Is that the same Pret A Manger who we were told in 2017 couldn't survive Brexit because it is so dependent upon low paid immigrant workers ?
The same low paid immigrant workers we're told who have all left the UK ?
I'm not sure this is the good news you are spinning it as. By the time they finish this recruitment push it only puts their workforce back where it started. Pret's strategy is "last man standing" and it seems reasonable - the fall in city working / travel means less demand for twatty coffee which means other outlets will fail. As Pret don't have as strong a coverage as Costa, Staxfbucks and Nero, this is their chance to mop up.
I went into Pret for the first time in a year and a half last week. They've dramatically reduced their range of tasty cakes. I had thought the reason I frequented Pret for lunch was cheap coffee. Turns out what was really motivating me was tasty cakes.
I first went to work in London back in 1999. My first exposure to Pret and "JESUS CHRIST HOW MUCH" sandwiches. Whilst they have done well, they aren't remotely as universal in choice of locations as the big 3 coffee outlets / tax dodgers.
They aren't remotely as well-distributed across the country as their competitors. Opening 200 new outlets is I suspect a push into the sticks as opposed to opening their 127th store in London. Despite the "big return to the city" spin. They would say that - the twatty coffee sector has lobbied hard to force people back into the office.
Why are you calling it the “twatty coffee sector”?
Do you think people who buy coffee are to be looked down upon?
Hell no. The shops are twatty, not the people. £4 for a fucking latte is an egregious pisstake. Then insisting that you actually make a loss so pay no taxes is even more so.
I have no problem with consumer choice and coffee shops will come and go. What has been telling over the last 18 months is how happy so many people have been with dropping the daily grind of pay lots of money to have a grinding commute and buying a £4 latte every day.
Well, I like Pret. And have never paid £4 for a coffee.
I guess your reference to tax is a swipe at Starbucks, who I’ll concede are selling disgusting swill at an astonishing premium.
The irony is that Starbucks, terrible as they are in many ways, have probably got a better handle on the coffee shop as a place to go and take a break from working at home for a bit, rather than the rushed grab'n'go takeaway thing.
Yes, true.
Although the aesthetic was until rather recently “waiting lounge in third tier US airport circa 1995”.
But I’ll confess i am more sensitive to these things than most PBers.
Off-topic, I can't help but compare and contrast my party's conference last week and the growing shitshow that is the labour conference. LibDems are feeling energised, happy, forward looking. Labour are fighting the Corbyn War round 17.
As I said at the time, Starmer should have booted Corbyn the instant the anti-semitism report came out, and then booted anyone who came out supporting the racist old wazzock. Cut off the gangrenous limb, save the patient.
"Oh no" I was told, "Labour can't have a big factional battle". Are they not having it now? And again through the winter? And next year? The trot loons are leaving in small numbers, being expelled in tiny numbers, but are still embedded in the party and successfully hijacking the entire agenda.
Then we have the other problem. Yesterday all the loony union heads popped up. We had months of coverage of the Corbynite war in Unite. And now people like Manuel Cortez foaming on. I can't be the only one who looks at the union leaders and feels repelled by them and anyone associated with them. I support trade unions who represent and empower their members, but the union movement is like a stone chained to Labour dragging it to the sea bed.
Did the Lib Dems have a conference? Entirely missed that.
1. It was online 2. We didn't have any mega rows
The only indication lib dems were having a conference was Davey's appearance on Marr and his troubles with trans rights in the party from an activists who has been banned for 10 years for wearing a T shirt with the slogan 'Woman, Adult, Human, Female '
As I said if you want to cling to that t-shirt as your excuse for voting Tory you cling away.
I'd rather vote Labour than Lib Dem. The latter are worth less than the dirt on my shoes after expelling a member for expressing an opinion. I guess this new authoritarian Lib Dem party suits you as an ex-Labour member.
And they are now involved in litigation over this lady activist's 10 year banning order for wearing a T shirt
You keep repeating this fake news, presumably because it's reported in the Mail or whatever. Others have referred to it as well - why was she banned? The T-shirt episode was just the icing on the cake, a mere slither of the whole.
From what I can find out, she (Natalie Bird) led a prolonged and public campaign of opposition to Lib Dem policy over a number of years. In particular, she repeatedly argued that even if a man had fully transitioned to being a woman, s(he) was still a (biological) man, and therefore should not be allowed into women's refuges, again in particular. So basically she refused to accept that a trans man could become a woman (although she recognised the right of people to define themselves however they wish). There's more to it than that, but I guess it's sub judice.
As a Labour Party chap, the actions of the Lib Dems don't seem unreasonable to me.
It seems Marr does not think it is fake news nor multiple other sources and she is litigating over her ban.
But then Rosie Duffield is so scared of going to the labour conference the Speaker of the HOC has to intervene
Big G, the fake news is the idea that she was banned over the T-shirt. That's not true. She was banned because of a number of episodes over a number of years, of which the T-shirt was a minor feature, as I outlined in my post. Why can't you acknowledge that?
Mind you, I've no idea why I'm on here speaking up for the Lib Dems.
It was the issue Marr presented to Davey and Marr actually read the wording on the T shirt 'Woman.Adult.Human.Female' to Davey and he had no answer
This was the catalyst of the controversy
I'm not sure what Davey was supposed to say when someone says 4 words to him. He said himself he wasn't involved in the disciplinary case.
How about - "its more complex than it looks, there is a wider context and I am not involved in the disciplinary process".
This is typical of the lack of long term investment in the UK. Keeping the country fitter will easily pay for itself in lower health costs and better productivity. Why is this difficult to understand or contentious?
There is no point to Brexit. People who haven't realised that by now never will. There's rhetoric about Brexit that sounds somewhat plausible but none of the rationales withstand serious scrutiny.
With several years hindsight, and despite much guff and lies throughout, the key driver for Brexit was to end FOM, and that has been achieved.
At considerable, astonishing, generation-fucking cost.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
Well I won't hold my breath on the idea of a Canada/US Single Market and its the first you've mentioned it that I know of.
Your "economics 101" is just irrelevant. We do trade with our neighbours and will continue to do so with the TCA. We also trade with people who are not our neighbours, indeed the EU was a minority of our exports even before we left the EU or started seeking to pivot trade to the entire planet. 🤦♂️
The EU forms less than 7% of the planet and less than a sixth (and rapidly falling) of global GDP. Even if we do proportionately double the trade with our neighbours than we do the rest of the planet, the rest of the planet is still more important. Which is why it already formed most of our exports pre-Brexit.
Does Danish PM Mette Frederiksen understand the French frustration with Washington? "No, I can't understand them. I don't understand them at all. I see Biden as very loyal to the transatlantic alliance."
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The EU took about 43% of our exports in 2019, down from 54% in 2002. That was while we were still members of the single market. So while we do of course trade with our neighbours, we do so less and less, despite being in a single market with them. Now that the rules no longer favour them so grossly, I imagine we'll eventually reach an equilibrium where we do about a third of our trade with them, dwindling slowly as Europe ages and our trade shifts further from goods to services.
A victim of domestic abuse was removed as a judge of a radical thinking prize and “hounded” out of her role within the Liberal Democrats for saying that she did not believe that men who identified as women should have access to women’s refuges.
Natalie Bird, 38, a mother of two who fled an abusive former partner, was accused of “dangerous transphobia” by transgender activists in the party. She had said that opening up safe spaces without proper safeguards to anyone who said that they were female could put women at risk.
Maybe those saying it is a non story should read this article
The problem is the glib "trans women are women" skates over a multitude of issues - in this case, "Should trans women who have not transitioned be admitted to women's refuges for people who are fleeing male violence without any safeguards?"
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The EU took about 43% of our exports in 2019, down from 54% in 2002. That was while we were still members of the single market. So while we do of course trade with our neighbours, we do so less and less, despite being in a single market with them. Now that the rules no longer favour them so grossly, I imagine we'll eventually reach an equilibrium where we do about a third of our trade with them, dwindling slowly as Europe ages and our trade shifts further from goods to services.
100% agreed.
Time has moved on. We're not in the 20th century anymore and some people like Gardenwalker haven't kept up with the times and can't comprehend that we live in a global economy in 2021 not a parochial continental one.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
Is that the same Pret A Manger who we were told in 2017 couldn't survive Brexit because it is so dependent upon low paid immigrant workers ?
The same low paid immigrant workers we're told who have all left the UK ?
I'm not sure this is the good news you are spinning it as. By the time they finish this recruitment push it only puts their workforce back where it started. Pret's strategy is "last man standing" and it seems reasonable - the fall in city working / travel means less demand for twatty coffee which means other outlets will fail. As Pret don't have as strong a coverage as Costa, Staxfbucks and Nero, this is their chance to mop up.
I went into Pret for the first time in a year and a half last week. They've dramatically reduced their range of tasty cakes. I had thought the reason I frequented Pret for lunch was cheap coffee. Turns out what was really motivating me was tasty cakes.
I first went to work in London back in 1999. My first exposure to Pret and "JESUS CHRIST HOW MUCH" sandwiches. Whilst they have done well, they aren't remotely as universal in choice of locations as the big 3 coffee outlets / tax dodgers.
They aren't remotely as well-distributed across the country as their competitors. Opening 200 new outlets is I suspect a push into the sticks as opposed to opening their 127th store in London. Despite the "big return to the city" spin. They would say that - the twatty coffee sector has lobbied hard to force people back into the office.
Round where I live, WFH seems to have given the local coffee/sandwich shops more trade. Talking to people, they like going out at lunchtime, a change from cooking at home. It also helps protect the lunch break from evaporating.
Perhaps this is a repositioning by Pret? Moving to where their customers are, now...
In the towns and more rural areas, more of the coffee/sandwich shops are locally-owned, than in London. As you say, this is going after that business.
It is totally this. Pret spun the story with "Tuesday - Thursday are our busiest days for their city outlets. That isn't good - shows the hollowing out of full time office work. However hard they lobby for the return to the office that world has gone and isn't coming back to the extent it was.
Sales of small coffee-makers must have exploded in the last 18 months, with so many people working from home.
Mine uses about 5p of beans and 20p of milk, to make what costs £3.50 in Starbucks.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
Well I won't hold my breath on the idea of a Canada/US Single Market and its the first you've mentioned it that I know of.
Your "economics 101" is just irrelevant. We do trade with our neighbours and will continue to do so with the TCA. We also trade with people who are not our neighbours, indeed the EU was a minority of our exports even before we left the EU or started seeking to pivot trade to the entire planet. 🤦♂️
The EU forms less than 7% of the planet and less than a sixth (and rapidly falling) of global GDP. Even if we do double the trade with our neighbours than we do the rest of the planet, the rest of the planet is still more important. Which is why it already formed most of our exports pre-Brexit.
You had your arse whipped on here last time you made claims about EU vs ROW trade volumes for the U.K.
It turned out you were spouting fake news.
🤡
The fact is that more than 50% of the UK’s trade before the Brexit vote was with EEA countries (ie our neighbours) and this hasn’t changed in the five years since.
By all means let’s pursue broader opportunities but, again, all economic data everywhere tells us countries are going to trade predominantly with their geographic neighbours.
Next you’ll be telling us that our EU FTA is “better than” single market membership.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The EU took about 43% of our exports in 2019, down from 54% in 2002. That was while we were still members of the single market. So while we do of course trade with our neighbours, we do so less and less, despite being in a single market with them. Now that the rules no longer favour them so grossly, I imagine we'll eventually reach an equilibrium where we do about a third of our trade with them, dwindling slowly as Europe ages and our trade shifts further from goods to services.
What do you mean "rules no longer favour them grossly". The whole point of a free market and free trade is very little red tape if any, which is not the case now, no tariffs, which helps companies in the whole EU to trade more easily, and when we were in, most of the barriers to third country trading which were put in place were agreed and in many cases initiated by us.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
Is that the same Pret A Manger who we were told in 2017 couldn't survive Brexit because it is so dependent upon low paid immigrant workers ?
The same low paid immigrant workers we're told who have all left the UK ?
I'm not sure this is the good news you are spinning it as. By the time they finish this recruitment push it only puts their workforce back where it started. Pret's strategy is "last man standing" and it seems reasonable - the fall in city working / travel means less demand for twatty coffee which means other outlets will fail. As Pret don't have as strong a coverage as Costa, Staxfbucks and Nero, this is their chance to mop up.
I'm not spinning it merely pointing out the irony of a business which is so dependent upon low paid migrant workers recruiting 3k new low paid migrant workers when we're continually told that the low paid migrant workers have all 'gone home'.
