Morning all from day 6 of my 7 day bender business trip. These numbers are not good for the Tories, and the move away from people thinking Brexit has been a success is only going to continue.
Brexit hasn't worked / isn't working / won't work with regards to the impossible promises made. The deeper we get into Christmas - if the now universally expected shortages do appear - the worse the polling will get.
No, we aren't about to rejoin or even have a party saying so. This is "Make Brexit Work" as Starmer put it and we will increasingly see government minister vs the world scenes as we saw the other week with Zahawi on Question Time.
We know the Tory tactics. Deny there is an issue. Insist the issue is someone else's fault. Say the issue was always the plan so celebrate getting what you voted for. All we need is one Daily Mail "shock expose" comparing and contrasting the UK's "Christmas Hell" vs EU full shelves for this to move south quickly.
Final observation. All of this is avoidable. Our standards are the EU standards are our standards. We have imposed this hell for the theoretical right to diverge at some point in the future. Whilst signing deals with countries that maintain our complete alignment. The Mail headlines "What was the point???" at the end of this will kill them.
I was involved in some discussions with planning lawyers last week. One issue that has arisen in the south east is the effect of the habitats directive (and consequential domestic legislation) on housebuilding. Essentially, there is an embargo on any housebuilding in parts of the region due to worries about waste water associated with new development contributing to nitrates (and other forms of pollution) discharging in to water bodies which were originally designated as European sites. The amount of actual pollution associated with housebuilding is minimal and the effect is a fraction of the pollution that arises from agriculture. However, the wording of the habitats regulations are that a 'likely significant effect' must be ruled out or effectively mitigated before any development can go ahead. This is not the case, so there are no more planning permissions being granted in the areas affected. No more housing then, in the areas where housing is most desperately needed. If a Council or planning Inspector grants permission anyway, the decision will be overturned in the high court.
The point here is that Brexit was originally promoted as a way of escaping from such absurd rules but the rules are still here. They have been transposed in to domestic legislation and prevail. Politicians cannot blame the EU any more, they just do nothing at all about them. So much for sovereignty.
That’s exactly the point.
We have the power to change the rules. Politicians do not have to, but if enough people vote against them because of it they lose their seats. That *is* sovereignty
Can I check - sovereignty is deciding what you do, yes? As an example we made the sovereign decision to Take Back Control of our borders by leaving them wide open for people to come here from plague countries with no medical checks - sovereignty.
So it would also be a sovereign decision to maintain the status quo of full alignment with EU standards and rules. 'We largely wrote them, we adopted them into our laws, we aren't going to be bossed around by some foreigners to change our laws thank-you very much - we will do it when we want to' etc
Regarding Brexit, I think it is possible that it will end up getting cancelled. A few people will be fuming; but most will just shrug their shoulders and get on with life.
Not a chance in hell.
It can't be cancelled, it's happened. And it won't be reversed either.
Neither politicians nor the public are going to want to go through that again, and even if we did have a collective reversal the French would say non.
England will never again be a part of the EU.
It can. All it takes is for a government consumed by woke thinking to declare the whole thing as racist and proscribe any opposition to rejoining the EU on the same grounds. And then they can just sign us back up again on whatever terms the EU demand. You think that this is mad but that is how a lot of woke remainers think.
"One industry insider predicts that unless the Government changes its mind, and allows a lot more short-term visas for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, the [hospitality] industry will shrink by about a third over the next several years."
Morning all from day 6 of my 7 day bender business trip. These numbers are not good for the Tories, and the move away from people thinking Brexit has been a success is only going to continue.
Brexit hasn't worked / isn't working / won't work with regards to the impossible promises made. The deeper we get into Christmas - if the now universally expected shortages do appear - the worse the polling will get.
No, we aren't about to rejoin or even have a party saying so. This is "Make Brexit Work" as Starmer put it and we will increasingly see government minister vs the world scenes as we saw the other week with Zahawi on Question Time.
We know the Tory tactics. Deny there is an issue. Insist the issue is someone else's fault. Say the issue was always the plan so celebrate getting what you voted for. All we need is one Daily Mail "shock expose" comparing and contrasting the UK's "Christmas Hell" vs EU full shelves for this to move south quickly.
Final observation. All of this is avoidable. Our standards are the EU standards are our standards. We have imposed this hell for the theoretical right to diverge at some point in the future. Whilst signing deals with countries that maintain our complete alignment. The Mail headlines "What was the point???" at the end of this will kill them.
I was involved in some discussions with planning lawyers last week. One issue that has arisen in the south east is the effect of the habitats directive (and consequential domestic legislation) on housebuilding. Essentially, there is an embargo on any housebuilding in parts of the region due to worries about waste water associated with new development contributing to nitrates (and other forms of pollution) discharging in to water bodies which were originally designated as European sites. The amount of actual pollution associated with housebuilding is minimal and the effect is a fraction of the pollution that arises from agriculture. However, the wording of the habitats regulations are that a 'likely significant effect' must be ruled out or effectively mitigated before any development can go ahead. This is not the case, so there are no more planning permissions being granted in the areas affected. No more housing then, in the areas where housing is most desperately needed. If a Council or planning Inspector grants permission anyway, the decision will be overturned in the high court.
The point here is that Brexit was originally promoted as a way of escaping from such absurd rules but the rules are still here. They have been transposed in to domestic legislation and prevail. Politicians cannot blame the EU any more, they just do nothing at all about them. So much for sovereignty.
That’s exactly the point.
We have the power to change the rules. Politicians do not have to, but if enough people vote against them because of it they lose their seats. That *is* sovereignty
Can I check - sovereignty is deciding what you do, yes? As an example we made the sovereign decision to Take Back Control of our borders by leaving them wide open for people to come here from plague countries with no medical checks - sovereignty.
So it would also be a sovereign decision to maintain the status quo of full alignment with EU standards and rules. 'We largely wrote them, we adopted them into our laws, we aren't going to be bossed around by some foreigners to change our laws thank-you very much - we will do it when we want to' etc
Given the continued diet of bad news globally and the efforts to blame Brexit for all of it, then it is only surprising the number is not lower. The global supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit. If we were in the EU we would still have many of the issues we currently have today. It is also easy for companies to blame Brexit for all their woes and their lack of planning. The HGV driver shortage, of which Brexit is a small part, has been many years in the making. Haulage companies have done little to fill the gap and train new employees. They would sooner exploit workers using contract and agency working which stuffed them when IR35 compliance was tightened and people walked away. Again, IR35 is nothing new and neither was the plan to tighten up on it.
We are not rejoining anytime soon and it is sensible to try to make it work, as Blair said we need to rejoin from a strong position. If we ever do.
Have to say I admire the cynical marketing of some of the confectionary makers saying there may be shortages so buy now. Of course any confectionary bought now is not likely to last too long.
As with Philip you are an absolutist so we expect such posts. Yes of course there are global issues impacting the supply chain - its just that we are being hit harder by them because if Brexit.
You and yours keep screeching "nothing to do with Brexit". And yet Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox has just announced that the ban on Cabotage - Brexit - will be lifted so that the GB-only acute case of logistics hell can be eased.
If, as you say, the "supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit" then how do you account for the GB-specific 100% down to Brexit amplification of those issues? The government has accepted that it absolutely is to do with Brexit and is now acting accordingly.
Michael Green is flexible enough to recognise reality. Why aren't you?
BREAKING: NHS Test and Trace have suspended operations at the Immensa Health Clinic’s Lab in Wolverhampton following negative PCR tests after positive LFTs
A Boeing pilot involved in testing the 737 Max jetliner was indicted on Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges of deceiving safety regulators who were evaluating the plane, which was later involved in two deadly crashes.
Prosecutors said that because of Forkner’s “alleged deception”, the system was not mentioned in key FAA documents, pilot manuals or pilot-training material supplied to airlines.
Chad Meacham, acting US attorney for the northern district of Texas, said Forkner had tried to save Boeing money by withholding “critical information” from regulators. “His callous choice to mislead the FAA hampered the agency’s ability to protect the flying public and left pilots in the lurch, lacking information about certain 737 Max flight controls,” Meacham said in a statement.
Chicago-based Boeing agreed to a $2.5bn settlement to end a justice department criminal investigation into the company’s actions. Boeing said in the settlement last year that employees had misled regulators about the safety of the Max. The settlement included a fine, money for airlines that bought the plane and compensation for families of the passengers who died in the crashes.
Hmmm, not impressed by this. $2.5bn is nothing for Boeing. The top brass should be on trial too.
Think that's bad? The prosecutor who dealt with this case has changed jobs.
The whole thing is utterly corrupt. Boeing got away with a fine that is little more than a slap on the wrist; senior corporate figures are not being prosecuted, and instead someone low-down the chain is being the fall guy.
That’s utterly appalling.
To be cynical, any Boeing fine big enough to hurt would need to be compensated by a hidden subsidy NASA or Pentagon research contract, as per usual practice.
Except Boeing is repeatedly failing on such projects. The Boeing Starliner problems are at least partially understandable: space is hard (*). Boeing's problem is that the rot has migrated down into their bread-and-butter. Not just with the 737 Max; their 777X was due to be delivered in 2020; it is now expected in 2024, for reasons including " The FAA cited a serious test flight incident involving an "uncommanded pitch event" and a lack of "design maturity"."
Yep, they've got a design that can have uncommanded pitch events. After the 737 Max debacle.
Then there are their military contracts. Remember the hot mess from 13/14 years ago when the USAF chose an Airbus/NG refuelling tanker instead of a Boeing one? The deal was redone, on terms highly favourable to the Boeing bid, and Boeing won. Their winning bid, the KC-46, is a steaming pile of poo. At least four years late, with leaks, debris being found in fuel tanks, and lots of other issues. Meanwhile the base Airbus design is fairly happily in service with multiple countries.
Planes are Boeing's bread-and-butter. And they've forgotten how to make them.
(*) Though I'd argue not *that* hard.
The 777X is having test flight issues as you mentioned, again it looks like the new technologies in that aircraft are not yet sufficiently developed for commercial flight - but they’ve sold hundreds of them and there’s pressure to get them certified and out of the door.
Wonder what Emirates have got wind of?
Emirates president Sir Tim Clark has warned US plane manufacturer Boeing that the Dubai-based carrier will not accept any of the ordered 777X aeroplanes unless they are at 100 percent of what was agreed.
