paying an unsustainable price which you know you can revisit then later on at a time that suits us and doesn't hold the entire country to ransom as NI was doing with the ticking clock of Article 50.
The simple question is from the position we were in what better options were there. Europhiles will of course say "continuing to be in the EU" or anything like that, like May's deal, but for a Brexiteer - short of a hard No Deal Brexit which was impossible considering he negotiated this during the 2017-19 Parliament, this was about as good as it could realistically get.
TL;DR - By agreeing to an unsustainable deal, now a sustainable one can be negotiated without Article 50 ticking over our heads, which is how it should have always realistically been.
If we had no intention of abiding by it, we shouldn't have signed it.
It's like only mentioning to your spouse after the marriage that the whole monogamy thing isn't for you, and you plan to have other lovers. "I would have mentioned it before, but I didn't want the whole 'not getting married to you' hanging over the discussion."
Leaving without a Deal would have been painful. Not fatal, and a lot less bad than Covid. But it would have been a little painful.
But it would have been honest. Signing up to something you have no intention of respecting is fundamentally dishonest.
Which means Boris is either dishonest (signing something that doesn't work) or lazy / incompetent (as he didn't know it wouldn't work).
It's difficult to work out which option is more likely and preferable.
It may not be the answer but no doubt Boris knew it would not work, but his need to leave the EU was paramount and he considered, rightly or wrongly, that he could negotiate any issues later and if not could make the EU the fall guy for any furore that follows
In the end, and as a believer in give and take, the NI issue will be resolved in due course, though I would not rule out Boris refusing to implement it and standing back from the obvious battle that would follow
On topic , goes somewhat against the narrative that it is thick poorer Brexiteers who are being duped by Johnson. Maybe some of the snobbier commentators want to focus on their middle class Brexiteer peers....
(....which includes my good self )
There was a piece in the Guardian a few months ago saying the same thing - the accepted narrative is that the working classes delivered Brexit, but it was middle class Brexiteers, Tories, wot won it really.
But having said that, I am still hugely disappointed at how many working class people voted Leave. I don’t think they’re thick. I certainly think they were duped. But history shows us that very intelligent people can be duped too. They were all duped by the very rich people who bankrolled the two Leave campaigns. Who, really, don’t give two shits about normal people. Much like your hero, Trump.
They want to believe. I think they’re still trying desperately to believe. Some of them will never recant. But I suspect, in time, grudgingly, a good number will. Because Brexit cannot deliver everything it promised to everyone who bought into the dream.
I seem to recall @RochdalePioneers assuring us haughtily that supermarkets would never agree to pay more to lorry drivers as it was essentially set in stone?
Oh looks as if "market forces" actually do exist afterall. Who could have ever foreseen that? 🤔
I don't remember either of us saying that - what we said was that the agencies wouldn't be in a position to pay those sort of offers because supermarkets keep costs low.
20 days holiday rising to 22 tells you everything you need to know about the treatment of drivers even now.
20 days holiday (plus bank holidays) is the law. That's pretty standard in much of the private sector.
Rising to 22 is 10% higher than much of the country gets.
Do you have a citation? I don't think that's true at all.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time): https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
Be kind to Phil. He hasn't had a day off from his 16 hour a day gig backing Boris in years. No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
How can the company offer less than the statutory minimum?
There are ways and means to discourage holiday being taken...
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
But they are offering less than the legal minimum. How is that allowed?
Who is offering less than the legal minimum (which is 20 days + 8 bank holidays).
Oh, so Phillip's numbers were correct? Sorry, I was under the assumption they were not given the replies.
Best to be clear
Tesco Delivery driver 20 > 22 days holiday + 8 days bank holidays Manufacturing 25 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Private firms (typical) 26 days holiday + 8 bank holidays Public sector 29 - 33 days + 8 bank holidays.
My original point was that Tesco is offering the bare minimum while pretending it's a great deal and it really isn't.