As for the various purveyors of 'twatty coffee' the only thing I can say is that their ever increasing numbers exposes the bollox of 'austerity' claims.
Lets pick this apart. The absolutism you are putting out is the problem. Nobody has said that ALL the migrant workers have gone home. More people registered with the EU settlement scheme than the government thought were here in the first place.
It is also true that the departure of migrant labour has created huge gaps in the labour force in a number of industries including leisure and QSR. With the culling of a stack of jobs in both smaller outlets and big chains there are people out there who still want the work and Pret are concentrated in areas easier to recruit for.
Given that people need to register for an National Insurance number as they begin working, how on earth did the Government not grasp how many people had arrived here to work?
"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will face demands for new taxes and billions in additional spending as he negotiates support from the NDP and Bloc Québécois, following an election in which voters denied the Liberal Party the free rein of a majority mandate.
Because the Liberals are just a handful of seats short of a majority, Mr. Trudeau will only need to rely on one of the three main opposition parties to pass any government bill. In the last Parliament, the Liberals often turned to the NDP for key confidence votes. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet are Mr. Trudeau’s most natural allies in the new minority Parliament, although the Conservatives could also support some bills.
At a news conference in Vancouver on Tuesday, Mr. Singh said he hoped to work with the Liberals on shared areas of interest, including child care and pharmacare. The NDP Leader said he didn’t discuss policy details with Mr. Trudeau during their call on election night. In the last days of the campaign, Mr. Singh said a wealth tax would be his priority issue in a minority government. When asked about that comment Tuesday, he said the cost of the pandemic should be offset by new taxes on high-wealth individuals and corporations."
Ironically of course that means Trudeau's government will have to be more leftwing to keep the NDP voting for government legislation than it would have been had he won a Liberal majority
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
Well I won't hold my breath on the idea of a Canada/US Single Market and its the first you've mentioned it that I know of.
Your "economics 101" is just irrelevant. We do trade with our neighbours and will continue to do so with the TCA. We also trade with people who are not our neighbours, indeed the EU was a minority of our exports even before we left the EU or started seeking to pivot trade to the entire planet. 🤦♂️
The EU forms less than 7% of the planet and less than a sixth (and rapidly falling) of global GDP. Even if we do double the trade with our neighbours than we do the rest of the planet, the rest of the planet is still more important. Which is why it already formed most of our exports pre-Brexit.
You had your arse whipped on here last time you made claims about EU vs ROW trade volumes for the U.K.
It turned out you were spouting fake news.
🤡
The fact is that more than 50% of the UK’s trade before the Brexit vote was with EEA countries (ie our neighbours) and this hasn’t changed in the five years since.
By all means let’s pursue broader opportunities but, again, all economic data everywhere tells us countries are going to trade predominantly with their geographic neighbours.
Next you’ll be telling us that our EU FTA is “better than” single market membership.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The EU took about 43% of our exports in 2019, down from 54% in 2002. That was while we were still members of the single market. So while we do of course trade with our neighbours, we do so less and less, despite being in a single market with them. Now that the rules no longer favour them so grossly, I imagine we'll eventually reach an equilibrium where we do about a third of our trade with them, dwindling slowly as Europe ages and our trade shifts further from goods to services.
What do you mean "rules no longer favour them grossly". The whole point of a free market and free trade is very little red tape if any, which is not the case now, no tariffs, which helps companies in the whole EU to trade more easily, and when we were in, most of the barriers to third country trading which were put in place were agreed and in many cases initiated by us.
@Fishing’s language betrays a bizarre misunderstanding of how trade and/or single markets work.
Is that the same Pret A Manger who we were told in 2017 couldn't survive Brexit because it is so dependent upon low paid immigrant workers ?
The same low paid immigrant workers we're told who have all left the UK ?
I'm not sure this is the good news you are spinning it as. By the time they finish this recruitment push it only puts their workforce back where it started. Pret's strategy is "last man standing" and it seems reasonable - the fall in city working / travel means less demand for twatty coffee which means other outlets will fail. As Pret don't have as strong a coverage as Costa, Staxfbucks and Nero, this is their chance to mop up.
I'm not spinning it merely pointing out the irony of a business which is so dependent upon low paid migrant workers recruiting 3k new low paid migrant workers when we're continually told that the low paid migrant workers have all 'gone home'.
As for the various purveyors of 'twatty coffee' the only thing I can say is that their ever increasing numbers exposes the bollox of 'austerity' claims.
Lets pick this apart. The absolutism you are putting out is the problem. Nobody has said that ALL the migrant workers have gone home. More people registered with the EU settlement scheme than the government thought were here in the first place.
It is also true that the departure of migrant labour has created huge gaps in the labour force in a number of industries including leisure and QSR. With the culling of a stack of jobs in both smaller outlets and big chains there are people out there who still want the work and Pret are concentrated in areas easier to recruit for.
Given that people need to register for an National Insurance number as they begin working, how on earth did the Government not grasp how many people had arrived here to work?
I think they knew how many had been issued NI numbers, but didn’t appreciate how many were still around. Either that, or they didn’t keep records of type of entitlement when dishing out NI numbers, so couldn’t sort EU FoM migrants from other visa types.
Is that the same Pret A Manger who we were told in 2017 couldn't survive Brexit because it is so dependent upon low paid immigrant workers ?
The same low paid immigrant workers we're told who have all left the UK ?
I'm not sure this is the good news you are spinning it as. By the time they finish this recruitment push it only puts their workforce back where it started. Pret's strategy is "last man standing" and it seems reasonable - the fall in city working / travel means less demand for twatty coffee which means other outlets will fail. As Pret don't have as strong a coverage as Costa, Staxfbucks and Nero, this is their chance to mop up.
I'm not spinning it merely pointing out the irony of a business which is so dependent upon low paid migrant workers recruiting 3k new low paid migrant workers when we're continually told that the low paid migrant workers have all 'gone home'.
As for the various purveyors of 'twatty coffee' the only thing I can say is that their ever increasing numbers exposes the bollox of 'austerity' claims.
Lets pick this apart. The absolutism you are putting out is the problem. Nobody has said that ALL the migrant workers have gone home. More people registered with the EU settlement scheme than the government thought were here in the first place.
It is also true that the departure of migrant labour has created huge gaps in the labour force in a number of industries including leisure and QSR. With the culling of a stack of jobs in both smaller outlets and big chains there are people out there who still want the work and Pret are concentrated in areas easier to recruit for.
Its not me putting out the absolutism - I've pointed out the actual ONS employment data when the 'all the migrant workers have gone home' line is pedalled.
What I will say is that recruitment is certainly possible for good employers and that those whining that they cannot aren't willing to offer appropriate pay and conditions.
"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will face demands for new taxes and billions in additional spending as he negotiates support from the NDP and Bloc Québécois, following an election in which voters denied the Liberal Party the free rein of a majority mandate.
Because the Liberals are just a handful of seats short of a majority, Mr. Trudeau will only need to rely on one of the three main opposition parties to pass any government bill. In the last Parliament, the Liberals often turned to the NDP for key confidence votes. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet are Mr. Trudeau’s most natural allies in the new minority Parliament, although the Conservatives could also support some bills.
At a news conference in Vancouver on Tuesday, Mr. Singh said he hoped to work with the Liberals on shared areas of interest, including child care and pharmacare. The NDP Leader said he didn’t discuss policy details with Mr. Trudeau during their call on election night. In the last days of the campaign, Mr. Singh said a wealth tax would be his priority issue in a minority government. When asked about that comment Tuesday, he said the cost of the pandemic should be offset by new taxes on high-wealth individuals and corporations."
Ironically of course that means Trudeau's government will have to be more leftwing to keep the NDP voting for government legislation than it would have been had he won a Liberal majority
Excellent.
That's how coalitions work, BoZo Fanbois,
If only Cleggy had stopped short of actually supporting all the extreme Tory crap that followed.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
Well I won't hold my breath on the idea of a Canada/US Single Market and its the first you've mentioned it that I know of.
Your "economics 101" is just irrelevant. We do trade with our neighbours and will continue to do so with the TCA. We also trade with people who are not our neighbours, indeed the EU was a minority of our exports even before we left the EU or started seeking to pivot trade to the entire planet. 🤦♂️
The EU forms less than 7% of the planet and less than a sixth (and rapidly falling) of global GDP. Even if we do double the trade with our neighbours than we do the rest of the planet, the rest of the planet is still more important. Which is why it already formed most of our exports pre-Brexit.
You had your arse whipped on here last time you made claims about EU vs ROW trade volumes for the U.K.
It turned out you were spouting fake news.
🤡
The fact is that more than 50% of the UK’s trade before the Brexit vote was with EEA countries (ie our neighbours) and this hasn’t changed in the five years since.
By all means let’s pursue broader opportunities but, again, all economic data everywhere tells us countries are going to trade predominantly with their geographic neighbours.
Next you’ll be telling us that our EU FTA is “better than” single market membership.
Oh, you did that already on a previous thread.
🤡
How do you get the clown emoji btw?
It pops up as a prompt on my keyboard every time I respond to a Philip T post.
Seriously, though, it’s available via the emoji menu on my iPhone keyboard.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
Well I won't hold my breath on the idea of a Canada/US Single Market and its the first you've mentioned it that I know of.
Your "economics 101" is just irrelevant. We do trade with our neighbours and will continue to do so with the TCA. We also trade with people who are not our neighbours, indeed the EU was a minority of our exports even before we left the EU or started seeking to pivot trade to the entire planet. 🤦♂️
The EU forms less than 7% of the planet and less than a sixth (and rapidly falling) of global GDP. Even if we do double the trade with our neighbours than we do the rest of the planet, the rest of the planet is still more important. Which is why it already formed most of our exports pre-Brexit.
You had your arse whipped on here last time you made claims about EU vs ROW trade volumes for the U.K.
It turned out you were spouting fake news.
🤡
The fact is that more than 50% of the UK’s trade before the Brexit vote was with EEA countries (ie our neighbours) and this hasn’t changed in the five years since.
By all means let’s pursue broader opportunities but, again, all economic data everywhere tells us countries are going to trade predominantly with their geographic neighbours.
Next you’ll be telling us that our EU FTA is “better than” single market membership.
Oh, you did that already on a previous thread.
🤡
How do you get the clown emoji btw?
It pops up as a prompt on my keyboard every time I respond to a Philip T post.
Seriously, though, it’s available via the emoji menu on my iPhone keyboard.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The EU took about 43% of our exports in 2019, down from 54% in 2002. That was while we were still members of the single market. So while we do of course trade with our neighbours, we do so less and less, despite being in a single market with them. Now that the rules no longer favour them so grossly, I imagine we'll eventually reach an equilibrium where we do about a third of our trade with them, dwindling slowly as Europe ages and our trade shifts further from goods to services.
What do you mean "rules no longer favour them grossly". The whole point of a free market and free trade is very little red tape if any, which is not the case now, no tariffs, which helps companies in the whole EU to trade more easily, and when we were in, most of the barriers to third country trading which were put in place were agreed and in many cases initiated by us.
I mean that the rules of the Single Market favoured trade with countries in the SM compared to trade with countries outside the SM. Which is why our trade with the EU as a percentage of total trade increased in the 20 years after we joined the Common Market, from I think about 35% to 55%. It then fell away, as the European economy declined, and trade shifted from goods to services, and will fall away quicker now that the bias is removed.
None of this is particularly contentious in the economics profession.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
Well I won't hold my breath on the idea of a Canada/US Single Market and its the first you've mentioned it that I know of.
Your "economics 101" is just irrelevant. We do trade with our neighbours and will continue to do so with the TCA. We also trade with people who are not our neighbours, indeed the EU was a minority of our exports even before we left the EU or started seeking to pivot trade to the entire planet. 🤦♂️
The EU forms less than 7% of the planet and less than a sixth (and rapidly falling) of global GDP. Even if we do double the trade with our neighbours than we do the rest of the planet, the rest of the planet is still more important. Which is why it already formed most of our exports pre-Brexit.
You had your arse whipped on here last time you made claims about EU vs ROW trade volumes for the U.K.
It turned out you were spouting fake news.
🤡
The fact is that more than 50% of the UK’s trade before the Brexit vote was with EEA countries (ie our neighbours) and this hasn’t changed in the five years since.
By all means let’s pursue broader opportunities but, again, all economic data everywhere tells us countries are going to trade predominantly with their geographic neighbours.
Next you’ll be telling us that our EU FTA is “better than” single market membership.
Oh, you did that already on a previous thread.