The EK order has very tight specifications around aircraft performance, basically holding Boeing to their own marketing department’s numbers - both absolute, and in relation to the competitor Airbus A350, which has also been ordered. The 777X is a lot more expensive to purchase than the 777-300ER, of which Emirates have a more than a hundred. The 777X order is for 115 aircraft, and is the biggest single order by value in Boeing’s history.
The airlines got their fingers burned with the A380s, the first few of which were 10 tonnes too heavy, and couldn’t carry a full load of pax with all their luggage on the promised 16 or 17 hour flight. The first A380 flights to places like Los Angeles, had a 777 shadow them with pax bags and cargo.
As Sir Tim Clark says "we expect 100% performance just as Boeing expect 100% payment".
Not heard that line before, brilliant!
Morning Sandpit, do your family hail from a little little village on Devon/ Dorset borders by any chance?
Good morning. Nope, sorry. Was born in Hertfordshire, grew up on the Hants/Surrey/Berkshire border, lived for a few years in Salisbury and have spent most of the last decade and a half in Dubai.
Is there a family of Sandpits, in Devon and Dorset?
There is a village full of Sandpits.. Farm , barn, lane ,cottage and so on and so forth.. wondered if that's how you chose your handle...
"One industry insider predicts that unless the Government changes its mind, and allows a lot more short-term visas for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, the [hospitality] industry will shrink by about a third over the next several years."
It would be a Good Thing for British people to take these jobs. As is so often the case they won't because of pay and the cost of living. If we "just pay more" then we make the Lake District cost way more than a holiday abroad and thus shrink the hospitality industry.
The alternative is address the cost of living. So many of these jobs - and their equivalents in food - are rural. Where local rates of unemployment are low and the cost of houses are high. "Just build more" doesn't work in the Lakes or Cornwall or other tourist hotspots as they won't be the same places people want to visit if we concrete them over.
We could do the other thing - price second homeowners out. Locals have complained for years that their kids can't afford to live locally. But nothing is done because house prices = prosperity. Its no wonder we need imported labour when locals can't afford to live where the jobs are.
So yes, we need these short term solutions like work visas. But we also need to address the structural issues. And this government will not do so.
"One industry insider predicts that unless the Government changes its mind, and allows a lot more short-term visas for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, the [hospitality] industry will shrink by about a third over the next several years."
I bumped into a friend yesterday who told me he had been waiting several weeks for 'a bridge' and he'd just been to the dentist and he'd been told there was a further delay because it was 'coming from Europe'.
He was mightily pissed off and couldn't understand why it was 'coming from Europe'. I had no idea but it struck me how inextricably intertwined we are with our neighbours and how difficult it's going to be to separate ourselves.Those who voted leave did so for the most superficial of reasons and as the weeks and months pass even the most parochial of Leavers who have never taken a step out of Hartlepool are going to start noticing.
When did you secure the democratic backing to become “inextricably intertwined” with the EU?
"One industry insider predicts that unless the Government changes its mind, and allows a lot more short-term visas for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, the [hospitality] industry will shrink by about a third over the next several years."
A Boeing pilot involved in testing the 737 Max jetliner was indicted on Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges of deceiving safety regulators who were evaluating the plane, which was later involved in two deadly crashes.
Prosecutors said that because of Forkner’s “alleged deception”, the system was not mentioned in key FAA documents, pilot manuals or pilot-training material supplied to airlines.
Chad Meacham, acting US attorney for the northern district of Texas, said Forkner had tried to save Boeing money by withholding “critical information” from regulators. “His callous choice to mislead the FAA hampered the agency’s ability to protect the flying public and left pilots in the lurch, lacking information about certain 737 Max flight controls,” Meacham said in a statement.
Chicago-based Boeing agreed to a $2.5bn settlement to end a justice department criminal investigation into the company’s actions. Boeing said in the settlement last year that employees had misled regulators about the safety of the Max. The settlement included a fine, money for airlines that bought the plane and compensation for families of the passengers who died in the crashes.
Hmmm, not impressed by this. $2.5bn is nothing for Boeing. The top brass should be on trial too.
Think that's bad? The prosecutor who dealt with this case has changed jobs.
The whole thing is utterly corrupt. Boeing got away with a fine that is little more than a slap on the wrist; senior corporate figures are not being prosecuted, and instead someone low-down the chain is being the fall guy.
That’s utterly appalling.
To be cynical, any Boeing fine big enough to hurt would need to be compensated by a hidden subsidy NASA or Pentagon research contract, as per usual practice.
Except Boeing is repeatedly failing on such projects. The Boeing Starliner problems are at least partially understandable: space is hard (*). Boeing's problem is that the rot has migrated down into their bread-and-butter. Not just with the 737 Max; their 777X was due to be delivered in 2020; it is now expected in 2024, for reasons including " The FAA cited a serious test flight incident involving an "uncommanded pitch event" and a lack of "design maturity"."
Yep, they've got a design that can have uncommanded pitch events. After the 737 Max debacle.
Then there are their military contracts. Remember the hot mess from 13/14 years ago when the USAF chose an Airbus/NG refuelling tanker instead of a Boeing one? The deal was redone, on terms highly favourable to the Boeing bid, and Boeing won. Their winning bid, the KC-46, is a steaming pile of poo. At least four years late, with leaks, debris being found in fuel tanks, and lots of other issues. Meanwhile the base Airbus design is fairly happily in service with multiple countries.
Planes are Boeing's bread-and-butter. And they've forgotten how to make them.
(*) Though I'd argue not *that* hard.
The 777X is having test flight issues as you mentioned, again it looks like the new technologies in that aircraft are not yet sufficiently developed for commercial flight - but they’ve sold hundreds of them and there’s pressure to get them certified and out of the door.
Wonder what Emirates have got wind of?
Emirates president Sir Tim Clark has warned US plane manufacturer Boeing that the Dubai-based carrier will not accept any of the ordered 777X aeroplanes unless they are at 100 percent of what was agreed.
The EK order has very tight specifications around aircraft performance, basically holding Boeing to their own marketing department’s numbers - both absolute, and in relation to the competitor Airbus A350, which has also been ordered. The 777X is a lot more expensive to purchase than the 777-300ER, of which Emirates have a more than a hundred. The 777X order is for 115 aircraft, and is the biggest single order by value in Boeing’s history.
The airlines got their fingers burned with the A380s, the first few of which were 10 tonnes too heavy, and couldn’t carry a full load of pax with all their luggage on the promised 16 or 17 hour flight. The first A380 flights to places like Los Angeles, had a 777 shadow them with pax bags and cargo.
As Sir Tim Clark says "we expect 100% performance just as Boeing expect 100% payment".
Not heard that line before, brilliant!
Morning Sandpit, do your family hail from a little little village on Devon/ Dorset borders by any chance?
Good morning. Nope, sorry. Was born in Hertfordshire, grew up on the Hants/Surrey/Berkshire border, lived for a few years in Salisbury and have spent most of the last decade and a half in Dubai.
Is there a family of Sandpits, in Devon and Dorset?
There is a village full of Sandpits.. Farm , barn, lane ,cottage and so on and so forth.. wondered if that's how you chose your handle...
Ha, good to know, but no, it’s a slang term for the desert of the Arabian Gulf.
Morning all from day 6 of my 7 day bender business trip. These numbers are not good for the Tories, and the move away from people thinking Brexit has been a success is only going to continue.
Brexit hasn't worked / isn't working / won't work with regards to the impossible promises made. The deeper we get into Christmas - if the now universally expected shortages do appear - the worse the polling will get.
No, we aren't about to rejoin or even have a party saying so. This is "Make Brexit Work" as Starmer put it and we will increasingly see government minister vs the world scenes as we saw the other week with Zahawi on Question Time.
We know the Tory tactics. Deny there is an issue. Insist the issue is someone else's fault. Say the issue was always the plan so celebrate getting what you voted for. All we need is one Daily Mail "shock expose" comparing and contrasting the UK's "Christmas Hell" vs EU full shelves for this to move south quickly.
Final observation. All of this is avoidable. Our standards are the EU standards are our standards. We have imposed this hell for the theoretical right to diverge at some point in the future. Whilst signing deals with countries that maintain our complete alignment. The Mail headlines "What was the point???" at the end of this will kill them.
I was involved in some discussions with planning lawyers last week. One issue that has arisen in the south east is the effect of the habitats directive (and consequential domestic legislation) on housebuilding. Essentially, there is an embargo on any housebuilding in parts of the region due to worries about waste water associated with new development contributing to nitrates (and other forms of pollution) discharging in to water bodies which were originally designated as European sites. The amount of actual pollution associated with housebuilding is minimal and the effect is a fraction of the pollution that arises from agriculture. However, the wording of the habitats regulations are that a 'likely significant effect' must be ruled out or effectively mitigated before any development can go ahead. This is not the case, so there are no more planning permissions being granted in the areas affected. No more housing then, in the areas where housing is most desperately needed. If a Council or planning Inspector grants permission anyway, the decision will be overturned in the high court.
The point here is that Brexit was originally promoted as a way of escaping from such absurd rules but the rules are still here. They have been transposed in to domestic legislation and prevail. Politicians cannot blame the EU any more, they just do nothing at all about them. So much for sovereignty.
All EU law and regulation was transferred into domestic law at the time of Brexit (other than the treaties etc obvs). It was the only way it could be done. Politicians now have the ability to change it but they still require the political will and desire to do so.
Its really not hard to anticipate the outrage of NIMBYs if such "protections" were removed. Any subordinate legislation seeking to do so will inevitably be judicially reviewed with learned Judges opining on whether the Minister took all the relevant factors into account etc. It means years of grief and effort with the risk of disgruntled voters at the end of it.
The inertia and obstruction in our planning system really cannot be underestimated but I have to say my recent trip to Oxford and trip around London reminded me that population density in the southern part of the country is intense. The volume of traffic on the roads is jaw dropping to a Scot like me as is the lack of green space. It may be that nitrates and foul water disposal are just indicators that capacity has been reached.
I live in the south east and have the same impression. Particularly looking around Berkshire and Oxfordshire large parts of it have been effectively suburbanised. This has been a gradual, accidental process that has happened in spite of overwhelming public opposition to it. It is sometimes mentioned in passing on this website. The infrastructure is not great, roads are overcrowded, and the places created depend on the car and are not particularly liveable in contrast to what is delivered in other parts of northern europe. Understanding this is essential to understanding the basis of opposition to planning reform.