As I said, in much of the private sector (not all of it) people can only get 20 days + 8 bank holidays.
22 days + 8 bank holidays will be more than many people in this country get. It may not be as good as many others get, but its not uniform or standard by any means. More than one thing can be true simultaneously.
20+8 is the legal minimum so 22+8 is more than that.
Any indication on how "much" of the private sector offers the minimum legal amount of days off? Say, in % terms?
I'm struggling to find the data but from memory its pretty high.
We can reasonably assume those actually getting the minimum in their contracts would include those getting less than the minimum, plus many times more whose bosses aren't defrauding them.
The scope is limited to NI, what punitive measures are you envisaging? You keep saying that the EU will come up with a punitive retaliation but fail to identify what these could entail? I did this for a living for 3 years in the run up to Brexit and for a few months after the TCA was ratified by the UK government. The scope of retaliation is very, very narrow and the room for punitive measures that Ireland will agree to is extremely limited.
You're being naive, Max. The EU doesn't need to do anything very much. Just stop cooperating even more than is currently the case. We are so dependent on their goodwill in so many areas, from illegal migrants to food supplies to data protection to aviation to banking regulation, that they can afford to just sit back and wait for some sanity to leak back into the UK government.
All of that is in scope of the TCA and other agreements. They would need to suspend parts of the TCA in retaliation which just seems extremely unlikely so we come back to what is in scope and that's the NI protocol itself where there are few good options for them.
This is a political matter, not primarily a legal one. It's all about trust, or rather the near-total lack of it thanks to the ludicrous self-harm the UK government has been engaged in. We can't achieve good relations through legal routes, and we desperately need good relations. They don't. It's as simple as that, and has been all along.
But retaliatory measures would need to be legal and proportional. The TCA completely flummoxes the ability of the EU to retaliate in any meaningful sense as it is a separate deal (by their own insistence, no less) which means it is not within the scope of retaliation. So sure, maybe they can huff and puff a bit and call Boris a wanker and rage at Frost a bit more than they usually do and maybe beg for Olly Robbins to come back but ultimately the retaliation available to them is to put up a border in Ireland. On a scale of 1-10 how likely is that?
What retaliatory measures? They can just 'work to rule', in the old 1970s trade union style, and refuse to cooperate in all the large number of areas not covered by the TCA.
Any further collapse in goodwill will hurt us a hell of a lot more than it hurts them. It's already bad enough, for heaven's sake.
Not at all since this bothers them more than us.
If we invoke Article 16, have the TCA and they 'work to rule' and there are no checks whatsoever from GB to NI (because Article 16 has been invoked) then what cards have they got left?
We don't want checks from NI to GB or vice-versa and don't particularly want checks from Eire to NI or vice-versa either.
They don't want checks from NI to Eire or vice-versa but do want checks from GB to NI. In your proposed scenario they're getting absolutely nothing of what they want, and we're getting everything that we want, so how is that hurting us? Its giving us what we want free of charge.
They're powerless and impotent if we invoke Article 16 and they can't properly retaliate. Which is what Frost and Johnson rightly have recognised and why they're letting this play out.
Err, you seem to have forgotten that they supply 40% of our food, are the only customer for much of our fishing, seafood and agricultural sectors, and account for the bulk of our exports.
The idea of invoking Article 16 is for the birds. It's just about conceivable that Boris and Frost are stupid enough to do it, but it's not conceivable that it will work out well. Quite apart from anything else, what on earth are we bitching about? It was AT THE INSISTENCE OF BORIS that border was put down the Irish Sea. Invoking a legal process to complain that this wonderful over-ready deal is working exactly as he intended it to and signed up is beyond loopy. They are not going to change the rules of Single Market just because Lord Frost is even more unpleasant than usual, even if they could. With goodwill and trust, they could no doubt tweak it a bit at the edges, but that's the limit of it, and unfortunately, goodwill and trust have been trashed by the UK government.