🤡
You're being the disingenuous 🤡
I note you keep switching "exports" to "trade". The EU was a minority of our exports even pre-Brexit and was falling rapidly, even though our EU membership biased trade to the EU.
Plus the relevance of the trade of goods has collapsed. In 1988 the vast majority of our export trade was in goods, with goods trade being worth over 10% of UK GDP. By 2018 the export of goods had collapsed down to about 3% of UK GDP.
Yes our FTA is better than single market membership. It carries the bulk of the advantages, but without the costs. It is pure cherrypicking.
The world has moved on from the 20th century. You should catch up with us.
Off-topic, I can't help but compare and contrast my party's conference last week and the growing shitshow that is the labour conference. LibDems are feeling energised, happy, forward looking. Labour are fighting the Corbyn War round 17.
As I said at the time, Starmer should have booted Corbyn the instant the anti-semitism report came out, and then booted anyone who came out supporting the racist old wazzock. Cut off the gangrenous limb, save the patient.
"Oh no" I was told, "Labour can't have a big factional battle". Are they not having it now? And again through the winter? And next year? The trot loons are leaving in small numbers, being expelled in tiny numbers, but are still embedded in the party and successfully hijacking the entire agenda.
Then we have the other problem. Yesterday all the loony union heads popped up. We had months of coverage of the Corbynite war in Unite. And now people like Manuel Cortez foaming on. I can't be the only one who looks at the union leaders and feels repelled by them and anyone associated with them. I support trade unions who represent and empower their members, but the union movement is like a stone chained to Labour dragging it to the sea bed.
Did the Lib Dems have a conference? Entirely missed that.
1. It was online 2. We didn't have any mega rows
The only indication lib dems were having a conference was Davey's appearance on Marr and his troubles with trans rights in the party from an activists who has been banned for 10 years for wearing a T shirt with the slogan 'Woman, Adult, Human, Female '
As I said if you want to cling to that t-shirt as your excuse for voting Tory you cling away.
I'd rather vote Labour than Lib Dem. The latter are worth less than the dirt on my shoes after expelling a member for expressing an opinion. I guess this new authoritarian Lib Dem party suits you as an ex-Labour member.
And they are now involved in litigation over this lady activist's 10 year banning order for wearing a T shirt
You keep repeating this fake news, presumably because it's reported in the Mail or whatever. Others have referred to it as well - why was she banned? The T-shirt episode was just the icing on the cake, a mere slither of the whole.
From what I can find out, she (Natalie Bird) led a prolonged and public campaign of opposition to Lib Dem policy over a number of years. In particular, she repeatedly argued that even if a man had fully transitioned to being a woman, s(he) was still a (biological) man, and therefore should not be allowed into women's refuges, again in particular. So basically she refused to accept that a trans man could become a woman (although she recognised the right of people to define themselves however they wish). There's more to it than that, but I guess it's sub judice.
As a Labour Party chap, the actions of the Lib Dems don't seem unreasonable to me.
It seems Marr does not think it is fake news nor multiple other sources and she is litigating over her ban.
But then Rosie Duffield is so scared of going to the labour conference the Speaker of the HOC has to intervene
Big G, the fake news is the idea that she was banned over the T-shirt. That's not true. She was banned because of a number of episodes over a number of years, of which the T-shirt was a minor feature, as I outlined in my post. Why can't you acknowledge that?
Mind you, I've no idea why I'm on here speaking up for the Lib Dems.
It was the issue Marr presented to Davey and Marr actually read the wording on the T shirt 'Woman.Adult.Human.Female' to Davey and he had no answer
This was the catalyst of the controversy
I'm not sure what Davey was supposed to say when someone says 4 words to him. He said himself he wasn't involved in the disciplinary case.
How about - "its more complex than it looks, there is a wider context and I am not involved in the disciplinary process".
he did say that, more or less.
Not in the bit I saw, but I confess to not watching the whole thing, as I got bored...
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
US GDP per capita is about six times Mexico. UK GDP per capita is about three times, for example, Romania. The US/Mexico population difference is about the UK/Romania population difference. So the US/Mexico case is indeed a wider gap than the UK/Romania case.
Interesting about NZ/Aus entitlement to benefits - so it is not the same as the CTA. Presumably one can take 'residence' after some number of years and then claim benefits?
Is that the same Pret A Manger who we were told in 2017 couldn't survive Brexit because it is so dependent upon low paid immigrant workers ?
The same low paid immigrant workers we're told who have all left the UK ?
I'm not sure this is the good news you are spinning it as. By the time they finish this recruitment push it only puts their workforce back where it started. Pret's strategy is "last man standing" and it seems reasonable - the fall in city working / travel means less demand for twatty coffee which means other outlets will fail. As Pret don't have as strong a coverage as Costa, Staxfbucks and Nero, this is their chance to mop up.
I'm not spinning it merely pointing out the irony of a business which is so dependent upon low paid migrant workers recruiting 3k new low paid migrant workers when we're continually told that the low paid migrant workers have all 'gone home'.
As for the various purveyors of 'twatty coffee' the only thing I can say is that their ever increasing numbers exposes the bollox of 'austerity' claims.
Lets pick this apart. The absolutism you are putting out is the problem. Nobody has said that ALL the migrant workers have gone home. More people registered with the EU settlement scheme than the government thought were here in the first place.
It is also true that the departure of migrant labour has created huge gaps in the labour force in a number of industries including leisure and QSR. With the culling of a stack of jobs in both smaller outlets and big chains there are people out there who still want the work and Pret are concentrated in areas easier to recruit for.
Given that people need to register for an National Insurance number as they begin working, how on earth did the Government not grasp how many people had arrived here to work?
Although how many people in this country work cash in hand without using an NI number? More than a few.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
A victim of domestic abuse was removed as a judge of a radical thinking prize and “hounded” out of her role within the Liberal Democrats for saying that she did not believe that men who identified as women should have access to women’s refuges.
Natalie Bird, 38, a mother of two who fled an abusive former partner, was accused of “dangerous transphobia” by transgender activists in the party. She had said that opening up safe spaces without proper safeguards to anyone who said that they were female could put women at risk.
Maybe those saying it is a non story should read this article
The problem is the glib "trans women are women" skates over a multitude of issues - in this case, "Should trans women who have not transitioned be admitted to women's refuges for people who are fleeing male violence without any safeguards?"
"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will face demands for new taxes and billions in additional spending as he negotiates support from the NDP and Bloc Québécois, following an election in which voters denied the Liberal Party the free rein of a majority mandate.
Because the Liberals are just a handful of seats short of a majority, Mr. Trudeau will only need to rely on one of the three main opposition parties to pass any government bill. In the last Parliament, the Liberals often turned to the NDP for key confidence votes. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet are Mr. Trudeau’s most natural allies in the new minority Parliament, although the Conservatives could also support some bills.
At a news conference in Vancouver on Tuesday, Mr. Singh said he hoped to work with the Liberals on shared areas of interest, including child care and pharmacare. The NDP Leader said he didn’t discuss policy details with Mr. Trudeau during their call on election night. In the last days of the campaign, Mr. Singh said a wealth tax would be his priority issue in a minority government. When asked about that comment Tuesday, he said the cost of the pandemic should be offset by new taxes on high-wealth individuals and corporations."
Ironically of course that means Trudeau's government will have to be more leftwing to keep the NDP voting for government legislation than it would have been had he won a Liberal majority
Yes. Also, the turnout was very low at this election. About 58.8% before postal votes are included.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Jolly good luck with that set of arguments. Especially the first and the last.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
Well I won't hold my breath on the idea of a Canada/US Single Market and its the first you've mentioned it that I know of.
Your "economics 101" is just irrelevant. We do trade with our neighbours and will continue to do so with the TCA. We also trade with people who are not our neighbours, indeed the EU was a minority of our exports even before we left the EU or started seeking to pivot trade to the entire planet. 🤦♂️
The EU forms less than 7% of the planet and less than a sixth (and rapidly falling) of global GDP. Even if we do double the trade with our neighbours than we do the rest of the planet, the rest of the planet is still more important. Which is why it already formed most of our exports pre-Brexit.
You had your arse whipped on here last time you made claims about EU vs ROW trade volumes for the U.K.
It turned out you were spouting fake news.
🤡
The fact is that more than 50% of the UK’s trade before the Brexit vote was with EEA countries (ie our neighbours) and this hasn’t changed in the five years since.
By all means let’s pursue broader opportunities but, again, all economic data everywhere tells us countries are going to trade predominantly with their geographic neighbours.
Next you’ll be telling us that our EU FTA is “better than” single market membership.
Oh, you did that already on a previous thread.
🤡
You're being the disingenuous 🤡
I note you keep switching "exports" to "trade". The EU was a minority of our exports even pre-Brexit and was falling rapidly, even though our EU membership biased trade to the EU.
Plus the relevance of the trade of goods has collapsed. In 1988 the vast majority of our export trade was in goods, with goods trade being worth over 10% of UK GDP. By 2018 the export of goods had collapsed down to about 3% of UK GDP.
Yes our FTA is better than single market membership. It carries the bulk of the advantages, but without the costs. It is pure cherrypicking.
The world has moved on from the 20th century. You should catch up with us.
Trade is trade.
I’m not sure what you are trying to achieve by cherry picking goods over services?
Note also that services do not typically attract tariffs and the vast majority of FTAs do fuck all to promote them.
As for your shit-talk about moving on from the 20th century, you need to get a grip and recognise that it’s not 1932 and Imperial Preference is not a viable option anymore.
"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will face demands for new taxes and billions in additional spending as he negotiates support from the NDP and Bloc Québécois, following an election in which voters denied the Liberal Party the free rein of a majority mandate.
Because the Liberals are just a handful of seats short of a majority, Mr. Trudeau will only need to rely on one of the three main opposition parties to pass any government bill. In the last Parliament, the Liberals often turned to the NDP for key confidence votes. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet are Mr. Trudeau’s most natural allies in the new minority Parliament, although the Conservatives could also support some bills.
At a news conference in Vancouver on Tuesday, Mr. Singh said he hoped to work with the Liberals on shared areas of interest, including child care and pharmacare. The NDP Leader said he didn’t discuss policy details with Mr. Trudeau during their call on election night. In the last days of the campaign, Mr. Singh said a wealth tax would be his priority issue in a minority government. When asked about that comment Tuesday, he said the cost of the pandemic should be offset by new taxes on high-wealth individuals and corporations."
Ironically of course that means Trudeau's government will have to be more leftwing to keep the NDP voting for government legislation than it would have been had he won a Liberal majority
Excellent.
That's how coalitions work, BoZo Fanbois,
If only Cleggy had stopped short of actually supporting all the extreme Tory crap that followed.
A near universal rule of English/British public life, an almost posh boy will always be reamed by a posh boy. Not literally of course, as they won’t have gone to the same school.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Jolly good luck with that set of arguments. Especially the first and the last.
I mean, I have economic literature in support of my argument, whereas you just have whatever you divined from your toilet bowl this morning.
"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will face demands for new taxes and billions in additional spending as he negotiates support from the NDP and Bloc Québécois, following an election in which voters denied the Liberal Party the free rein of a majority mandate.
Because the Liberals are just a handful of seats short of a majority, Mr. Trudeau will only need to rely on one of the three main opposition parties to pass any government bill. In the last Parliament, the Liberals often turned to the NDP for key confidence votes. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet are Mr. Trudeau’s most natural allies in the new minority Parliament, although the Conservatives could also support some bills.
At a news conference in Vancouver on Tuesday, Mr. Singh said he hoped to work with the Liberals on shared areas of interest, including child care and pharmacare. The NDP Leader said he didn’t discuss policy details with Mr. Trudeau during their call on election night. In the last days of the campaign, Mr. Singh said a wealth tax would be his priority issue in a minority government. When asked about that comment Tuesday, he said the cost of the pandemic should be offset by new taxes on high-wealth individuals and corporations."
Ironically of course that means Trudeau's government will have to be more leftwing to keep the NDP voting for government legislation than it would have been had he won a Liberal majority
Excellent.
That's how coalitions work, BoZo Fanbois,
If only Cleggy had stopped short of actually supporting all the extreme Tory crap that followed.
It was LD votes that helped ensure gay marriage got passed in 2013, most Tory MPs at the time voted against.
The Cameron-Clegg government was socially liberal even if fiscally conservative
I wonder if Boris is playing 5D chess here: he's actually agreed a trade deal with the US but it's really shit (from a UK perspective). Nevertheless, when he announces it the Base will go absolutely ecstatic (cf AUUUKUS) and the Bitter Remoaners will be back on the defensive. Boris will then be able to get away with more crap in the hullabaloo. It's a pattern.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
Well I won't hold my breath on the idea of a Canada/US Single Market and its the first you've mentioned it that I know of.