As regards nitrates and water pollution - it is a manifestation of such opposition. It is no coincedence that a large proportion of european protected sites are in the south east.
Given the continued diet of bad news globally and the efforts to blame Brexit for all of it, then it is only surprising the number is not lower. The global supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit. If we were in the EU we would still have many of the issues we currently have today. It is also easy for companies to blame Brexit for all their woes and their lack of planning. The HGV driver shortage, of which Brexit is a small part, has been many years in the making. Haulage companies have done little to fill the gap and train new employees. They would sooner exploit workers using contract and agency working which stuffed them when IR35 compliance was tightened and people walked away. Again, IR35 is nothing new and neither was the plan to tighten up on it.
We are not rejoining anytime soon and it is sensible to try to make it work, as Blair said we need to rejoin from a strong position. If we ever do.
Have to say I admire the cynical marketing of some of the confectionary makers saying there may be shortages so buy now. Of course any confectionary bought now is not likely to last too long.
As with Philip you are an absolutist so we expect such posts. Yes of course there are global issues impacting the supply chain - its just that we are being hit harder by them because if Brexit.
You and yours keep screeching "nothing to do with Brexit". And yet Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox has just announced that the ban on Cabotage - Brexit - will be lifted so that the GB-only acute case of logistics hell can be eased.
If, as you say, the "supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit" then how do you account for the GB-specific 100% down to Brexit amplification of those issues? The government has accepted that it absolutely is to do with Brexit and is now acting accordingly.
Michael Green is flexible enough to recognise reality. Why aren't you?
In the UK Brexit is a small factor in the issues we have, even if diehard remainers try to blame it for everything. If we were in the EU we would still have these issues, we would just have a few thousand more hauliers. But the haulage industry has failed to adequately plan and recruit. That is not the govts fault. The govt can be blamed for IR35 reform but I think that is a good thing, clamping down on tax dodgers.
I keep hearing diehard remainers going on about mass ongoing shortages in the shop. I have only alot of empty shelves once.
The Global supply chain issues are nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with factors like demand increasing markedly after COVID and supply not being there to cope, people spending money on goods not services being a driving factor. There are many other reasons not Brexit related.
The country voted to leave the EU, it has happened, we need to get on with it. I voted remain as I work in manufacturing.
Oh, and the only screeching I see here is from you when talking about people like Zarah Sultana and Laura Pidcock. So don't project, there's a pet.
Shows how astonishingly well the Tories are still doing in the polls.
Not only are virtually all the 38% who think Brexit was right still voting Tory but a few Remainers or Brexit undecideds are still voting Tory too.
Meanwhile of the 49% who think Brexit was wrong, the Remain/Rejoin support is split multiple ways between Labour, the LDs, the Greens and SNP which is not effective under FPTP.
49% of course still just 1% more than the 48% who voted Remain in the 2016 referendum anyway
I read on Twitter this morning Sebastian Fox announcing that they are about to drop the Day 2 PCR test for LF. The same LF test that most of us have boxes of at home but you will need to pay £30 for the same test so that Rishi can collect VAT payments.
With Pox cases rising from the previous stupidly high sustained level is this really the right move? Aside from LF tests being less accurate, people will really really object to the obvious extortion of having to pay dollah for something they already have.
Typical Tory half baked stupid decision.
Vaccinated Guernsey arrivals have to take 5 LF tests - which Guernsey is selling at cost - £25 for 5 (and this includes administration costs).
Why should the NHS pay for a test for holidaymakers returning home
A Boeing pilot involved in testing the 737 Max jetliner was indicted on Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges of deceiving safety regulators who were evaluating the plane, which was later involved in two deadly crashes.
Prosecutors said that because of Forkner’s “alleged deception”, the system was not mentioned in key FAA documents, pilot manuals or pilot-training material supplied to airlines.
Chad Meacham, acting US attorney for the northern district of Texas, said Forkner had tried to save Boeing money by withholding “critical information” from regulators. “His callous choice to mislead the FAA hampered the agency’s ability to protect the flying public and left pilots in the lurch, lacking information about certain 737 Max flight controls,” Meacham said in a statement.
Chicago-based Boeing agreed to a $2.5bn settlement to end a justice department criminal investigation into the company’s actions. Boeing said in the settlement last year that employees had misled regulators about the safety of the Max. The settlement included a fine, money for airlines that bought the plane and compensation for families of the passengers who died in the crashes.
Hmmm, not impressed by this. $2.5bn is nothing for Boeing. The top brass should be on trial too.
Think that's bad? The prosecutor who dealt with this case has changed jobs.
The whole thing is utterly corrupt. Boeing got away with a fine that is little more than a slap on the wrist; senior corporate figures are not being prosecuted, and instead someone low-down the chain is being the fall guy.
That’s utterly appalling.
To be cynical, any Boeing fine big enough to hurt would need to be compensated by a hidden subsidy NASA or Pentagon research contract, as per usual practice.
Except Boeing is repeatedly failing on such projects. The Boeing Starliner problems are at least partially understandable: space is hard (*). Boeing's problem is that the rot has migrated down into their bread-and-butter. Not just with the 737 Max; their 777X was due to be delivered in 2020; it is now expected in 2024, for reasons including " The FAA cited a serious test flight incident involving an "uncommanded pitch event" and a lack of "design maturity"."
Yep, they've got a design that can have uncommanded pitch events. After the 737 Max debacle.
Then there are their military contracts. Remember the hot mess from 13/14 years ago when the USAF chose an Airbus/NG refuelling tanker instead of a Boeing one? The deal was redone, on terms highly favourable to the Boeing bid, and Boeing won. Their winning bid, the KC-46, is a steaming pile of poo. At least four years late, with leaks, debris being found in fuel tanks, and lots of other issues. Meanwhile the base Airbus design is fairly happily in service with multiple countries.
Planes are Boeing's bread-and-butter. And they've forgotten how to make them.
(*) Though I'd argue not *that* hard.
The 777X is having test flight issues as you mentioned, again it looks like the new technologies in that aircraft are not yet sufficiently developed for commercial flight - but they’ve sold hundreds of them and there’s pressure to get them certified and out of the door.
Wonder what Emirates have got wind of?
Emirates president Sir Tim Clark has warned US plane manufacturer Boeing that the Dubai-based carrier will not accept any of the ordered 777X aeroplanes unless they are at 100 percent of what was agreed.
The EK order has very tight specifications around aircraft performance, basically holding Boeing to their own marketing department’s numbers - both absolute, and in relation to the competitor Airbus A350, which has also been ordered. The 777X is a lot more expensive to purchase than the 777-300ER, of which Emirates have a more than a hundred. The 777X order is for 115 aircraft, and is the biggest single order by value in Boeing’s history.
The airlines got their fingers burned with the A380s, the first few of which were 10 tonnes too heavy, and couldn’t carry a full load of pax with all their luggage on the promised 16 or 17 hour flight. The first A380 flights to places like Los Angeles, had a 777 shadow them with pax bags and cargo.
As Sir Tim Clark says "we expect 100% performance just as Boeing expect 100% payment".
Not heard that line before, brilliant!
Morning Sandpit, do your family hail from a little little village on Devon/ Dorset borders by any chance?
Good morning. Nope, sorry. Was born in Hertfordshire, grew up on the Hants/Surrey/Berkshire border, lived for a few years in Salisbury and have spent most of the last decade and a half in Dubai.
Is there a family of Sandpits, in Devon and Dorset?
There is a village full of Sandpits.. Farm , barn, lane ,cottage and so on and so forth.. wondered if that's how you chose your handle...
Ha, good to know, but no, it’s a slang term for the desert of the Arabian Gulf.
Given the continued diet of bad news globally and the efforts to blame Brexit for all of it, then it is only surprising the number is not lower. The global supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit. If we were in the EU we would still have many of the issues we currently have today. It is also easy for companies to blame Brexit for all their woes and their lack of planning. The HGV driver shortage, of which Brexit is a small part, has been many years in the making. Haulage companies have done little to fill the gap and train new employees. They would sooner exploit workers using contract and agency working which stuffed them when IR35 compliance was tightened and people walked away. Again, IR35 is nothing new and neither was the plan to tighten up on it.
We are not rejoining anytime soon and it is sensible to try to make it work, as Blair said we need to rejoin from a strong position. If we ever do.
Have to say I admire the cynical marketing of some of the confectionary makers saying there may be shortages so buy now. Of course any confectionary bought now is not likely to last too long.
As with Philip you are an absolutist so we expect such posts. Yes of course there are global issues impacting the supply chain - its just that we are being hit harder by them because if Brexit.
You and yours keep screeching "nothing to do with Brexit". And yet Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox has just announced that the ban on Cabotage - Brexit - will be lifted so that the GB-only acute case of logistics hell can be eased.
If, as you say, the "supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit" then how do you account for the GB-specific 100% down to Brexit amplification of those issues? The government has accepted that it absolutely is to do with Brexit and is now acting accordingly.
Michael Green is flexible enough to recognise reality. Why aren't you?
California has got about 30 container ships currently waiting to dock because they can't clear existing containers fast enough. The country getting slammed hardest by the mess in the shipping and haulage industry is the US, by a pretty wide margin too.
The Brexit realignment seems to have run its course, with the Tories (83% L, 84% R) and Labour (76% L, 77% R) holding on to the same numbers of their Remain and Leave voters from GE2019
The Brexit realignment seems to have run its course, with the Tories (83% L, 84% R) and Labour (76% L, 77% R) holding on to the same numbers of their Remain and Leave voters from GE2019
Interestingly most of those Tory Leavers have gone to ReformUK not Labour. 6% of 2019 Tory voters overall have gone to ReformUK on those numbers compared to just 5% who have gone to Starmer Labour.
However equally 11% of 2019 Labour voters have gone to the Greens to just 3% who have gone to Boris' Tories
The UK’s baby boom of the early 2000s is about to flood universities and colleges with tens of thousands more school leavers every year, according to the former universities minister David Willetts.
Willetts warns, in a report published on Friday, that the comprehensive spending review needs to fund an expansion in further and higher education to absorb the increase, or risk too many young people being trapped in low-paid work.
I bumped into a friend yesterday who told me he had been waiting several weeks for 'a bridge' and he'd just been to the dentist and he'd been told there was a further delay because it was 'coming from Europe'.