So you're saying that companies in the EU will stop exporting to the UK or that UK companies will stop purchasing from them and vice versa? Again, the rules surrounding importation of agricultural and food products is very tightly defined within the TCA. There is little recourse for them beyond the existing border pedantry they have already implemented.
Everything else you've written is just a load of angry and pointless words, Richard. I think you need to get some perspective here. What you want to happen (Boris to be punished by the EU) vs the reality of what is within the realms of possibility (very little) are two very different things.
Our relationship with the EU is defined by very tight legal agreements, goodwill is not a factor and the sooner you come to terms with that the better off you'll be. The same is true for the EU and every country that isn't in the EU. Goodwill is a worthless commodity.
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Everyone knew there would be issues with the GFA, it is incompatible with a non-frictionless trade deal with the EU. Mrs May knew this and she tried to accommodate as best she could. Johnson said he had all the answers and stuck a border in the North Channel/ Irish Sea. Your boy is changing the rules because he FAILED!
Also A16 says nothing about dealing with temporary or unforeseen circumstances. If the application of the protocol causes serious societal difficulties that are liable to persist, or leads to trade diversion, then A16 can be used.
Simply, Remain seats were often urban and very Remainy, while Leave seats were often just a little Leavey.
That being said... I do think the LibDems will make some progress in the South East next time around. Not like tens of seats, but I could easily see them moving from 12 today to 19/20 in 2024.
This was definitely a major grilling on their part and they were shown up because Britain had not failed in the same way, but nothing Britain did directly impacted their performance.
I'm sure they would be glad to know that it was all imaginary.
Supermarkets all jockey for position in a hugely competitive retail sector, trying to find a bit of profit margin somewhere even as the race to the bottom in food prices makes operating margins wafer thin at best.
One of Tesco's ace tricks was its distribution network is still in-house. They made a bundle on backhaul collection from manufacturer sites and in consolidation of orders to NI/ROI. The latter has gone in the bin, the former can't reliably function, so they're desperately smashing costs up and telling manufacturers to pay for it.
For instance (10 years old but, if anything, I imagine firms have become more generous over time):
https://www.e-reward.co.uk/news/irs-publishes-survey-of-annual-leave
The average number of days' holiday given to staff is 34 days, inclusive of bank holidays. The statutory minimum for full-time employees is 28 days. Basic leave entitlement is higher in the public sector. On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So, on average, private sector employees get a full week extra over and above the minimum.
And you will see the size and scale of the forthcoming disaster.
Were I able to write a lead piece (I can't write that well and seriously don't have the time) that article has plenty of reasons why the Democrats are going to do badly in 2022 and 24 unless they find a fix..
So "some medical people" vs government stats. Pretty comprehensive government stats.
* I say "easily", but the reality is that the EU would have ended up squabbling over which countries got the capacity expansion orders.
The overriding propaganda message of a health service flooded by patients who contracted covid in the community was completely bogus. Hospitals were in some senses their own overwhelmers.
The NHS never admitted that they had a large part in their own overwhelming and that rampant covid in their own hospitals was a big, big driver of the numbers. They were quite happy to see ordinary Britons carry the can via completely unnecessary losses to their liberty, health and education.
So, you are saying that the whole private sector medical system was shut down, to add it's capacity to the NHS, retired staff called in, medical students called in etc etc... and nothing happened? It just got busy like a Flu Winter?
(1) The Northern Ireland protocol needs to change
(2) HMG should not have signed it
(3) Getting to the right answer is going to be at least slightly painful
The Tories are the Brexit party and Labour are (one of the) Remain party(ies). So these approval ratings are little different in effect from what you woudl get comparing results between Conservative voters and Labour/Lib Dem/SNP/Green voters. That Starmer's ratings among remainers are not as high as Johnson's ratings are low is because the anti-Brexit vote is split so it's logocally possible to be unfavourable towards both Brexit and Starmer. Whereas that's not the case for leavers and Boris.