Your "economics 101" is just irrelevant. We do trade with our neighbours and will continue to do so with the TCA. We also trade with people who are not our neighbours, indeed the EU was a minority of our exports even before we left the EU or started seeking to pivot trade to the entire planet. 🤦♂️
The EU forms less than 7% of the planet and less than a sixth (and rapidly falling) of global GDP. Even if we do double the trade with our neighbours than we do the rest of the planet, the rest of the planet is still more important. Which is why it already formed most of our exports pre-Brexit.
You had your arse whipped on here last time you made claims about EU vs ROW trade volumes for the U.K.
It turned out you were spouting fake news.
🤡
The fact is that more than 50% of the UK’s trade before the Brexit vote was with EEA countries (ie our neighbours) and this hasn’t changed in the five years since.
By all means let’s pursue broader opportunities but, again, all economic data everywhere tells us countries are going to trade predominantly with their geographic neighbours.
Next you’ll be telling us that our EU FTA is “better than” single market membership.
Oh, you did that already on a previous thread.
🤡
You're being the disingenuous 🤡
I note you keep switching "exports" to "trade". The EU was a minority of our exports even pre-Brexit and was falling rapidly, even though our EU membership biased trade to the EU.
Plus the relevance of the trade of goods has collapsed. In 1988 the vast majority of our export trade was in goods, with goods trade being worth over 10% of UK GDP. By 2018 the export of goods had collapsed down to about 3% of UK GDP.
Yes our FTA is better than single market membership. It carries the bulk of the advantages, but without the costs. It is pure cherrypicking.
The world has moved on from the 20th century. You should catch up with us.
Trade is trade.
I’m not sure what you are trying to achieve by cherry picking goods over services?
Note also that services do not typically attract tariffs and the vast majority of FTAs do fuck all to promote them.
Goods tend to require shipping, most services in the 21st century can be done online. I have clients in China that I can deal with from my laptop on my sofa at home without going into an office, let alone having to fly to China to deal with them. Who would have imagined that in the 1980s?
If you want to stay locked in the mindset of a prior century then you do you. You're the 🤡 though.
If the Single Market was so important you'd have thought since the 1980s our exports in goods as a proportion of GDP would have increased (since the Single Market was predominantly goods). It hasn't, it collapsed like a stone. Because technology has moved on and left your antiquated attitudes in the dust.
As for your shit-talk about moving on from the 20th century, you need to get a grip and recognise that it’s not 1932 and Imperial Preference is not a viable option anymore.
LOL nice edit in, except you're the one wanting Imperial Preference not me. Except your version of Imperial is the teeny tiny continent of Europe.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
US GDP per capita is about six times Mexico. UK GDP per capita is about three times, for example, Romania. The US/Mexico population difference is about the UK/Romania population difference. So the US/Mexico case is indeed a wider gap than the UK/Romania case.
Interesting about NZ/Aus entitlement to benefits - so it is not the same as the CTA. Presumably one can take 'residence' after some number of years and then claim benefits?
Yes you need to take permanent residence. The only exception is certain in-work benefits like paid parental leave.
Is that the same Pret A Manger who we were told in 2017 couldn't survive Brexit because it is so dependent upon low paid immigrant workers ?
The same low paid immigrant workers we're told who have all left the UK ?
I'm not sure this is the good news you are spinning it as. By the time they finish this recruitment push it only puts their workforce back where it started. Pret's strategy is "last man standing" and it seems reasonable - the fall in city working / travel means less demand for twatty coffee which means other outlets will fail. As Pret don't have as strong a coverage as Costa, Staxfbucks and Nero, this is their chance to mop up.
I'm not spinning it merely pointing out the irony of a business which is so dependent upon low paid migrant workers recruiting 3k new low paid migrant workers when we're continually told that the low paid migrant workers have all 'gone home'.
As for the various purveyors of 'twatty coffee' the only thing I can say is that their ever increasing numbers exposes the bollox of 'austerity' claims.
Lets pick this apart. The absolutism you are putting out is the problem. Nobody has said that ALL the migrant workers have gone home. More people registered with the EU settlement scheme than the government thought were here in the first place.
It is also true that the departure of migrant labour has created huge gaps in the labour force in a number of industries including leisure and QSR. With the culling of a stack of jobs in both smaller outlets and big chains there are people out there who still want the work and Pret are concentrated in areas easier to recruit for.
Given that people need to register for an National Insurance number as they begin working, how on earth did the Government not grasp how many people had arrived here to work?
Although how many people in this country work cash in hand without using an NI number? More than a few.
I'm not sure how people can get away with that these days, now that bank accounts and BACS seem to be the order of the day. I still can't get my head around how banks can commandeer our money every month, yet only give us 0.1% on anything we may be able to save.
I wonder if Boris is playing 5D chess here: he's actually agreed a trade deal with the US but it's really shit (from a UK perspective). Nevertheless, when he announces it the Base will go absolutely ecstatic (cf AUUUKUS) and the Bitter Remoaners will be back on the defensive. Boris will then be able to get away with more crap in the hullabaloo. It's a pattern.
The US can't do a secret trade deal because Biden doesn't have the power to do it unilaterally; He'd have to spend a long time consulting with other Dems (at a minimum) to have a hope of passing anything and that would leak.
Is that the same Pret A Manger who we were told in 2017 couldn't survive Brexit because it is so dependent upon low paid immigrant workers ?
The same low paid immigrant workers we're told who have all left the UK ?
I'm not sure this is the good news you are spinning it as. By the time they finish this recruitment push it only puts their workforce back where it started. Pret's strategy is "last man standing" and it seems reasonable - the fall in city working / travel means less demand for twatty coffee which means other outlets will fail. As Pret don't have as strong a coverage as Costa, Staxfbucks and Nero, this is their chance to mop up.
I'm not spinning it merely pointing out the irony of a business which is so dependent upon low paid migrant workers recruiting 3k new low paid migrant workers when we're continually told that the low paid migrant workers have all 'gone home'.
As for the various purveyors of 'twatty coffee' the only thing I can say is that their ever increasing numbers exposes the bollox of 'austerity' claims.
Lets pick this apart. The absolutism you are putting out is the problem. Nobody has said that ALL the migrant workers have gone home. More people registered with the EU settlement scheme than the government thought were here in the first place.
It is also true that the departure of migrant labour has created huge gaps in the labour force in a number of industries including leisure and QSR. With the culling of a stack of jobs in both smaller outlets and big chains there are people out there who still want the work and Pret are concentrated in areas easier to recruit for.
Given that people need to register for an National Insurance number as they begin working, how on earth did the Government not grasp how many people had arrived here to work?
Although how many people in this country work cash in hand without using an NI number? More than a few.
I'm not sure how people can get away with that these days, now that bank accounts and BACS seem to be the order of the day. I still can't get my head around how banks can commandeer our money every month, yet only give us 0.1% on anything we may be able to save.
Since covid I pay all tradesmen through bacs and they like the instant payment into their account
I do not use cash at all these days, even the gardener
I wonder if Boris is playing 5D chess here: he's actually agreed a trade deal with the US but it's really shit (from a UK perspective). Nevertheless, when he announces it the Base will go absolutely ecstatic (cf AUUUKUS) and the Bitter Remoaners will be back on the defensive. Boris will then be able to get away with more crap in the hullabaloo. It's a pattern.
The US can't do a secret trade deal because Biden doesn't have the power to do it unilaterally; He'd have to spend a long time consulting with other Dems (at a minimum) to have a hope of passing anything and that would leak.
True. But they could do something - anything - that can be announced as some sort of deal regarding trade and the Base would still lap it up. It's the optics that matter to Boris.
I wonder if Boris is playing 5D chess here: he's actually agreed a trade deal with the US but it's really shit (from a UK perspective). Nevertheless, when he announces it the Base will go absolutely ecstatic (cf AUUUKUS) and the Bitter Remoaners will be back on the defensive. Boris will then be able to get away with more crap in the hullabaloo. It's a pattern.
The US can't do a secret trade deal because Biden doesn't have the power to do it unilaterally; He'd have to spend a long time consulting with other Dems (at a minimum) to have a hope of passing anything and that would leak.
True. But they could do something - anything - that can be announced as some sort of deal regarding trade and the Base would still lap it up. It's the optics that matter to Boris.
And the optics don’t even need to look that good.
Philip T will reliably be on here telling us that it’s the best thing ever. Followed by Big G once he’s seen the “catch up” on Sky.
I wonder if Boris is playing 5D chess here: he's actually agreed a trade deal with the US but it's really shit (from a UK perspective). Nevertheless, when he announces it the Base will go absolutely ecstatic (cf AUUUKUS) and the Bitter Remoaners will be back on the defensive. Boris will then be able to get away with more crap in the hullabaloo. It's a pattern.
The US can't do a secret trade deal because Biden doesn't have the power to do it unilaterally; He'd have to spend a long time consulting with other Dems (at a minimum) to have a hope of passing anything and that would leak.
True. But they could do something - anything - that can be announced as some sort of deal regarding trade and the Base would still lap it up. It's the optics that matter to Boris.
Boris has already agreed trade on whisky, lamb and beef sales
I wonder if Boris is playing 5D chess here: he's actually agreed a trade deal with the US but it's really shit (from a UK perspective). Nevertheless, when he announces it the Base will go absolutely ecstatic (cf AUUUKUS) and the Bitter Remoaners will be back on the defensive. Boris will then be able to get away with more crap in the hullabaloo. It's a pattern.
The US can't do a secret trade deal because Biden doesn't have the power to do it unilaterally; He'd have to spend a long time consulting with other Dems (at a minimum) to have a hope of passing anything and that would leak.
True. But they could do something - anything - that can be announced as some sort of deal regarding trade and the Base would still lap it up. It's the optics that matter to Boris.
And the optics don’t even need to look that good.
Philip T will reliably be on here telling us that it’s the best thing ever. Followed by Big G once he’s seen the “catch up” on Sky.
I wonder if Boris is playing 5D chess here: he's actually agreed a trade deal with the US but it's really shit (from a UK perspective). Nevertheless, when he announces it the Base will go absolutely ecstatic (cf AUUUKUS) and the Bitter Remoaners will be back on the defensive. Boris will then be able to get away with more crap in the hullabaloo. It's a pattern.
The US can't do a secret trade deal because Biden doesn't have the power to do it unilaterally; He'd have to spend a long time consulting with other Dems (at a minimum) to have a hope of passing anything and that would leak.
True. But they could do something - anything - that can be announced as some sort of deal regarding trade and the Base would still lap it up. It's the optics that matter to Boris.
Fair point, and thinking about it there are probably some Trump-era tariffs that Biden could unilaterally abolish.
Who really cares what the pitiful number of readers of the Guardian or i think? It's unlikely they voted for Brexit or vote Conservative. To Johnson they are irrelevant
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Its also about perception though. The labour government didn't expect hundreds of thousands of eastern european immigrants, they thought thousands. These were people coming here to work, earn decent money, send it home, or save it. Not scroungers for the most part, despite what some of the worst elements of the right wing press would say. But their arrival did put pressure on local services - GP's, housing, schools etc. It also led to massive change in some parts of the country. A small local town of say 20,000 gaining 500-1000 Polish people will be obvious. Its the old classic, my Polish neighbour XX is great, its the rest of them thats the problem. For many tolerant people seeing a large influx into their towns was too much and too quick. They are not intrinsically racist, but they do have a sense of home, and Britishness. You can prove all you like about the 'real' effect on wages, but that's not what counted in 2016 in the polling booth.
“What words have been added to Ofcom's 'offensive' list?
Karen: A pejorative term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman
Gammon: A term referring to the colour of a person's flushed face when expressing their strong opinions, associated particularly with right-wing brexiteers
Libtard: A word used to describe people on the political left who are perceived to be easily offended, 'woke' and overly politically correct
Snowflake: Someone perceived as too sensitive, easily offended and outraged
Feminazi: A term used to describe an outspoken and radical feminist
Boomer: An insult for baby boomers who are perceived to be out of touch and dismissive of younger generations
Remoaner: Someone against Brexit perceived to be constantly complaining about it
Terf: A 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist' - used to describe people who reject the assertion that trans women are women and are opposed to trans-rights legislation”
So, do we: (a) agree to avoid all these terms, out of concern for the feelings of our fellow PB gammons and libtards? (b) use this list to glean new insults we can use when making an argument is too much like hard work (I can add 'Karen' and 'feminazi' to my list; maybe 'terf' too, although perhaps I already knew that?)