He was mightily pissed off and couldn't understand why it was 'coming from Europe'. I had no idea but it struck me how inextricably intertwined we are with our neighbours and how difficult it's going to be to separate ourselves.Those who voted leave did so for the most superficial of reasons and as the weeks and months pass even the most parochial of Leavers who have never taken a step out of Hartlepool are going to start noticing.
When did you secure the democratic backing to become “inextricably intertwined” with the EU?
Come on @Charles, you know Roger knows better than the hoi polloi
UKHSA say a private testing lab in Wolverhampton has been suspended - 43,000 people in South West of England given false negative PCR results between Sept 8 and Oct 12
Britons over 50 with university degrees back the Tories by 41% to 29% for Labour while those aged 18 to 49 who left school after GCSE back Labour by 39% to 29%.
Confirms the so called education gap is just an age gap as about 40% of under 50s graduated from university compared to about 10% of over 50s
Given the continued diet of bad news globally and the efforts to blame Brexit for all of it, then it is only surprising the number is not lower. The global supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit. If we were in the EU we would still have many of the issues we currently have today. It is also easy for companies to blame Brexit for all their woes and their lack of planning. The HGV driver shortage, of which Brexit is a small part, has been many years in the making. Haulage companies have done little to fill the gap and train new employees. They would sooner exploit workers using contract and agency working which stuffed them when IR35 compliance was tightened and people walked away. Again, IR35 is nothing new and neither was the plan to tighten up on it.
We are not rejoining anytime soon and it is sensible to try to make it work, as Blair said we need to rejoin from a strong position. If we ever do.
Have to say I admire the cynical marketing of some of the confectionary makers saying there may be shortages so buy now. Of course any confectionary bought now is not likely to last too long.
As with Philip you are an absolutist so we expect such posts. Yes of course there are global issues impacting the supply chain - its just that we are being hit harder by them because if Brexit.
You and yours keep screeching "nothing to do with Brexit". And yet Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox has just announced that the ban on Cabotage - Brexit - will be lifted so that the GB-only acute case of logistics hell can be eased.
If, as you say, the "supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit" then how do you account for the GB-specific 100% down to Brexit amplification of those issues? The government has accepted that it absolutely is to do with Brexit and is now acting accordingly.
Michael Green is flexible enough to recognise reality. Why aren't you?
California has got about 30 container ships currently waiting to dock because they can't clear existing containers fast enough. The country getting slammed hardest by the mess in the shipping and haulage industry is the US, by a pretty wide margin too.
Yep! And where did I say that the effective strike in the US is either a result of Brexit or proof that there are no Brexit effects here?
The thing in the US is a *different issue* as was the Belgian strike which led to a brief outage in some Brussels supermarkets. Our own government knows that we have some unique Brexit issues - like Cabotage - which they have finally woken up to fix.
UKHSA say a private testing lab in Wolverhampton has been suspended - 43,000 people in South West of England given false negative PCR results between Sept 8 and Oct 12
Morning all from day 6 of my 7 day bender business trip. These numbers are not good for the Tories, and the move away from people thinking Brexit has been a success is only going to continue.
Brexit hasn't worked / isn't working / won't work with regards to the impossible promises made. The deeper we get into Christmas - if the now universally expected shortages do appear - the worse the polling will get.
No, we aren't about to rejoin or even have a party saying so. This is "Make Brexit Work" as Starmer put it and we will increasingly see government minister vs the world scenes as we saw the other week with Zahawi on Question Time.
We know the Tory tactics. Deny there is an issue. Insist the issue is someone else's fault. Say the issue was always the plan so celebrate getting what you voted for. All we need is one Daily Mail "shock expose" comparing and contrasting the UK's "Christmas Hell" vs EU full shelves for this to move south quickly.
Final observation. All of this is avoidable. Our standards are the EU standards are our standards. We have imposed this hell for the theoretical right to diverge at some point in the future. Whilst signing deals with countries that maintain our complete alignment. The Mail headlines "What was the point???" at the end of this will kill them.
I was involved in some discussions with planning lawyers last week. One issue that has arisen in the south east is the effect of the habitats directive (and consequential domestic legislation) on housebuilding. Essentially, there is an embargo on any housebuilding in parts of the region due to worries about waste water associated with new development contributing to nitrates (and other forms of pollution) discharging in to water bodies which were originally designated as European sites. The amount of actual pollution associated with housebuilding is minimal and the effect is a fraction of the pollution that arises from agriculture. However, the wording of the habitats regulations are that a 'likely significant effect' must be ruled out or effectively mitigated before any development can go ahead. This is not the case, so there are no more planning permissions being granted in the areas affected. No more housing then, in the areas where housing is most desperately needed. If a Council or planning Inspector grants permission anyway, the decision will be overturned in the high court.
The point here is that Brexit was originally promoted as a way of escaping from such absurd rules but the rules are still here. They have been transposed in to domestic legislation and prevail. Politicians cannot blame the EU any more, they just do nothing at all about them. So much for sovereignty.
All EU law and regulation was transferred into domestic law at the time of Brexit (other than the treaties etc obvs). It was the only way it could be done. Politicians now have the ability to change it but they still require the political will and desire to do so.
Its really not hard to anticipate the outrage of NIMBYs if such "protections" were removed. Any subordinate legislation seeking to do so will inevitably be judicially reviewed with learned Judges opining on whether the Minister took all the relevant factors into account etc. It means years of grief and effort with the risk of disgruntled voters at the end of it.
The inertia and obstruction in our planning system really cannot be underestimated but I have to say my recent trip to Oxford and trip around London reminded me that population density in the southern part of the country is intense. The volume of traffic on the roads is jaw dropping to a Scot like me as is the lack of green space. It may be that nitrates and foul water disposal are just indicators that capacity has been reached.
I live in the south east and have the same impression. Particularly looking around Berkshire and Oxfordshire large parts of it have been effectively suburbanised. This has been a gradual, accidental process that has happened in spite of overwhelming public opposition to it. It is sometimes mentioned in passing on this website. The infrastructure is not great, roads are overcrowded, and the places created depend on the car and are not particularly liveable in contrast to what is delivered in other parts of northern europe. Understanding this is essential to understanding the basis of opposition to planning reform.
As regards nitrates and water pollution - it is a manifestation of such opposition. It is no coincedence that a large proportion of european protected sites are in the south east.
So south-eastern England has too many people for the available housing and infrastructure and quality of life is being degraded.
I read on Twitter this morning Sebastian Fox announcing that they are about to drop the Day 2 PCR test for LF. The same LF test that most of us have boxes of at home but you will need to pay £30 for the same test so that Rishi can collect VAT payments.
With Pox cases rising from the previous stupidly high sustained level is this really the right move? Aside from LF tests being less accurate, people will really really object to the obvious extortion of having to pay dollah for something they already have.
Typical Tory half baked stupid decision.
Vaccinated Guernsey arrivals have to take 5 LF tests - which Guernsey is selling at cost - £25 for 5 (and this includes administration costs).
Why should the NHS pay for a test for holidaymakers returning home
They shouldn't - but it does sound as though there are some proper rip-off merchants in the UK LF market.
The UK’s baby boom of the early 2000s is about to flood universities and colleges with tens of thousands more school leavers every year, according to the former universities minister David Willetts.
Willetts warns, in a report published on Friday, that the comprehensive spending review needs to fund an expansion in further and higher education to absorb the increase, or risk too many young people being trapped in low-paid work.
Um why should we spend a lot of money on what will only be a short term peak.
The UK’s baby boom of the early 2000s is about to flood universities and colleges with tens of thousands more school leavers every year, according to the former universities minister David Willetts.
Willetts warns, in a report published on Friday, that the comprehensive spending review needs to fund an expansion in further and higher education to absorb the increase, or risk too many young people being trapped in low-paid work.
UKHSA say a private testing lab in Wolverhampton has been suspended - 43,000 people in South West of England given false negative PCR results between Sept 8 and Oct 12
Given the continued diet of bad news globally and the efforts to blame Brexit for all of it, then it is only surprising the number is not lower. The global supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit. If we were in the EU we would still have many of the issues we currently have today. It is also easy for companies to blame Brexit for all their woes and their lack of planning. The HGV driver shortage, of which Brexit is a small part, has been many years in the making. Haulage companies have done little to fill the gap and train new employees. They would sooner exploit workers using contract and agency working which stuffed them when IR35 compliance was tightened and people walked away. Again, IR35 is nothing new and neither was the plan to tighten up on it.
We are not rejoining anytime soon and it is sensible to try to make it work, as Blair said we need to rejoin from a strong position. If we ever do.
Have to say I admire the cynical marketing of some of the confectionary makers saying there may be shortages so buy now. Of course any confectionary bought now is not likely to last too long.
As with Philip you are an absolutist so we expect such posts. Yes of course there are global issues impacting the supply chain - its just that we are being hit harder by them because if Brexit.
You and yours keep screeching "nothing to do with Brexit". And yet Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox has just announced that the ban on Cabotage - Brexit - will be lifted so that the GB-only acute case of logistics hell can be eased.
If, as you say, the "supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit" then how do you account for the GB-specific 100% down to Brexit amplification of those issues? The government has accepted that it absolutely is to do with Brexit and is now acting accordingly.
Michael Green is flexible enough to recognise reality. Why aren't you?
California has got about 30 container ships currently waiting to dock because they can't clear existing containers fast enough. The country getting slammed hardest by the mess in the shipping and haulage industry is the US, by a pretty wide margin too.
Yep! And where did I say that the effective strike in the US is either a result of Brexit or proof that there are no Brexit effects here?
The thing in the US is a *different issue* as was the Belgian strike which led to a brief outage in some Brussels supermarkets. Our own government knows that we have some unique Brexit issues - like Cabotage - which they have finally woken up to fix.
They know it - why are you still in denial?
The issue isn't Brexit, it's decades of underinvestment by the state and private operators in ports and haulage. Both decided to paper over the cracks by importing low wage workers. The US has done the same. Both countries are now reaping the rewards of those poor decisions.
"Just build more" doesn't work in the Lakes or Cornwall or other tourist hotspots as they won't be the same places people want to visit if we concrete them over.
The idea that building a modest number of homes in rural areas will "concrete them over" is risible. Increasing the size of a village from say 40 to 50 houses all still within the village, or a small rural town from 4,000 to 5,000 houses really should have next to no impact on the wide spaces in between, providing the development is properly planned within an overarching spatial strategy. And it may in fact make rural life more viable, say ensuring that a village pub or shop survives by increasing custom.