Of course, if the UK were to go through a protracted period of stagnant house prices, then other places would likely pass us on the "wealth per person" metric, even though it would undoubtedly be the right thing for the country, as it would avoid pricing the young out of the housing market.
Hospitals were never going to be overwhelmed by patients getting covid in the community and needing treatment.
The truth is that the supply of treatment from the NHS was always going to slow to a trickle because covid was rampant in hospitals and destroyed the normal working of hospitals.
That is something completely different, right?
Like most parties.
No reason for him to assume anyone else might.
Life isn't all about work, and working for the NHS means that you enjoy a generous holiday allowance. Staff can expect at least 35 days off a year, including bank holidays. Long-serving members of staff get up to 41 days a year. Generally you can take holiday when you like, but you need to agree it with your manager.
https://digital.nhs.uk/about-nhs-digital/welcome-to-nhs-digital/time-off
That is 33 + 8 b/h.
That extra over say 25 is worth a bit.
On a pedantic point, we do have the Reform UK party but AIUI that is comparable to the PC or SNP in terms of overall share of the UK vote - that is, not a lot, so probably not making much difference to your analysis (though its potential threat is much more of an issue).
The EU side need to either implement that, or accept that the UK will conduct cross-border trade between GB and NI as they see fit.
(....which includes my good self
My point was that offering the legal minimum of holidays while pretending its a great deal emphasised the reason why so few people want to drive HGVs.
As much as our remainers like to hyperventilate about the NI protocol or A16 and everything else, the EU is in the wrong. They agreed to have a trusted trader scheme up and running by the time the existing grace periods came to an end. They have failed to do that, it's an open and shut case.
So the 'more doctors' thing is in some senses a red herring because it doesn't always lead to more treatment.
As I said recently the NHS has almost ground to a halt, the middle class is leaving in droves in a desperate search for prompt treatment, and I am getting leaflets through my door about our local independent medical services network.
And the reason we took such a stance date back to the immediate aftermath of the referendum, when David Cameron wrote the infamous Nissan letter. The fear, at the highest levels of government, was that a failure to immediately reassure business could lead to a Brexidus. Now, of course, such concerns look overdone. But I think that initial fear and unwillingness to risk No Deal was what fundamentally overshadowed negotiations.
Final point: Boris Johnson was right to get Brexit done. But he also signed something which he either didn't understand, or which he knew was not sustainable. Neither of which reflects particularly well on him.
Many ABC1 voters are probably in the Intelligent camp but not necessary the Wisdom camp. For C2DE, it is probably the opposite - if you are poor, you have to wise up to most things pretty quickly to avoid getting absolutely shafted even if you don't have a degree.
I suspect with BJ, many C2DE voters know exactly what BJ is like but are willing to vote for him because he delivered on what he said (Brexit) and seemed to be dealing ok with Covid. I wonder whether all this ballsing around with changing restrictions is hitting his rating
Plus a "personal day", which sounds like an attempt to trick people into not taking all their holiday by calling it something else. Even though in practice it's a holiday day that you don't have to book off in advance.
It only works if the EU are happy that the products entering the EEA are to EEA standards, with the manufacturer trusted to maintain those standards. That is very different from a TT Scheme where we do what we like and the EU lump it.
And in that he was surely right - and such a priority does reflect well on him.
Because it was the lesser evil available at the time before him. Get it done, in a way that maximises our potential while minimising disruption - and by paying an unsustainable price which you know you can revisit then later on at a time that suits us and doesn't hold the entire country to ransom as NI was doing with the ticking clock of Article 50.
The simple question is from the position we were in what better options were there. Europhiles will of course say "continuing to be in the EU" or anything like that, like May's deal, but for a Brexiteer - short of a hard No Deal Brexit which was impossible considering he negotiated this during the 2017-19 Parliament, this was about as good as it could realistically get.