If the latter, I volunteer, from my university days, 'Alexander' (corruption of 'Alexandre' for 'dumb-ass', from Alexandre Dumas and the reference in Shawshank Redemption - example usage: "don't be an Alexander"; "he's a bit of an Alexander"). Also 'Dave' (an acronym of 'Dangerous Around Vehicles in Essex', for a stereotypical Essex-boy racer, which can also be verbed - 'Daving')
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Its also about perception though. The labour government didn't expect hundreds of thousands of eastern european immigrants, they thought thousands. These were people coming here to work, earn decent money, send it home, or save it. Not scroungers for the most part, despite what some of the worst elements of the right wing press would say. But their arrival did put pressure on local services - GP's, housing, schools etc. It also led to massive change in some parts of the country. A small local town of say 20,000 gaining 500-1000 Polish people will be obvious. Its the old classic, my Polish neighbour XX is great, its the rest of them thats the problem. For many tolerant people seeing a large influx into their towns was too much and too quick. They are not intrinsically racist, but they do have a sense of home, and Britishness. You can prove all you like about the 'real' effect on wages, but that's not what counted in 2016 in the polling booth.
Totally agree.
The impact on local services was critical.
I find it astonishing nothing was done about this, indeed there remained a stubborn view that to raise the question was racist.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Its also about perception though. The labour government didn't expect hundreds of thousands of eastern european immigrants, they thought thousands. These were people coming here to work, earn decent money, send it home, or save it. Not scroungers for the most part, despite what some of the worst elements of the right wing press would say. But their arrival did put pressure on local services - GP's, housing, schools etc. It also led to massive change in some parts of the country. A small local town of say 20,000 gaining 500-1000 Polish people will be obvious. Its the old classic, my Polish neighbour XX is great, its the rest of them thats the problem. For many tolerant people seeing a large influx into their towns was too much and too quick. They are not intrinsically racist, but they do have a sense of home, and Britishness. You can prove all you like about the 'real' effect on wages, but that's not what counted in 2016 in the polling booth.
And now they've gone home, housing is plentiful and cheap, GP's are virtually walk-in, and schools are tranquil oases of learning with high staff to pupil ratios just like before. Perhaps other factors contribued even more heavily?
“What words have been added to Ofcom's 'offensive' list?
Karen: A pejorative term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman
Gammon: A term referring to the colour of a person's flushed face when expressing their strong opinions, associated particularly with right-wing brexiteers
Libtard: A word used to describe people on the political left who are perceived to be easily offended, 'woke' and overly politically correct
Snowflake: Someone perceived as too sensitive, easily offended and outraged
Feminazi: A term used to describe an outspoken and radical feminist
Boomer: An insult for baby boomers who are perceived to be out of touch and dismissive of younger generations
Remoaner: Someone against Brexit perceived to be constantly complaining about it
Terf: A 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist' - used to describe people who reject the assertion that trans women are women and are opposed to trans-rights legislation”
So, do we: (a) agree to avoid all these terms, out of concern for the feelings of our fellow PB gammons and libtards? (b) use this list to glean new insults we can use when making an argument is too much like hard work (I can add 'Karen' and 'feminazi' to my list; maybe 'terf' too, although perhaps I already knew that?)
If the latter, I volunteer, from my university days, 'Alexander' (corruption of 'Alexandre' for 'dumb-ass', from Alexandre Dumas and the reference in Shawshank Redemption - example usage: "don't be an Alexander"; "he's a bit of an Alexander"). Also 'Dave' (an acronym of 'Dangerous Around Vehicles in Essex', for a stereotypical Essex-boy racer, which can also be verbed - 'Daving')
I'm gonna be in trouble every time I address my wife.
“What words have been added to Ofcom's 'offensive' list?
Karen: A pejorative term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman
Gammon: A term referring to the colour of a person's flushed face when expressing their strong opinions, associated particularly with right-wing brexiteers
Libtard: A word used to describe people on the political left who are perceived to be easily offended, 'woke' and overly politically correct
Snowflake: Someone perceived as too sensitive, easily offended and outraged
Feminazi: A term used to describe an outspoken and radical feminist
Boomer: An insult for baby boomers who are perceived to be out of touch and dismissive of younger generations
Remoaner: Someone against Brexit perceived to be constantly complaining about it
Terf: A 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist' - used to describe people who reject the assertion that trans women are women and are opposed to trans-rights legislation”
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Jolly good luck with that set of arguments. Especially the first and the last.
I mean, I have economic literature in support of my argument, whereas you just have whatever you divined from your toilet bowl this morning.
Despite the stunning quality of that argument, I wonder if we need to wait and see for a bit whether it turns out that lower paid workers do a little better without FOM for a few years.
There are other issues too, like bothering to train enough people in the domestic market, ensuring that there are career structures and not just reliance on here today gone tomorrow replaceable eastern Europeans.
All these good people should have exactly the same chance as, say, my Tanzanian friend who had to leave these shores a few years ago, whereas if he has been Lithuanain could have stayed permanently, and has now returned with his skills under a more relaxed regime.
BTW the chances of academic argument all being in one direction is small.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Its also about perception though. The labour government didn't expect hundreds of thousands of eastern european immigrants, they thought thousands. These were people coming here to work, earn decent money, send it home, or save it. Not scroungers for the most part, despite what some of the worst elements of the right wing press would say. But their arrival did put pressure on local services - GP's, housing, schools etc. It also led to massive change in some parts of the country. A small local town of say 20,000 gaining 500-1000 Polish people will be obvious. Its the old classic, my Polish neighbour XX is great, its the rest of them thats the problem. For many tolerant people seeing a large influx into their towns was too much and too quick. They are not intrinsically racist, but they do have a sense of home, and Britishness. You can prove all you like about the 'real' effect on wages, but that's not what counted in 2016 in the polling booth.
Totally agree.
The impact on local services was critical.
I find it astonishing nothing was done about this, indeed there remained a stubborn view that to raise the question was racist.
A contributing factor to the impact on local services, was that the immigrants were living in much more densely-packed accommodation, and therefore paying considerably less per person in council tax than the native population.
A three-bedroomed family house, with eight or ten people living in it, was common in many cities.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Its also about perception though. The labour government didn't expect hundreds of thousands of eastern european immigrants, they thought thousands. These were people coming here to work, earn decent money, send it home, or save it. Not scroungers for the most part, despite what some of the worst elements of the right wing press would say. But their arrival did put pressure on local services - GP's, housing, schools etc. It also led to massive change in some parts of the country. A small local town of say 20,000 gaining 500-1000 Polish people will be obvious. Its the old classic, my Polish neighbour XX is great, its the rest of them thats the problem. For many tolerant people seeing a large influx into their towns was too much and too quick. They are not intrinsically racist, but they do have a sense of home, and Britishness. You can prove all you like about the 'real' effect on wages, but that's not what counted in 2016 in the polling booth.
And now they've gone home, housing is plentiful and cheap, GP's are virtually walk-in, and schools are tranquil oases of learning with high staff to pupil ratios just like before. Perhaps other factors contribued even more heavily?
As I said - its about perception. Plus, be fair, there has been something else happening in the last 18 months which is impacting heavily on schools and GPs.
Is that the same Pret A Manger who we were told in 2017 couldn't survive Brexit because it is so dependent upon low paid immigrant workers ?
The same low paid immigrant workers we're told who have all left the UK ?
I'm not sure this is the good news you are spinning it as. By the time they finish this recruitment push it only puts their workforce back where it started. Pret's strategy is "last man standing" and it seems reasonable - the fall in city working / travel means less demand for twatty coffee which means other outlets will fail. As Pret don't have as strong a coverage as Costa, Staxfbucks and Nero, this is their chance to mop up.
I'm not spinning it merely pointing out the irony of a business which is so dependent upon low paid migrant workers recruiting 3k new low paid migrant workers when we're continually told that the low paid migrant workers have all 'gone home'.
As for the various purveyors of 'twatty coffee' the only thing I can say is that their ever increasing numbers exposes the bollox of 'austerity' claims.
Lets pick this apart. The absolutism you are putting out is the problem. Nobody has said that ALL the migrant workers have gone home. More people registered with the EU settlement scheme than the government thought were here in the first place.
It is also true that the departure of migrant labour has created huge gaps in the labour force in a number of industries including leisure and QSR. With the culling of a stack of jobs in both smaller outlets and big chains there are people out there who still want the work and Pret are concentrated in areas easier to recruit for.
Given that people need to register for an National Insurance number as they begin working, how on earth did the Government not grasp how many people had arrived here to work?
Although how many people in this country work cash in hand without using an NI number? More than a few.
I'm not sure how people can get away with that these days, now that bank accounts and BACS seem to be the order of the day. I still can't get my head around how banks can commandeer our money every month, yet only give us 0.1% on anything we may be able to save.
Since covid I pay all tradesmen through bacs and they like the instant payment into their account
I do not use cash at all these days, even the gardener
I realised this morning that I don't even carry my bank cards with me any more.
The cafe I'm working in had a card-machine fail, and I had no means to pay other than my phone. I offered to pop home and get a card to get some cash out but they very sensibly just told me just to write it down and pay tomorrow when they'd fixed it.
I haven't used cash since February 2020, at least, and I don't think I've used my physical cards this year.
“What words have been added to Ofcom's 'offensive' list?
Karen: A pejorative term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman
Gammon: A term referring to the colour of a person's flushed face when expressing their strong opinions, associated particularly with right-wing brexiteers
Libtard: A word used to describe people on the political left who are perceived to be easily offended, 'woke' and overly politically correct
Snowflake: Someone perceived as too sensitive, easily offended and outraged
Feminazi: A term used to describe an outspoken and radical feminist
Boomer: An insult for baby boomers who are perceived to be out of touch and dismissive of younger generations
Remoaner: Someone against Brexit perceived to be constantly complaining about it
Terf: A 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist' - used to describe people who reject the assertion that trans women are women and are opposed to trans-rights legislation”
Is that the same Pret A Manger who we were told in 2017 couldn't survive Brexit because it is so dependent upon low paid immigrant workers ?
The same low paid immigrant workers we're told who have all left the UK ?
I'm not sure this is the good news you are spinning it as. By the time they finish this recruitment push it only puts their workforce back where it started. Pret's strategy is "last man standing" and it seems reasonable - the fall in city working / travel means less demand for twatty coffee which means other outlets will fail. As Pret don't have as strong a coverage as Costa, Staxfbucks and Nero, this is their chance to mop up.
I'm not spinning it merely pointing out the irony of a business which is so dependent upon low paid migrant workers recruiting 3k new low paid migrant workers when we're continually told that the low paid migrant workers have all 'gone home'.
As for the various purveyors of 'twatty coffee' the only thing I can say is that their ever increasing numbers exposes the bollox of 'austerity' claims.
Lets pick this apart. The absolutism you are putting out is the problem. Nobody has said that ALL the migrant workers have gone home. More people registered with the EU settlement scheme than the government thought were here in the first place.
It is also true that the departure of migrant labour has created huge gaps in the labour force in a number of industries including leisure and QSR. With the culling of a stack of jobs in both smaller outlets and big chains there are people out there who still want the work and Pret are concentrated in areas easier to recruit for.
Given that people need to register for an National Insurance number as they begin working, how on earth did the Government not grasp how many people had arrived here to work?
Although how many people in this country work cash in hand without using an NI number? More than a few.
I'm not sure how people can get away with that these days, now that bank accounts and BACS seem to be the order of the day. I still can't get my head around how banks can commandeer our money every month, yet only give us 0.1% on anything we may be able to save.
Since covid I pay all tradesmen through bacs and they like the instant payment into their account
I do not use cash at all these days, even the gardener
I realised this morning that I don't even carry my bank cards with me any more.
The cafe I'm working in had a card-machine fail, and I had no means to pay other than my phone. I offered to pop home and get a card to get some cash out but they very sensibly just told me just to write it down and pay tomorrow when they'd fixed it.
I haven't used cash since February 2020, at least, and I don't think I've used my physical cards this year.
The only thing I've use a physical card for in months is Pay At Pump fuel. Its irritating there's no contactless version of that as a few times I've been unable to refuel at my local (newly built) Tesco's since I haven't had my wallet with me and the machines are exclusively pay at pump that require cards to be inserted.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Jolly good luck with that set of arguments. Especially the first and the last.