Instead we go out of our way as a country to seek out every remaining green space within urban areas, many often misleadingly designated as "brownfield", and if they can't be found then do the next best thing and locate big estates right on the edge of existing conurbations which just happen to be the nearest accessible rural areas to those living in large cities.
Hmmm, not impressed by this. $2.5bn is nothing for Boeing. The top brass should be on trial too.
Yep. Did this pilot suddenly think, entirely on his own initiative, to suppress information, or was that effectively encouraged by corporate culture set from the top?
Boeing's descent has taken decades. I've written before about how corporate culture leads an organisation, and can be slow to change. Boeing is a classic case of how this happens - in a negative direction.
Twenty-four years ago, McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing. The new entity was called Boeing, but in reality it was more of a reverse takeover, and MDD's management reigned supreme in the new organisation.
The problem is, MDD had had a series of (ahem) interesting failures, like the A-12 Avenger-II fiasco, or the MD-11, which never met its performance criteria. Slowly, MDD's management focus on the bottom line has taken over from Boeing's more engineering-led focus, and this seems to have led to Boeing's current woeful performance.
It'll take a decade or more for them to recover a 'good' engineering-led corporate culture. And that's what they need.
They are, though, too big to fail, probably. The US cannot afford to risk ceding a strategic industry to Europe (which probably couldn't pick up the slack anyway), and more pertinently, China.
UKHSA say a private testing lab in Wolverhampton has been suspended - 43,000 people in South West of England given false negative PCR results between Sept 8 and Oct 12
Oh blimey. That could be a black swan
Not really, it's about 1 day's worth of positive tests.
The UK’s baby boom of the early 2000s is about to flood universities and colleges with tens of thousands more school leavers every year, according to the former universities minister David Willetts.
Willetts warns, in a report published on Friday, that the comprehensive spending review needs to fund an expansion in further and higher education to absorb the increase, or risk too many young people being trapped in low-paid work.
There's Keir Starmer's new campaign slogan right there. People enjoyed more sex under Labour.
UKHSA say a private testing lab in Wolverhampton has been suspended - 43,000 people in South West of England given false negative PCR results between Sept 8 and Oct 12
Apparently the disconnect between lateral flow tests & PCR has doubled in past couple of weeks... 15% of lateral flow +ve giving a negative PCR... something is up for sure. Might just be that one site or could be wider problem.
Presumably the govt dashboard is now going to have to add 43k new cases over that period? Only a little over 1k/day, but do wonder if it will change the trend.
UKHSA say a private testing lab in Wolverhampton has been suspended - 43,000 people in South West of England given false negative PCR results between Sept 8 and Oct 12
Oh blimey. That could be a black swan
Unless its happening elsewhere it only means that there was about 1,300 extra people per day being infected in the area.
And on the bright side that's another 43k who aren't going to be getting infected during the winter.
The UK’s baby boom of the early 2000s is about to flood universities and colleges with tens of thousands more school leavers every year, according to the former universities minister David Willetts.
Willetts warns, in a report published on Friday, that the comprehensive spending review needs to fund an expansion in further and higher education to absorb the increase, or risk too many young people being trapped in low-paid work.
Allocate 5% of them to HGV training and 5% to GP training. But this time pay for it, so it actually happens, rather than announce yet another 5 year recruitment target and simply forget about it, then wonder why we are worse off in 5 years time. What else?
I think it's possible we could rejoin in the future - if the EU fundamentally changes.
At the moment there is no sign of that.
It might be possible if the USA goes full It Can't Happen Here but otherwise it'll be a gradual realignment when or if the UK gets a less stridently europhobic government.
Given the continued diet of bad news globally and the efforts to blame Brexit for all of it, then it is only surprising the number is not lower. The global supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit. If we were in the EU we would still have many of the issues we currently have today. It is also easy for companies to blame Brexit for all their woes and their lack of planning. The HGV driver shortage, of which Brexit is a small part, has been many years in the making. Haulage companies have done little to fill the gap and train new employees. They would sooner exploit workers using contract and agency working which stuffed them when IR35 compliance was tightened and people walked away. Again, IR35 is nothing new and neither was the plan to tighten up on it.
We are not rejoining anytime soon and it is sensible to try to make it work, as Blair said we need to rejoin from a strong position. If we ever do.
Have to say I admire the cynical marketing of some of the confectionary makers saying there may be shortages so buy now. Of course any confectionary bought now is not likely to last too long.
As with Philip you are an absolutist so we expect such posts. Yes of course there are global issues impacting the supply chain - its just that we are being hit harder by them because if Brexit.
You and yours keep screeching "nothing to do with Brexit". And yet Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox has just announced that the ban on Cabotage - Brexit - will be lifted so that the GB-only acute case of logistics hell can be eased.
If, as you say, the "supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit" then how do you account for the GB-specific 100% down to Brexit amplification of those issues? The government has accepted that it absolutely is to do with Brexit and is now acting accordingly.
Michael Green is flexible enough to recognise reality. Why aren't you?
California has got about 30 container ships currently waiting to dock because they can't clear existing containers fast enough. The country getting slammed hardest by the mess in the shipping and haulage industry is the US, by a pretty wide margin too.
Yep! And where did I say that the effective strike in the US is either a result of Brexit or proof that there are no Brexit effects here?
The thing in the US is a *different issue* as was the Belgian strike which led to a brief outage in some Brussels supermarkets. Our own government knows that we have some unique Brexit issues - like Cabotage - which they have finally woken up to fix.
It's over, basically. With the conservatives winning public opinion despite voters turning against Brexit, becoming the default anti-SNP party in Scotland, winning a council seat mid-term off the Lib Dems in the middle of the blue wall in Surrey, we might as well not bother with multi-party politics in England anymore. We are becoming Japan, albeit one with a Hokkaido independence party. Let the politics take place within the permanent governing party. We can sit back and watch occasional palace coups engineered in the 1922 committee, and do away with the cost, hassle and devastating false hope created by elections.
I think that is overly pessimistic. 2028 is still up for grabs, 2024 not so much.
Britons over 50 with university degrees back the Tories by 41% to 29% for Labour while those aged 18 to 49 who left school after GCSE back Labour by 39% to 29%.
Confirms the so called education gap is just an age gap as about 40% of under 50s graduated from university compared to about 10% of over 50s
It does no such thing, but I shall leave kjh to explain it for you!
It's definitely all Brexit. Those ships in California, the container price quadrupling, gas prices rocketing. All of it is Brexit. Now we can add empty German supermarket shelves.
Regarding Brexit, I think it is possible that it will end up getting cancelled. A few people will be fuming; but most will just shrug their shoulders and get on with life.
Not a chance in hell.
It can't be cancelled, it's happened. And it won't be reversed either.
Neither politicians nor the public are going to want to go through that again, and even if we did have a collective reversal the French would say non.
England will never again be a part of the EU.
It can. All it takes is for a government consumed by woke thinking to declare the whole thing as racist and proscribe any opposition to rejoining the EU on the same grounds. And then they can just sign us back up again on whatever terms the EU demand. You think that this is mad but that is how a lot of woke remainers think.
Or perhaps more accurately, how you think 'a lot of woke remainers' think. You have at least given us some insight into how you think...
It's definitely all Brexit. Those ships in California, the container price quadrupling, gas prices rocketing. All of it is Brexit. Now we can add empty German supermarket shelves.
What isn't Brexit responsible for?
There's no point getting dickhurt over it. The EU was maligned for all sorts for decades and now it's Brexit's turn for however long it endures.
Given the continued diet of bad news globally and the efforts to blame Brexit for all of it, then it is only surprising the number is not lower. The global supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit. If we were in the EU we would still have many of the issues we currently have today. It is also easy for companies to blame Brexit for all their woes and their lack of planning. The HGV driver shortage, of which Brexit is a small part, has been many years in the making. Haulage companies have done little to fill the gap and train new employees. They would sooner exploit workers using contract and agency working which stuffed them when IR35 compliance was tightened and people walked away. Again, IR35 is nothing new and neither was the plan to tighten up on it.
We are not rejoining anytime soon and it is sensible to try to make it work, as Blair said we need to rejoin from a strong position. If we ever do.
Have to say I admire the cynical marketing of some of the confectionary makers saying there may be shortages so buy now. Of course any confectionary bought now is not likely to last too long.
As with Philip you are an absolutist so we expect such posts. Yes of course there are global issues impacting the supply chain - its just that we are being hit harder by them because if Brexit.
You and yours keep screeching "nothing to do with Brexit". And yet Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox has just announced that the ban on Cabotage - Brexit - will be lifted so that the GB-only acute case of logistics hell can be eased.
If, as you say, the "supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit" then how do you account for the GB-specific 100% down to Brexit amplification of those issues? The government has accepted that it absolutely is to do with Brexit and is now acting accordingly.
Michael Green is flexible enough to recognise reality. Why aren't you?
California has got about 30 container ships currently waiting to dock because they can't clear existing containers fast enough. The country getting slammed hardest by the mess in the shipping and haulage industry is the US, by a pretty wide margin too.
Yep! And where did I say that the effective strike in the US is either a result of Brexit or proof that there are no Brexit effects here?
The thing in the US is a *different issue* as was the Belgian strike which led to a brief outage in some Brussels supermarkets. Our own government knows that we have some unique Brexit issues - like Cabotage - which they have finally woken up to fix.
They know it - why are you still in denial?
The issue isn't Brexit, it's decades of underinvestment by the state and private operators in ports and haulage. Both decided to paper over the cracks by importing low wage workers. The US has done the same. Both countries are now reaping the rewards of those poor decisions.
The issue is decades of uninvestment made uniquely and acutely worse by Brexit. The EU has a driver shortage like us. Unlike us they have an integrated logistics market including cabotage and a single market for labour.
Which means that we both suffer the same root problem. With very different results. The driver of those results is Brexit. The pan-European labour shortage only causes real shortages in GB because Brexit. The ban on cabotage only in the GB causes more shortages because Brexit.
If these Brexit issues were not real, why is the government acting to correct them?