TL;DR - By agreeing to an unsustainable deal, now a sustainable one can be negotiated without Article 50 ticking over our heads, which is how it should have always realistically been.
Tesco Delivery driver 20 > 22 days holiday + 8 days bank holidays
Manufacturing 25 days holiday + 8 bank holidays
Private firms (typical) 26 days holiday + 8 bank holidays
Public sector 29 - 33 days + 8 bank holidays.
My original point was that Tesco is offering the bare minimum while pretending it's a great deal and it really isn't.
https://twitter.com/ScienceShared/status/1420014267995238401
Many western countries used shielding (extended self-isolation) of people presumed to be at high-risk from COVID-19 to protect them and reduce healthcare demand. To investigate the effectiveness of this strategy, we linked family practitioner, prescribing, laboratory, hospital and death records and compared COVID-19 outcomes among shielded and non-shielded individuals in the West of Scotland.
...
Referent to low-risk, the shielded group had higher confirmed infections (RR 8.45, 95% 7.44–9.59), case-fatality (RR 5.62, 95% CI 4.47–7.07) and population mortality (RR 57.56, 95% 44.06–75.19).
...
In conclusion, in spite of the shielding strategy, high risk individuals were at increased risk of death.
Shielding was worth doing, but it was a fantasy that vulnerable people could be prevented from encountering a highly contagious novel respiratory pathogen.
--AS
We should join a union.
Any further collapse in goodwill will hurt us a hell of a lot more than it hurts them. It's already bad enough, for heaven's sake.
22 days + 8 bank holidays will be more than many people in this country get. It may not be as good as many others get, but its not uniform or standard by any means. More than one thing can be true simultaneously.
20+8 is the legal minimum so 22+8 is more than that.
If it was a bad stratagem it would not have worked so well in Sweden or in some US states.
At the end of the day we have damaged a generations education and put £400 billion on the national debut. for a policy that we can not say with any certaty has on net over 18 months saved any lives, and even if it has it a small number. far less than just spending a fraction of that amount extra on other healthcare issues like cancer.
We now know that, after yesterday's astonishing revelations in the Telegraph, that far from being safe, most care environments were the opposite.
Indeed, if we are having vaccination passports, we should have them for care homes and hospitals, that's where the real problem is. Not nightclubs or football matches.
Within the scope of the NI protocol and specifically A16 there is not a lot the EU can do except huff and puff which they're already doing anyway. It's literally a no change situation in practical terms for either side.
If we invoke Article 16, have the TCA and they 'work to rule' and there are no checks whatsoever from GB to NI (because Article 16 has been invoked) then what cards have they got left?
We don't want checks from NI to GB or vice-versa and don't particularly want checks from Eire to NI or vice-versa either.
They don't want checks from NI to Eire or vice-versa but do want checks from GB to NI. In your proposed scenario they're getting absolutely nothing of what they want, and we're getting everything that we want, so how is that hurting us? Its giving us what we want free of charge.
They're powerless and impotent if we invoke Article 16 and they can't properly retaliate. Which is what Frost and Johnson rightly have recognised and why they're letting this play out.
It's like only mentioning to your spouse after the marriage that the whole monogamy thing isn't for you, and you plan to have other lovers. "I would have mentioned it before, but I didn't want the whole 'not getting married to you' hanging over the discussion."
Leaving without a Deal would have been painful. Not fatal, and a lot less bad than Covid. But it would have been a little painful.
But it would have been honest. Signing up to something you have no intention of respecting is fundamentally dishonest.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57982479
In the quote MHRA basically admit temperature checks have always been performative.
On average, public sector employees receive 29 days, excluding bank holidays, compared with 25 days in manufacturing and production companies and 26 days in other private sector organisations.
So 20 days cannot be "more than many people" if the average is 26 days.
Besides Boris literally said before the EU ratified this deal that he wouldn't implement it in the way they wanted him to do so and people could 'tear up' paperwork.