I mean, I have economic literature in support of my argument, whereas you just have whatever you divined from your toilet bowl this morning.
Despite the stunning quality of that argument, I wonder if we need to wait and see for a bit whether it turns out that lower paid workers do a little better without FOM for a few years.
There are other issues too, like bothering to train enough people in the domestic market, ensuring that there are career structures and not just reliance on here today gone tomorrow replaceable eastern Europeans.
All these good people should have exactly the same chance as, say, my Tanzanian friend who had to leave these shores a few years ago, whereas if he has been Lithuanain could have stayed permanently, and has now returned with his skills under a more relaxed regime.
BTW the chances of academic argument all being in one direction is small.
There is some data that suggests an impact in the 2-3% range for some lower skill trades.
But you really have to hunt for it.
The macro picture was that immigrants were higher skilled than the U.K. population, were less dependent on public services, improved firm productivity, and boosted native wages by allowing native workers to move up the career ladder, and take advantage of the aforementioned productivity improvements.
From a qualitative perspective, EU migration had an astonishingly positive effect on the U.K. arts and food (admittedly mostly in London).
It also slowed the U.K.‘s demographic challenges, which we are now seeing is inflating the size of the NHS in relation to the overall economy.
There were downsides, as I concede upthread, but the net impact was bonkersly positive, akin to the North Sea oil discovery of the 70s/80s.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Jolly good luck with that set of arguments. Especially the first and the last.
I mean, I have economic literature in support of my argument, whereas you just have whatever you divined from your toilet bowl this morning.
Despite the stunning quality of that argument, I wonder if we need to wait and see for a bit whether it turns out that lower paid workers do a little better without FOM for a few years.
There are other issues too, like bothering to train enough people in the domestic market, ensuring that there are career structures and not just reliance on here today gone tomorrow replaceable eastern Europeans.
All these good people should have exactly the same chance as, say, my Tanzanian friend who had to leave these shores a few years ago, whereas if he has been Lithuanain could have stayed permanently, and has now returned with his skills under a more relaxed regime.
BTW the chances of academic argument all being in one direction is small.
There is some data that suggests an impact in the 2-3% range for some lower skill trades.
But you really have to hunt for it.
The macro picture was that immigrants were higher skilled than the U.K. population, were less dependent on public services, improved firm productivity, and boosted native wages by allowing native workers to move up the career ladder, and take advantage of the aforementioned productivity improvements.
From a qualitative perspective, EU migration had an astonishingly positive effect on the U.K. arts and food (admittedly mostly in London).
It also slowed the U.K.‘s demographic challenges, which we are now seeing is inflating the size of the NHS in relation to the overall economy.
There were downsides, as I concede upthread, but the net impact was bonkersly positive, akin to the North Sea oil discovery of the 70s/80s.
Maybe for landlords looking to let out properties.
Importing people to work for minimum wage, giving them Universal Credit, then taxing people for that, all while refusing to allow new builds to keep pace with demand has just meant we've had housing cost inflation but no wage inflation.
Yes I switch to red wine from white wine today and from salad to cabbage, sprouts and cauliflower, also will be more likely to wear a sweater and a coat when going out, though good to see we still are getting a bit of an Indian summer
As an unbelievably well-informed student of UK social history, or rather because I have read Flashman's Lady, I can tell you that batter was the original term. Batsman is an unwelcome neologism.
Yes I switch to red wine from white wine today and from salad to cabbage, sprouts and cauliflower, also will be more likely to wear a sweater and a coat when going out, though good to see we still are getting a bit of an Indian summer
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Jolly good luck with that set of arguments. Especially the first and the last.
I mean, I have economic literature in support of my argument, whereas you just have whatever you divined from your toilet bowl this morning.
Despite the stunning quality of that argument, I wonder if we need to wait and see for a bit whether it turns out that lower paid workers do a little better without FOM for a few years.
There are other issues too, like bothering to train enough people in the domestic market, ensuring that there are career structures and not just reliance on here today gone tomorrow replaceable eastern Europeans.
All these good people should have exactly the same chance as, say, my Tanzanian friend who had to leave these shores a few years ago, whereas if he has been Lithuanain could have stayed permanently, and has now returned with his skills under a more relaxed regime.
BTW the chances of academic argument all being in one direction is small.
There is some data that suggests an impact in the 2-3% range for some lower skill trades.
But you really have to hunt for it.
The macro picture was that immigrants were higher skilled than the U.K. population, were less dependent on public services, improved firm productivity, and boosted native wages by allowing native workers to move up the career ladder, and take advantage of the aforementioned productivity improvements.
From a qualitative perspective, EU migration had an astonishingly positive effect on the U.K. arts and food (admittedly mostly in London).
It also slowed the U.K.‘s demographic challenges, which we are now seeing is inflating the size of the NHS in relation to the overall economy.
There were downsides, as I concede upthread, but the net impact was bonkersly positive, akin to the North Sea oil discovery of the 70s/80s.
Maybe for landlords looking to let out properties.
Importing people to work for minimum wage, giving them Universal Credit, then taxing people for that, all while refusing to allow new builds to keep pace with demand has just meant we've had housing cost inflation but no wage inflation.
House prices have mostly been driven by interest rate declines and supply-side constraints (the UK’s bizarre soviet-style planning regime).
Yes I switch to red wine from white wine today and from salad to cabbage, sprouts and cauliflower, also will be more likely to wear a sweater and a coat when going out, though good to see we still are getting a bit of an Indian summer
So if you eat a steak in summer you drink white wine with it?
Yes I switch to red wine from white wine today and from salad to cabbage, sprouts and cauliflower, also will be more likely to wear a sweater and a coat when going out, though good to see we still are getting a bit of an Indian summer
To qualify as an Indian Summer, we are required to have had at least one frost first....
Kwasi Kwarteng in front of the business select committee just now commented that the treasury is aware of this crisis and there is a budget in October when all will be revealed
Looks like Rishi may be planning some mitigation to home owners bills
I always felt there was an inconsistency there - you don't haver a 'bowlman' or a 'fieldman'. But 'batter' does sound ugly to to my ears, so I won't be using it in the context of male cricket.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Jolly good luck with that set of arguments. Especially the first and the last.
I mean, I have economic literature in support of my argument, whereas you just have whatever you divined from your toilet bowl this morning.
Despite the stunning quality of that argument, I wonder if we need to wait and see for a bit whether it turns out that lower paid workers do a little better without FOM for a few years.
There are other issues too, like bothering to train enough people in the domestic market, ensuring that there are career structures and not just reliance on here today gone tomorrow replaceable eastern Europeans.
All these good people should have exactly the same chance as, say, my Tanzanian friend who had to leave these shores a few years ago, whereas if he has been Lithuanain could have stayed permanently, and has now returned with his skills under a more relaxed regime.
BTW the chances of academic argument all being in one direction is small.
There is some data that suggests an impact in the 2-3% range for some lower skill trades.
But you really have to hunt for it.
The macro picture was that immigrants were higher skilled than the U.K. population, were less dependent on public services, improved firm productivity, and boosted native wages by allowing native workers to move up the career ladder, and take advantage of the aforementioned productivity improvements.
From a qualitative perspective, EU migration had an astonishingly positive effect on the U.K. arts and food (admittedly mostly in London).
It also slowed the U.K.‘s demographic challenges, which we are now seeing is inflating the size of the NHS in relation to the overall economy.
There were downsides, as I concede upthread, but the net impact was bonkersly positive, akin to the North Sea oil discovery of the 70s/80s.
From the perspective of someone who was in business (involved with several businesses employing lower skilled labour) the idea of a 2-3% impact is er... interesting.
A number of jobs essentially "rode" the minimum wage - which is what you'd expect, with a surplus of labour. The going rate was minimum wage.
It was wonderful if you were a consumer of labour heavy products. If you were providing the labour, not so much.
Yes I switch to red wine from white wine today and from salad to cabbage, sprouts and cauliflower, also will be more likely to wear a sweater and a coat when going out, though good to see we still are getting a bit of an Indian summer
So if you eat a steak in summer you drink white wine with it?
Is that the same Pret A Manger who we were told in 2017 couldn't survive Brexit because it is so dependent upon low paid immigrant workers ?
The same low paid immigrant workers we're told who have all left the UK ?
I'm not sure this is the good news you are spinning it as. By the time they finish this recruitment push it only puts their workforce back where it started. Pret's strategy is "last man standing" and it seems reasonable - the fall in city working / travel means less demand for twatty coffee which means other outlets will fail. As Pret don't have as strong a coverage as Costa, Staxfbucks and Nero, this is their chance to mop up.
I'm not spinning it merely pointing out the irony of a business which is so dependent upon low paid migrant workers recruiting 3k new low paid migrant workers when we're continually told that the low paid migrant workers have all 'gone home'.
As for the various purveyors of 'twatty coffee' the only thing I can say is that their ever increasing numbers exposes the bollox of 'austerity' claims.
Lets pick this apart. The absolutism you are putting out is the problem. Nobody has said that ALL the migrant workers have gone home. More people registered with the EU settlement scheme than the government thought were here in the first place.
It is also true that the departure of migrant labour has created huge gaps in the labour force in a number of industries including leisure and QSR. With the culling of a stack of jobs in both smaller outlets and big chains there are people out there who still want the work and Pret are concentrated in areas easier to recruit for.
Given that people need to register for an National Insurance number as they begin working, how on earth did the Government not grasp how many people had arrived here to work?
Although how many people in this country work cash in hand without using an NI number? More than a few.
I'm not sure how people can get away with that these days, now that bank accounts and BACS seem to be the order of the day. I still can't get my head around how banks can commandeer our money every month, yet only give us 0.1% on anything we may be able to save.
Since covid I pay all tradesmen through bacs and they like the instant payment into their account
I do not use cash at all these days, even the gardener
I realised this morning that I don't even carry my bank cards with me any more.
The cafe I'm working in had a card-machine fail, and I had no means to pay other than my phone. I offered to pop home and get a card to get some cash out but they very sensibly just told me just to write it down and pay tomorrow when they'd fixed it.
I haven't used cash since February 2020, at least, and I don't think I've used my physical cards this year.
The only thing I've use a physical card for in months is Pay At Pump fuel. Its irritating there's no contactless version of that as a few times I've been unable to refuel at my local (newly built) Tesco's since I haven't had my wallet with me and the machines are exclusively pay at pump that require cards to be inserted.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Its also about perception though. The labour government didn't expect hundreds of thousands of eastern european immigrants, they thought thousands. These were people coming here to work, earn decent money, send it home, or save it. Not scroungers for the most part, despite what some of the worst elements of the right wing press would say. But their arrival did put pressure on local services - GP's, housing, schools etc. It also led to massive change in some parts of the country. A small local town of say 20,000 gaining 500-1000 Polish people will be obvious. Its the old classic, my Polish neighbour XX is great, its the rest of them thats the problem. For many tolerant people seeing a large influx into their towns was too much and too quick. They are not intrinsically racist, but they do have a sense of home, and Britishness. You can prove all you like about the 'real' effect on wages, but that's not what counted in 2016 in the polling booth.
And now they've gone home, housing is plentiful and cheap, GP's are virtually walk-in, and schools are tranquil oases of learning with high staff to pupil ratios just like before. Perhaps other factors contribued even more heavily?
As I said - its about perception. Plus, be fair, there has been something else happening in the last 18 months which is impacting heavily on schools and GPs.
Though the same could be said of the period 2010-2016. A lot of public services were being squeezed anyway, and would have been even without population changes. Housing pressures would have built, because those with money to spare are expecting more space, or staying houses larger than they no longer really need.
Besides, change happens. Yes, it's human nature to fear it as it starts to happen, and to not like it while it's happening. Take my bit of Romford- it's transitioning from the first bit of Essex to the last bit of London as new people move in. And I get the incomprehension of longer-standing residents about the organic shops and doughnut cafes and the resentment that higher house prices are forcing some people further out. And it's very tempting for populist politicians (yes, I am looking at you Rosindell) to win votes on "Keep Romford Like It Used To Be". But unless you plan to clamp down on internal migration, I don't see what's to be done about it.
Yes I switch to red wine from white wine today and from salad to cabbage, sprouts and cauliflower, also will be more likely to wear a sweater and a coat when going out, though good to see we still are getting a bit of an Indian summer
So if you eat a steak in summer you drink white wine with it?
Uh-oh.
This one could explode on PB. Forget @Isam's list they are amateurs to what might happen next here.