In 2015 the party offering a referendum won a majority under FPTP
In 2016 Leave won a binary referendum
In 2017 when the main parties accepted the result, they both got 40% of the vote
In 2019 when people like Sir Keir were gunning for a second referendum, The Brexit Party won the Euros
And in Dec 2019 the only major party saying they’d implement Brexit won an 80 seat majority
vs
An opinion poll
Lies win votes. And your point is?
Lies lost the vote.
Both sides lied. But Remainers lies came from their inner purity.
Which is why Scott n paste is so one eyed.
My objection to @Scott_P is not so much his posts but his desire to see the country crash and burn in a vain hope that we will decide to rejoin the EU from the ruins of our country
No matter your thoughts on Brexit actually wishing it to fail is just sad
Mr. Ed, or 'kneeling' as those who speak English might say...
'Take a knee' is ridiculous. Do people 'take a back' when they lie down?
Your quixotic fight against the English spoken by the 350m or so outside the UK who have it as their first language is every bit as silly.
Except that a lot of people in the USA are recent arrivals, who came with the culture of a different language. A lot of the strange expressions that have found heir way into English make sense when translated back into another language.
Britons over 50 with university degrees back the Tories by 41% to 29% for Labour while those aged 18 to 49 who left school after GCSE back Labour by 39% to 29%.
Confirms the so called education gap is just an age gap as about 40% of under 50s graduated from university compared to about 10% of over 50s
It does no such thing, but I shall leave kjh to explain it for you!
Of course it does, graduates overall now vote Labour, the last Tory leader to win graduates was Cameron and even then only narrowly, so leftwingers claim that means Conservatives are now thick.
The fact Conservatives still win graduates over 50 who graduated when fewer went to university confirms it is more a factor of the expansion of universities and the fact Labour does better with younger voters
I bumped into a friend yesterday who told me he had been waiting several weeks for 'a bridge' and he'd just been to the dentist and he'd been told there was a further delay because it was 'coming from Europe'.
He was mightily pissed off and couldn't understand why it was 'coming from Europe'. I had no idea but it struck me how inextricably intertwined we are with our neighbours and how difficult it's going to be to separate ourselves.Those who voted leave did so for the most superficial of reasons and as the weeks and months pass even the most parochial of Leavers who have never taken a step out of Hartlepool are going to start noticing.
When did you secure the democratic backing to become “inextricably intertwined” with the EU?
He was part of the UK whose democratically-elected governments pursued that path.
It's definitely all Brexit. Those ships in California, the container price quadrupling, gas prices rocketing. All of it is Brexit. Now we can add empty German supermarket shelves.
What isn't Brexit responsible for?
Is Brexit responsible for supply shortages? Is Brexit responsible for higher wages in the supply chain?
Those giving consistent answers to the above two questions have a valid opinion. Those giving opposite opinions are truth bending cheerleaders on either side.
Bloody hell that article on Germany had an interesting little fact - price for petrol is €2 per litre! Absolutely mad. We're in the middle of a domestic price spike and it's about €1.65 per litre. Greece was about €1.75 per litre. What the fuck is going on in Germany?! Are their refineries and forecourts price gouging?
It's definitely all Brexit. Those ships in California, the container price quadrupling, gas prices rocketing. All of it is Brexit. Now we can add empty German supermarket shelves.
UKHSA say a private testing lab in Wolverhampton has been suspended - 43,000 people in South West of England given false negative PCR results between Sept 8 and Oct 12
Oh blimey. That could be a black swan
Given we're testing ±1,000,000 a day, and over this period we'll have tested around 34,000,000, at 0.1% of tests it's unlikely to be a black swan - unless the problem is more widespread.
It does help explain a couple of anomalies - like positive LF followed by negative PCR, and why cases in Cheltenham suddenly fell off a cliff.
Given the continued diet of bad news globally and the efforts to blame Brexit for all of it, then it is only surprising the number is not lower. The global supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit. If we were in the EU we would still have many of the issues we currently have today. It is also easy for companies to blame Brexit for all their woes and their lack of planning. The HGV driver shortage, of which Brexit is a small part, has been many years in the making. Haulage companies have done little to fill the gap and train new employees. They would sooner exploit workers using contract and agency working which stuffed them when IR35 compliance was tightened and people walked away. Again, IR35 is nothing new and neither was the plan to tighten up on it.
We are not rejoining anytime soon and it is sensible to try to make it work, as Blair said we need to rejoin from a strong position. If we ever do.
Have to say I admire the cynical marketing of some of the confectionary makers saying there may be shortages so buy now. Of course any confectionary bought now is not likely to last too long.
As with Philip you are an absolutist so we expect such posts. Yes of course there are global issues impacting the supply chain - its just that we are being hit harder by them because if Brexit.
You and yours keep screeching "nothing to do with Brexit". And yet Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox has just announced that the ban on Cabotage - Brexit - will be lifted so that the GB-only acute case of logistics hell can be eased.
If, as you say, the "supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit" then how do you account for the GB-specific 100% down to Brexit amplification of those issues? The government has accepted that it absolutely is to do with Brexit and is now acting accordingly.
Michael Green is flexible enough to recognise reality. Why aren't you?
California has got about 30 container ships currently waiting to dock because they can't clear existing containers fast enough. The country getting slammed hardest by the mess in the shipping and haulage industry is the US, by a pretty wide margin too.
Yep! And where did I say that the effective strike in the US is either a result of Brexit or proof that there are no Brexit effects here?
The thing in the US is a *different issue* as was the Belgian strike which led to a brief outage in some Brussels supermarkets. Our own government knows that we have some unique Brexit issues - like Cabotage - which they have finally woken up to fix.
They know it - why are you still in denial?
The issue isn't Brexit, it's decades of underinvestment by the state and private operators in ports and haulage. Both decided to paper over the cracks by importing low wage workers. The US has done the same. Both countries are now reaping the rewards of those poor decisions.
BREAKING: NHS Test and Trace have suspended operations at the Immensa Health Clinic’s Lab in Wolverhampton following negative PCR tests after positive LFTs
Mr. Ed, or 'kneeling' as those who speak English might say...
'Take a knee' is ridiculous. Do people 'take a back' when they lie down?
Your quixotic fight against the English spoken by the 350m or so outside the UK who have it as their first language is every bit as silly.
Except that a lot of people in the USA are recent arrivals, who came with the culture of a different language. A lot of the strange expressions that have found heir way into English make sense when translated back into another language.
Pearls before swine anybody? Try daisies....
Which is to suggest that 'our' English is in any way different. That's just how language works.
Mr. Romford, the numbers on that help the Conservatives. Keeps it as a big enough idea to encourage those who don't want the fuss of rejoining voting Conservative, without being popular enough to risk them losing.
Hello @Morris_Dancer yes, taking the knee is a bit of a stupid phrase, mind you I keep getting pulled up by my wife on British expressions which sound totally nonsense to her
I think it's possible we could rejoin in the future - if the EU fundamentally changes.
At the moment there is no sign of that.
I'm not sure that rejoining is possible, or if it would be durable if forced through.
A new Union created by a genuine compromise between Britain and the EU and an open intention to create a full political and economic union, is more likely to be successful, but that would take a lot of change on both sides.
Some sort of adjusted EFTA/EEA is more likely, but even that I'm not sure how likely.
Given the continued diet of bad news globally and the efforts to blame Brexit for all of it, then it is only surprising the number is not lower. The global supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit. If we were in the EU we would still have many of the issues we currently have today. It is also easy for companies to blame Brexit for all their woes and their lack of planning. The HGV driver shortage, of which Brexit is a small part, has been many years in the making. Haulage companies have done little to fill the gap and train new employees. They would sooner exploit workers using contract and agency working which stuffed them when IR35 compliance was tightened and people walked away. Again, IR35 is nothing new and neither was the plan to tighten up on it.
We are not rejoining anytime soon and it is sensible to try to make it work, as Blair said we need to rejoin from a strong position. If we ever do.
Have to say I admire the cynical marketing of some of the confectionary makers saying there may be shortages so buy now. Of course any confectionary bought now is not likely to last too long.
As with Philip you are an absolutist so we expect such posts. Yes of course there are global issues impacting the supply chain - its just that we are being hit harder by them because if Brexit.
You and yours keep screeching "nothing to do with Brexit". And yet Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox has just announced that the ban on Cabotage - Brexit - will be lifted so that the GB-only acute case of logistics hell can be eased.
If, as you say, the "supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit" then how do you account for the GB-specific 100% down to Brexit amplification of those issues? The government has accepted that it absolutely is to do with Brexit and is now acting accordingly.
Michael Green is flexible enough to recognise reality. Why aren't you?
California has got about 30 container ships currently waiting to dock because they can't clear existing containers fast enough. The country getting slammed hardest by the mess in the shipping and haulage industry is the US, by a pretty wide margin too.
Yep! And where did I say that the effective strike in the US is either a result of Brexit or proof that there are no Brexit effects here?
The thing in the US is a *different issue* as was the Belgian strike which led to a brief outage in some Brussels supermarkets. Our own government knows that we have some unique Brexit issues - like Cabotage - which they have finally woken up to fix.
They know it - why are you still in denial?
The issue isn't Brexit, it's decades of underinvestment by the state and private operators in ports and haulage. Both decided to paper over the cracks by importing low wage workers. The US has done the same. Both countries are now reaping the rewards of those poor decisions.
The issue is decades of uninvestment made uniquely and acutely worse by Brexit. The EU has a driver shortage like us. Unlike us they have an integrated logistics market including cabotage and a single market for labour.
Which means that we both suffer the same root problem. With very different results. The driver of those results is Brexit. The pan-European labour shortage only causes real shortages in GB because Brexit. The ban on cabotage only in the GB causes more shortages because Brexit.
If these Brexit issues were not real, why is the government acting to correct them?
And yet we have reports from all over the EU saying that supermarket shelves will likely struggle over the next few months.
My mother in law has been bitching about Swiss supermarkets running out of stuff for weeks now.
What's happening here is replicated everywhere. Weren't you banging on about gas prices being a UK only problem because we left the EU energy market mechanisms? One day you'll learn that being in the EU doesn't solve anything. Germany has got a net loss of 15k HGV drivers per year from their industries, accelerated by local home delivery services leeching drivers away. It's literally the same dynamic driving the shortage of drivers. Shit conditions, shit pay and competitive wages and conditions in other similar jobs.
That's what we're all up against, not just the UK but everywhere. You banging on about Brexit shows you've misunderstood the issue.