It's difficult to work out which option is more likely and preferable.
Is it a mean, median or mode average? How is it calculated?
Even if the median average was 20 days the mean average would be higher than 20 days since 20 is the legal minimum and people can have more than the minimum but not less than it.
Its no different to saying that many people work for minimum wage - doesn't mean the average salary is minimum wage. Pretty much by definition it can't be.
People have this idealised view of what the EU is and that they're beyond reproach but the reality has never really reflected that. Going in with the attitude you suggest wouldn't have suited either party.
The idea of invoking Article 16 is for the birds. It's just about conceivable that Boris and Frost are stupid enough to do it, but it's not conceivable that it will work out well. Quite apart from anything else, what on earth are we bitching about? It was AT THE INSISTENCE OF BORIS that border was put down the Irish Sea. Invoking a legal process to complain that this wonderful oven-ready deal is working exactly as he intended it to and signed up to is beyond loopy. They are not going to change the rules of Single Market just because Lord Frost is even more unpleasant than usual, even if they could. With goodwill and trust, they could no doubt tweak it a bit at the edges, but that's the limit of it, and unfortunately, goodwill and trust have been trashed by the UK government.
https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/
https://twitter.com/pollofpolls_EU/status/1419966166408310785
He isn't wrong, but at the same time, that won't get anymore people to suddenly decide to get jabbed. I am not sure the government has got the messaging right here on how to convert more people to deciding to get vaccinated.
Eventually a new framework will come into being, whether that is by way of a formal renegotiation, or more likely at the moment the next stage will be a fairly complex set of conventions, most of which will not be set from London. The obstreperous and obnoxious way that the current government has handled things has done a lot of damage. The hard Brexit in being today was supported by very few before 2016 and not that many more now. This could lead to a breakdown in legitimacy for the Tories, because the one thing that the UK government has not been able to do is "take back control". We are manifestly weaker and poorer than we would have been, and the uncertainty will continue to damage particularly the SME sector for a long time to come. In 20 years, who knows, but at present it is very hard to regard Brexit as anything but a major failure and quite possibly a cul-de-sac.
The EU have done it for decades. We beat them at their own game.
We agreed a border in the Irish Sea.
That border has been implemented as agreed
We wish to use Article 16 because it's been implemented and while it's working as it was supposed to we don't like the result.,
Look at the bed numbers in the link I sent you. Pretty consistently between 118k-122k for the past decade.
No extras for private hospitals, etc it seems like.
In the end, and as a believer in give and take, the NI issue will be resolved in due course, though I would not rule out Boris refusing to implement it and standing back from the obvious battle that would follow
But having said that, I am still hugely disappointed at how many working class people voted Leave. I don’t think they’re thick. I certainly think they were duped. But history shows us that very intelligent people can be duped too. They were all duped by the very rich people who bankrolled the two Leave campaigns. Who, really, don’t give two shits about normal people. Much like your hero, Trump.
They want to believe. I think they’re still trying desperately to believe. Some of them will never recant. But I suspect, in time, grudgingly, a good number will. Because Brexit cannot deliver everything it promised to everyone who bought into the dream.
According to an ONS survey in 2018 publicised by the TUC at the time, 2 million workers were getting less than the legal minimum in practice by companies finding ways to deny holidays. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/holiday-legal-minimum-workers-not-taken-denied-statutory-leave-tuc-research-a8466426.html
We can reasonably assume those actually getting the minimum in their contracts would include those getting less than the minimum, plus many times more whose bosses aren't defrauding them.
Everything else you've written is just a load of angry and pointless words, Richard. I think you need to get some perspective here. What you want to happen (Boris to be punished by the EU) vs the reality of what is within the realms of possibility (very little) are two very different things.
Our relationship with the EU is defined by very tight legal agreements, goodwill is not a factor and the sooner you come to terms with that the better off you'll be. The same is true for the EU and every country that isn't in the EU. Goodwill is a worthless commodity.