Kwasi Kwarteng in front of the business select committee commented that the treasury is aware of this crisis and there is a budget in October when all will be revealed
Looks like Rishi may be planning some mitigation to home owners bills
Oh no, I have a horrible feeling he's going to increase my already absurd Winter Fuel Payment. Whilst I can happily spend it on even better champagne than I would otherwise purchase, I can't help feeling that this would not be a good use of public money.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Its also about perception though. The labour government didn't expect hundreds of thousands of eastern european immigrants, they thought thousands. These were people coming here to work, earn decent money, send it home, or save it. Not scroungers for the most part, despite what some of the worst elements of the right wing press would say. But their arrival did put pressure on local services - GP's, housing, schools etc. It also led to massive change in some parts of the country. A small local town of say 20,000 gaining 500-1000 Polish people will be obvious. Its the old classic, my Polish neighbour XX is great, its the rest of them thats the problem. For many tolerant people seeing a large influx into their towns was too much and too quick. They are not intrinsically racist, but they do have a sense of home, and Britishness. You can prove all you like about the 'real' effect on wages, but that's not what counted in 2016 in the polling booth.
And now they've gone home, housing is plentiful and cheap, GP's are virtually walk-in, and schools are tranquil oases of learning with high staff to pupil ratios just like before. Perhaps other factors contribued even more heavily?
As I said - its about perception. Plus, be fair, there has been something else happening in the last 18 months which is impacting heavily on schools and GPs.
I wasn't denying it. I'm saying it wasn't necessarily entirely justifiable. The perception tended to be as strong, if not more so, in areas with very low immigration as high.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Its also about perception though. The labour government didn't expect hundreds of thousands of eastern european immigrants, they thought thousands. These were people coming here to work, earn decent money, send it home, or save it. Not scroungers for the most part, despite what some of the worst elements of the right wing press would say. But their arrival did put pressure on local services - GP's, housing, schools etc. It also led to massive change in some parts of the country. A small local town of say 20,000 gaining 500-1000 Polish people will be obvious. Its the old classic, my Polish neighbour XX is great, its the rest of them thats the problem. For many tolerant people seeing a large influx into their towns was too much and too quick. They are not intrinsically racist, but they do have a sense of home, and Britishness. You can prove all you like about the 'real' effect on wages, but that's not what counted in 2016 in the polling booth.
And now they've gone home, housing is plentiful and cheap, GP's are virtually walk-in, and schools are tranquil oases of learning with high staff to pupil ratios just like before. Perhaps other factors contribued even more heavily?
As I said - its about perception. Plus, be fair, there has been something else happening in the last 18 months which is impacting heavily on schools and GPs.
I wasn't denying it. I'm saying it wasn't necessarily entirely justifiable. The perception tended to be as strong, if not more so, in areas with very low immigration as high.
The degree of relative, rather than absolute change, may explain your last point.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Jolly good luck with that set of arguments. Especially the first and the last.
I mean, I have economic literature in support of my argument, whereas you just have whatever you divined from your toilet bowl this morning.
Despite the stunning quality of that argument, I wonder if we need to wait and see for a bit whether it turns out that lower paid workers do a little better without FOM for a few years.
There are other issues too, like bothering to train enough people in the domestic market, ensuring that there are career structures and not just reliance on here today gone tomorrow replaceable eastern Europeans.
All these good people should have exactly the same chance as, say, my Tanzanian friend who had to leave these shores a few years ago, whereas if he has been Lithuanain could have stayed permanently, and has now returned with his skills under a more relaxed regime.
BTW the chances of academic argument all being in one direction is small.
There is some data that suggests an impact in the 2-3% range for some lower skill trades.
But you really have to hunt for it.
The macro picture was that immigrants were higher skilled than the U.K. population, were less dependent on public services, improved firm productivity, and boosted native wages by allowing native workers to move up the career ladder, and take advantage of the aforementioned productivity improvements.
From a qualitative perspective, EU migration had an astonishingly positive effect on the U.K. arts and food (admittedly mostly in London).
It also slowed the U.K.‘s demographic challenges, which we are now seeing is inflating the size of the NHS in relation to the overall economy.
There were downsides, as I concede upthread, but the net impact was bonkersly positive, akin to the North Sea oil discovery of the 70s/80s.
Maybe for landlords looking to let out properties.
Importing people to work for minimum wage, giving them Universal Credit, then taxing people for that, all while refusing to allow new builds to keep pace with demand has just meant we've had housing cost inflation but no wage inflation.
I take it you haven't tried renting a property lately? The market is absolutely crazed.
Kwasi Kwarteng in front of the business select committee commented that the treasury is aware of this crisis and there is a budget in October when all will be revealed
Looks like Rishi may be planning some mitigation to home owners bills
Oh no, I have a horrible feeling he's going to increase my already absurd Winter Fuel Payment. Whilst I can happily spend it on even better champagne than I would otherwise purchase, I can't help feeling that this would not be a good use of public money.
I guess you'd rather spend it on Capita and some expensive, arcane, humiliating means-testing process that denied it to people that really need it?
Yes I switch to red wine from white wine today and from salad to cabbage, sprouts and cauliflower, also will be more likely to wear a sweater and a coat when going out, though good to see we still are getting a bit of an Indian summer
So if you eat a steak in summer you drink white wine with it?
Uh-oh.
This one could explode on PB. Forget @Isam's list they are amateurs to what might happen next here.
Drink what you like with your food.
My mother-in-law (bless her) likes sweet wines. With everything - including red meat. So I provide vintage Tokaj.....
I always felt there was an inconsistency there - you don't haver a 'bowlman' or a 'fieldman'. But 'batter' does sound ugly to to my ears, so I won't be using it in the context of male cricket.
Yep, I also don't much like the term, purely for the sound of it. Probably still better than batswoman for female cricket though (I co-coached a female team for a bit and we used 'batters' and did get used to it).
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Jolly good luck with that set of arguments. Especially the first and the last.
I mean, I have economic literature in support of my argument, whereas you just have whatever you divined from your toilet bowl this morning.
Despite the stunning quality of that argument, I wonder if we need to wait and see for a bit whether it turns out that lower paid workers do a little better without FOM for a few years.
There are other issues too, like bothering to train enough people in the domestic market, ensuring that there are career structures and not just reliance on here today gone tomorrow replaceable eastern Europeans.
All these good people should have exactly the same chance as, say, my Tanzanian friend who had to leave these shores a few years ago, whereas if he has been Lithuanain could have stayed permanently, and has now returned with his skills under a more relaxed regime.
BTW the chances of academic argument all being in one direction is small.
There is some data that suggests an impact in the 2-3% range for some lower skill trades.
But you really have to hunt for it.
The macro picture was that immigrants were higher skilled than the U.K. population, were less dependent on public services, improved firm productivity, and boosted native wages by allowing native workers to move up the career ladder, and take advantage of the aforementioned productivity improvements.
From a qualitative perspective, EU migration had an astonishingly positive effect on the U.K. arts and food (admittedly mostly in London).
It also slowed the U.K.‘s demographic challenges, which we are now seeing is inflating the size of the NHS in relation to the overall economy.
There were downsides, as I concede upthread, but the net impact was bonkersly positive, akin to the North Sea oil discovery of the 70s/80s.
Maybe for landlords looking to let out properties.
Importing people to work for minimum wage, giving them Universal Credit, then taxing people for that, all while refusing to allow new builds to keep pace with demand has just meant we've had housing cost inflation but no wage inflation.
House prices have mostly been driven by interest rate declines and supply-side constraints (the UK’s bizarre soviet-style planning regime).
I agree 100% on the supply-side constraints, but UK house price to earnings ratios surged when interest rates were 6-7% not 0%. When millions came to the UK but houses weren't built to compensate.
Constrained supply and unlimited demand sees price surge regardless of interest rates.
Kwasi Kwarteng in front of the business select committee commented that the treasury is aware of this crisis and there is a budget in October when all will be revealed
Looks like Rishi may be planning some mitigation to home owners bills
Oh no, I have a horrible feeling he's going to increase my already absurd Winter Fuel Payment. Whilst I can happily spend it on even better champagne than I would otherwise purchase, I can't help feeling that this would not be a good use of public money.
I would hope it was targeted to the real need of the lower paid and pensioners in poverty
Where the fuck is the Churchill bust?! Is this a snub to Britain, a symbol of the Irish-American president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire - of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender?
“What words have been added to Ofcom's 'offensive' list?
Karen: A pejorative term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman
Gammon: A term referring to the colour of a person's flushed face when expressing their strong opinions, associated particularly with right-wing brexiteers
Libtard: A word used to describe people on the political left who are perceived to be easily offended, 'woke' and overly politically correct
Snowflake: Someone perceived as too sensitive, easily offended and outraged
Feminazi: A term used to describe an outspoken and radical feminist
Boomer: An insult for baby boomers who are perceived to be out of touch and dismissive of younger generations
Remoaner: Someone against Brexit perceived to be constantly complaining about it
Terf: A 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist' - used to describe people who reject the assertion that trans women are women and are opposed to trans-rights legislation”
So, do we: (a) agree to avoid all these terms, out of concern for the feelings of our fellow PB gammons and libtards? (b) use this list to glean new insults we can use when making an argument is too much like hard work (I can add 'Karen' and 'feminazi' to my list; maybe 'terf' too, although perhaps I already knew that?)
If the latter, I volunteer, from my university days, 'Alexander' (corruption of 'Alexandre' for 'dumb-ass', from Alexandre Dumas and the reference in Shawshank Redemption - example usage: "don't be an Alexander"; "he's a bit of an Alexander"). Also 'Dave' (an acronym of 'Dangerous Around Vehicles in Essex', for a stereotypical Essex-boy racer, which can also be verbed - 'Daving')
I'm gonna be in trouble every time I address my wife.
She's one of the Northumberland Snowflake -Libtard-Terfs.
Kwasi Kwarteng in front of the business select committee commented that the treasury is aware of this crisis and there is a budget in October when all will be revealed
Looks like Rishi may be planning some mitigation to home owners bills
Oh no, I have a horrible feeling he's going to increase my already absurd Winter Fuel Payment. Whilst I can happily spend it on even better champagne than I would otherwise purchase, I can't help feeling that this would not be a good use of public money.
Richard Aldi is as far as you need to go for your champagne.
Even though they have hiked the price from £12.99 to £13.49 on account of Brexit/Covid/the NI Protocol/AUKUS/the CO2 shortage.
Yes I switch to red wine from white wine today and from salad to cabbage, sprouts and cauliflower, also will be more likely to wear a sweater and a coat when going out, though good to see we still are getting a bit of an Indian summer
So if you eat a steak in summer you drink white wine with it?
Uh-oh.
This one could explode on PB. Forget @Isam's list they are amateurs to what might happen next here.
Drink what you like with your food.
My mother-in-law (bless her) likes sweet wines. With everything - including red meat. So I provide vintage Tokaj.....
Radical
Good for your mother in law. I had an aunt who drank whisky before, during and after dinner.
I could see a bloc forming looking for a looser, associate membership.
It should be an implicit objective of U.K. foreign policy to find some kind of associate EU membership that works for us, along with Switzerland, Norway, the non-Euro countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden), and perhaps Italy.
Why?
Is NZ seeking to find some kind of Australia membership? Is Canada seeking to find some kind of USA membership?
Why can't the objective of our policy be to become friendly neighbours of the EU instead?
European market integration is fantastic, in my opinion, but I don’t believe in the case for a single currency.
Therefore I favour an outer ring of closely integrated European economies outside the Euro.
Call it associate EU membership, call it something else, I don’t care. The severing of the U.K. from the single market will see our economy fucked for years (cf the bet we have).
Why?
Why is the UK vis-a-vis Europe any different to Canada vis-a-vis the USA? Or New Zealand vis-a-vis Australia?
Why is a trade agreement insufficient, why do we need membership but those other nations don't?
You haven’t read my post properly, as befitting an anti-EU zealot.
Yes I have. You've said the UK should seek single market membership (as opposed to a trade agreement with the single market) as a foreign policy objective.
But unless I'm very much mistaken you don't think New Zealand should seek membership of Australia, or the Canada should seek membership with the USA. Trade agreements etc are sufficient for them with their neighbours - why not the same with the UK?
Australia and NZ are very closely integrated, and even have FOM. But NZ has not “joined Australia”.
I guess US and Canada do too, not sure about Mexico and whether this is a NAFTA provision.
I don’t accept your framing, it is bullshit.
US and Canada have free trade via the USMCA just like we have free trade with the EU via the TCA.
That you don't accept the framing just shows you are in denial.