It's definitely all Brexit. Those ships in California, the container price quadrupling, gas prices rocketing. All of it is Brexit. Now we can add empty German supermarket shelves.
What isn't Brexit responsible for?
Those of us who voted for it should obviously be ashamed. Spoiling the German's Christmas like that.
This, and the various articles about similar problems in the US, really show that the media's desperation to blame current difficulties on Brexit is both dishonest and parochial (ironically). It may have a short term effect, as Mike's thread header indicates, but cynicism about what we are being told, which was a significant part of leave's success, can only be increased as the absurdities multiply.
Bloody hell that article on Germany had an interesting little fact - price for petrol is €2 per litre! Absolutely mad. We're in the middle of a domestic price spike and it's about €1.65 per litre. Greece was about €1.75 per litre. What the fuck is going on in Germany?! Are their refineries and forecourts price gouging?
Bloody hell that article on Germany had an interesting little fact - price for petrol is €2 per litre! Absolutely mad. We're in the middle of a domestic price spike and it's about €1.65 per litre. Greece was about €1.75 per litre. What the fuck is going on in Germany?! Are their refineries and forecourts price gouging?
The UK’s baby boom of the early 2000s is about to flood universities and colleges with tens of thousands more school leavers every year, according to the former universities minister David Willetts.
Willetts warns, in a report published on Friday, that the comprehensive spending review needs to fund an expansion in further and higher education to absorb the increase, or risk too many young people being trapped in low-paid work.
There's Keir Starmer's new campaign slogan right there. People enjoyed more sex under Labour.
"Life's better under a Conservative" as one over-enthusiastic group out it...
Given the continued diet of bad news globally and the efforts to blame Brexit for all of it, then it is only surprising the number is not lower. The global supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit. If we were in the EU we would still have many of the issues we currently have today. It is also easy for companies to blame Brexit for all their woes and their lack of planning. The HGV driver shortage, of which Brexit is a small part, has been many years in the making. Haulage companies have done little to fill the gap and train new employees. They would sooner exploit workers using contract and agency working which stuffed them when IR35 compliance was tightened and people walked away. Again, IR35 is nothing new and neither was the plan to tighten up on it.
We are not rejoining anytime soon and it is sensible to try to make it work, as Blair said we need to rejoin from a strong position. If we ever do.
Have to say I admire the cynical marketing of some of the confectionary makers saying there may be shortages so buy now. Of course any confectionary bought now is not likely to last too long.
As with Philip you are an absolutist so we expect such posts. Yes of course there are global issues impacting the supply chain - its just that we are being hit harder by them because if Brexit.
You and yours keep screeching "nothing to do with Brexit". And yet Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox has just announced that the ban on Cabotage - Brexit - will be lifted so that the GB-only acute case of logistics hell can be eased.
If, as you say, the "supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit" then how do you account for the GB-specific 100% down to Brexit amplification of those issues? The government has accepted that it absolutely is to do with Brexit and is now acting accordingly.
Michael Green is flexible enough to recognise reality. Why aren't you?
California has got about 30 container ships currently waiting to dock because they can't clear existing containers fast enough. The country getting slammed hardest by the mess in the shipping and haulage industry is the US, by a pretty wide margin too.
Yep! And where did I say that the effective strike in the US is either a result of Brexit or proof that there are no Brexit effects here?
The thing in the US is a *different issue* as was the Belgian strike which led to a brief outage in some Brussels supermarkets. Our own government knows that we have some unique Brexit issues - like Cabotage - which they have finally woken up to fix.
They know it - why are you still in denial?
The issue isn't Brexit, it's decades of underinvestment by the state and private operators in ports and haulage. Both decided to paper over the cracks by importing low wage workers. The US has done the same. Both countries are now reaping the rewards of those poor decisions.
No, it is both.
There can be no doubt Brexit has played a part but far too many in the media and on here try to hang everything on Brexit when that is manifestly untrue
Regarding Brexit, I think it is possible that it will end up getting cancelled. A few people will be fuming; but most will just shrug their shoulders and get on with life.
Not a chance in hell.
It can't be cancelled, it's happened. And it won't be reversed either.
Neither politicians nor the public are going to want to go through that again, and even if we did have a collective reversal the French would say non.
England will never again be a part of the EU.
You are an absolutist so of course you think that. Most people are more pragmatic than you. Whilst I agree that we won't rejoin any time soon, I do think that a dismantling of the bureaucracy and red tape is likely. Not the arbitrary EU surrender you keep fantasising about either, a recognition that our current full alignment means that we can drop the 3rd party nonsense and kick the divergence can a long way down the road.
You don't need to post you chest puffed Ian Paisley impression, we know, we know...
That's not cancelling or reversing Brexit.
Sure we can have an atrocious government that signs us up to ensuring we follow EU rules without getting a say in them, what you call pragmatic. And then that government can be voted out. But that's not reversing or cancelling Brexit. That's just a different, crappier version of Brexit. You may think its better, in which case you can vote for it, that's part and parcel of taking back control - our elections determine how we act.
To cancel Brexit altogether would require rejoining the EU - and that's simply not realistically happening. Not only will we not go for it, but there is about as much chance of France letting us back in as there is Donald Trump becoming leader of the Muslim Council of Britain.
Mr. Ed, or 'kneeling' as those who speak English might say...
'Take a knee' is ridiculous. Do people 'take a back' when they lie down?
Your quixotic fight against the English spoken by the 350m or so outside the UK who have it as their first language is every bit as silly.
Except that a lot of people in the USA are recent arrivals, who came with the culture of a different language. A lot of the strange expressions that have found heir way into English make sense when translated back into another language.
Pearls before swine anybody? Try daisies....
Which is to suggest that 'our' English is in any way different. That's just how language works.
You mean it wasn't magically transferred to us by osmosis by St George in 1066? Next you will be saying St George is a foreigner.....
In 2015 the party offering a referendum won a majority under FPTP
In 2016 Leave won a binary referendum
In 2017 when the main parties accepted the result, they both got 40% of the vote
In 2019 when people like Sir Keir were gunning for a second referendum, The Brexit Party won the Euros
And in Dec 2019 the only major party saying they’d implement Brexit won an 80 seat majority
vs
An opinion poll
Lies win votes. And your point is?
Lies lost the vote.
Both sides lied. But Remainers lies came from their inner purity.
Which is why Scott n paste is so one eyed.
My objection to @Scott_P is not so much his posts but his desire to see the country crash and burn in a vain hope that we will decide to rejoin the EU from the ruins of our country
No matter your thoughts on Brexit actually wishing it to fail is just sad
He doesn’t want to see the country crash and burn, it’s only PB pride. As we have seen from ‘Farage will not be in the debates’ and ‘Monty Hall’ he is just incapable of accepting he called something wrong
Most PB Remain ideologues have retired to Twitter, kudos to Scott for being willing to go down with the ship
Hmmm, not impressed by this. $2.5bn is nothing for Boeing. The top brass should be on trial too.
Yep. Did this pilot suddenly think, entirely on his own initiative, to suppress information, or was that effectively encouraged by corporate culture set from the top?
Boeing's descent has taken decades. I've written before about how corporate culture leads an organisation, and can be slow to change. Boeing is a classic case of how this happens - in a negative direction.
Twenty-four years ago, McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing. The new entity was called Boeing, but in reality it was more of a reverse takeover, and MDD's management reigned supreme in the new organisation.
The problem is, MDD had had a series of (ahem) interesting failures, like the A-12 Avenger-II fiasco, or the MD-11, which never met its performance criteria. Slowly, MDD's management focus on the bottom line has taken over from Boeing's more engineering-led focus, and this seems to have led to Boeing's current woeful performance.
It'll take a decade or more for them to recover a 'good' engineering-led corporate culture. And that's what they need.
They are, though, too big to fail, probably. The US cannot afford to risk ceding a strategic industry to Europe (which probably couldn't pick up the slack anyway), and more pertinently, China.
Merge until you have the One Big Organsiation. What could go wrong?
It works so well for Police Scotland, we were told......
{Tory Bruno wanders though the chat, muttering "Where are my engines, Jeff?"}
I think it's possible we could rejoin in the future - if the EU fundamentally changes.
At the moment there is no sign of that.
It might be possible if the USA goes full It Can't Happen Here but otherwise it'll be a gradual realignment when or if the UK gets a less stridently europhobic government.
I've said many times that the modal view is common market + caveated movement of workers and tourists within limits & a brake + strict boundaries by treaty. And nothing else.
Basically, we want a wholly pragmatic and non political relationship with our European neighbours.
That's something that 70% of people could get behind.
Cases numbers for the south west. Massive notch formed at the start of September.
1400 extra cases a day doesn't sound that much over the whole UK but the South West has only been recording 1000-2500 cases a day over the time period.
Given the continued diet of bad news globally and the efforts to blame Brexit for all of it, then it is only surprising the number is not lower. The global supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit. If we were in the EU we would still have many of the issues we currently have today. It is also easy for companies to blame Brexit for all their woes and their lack of planning. The HGV driver shortage, of which Brexit is a small part, has been many years in the making. Haulage companies have done little to fill the gap and train new employees. They would sooner exploit workers using contract and agency working which stuffed them when IR35 compliance was tightened and people walked away. Again, IR35 is nothing new and neither was the plan to tighten up on it.
We are not rejoining anytime soon and it is sensible to try to make it work, as Blair said we need to rejoin from a strong position. If we ever do.
Have to say I admire the cynical marketing of some of the confectionary makers saying there may be shortages so buy now. Of course any confectionary bought now is not likely to last too long.
As with Philip you are an absolutist so we expect such posts. Yes of course there are global issues impacting the supply chain - its just that we are being hit harder by them because if Brexit.
You and yours keep screeching "nothing to do with Brexit". And yet Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox has just announced that the ban on Cabotage - Brexit - will be lifted so that the GB-only acute case of logistics hell can be eased.
If, as you say, the "supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit" then how do you account for the GB-specific 100% down to Brexit amplification of those issues? The government has accepted that it absolutely is to do with Brexit and is now acting accordingly.
Michael Green is flexible enough to recognise reality. Why aren't you?
California has got about 30 container ships currently waiting to dock because they can't clear existing containers fast enough. The country getting slammed hardest by the mess in the shipping and haulage industry is the US, by a pretty wide margin too.
Yep! And where did I say that the effective strike in the US is either a result of Brexit or proof that there are no Brexit effects here?