A single market, as you should know (but who knows, you are deliberately obtuse most of the time) > a standard trade agreement.
As Thatcher well understood.
And yet you don't advocate Canada joining a Single Market with the USA. Why?
At the time that Thatcher sought a Single Market the European nations were in the words of Thatcher the 'richest and most prosperous people' in the planet, 'richer even than the USA'. Fast forward the better part of half a century later and the facts have changed. The EU isn't richer than the USA, its barely seven tenths of the USA in size. The richest and most prosperous people are now across the planet and not in Europe so we should pivot to deal with the world as it exists today not the world that existed four decades ago.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I would advocate a single market between Canada and the US.
As for your stuff about the EU, you can huff and puff all you like but Europe is on our doorstep and economics 101 is that you are going to trade with your neighbours.
The idea that Britain can tow itself to somewhere just east of Malacca is cloud cuckoo land.
A relevant comparison is advocacy of freedom of movement between USA, Mexico and Canada. Isn't that the point where many in the US might see where Brexit is coming from? The USA's reluctant to pool sovereignty might be something to reflect on too.
I don’t know the numbers but I’d imagine the Mexico / US income differential and the Mexico / US population shares make it much less appetising.
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
If there had been degrees of FOM in the EU we would still without doubt be in it.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
Well I personally dispute that immigration was to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers.
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich” About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
Jolly good luck with that set of arguments. Especially the first and the last.
I mean, I have economic literature in support of my argument, whereas you just have whatever you divined from your toilet bowl this morning.
Despite the stunning quality of that argument, I wonder if we need to wait and see for a bit whether it turns out that lower paid workers do a little better without FOM for a few years.
There are other issues too, like bothering to train enough people in the domestic market, ensuring that there are career structures and not just reliance on here today gone tomorrow replaceable eastern Europeans.
All these good people should have exactly the same chance as, say, my Tanzanian friend who had to leave these shores a few years ago, whereas if he has been Lithuanain could have stayed permanently, and has now returned with his skills under a more relaxed regime.
BTW the chances of academic argument all being in one direction is small.
There is some data that suggests an impact in the 2-3% range for some lower skill trades.
But you really have to hunt for it.
The macro picture was that immigrants were higher skilled than the U.K. population, were less dependent on public services, improved firm productivity, and boosted native wages by allowing native workers to move up the career ladder, and take advantage of the aforementioned productivity improvements.
From a qualitative perspective, EU migration had an astonishingly positive effect on the U.K. arts and food (admittedly mostly in London).
It also slowed the U.K.‘s demographic challenges, which we are now seeing is inflating the size of the NHS in relation to the overall economy.
There were downsides, as I concede upthread, but the net impact was bonkersly positive, akin to the North Sea oil discovery of the 70s/80s.
Maybe for landlords looking to let out properties.
Importing people to work for minimum wage, giving them Universal Credit, then taxing people for that, all while refusing to allow new builds to keep pace with demand has just meant we've had housing cost inflation but no wage inflation.
I take it you haven't tried renting a property lately? The market is absolutely crazed.
Not since before the pandemic.
But yes the market is messed up at the minute as people are moving around thanks to the pandemic which sees supply and demand change. That is a microscopic but compressed version of what the UK has had that Gardenwalker feels is like an oil boom in the past couple of decades.
I have no issues with unlimited movement combined with unlimited construction and a full abolishment of planning consent. But having unlimited demand while keeping limited supply is a recipe for disaster. .
Comments
Although the aesthetic was until rather recently “waiting lounge in third tier US airport circa 1995”.
But I’ll confess i am more sensitive to these things than most PBers.
This is typical of the lack of long term investment in the UK. Keeping the country fitter will easily pay for itself in lower health costs and better productivity. Why is this difficult to understand or contentious?
At considerable, astonishing, generation-fucking cost.
Your "economics 101" is just irrelevant. We do trade with our neighbours and will continue to do so with the TCA. We also trade with people who are not our neighbours, indeed the EU was a minority of our exports even before we left the EU or started seeking to pivot trade to the entire planet. 🤦♂️
The EU forms less than 7% of the planet and less than a sixth (and rapidly falling) of global GDP. Even if we do proportionately double the trade with our neighbours than we do the rest of the planet, the rest of the planet is still more important. Which is why it already formed most of our exports pre-Brexit.
https://twitter.com/alexrpigman/status/1440587375776702464
Which is where the case started.
Feels like a witch hunt to me.....
Time has moved on. We're not in the 20th century anymore and some people like Gardenwalker haven't kept up with the times and can't comprehend that we live in a global economy in 2021 not a parochial continental one.
Mine uses about 5p of beans and 20p of milk, to make what costs £3.50 in Starbucks.
It turned out you were spouting fake news.
🤡
The fact is that more than 50% of the UK’s trade before the Brexit vote was with EEA countries (ie our neighbours) and this hasn’t changed in the five years since.
By all means let’s pursue broader opportunities but, again, all economic data everywhere tells us countries are going to trade predominantly with their geographic neighbours.
Next you’ll be telling us that our EU FTA is “better than” single market membership.
Oh, you did that already on a previous thread.
🤡
Of course there are degrees of FOM.
NZers have a right to live in Australia but not to receive benefits, for example.
What I will say is that recruitment is certainly possible for good employers and that those whining that they cannot aren't willing to offer appropriate pay and conditions.
If only Cleggy had stopped short of actually supporting all the extreme Tory crap that followed.
Seriously, though, it’s available via the emoji menu on my iPhone keyboard.
Mexico has 127 m people, the USA 328 M. The FOM problem which directly led to Brexit was 500m people having an absolutely right to live here, a 65 m population, including many millions from very different economies, which, as we are now seeing, distorted our economy to the detriment of domestic lower paid workers giving an illusion that we could have a cheaply run low wage economy for ever on the back of taking the most enterprising from poor countries.
It is as bad a model as the NHS relying on huge numbers of staff at all levels from much poorer countries whose needs are much greater than ours.
None of this is particularly contentious in the economics profession.
I note you keep switching "exports" to "trade". The EU was a minority of our exports even pre-Brexit and was falling rapidly, even though our EU membership biased trade to the EU.
Plus the relevance of the trade of goods has collapsed. In 1988 the vast majority of our export trade was in goods, with goods trade being worth over 10% of UK GDP. By 2018 the export of goods had collapsed down to about 3% of UK GDP.
Yes our FTA is better than single market membership. It carries the bulk of the advantages, but without the costs. It is pure cherrypicking.
The world has moved on from the 20th century. You should catch up with us.
Interesting about NZ/Aus entitlement to benefits - so it is not the same as the CTA. Presumably one can take 'residence' after some number of years and then claim benefits?
https://twitter.com/ScotSecofState/status/1440611795643731972?s=20
https://twitter.com/SkyScottBeasley/status/1440614283847499793
There’s little academic evidence to support that (and much to suggest it boosted wages, albeit more at the upper end).
But the issue (to the extent there was one) wasn’t “500m” vs “65m”.
500 included the U.K.
About 380 / 500 were “rich”
About 120 / 500 were poorer Eastern European countries.
I’m not sure what you are trying to achieve by cherry picking goods over services?
Note also that services do not typically attract tariffs and the vast majority of FTAs do fuck all to promote them.
As for your shit-talk about moving on from the 20th century, you need to get a grip and recognise that it’s not 1932 and Imperial Preference is not a viable option anymore.
Not literally of course, as they won’t have gone to the same school.
The Cameron-Clegg government was socially liberal even if fiscally conservative
If you want to stay locked in the mindset of a prior century then you do you. You're the 🤡 though.
If the Single Market was so important you'd have thought since the 1980s our exports in goods as a proportion of GDP would have increased (since the Single Market was predominantly goods). It hasn't, it collapsed like a stone. Because technology has moved on and left your antiquated attitudes in the dust. LOL nice edit in, except you're the one wanting Imperial Preference not me. Except your version of Imperial is the teeny tiny continent of Europe.
The only exception is certain in-work benefits like paid parental leave.
https://twitter.com/mikegove12/status/1440563428871925767?s=20
I do not use cash at all these days, even the gardener
https://twitter.com/iAmTheWarax/status/1440136754028285959?s=20
Philip T will reliably be on here telling us that it’s the best thing ever. Followed by Big G once he’s seen the “catch up” on Sky.
(a) agree to avoid all these terms, out of concern for the feelings of our fellow PB gammons and libtards?
(b) use this list to glean new insults we can use when making an argument is too much like hard work (I can add 'Karen' and 'feminazi' to my list; maybe 'terf' too, although perhaps I already knew that?)
If the latter, I volunteer, from my university days, 'Alexander' (corruption of 'Alexandre' for 'dumb-ass', from Alexandre Dumas and the reference in Shawshank Redemption - example usage: "don't be an Alexander"; "he's a bit of an Alexander"). Also 'Dave' (an acronym of 'Dangerous Around Vehicles in Essex', for a stereotypical Essex-boy racer, which can also be verbed - 'Daving')
The impact on local services was critical.
I find it astonishing nothing was done about this, indeed there remained a stubborn view that to raise the question was racist.
Perhaps other factors contribued even more heavily?
There are other issues too, like bothering to train enough people in the domestic market, ensuring that there are career structures and not just reliance on here today gone tomorrow replaceable eastern Europeans.
All these good people should have exactly the same chance as, say, my Tanzanian friend who had to leave these shores a few years ago, whereas if he has been Lithuanain could have stayed permanently, and has now returned with his skills under a more relaxed regime.
BTW the chances of academic argument all being in one direction is small.
https://twitter.com/MCCOfficial/status/1440602099155292163
A three-bedroomed family house, with eight or ten people living in it, was common in many cities.
Lucky indeed it is beer-gardenable.
*I am sure @HYUFD would agree.
The cafe I'm working in had a card-machine fail, and I had no means to pay other than my phone. I offered to pop home and get a card to get some cash out but they very sensibly just told me just to write it down and pay tomorrow when they'd fixed it.
I haven't used cash since February 2020, at least, and I don't think I've used my physical cards this year.
But you really have to hunt for it.
The macro picture was that immigrants were higher skilled than the U.K. population, were less dependent on public services, improved firm productivity, and boosted native wages by allowing native workers to move up the career ladder, and take advantage of the aforementioned productivity improvements.
From a qualitative perspective, EU migration had an astonishingly positive effect on the U.K. arts and food (admittedly mostly in London).
It also slowed the U.K.‘s demographic challenges, which we are now seeing is inflating the size of the NHS in relation to the overall economy.
There were downsides, as I concede upthread, but the net impact was bonkersly positive, akin to the North Sea oil discovery of the 70s/80s.
Importing people to work for minimum wage, giving them Universal Credit, then taxing people for that, all while refusing to allow new builds to keep pace with demand has just meant we've had housing cost inflation but no wage inflation.
Looks like Rishi may be planning some mitigation to home owners bills
A number of jobs essentially "rode" the minimum wage - which is what you'd expect, with a surplus of labour. The going rate was minimum wage.
It was wonderful if you were a consumer of labour heavy products. If you were providing the labour, not so much.
Besides, change happens. Yes, it's human nature to fear it as it starts to happen, and to not like it while it's happening. Take my bit of Romford- it's transitioning from the first bit of Essex to the last bit of London as new people move in. And I get the incomprehension of longer-standing residents about the organic shops and doughnut cafes and the resentment that higher house prices are forcing some people further out. And it's very tempting for populist politicians (yes, I am looking at you Rosindell) to win votes on "Keep Romford Like It Used To Be". But unless you plan to clamp down on internal migration, I don't see what's to be done about it.
This one could explode on PB. Forget @Isam's list they are amateurs to what might happen next here.
The perception tended to be as strong, if not more so, in areas with very low immigration as high.
The market is absolutely crazed.
My mother-in-law (bless her) likes sweet wines. With everything - including red meat. So I provide vintage Tokaj.....
Constrained supply and unlimited demand sees price surge regardless of interest rates.
https://twitter.com/beany_1/status/1440583500847931402?s=21
Even though they have hiked the price from £12.99 to £13.49 on account of Brexit/Covid/the NI Protocol/AUKUS/the CO2 shortage.
Good for your mother in law. I had an aunt who drank whisky before, during and after dinner.
But yes the market is messed up at the minute as people are moving around thanks to the pandemic which sees supply and demand change. That is a microscopic but compressed version of what the UK has had that Gardenwalker feels is like an oil boom in the past couple of decades.
I have no issues with unlimited movement combined with unlimited construction and a full abolishment of planning consent. But having unlimited demand while keeping limited supply is a recipe for disaster. .