The thing in the US is a *different issue* as was the Belgian strike which led to a brief outage in some Brussels supermarkets. Our own government knows that we have some unique Brexit issues - like Cabotage - which they have finally woken up to fix.
They know it - why are you still in denial?
The issue isn't Brexit, it's decades of underinvestment by the state and private operators in ports and haulage. Both decided to paper over the cracks by importing low wage workers. The US has done the same. Both countries are now reaping the rewards of those poor decisions.
You are absolutely right. Brexit is a small factor in this. 15,000 HGV drivers returned to the EU. Our shortage is over 100,000. We lost more due to IR35 changes.
The number of HGV drivers who left during the pandemic was 78,000 of which EU drivers were 12,000 of the total. Tiny.
Brexit is a convenient scapegoat. It certainly hasn’t helped but it is not the main cause of this issue.
The UK’s baby boom of the early 2000s is about to flood universities and colleges with tens of thousands more school leavers every year, according to the former universities minister David Willetts.
Willetts warns, in a report published on Friday, that the comprehensive spending review needs to fund an expansion in further and higher education to absorb the increase, or risk too many young people being trapped in low-paid work.
There's Keir Starmer's new campaign slogan right there. People enjoyed more sex under Labour.
Not sure about that but the sex certainly seems to have been labour inducing.
Comments
So it would also be a sovereign decision to maintain the status quo of full alignment with EU standards and rules. 'We largely wrote them, we adopted them into our laws, we aren't going to be bossed around by some foreigners to change our laws thank-you very much - we will do it when we want to' etc
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/10/15/itll-take-higher-pay-get-work-shy-britain-working/
You and yours keep screeching "nothing to do with Brexit". And yet Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox has just announced that the ban on Cabotage - Brexit - will be lifted so that the GB-only acute case of logistics hell can be eased.
If, as you say, the "supply chain issues we are living through at the moment are nothing to do with Brexit" then how do you account for the GB-specific 100% down to Brexit amplification of those issues? The government has accepted that it absolutely is to do with Brexit and is now acting accordingly.
Michael Green is flexible enough to recognise reality. Why aren't you?
https://twitter.com/janemerrick23/status/1448918419315871763?s=20
The alternative is address the cost of living. So many of these jobs - and their equivalents in food - are rural. Where local rates of unemployment are low and the cost of houses are high. "Just build more" doesn't work in the Lakes or Cornwall or other tourist hotspots as they won't be the same places people want to visit if we concrete them over.
We could do the other thing - price second homeowners out. Locals have complained for years that their kids can't afford to live locally. But nothing is done because house prices = prosperity. Its no wonder we need imported labour when locals can't afford to live where the jobs are.
So yes, we need these short term solutions like work visas. But we also need to address the structural issues. And this government will not do so.
In 2015 the party offering a referendum won a majority under FPTP
In 2016 Leave won a binary referendum
In 2017 when the main parties accepted the result, they both got 40% of the vote
In 2019 when people like Sir Keir were gunning for a second referendum, The Brexit Party won the Euros
And in Dec 2019 the only major party saying they’d implement Brexit won an 80 seat majority
vs
An opinion poll
Though given that all the pub and restaurant workers I encounter seem to be British I assume its yet another London and Waitrose Belt problem.
As regards nitrates and water pollution - it is a manifestation of such opposition. It is no coincedence that a large proportion of european protected sites are in the south east.
I keep hearing diehard remainers going on about mass ongoing shortages in the shop. I have only alot of empty shelves once.
The Global supply chain issues are nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with factors like demand increasing markedly after COVID and supply not being there to cope, people spending money on goods not services being a driving factor. There are many other reasons not Brexit related.
The country voted to leave the EU, it has happened, we need to get on with it. I voted remain as I work in manufacturing.
Oh, and the only screeching I see here is from you when talking about people like Zarah Sultana and Laura Pidcock. So don't project, there's a pet.
Not only are virtually all the 38% who think Brexit was right still voting Tory but a few Remainers or Brexit undecideds are still voting Tory too.
Meanwhile of the 49% who think Brexit was wrong, the Remain/Rejoin support is split multiple ways between Labour, the LDs, the Greens and SNP which is not effective under FPTP.
49% of course still just 1% more than the 48% who voted Remain in the 2016 referendum anyway
My fear is that when it does fall apart in the future, the degree of integration will make it a very serious problem.
SNP 39.2%
Con 38.9%
Lab 15.7%
Grn 6.2%
Change since 2017
SNP +3.5%
Con +6.8%
Lab -11.4%
Grn +1.1%
There's nothing either crushing about the SNP win or sliding about the Conservatives.
But SLAB continues to have problems.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/10/15/how-britain-voting-autumn-2021?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=website_article&utm_campaign=how_britain_voting_sep_2021 https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1448921849669341218/photo/1
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/10/15/how-britain-voting-autumn-2021?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=website_article&utm_campaign=how_britain_voting_sep_2021 https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1448921840852914182/photo/1
However equally 11% of 2019 Labour voters have gone to the Greens to just 3% who have gone to Boris' Tories
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/15/early-2000s-baby-boom-will-soon-flood-universities-warns-former-tory-minister
The UK’s baby boom of the early 2000s is about to flood universities and colleges with tens of thousands more school leavers every year, according to the former universities minister David Willetts.
Willetts warns, in a report published on Friday, that the comprehensive spending review needs to fund an expansion in further and higher education to absorb the increase, or risk too many young people being trapped in low-paid work.
At the moment there is no sign of that.
UKHSA say a private testing lab in Wolverhampton has been suspended - 43,000 people in South West of England given false negative PCR results between Sept 8 and Oct 12
Confirms the so called education gap is just an age gap as about 40% of under 50s graduated from university compared to about 10% of over 50s
The thing in the US is a *different issue* as was the Belgian strike which led to a brief outage in some Brussels supermarkets. Our own government knows that we have some unique Brexit issues - like Cabotage - which they have finally woken up to fix.
They know it - why are you still in denial?
Instead we go out of our way as a country to seek out every remaining green space within urban areas, many often misleadingly designated as "brownfield", and if they can't be found then do the next best thing and locate big estates right on the edge of existing conurbations which just happen to be the nearest accessible rural areas to those living in large cities.
The US cannot afford to risk ceding a strategic industry to Europe (which probably couldn't pick up the slack anyway), and more pertinently, China.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/supply-chain-problems-hit-german-supermarkets-88r52l0rl
I mind one or two daft expressions like 'taking a knee' or 'could care less'.
And I'm quite content to point out when those expressed over here are daft too. Yes, 'pre-prepared', I'm talking about you, you rancid tautology.
Presumably the govt dashboard is now going to have to add 43k new cases over that period? Only a little over 1k/day, but do wonder if it will change the trend.
And on the bright side that's another 43k who aren't going to be getting infected during the winter.
The hospitalisation number are the key data.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/supply-chain-problems-hit-german-supermarkets-88r52l0rl
What isn't Brexit responsible for?
You have at least given us some insight into how you think...
Which means that we both suffer the same root problem. With very different results. The driver of those results is Brexit. The pan-European labour shortage only causes real shortages in GB because Brexit. The ban on cabotage only in the GB causes more shortages because Brexit.
If these Brexit issues were not real, why is the government acting to correct them?
No matter your thoughts on Brexit actually wishing it to fail is just sad
Pearls before swine anybody? Try daisies....
The fact Conservatives still win graduates over 50 who graduated when fewer went to university confirms it is more a factor of the expansion of universities and the fact Labour does better with younger voters
Next question.
Those giving consistent answers to the above two questions have a valid opinion. Those giving opposite opinions are truth bending cheerleaders on either side.
It does help explain a couple of anomalies - like positive LF followed by negative PCR, and why cases in Cheltenham suddenly fell off a cliff.
You can't prepare something after the event.
At least it isn't a truncated excel spreadsheet this time.
That's just how language works.
A new Union created by a genuine compromise between Britain and the EU and an open intention to create a full political and economic union, is more likely to be successful, but that would take a lot of change on both sides.
Some sort of adjusted EFTA/EEA is more likely, but even that I'm not sure how likely.
My mother in law has been bitching about Swiss supermarkets running out of stuff for weeks now.
What's happening here is replicated everywhere. Weren't you banging on about gas prices being a UK only problem because we left the EU energy market mechanisms? One day you'll learn that being in the EU doesn't solve anything. Germany has got a net loss of 15k HGV drivers per year from their industries, accelerated by local home delivery services leeching drivers away. It's literally the same dynamic driving the shortage of drivers. Shit conditions, shit pay and competitive wages and conditions in other similar jobs.
That's what we're all up against, not just the UK but everywhere. You banging on about Brexit shows you've misunderstood the issue.
This, and the various articles about similar problems in the US, really show that the media's desperation to blame current difficulties on Brexit is both dishonest and parochial (ironically). It may have a short term effect, as Mike's thread header indicates, but cynicism about what we are being told, which was a significant part of leave's success, can only be increased as the absurdities multiply.
Super Unleaded does seem to be 20% more expensive though compared to the 5-10% in the UK.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/young-tories-group-linked-bullying-6975208
Sure we can have an atrocious government that signs us up to ensuring we follow EU rules without getting a say in them, what you call pragmatic. And then that government can be voted out. But that's not reversing or cancelling Brexit. That's just a different, crappier version of Brexit. You may think its better, in which case you can vote for it, that's part and parcel of taking back control - our elections determine how we act.
To cancel Brexit altogether would require rejoining the EU - and that's simply not realistically happening. Not only will we not go for it, but there is about as much chance of France letting us back in as there is Donald Trump becoming leader of the Muslim Council of Britain.
Most PB Remain ideologues have retired to Twitter, kudos to Scott for being willing to go down with the ship
It works so well for Police Scotland, we were told......
{Tory Bruno wanders though the chat, muttering "Where are my engines, Jeff?"}
Basically, we want a wholly pragmatic and non political relationship with our European neighbours.
That's something that 70% of people could get behind.
Just watching.
Cases numbers for the south west. Massive notch formed at the start of September.
1400 extra cases a day doesn't sound that much over the whole UK but the South West has only been recording 1000-2500 cases a day over the time period.
The number of HGV drivers who left during the pandemic was 78,000 of which EU drivers were 12,000 of the total. Tiny.
Brexit is a convenient scapegoat. It certainly hasn’t helped but it is not the main cause of this issue.