What I have found really strange is that our vaccines for the flu have been relatively ineffective over the years, better some than others and dependent upon a fair amount of guesswork as to what the dominant strand is going to be in any particular year. So far, the success rate with vaccines against Covid seems to be much, much higher and a variety of different techniques have all produced pretty similar results.
Has our flu efforts just been half-hearted and underfunded, has the wall of money thrown at Covid produced some genuinely new breakthroughs, or have we just been surprisingly lucky? I get the impression that the world has learned a huge amount about the spread and DNA of viruses through this pandemic. Hopefully this will spill into other areas once the immediate panic is over.
All of the above. Medical science has learned a decade’s worth of innovation this year.
Yes, its been remarkable. I seem to recall that one of @rcs1000's predictions was that what has been learned would transform medicine in the coming years.
Undoubtedly so. Necessity is the mother of invention - that, and tens of billions of dollars thrown at the innovators by Western governments.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
Here comes the Boris fanboy troll.
Yawn, that really is old and tired.
I'll criticise Boris when he deserves it. I'll criticise Iran when they do.
With Zaghari-Ratcliffe the buck stops with Iran not the UK. She is an Iranian citizen in an Iranian jail because Iran lacks a free and fair judiciary. The rest is just media and pointscoring nonsense.
Oh for goodness sake. If one gives credit to Johnson for sticking it to the EU, inventing a vaccine, and saving most of the 800,000 people that Eadric claimed this time last year would die of Covid, fair enough, but no one who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool Boris fanboi can give him anything other than stark criticism for Mrs Ratcliffe's plight. His thoughtless, verbal diarrhea, intervention as FS made a bad situation catastrophic.
Nice to see a cheerful column - sometimes PB feels a bit grumpy!
That said, as a 70-year-old I view the Oxford vaccine (and the constant drumbeat of media assertions that it'll be approved imminently - if it's certain, what's keeping them?) with unease - "you will be probably 70% less likely to be infected based on a somewhat chaotic clinical trial that we rushed through" beats "you are fully vulnerable" but doesn't feel wonderful. I still hope they'll limit it to the less vulnerable.
I am not sure the MHRA would agree it was "rushed through", anymore than the FDA thought that of the Pfizer vaccine trial. Surprised that as a one time employee of a pharma company you would indulge in the type of language employed by the anti-vaxers. Perhaps you share the view of your old friend Jeremy (whom you ludicrously endorsed as a potential PM) that pharma companies should not be allowed to make profits from their risk and endeavour? One suspects that his lack of congratulations to the brilliant work of the scientists in said pharma companies is based on his hatred for anyone that does not draw a fat salary and pension form the public purse.
? That'#s an odd view of my comment. I'm very much in favour of a successful vaccine, and fine with them making a profit on it. But I suspect the MHRA have taken their time over approval precisely because the trial was chaotic. They may conclude that it's OK, but - as you say as someone who's worked in the industry at fairly senior management level - I'd be glad to see them caveat it to younger age groups. The fact that they had zero over-55s in what, for reasons that they can't explain, turned out to be the more successful subsample does not inspire confidence.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Why do we still have consular offices around the world, then?
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
Here comes the Boris fanboy troll.
Yawn, that really is old and tired.
I'll criticise Boris when he deserves it. I'll criticise Iran when they do.
With Zaghari-Ratcliffe the buck stops with Iran not the UK. She is an Iranian citizen in an Iranian jail because Iran lacks a free and fair judiciary. The rest is just media and pointscoring nonsense.
Oh for goodness sake. If one gives credit to Johnson for sticking it to the EU, inventing a vaccine, and saving most of the 800,000 people that Eadric claimed this time last year would die of Covid, fair enough, but no one who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool Boris fanboi can give him anything other than stark criticism for Mrs Ratcliffe's plight. His thoughtless, verbal diarrhea, intervention as FS made a bad situation catastrophic.
Away with your nonsense!
Tbf Phil has very occasionally criticised BJ for not being utterly fabulous 24/7, but then BJ comes back with a masterstroke and all is right with the world.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
Here comes the Boris fanboy troll.
Yawn, that really is old and tired.
I'll criticise Boris when he deserves it. I'll criticise Iran when they do.
With Zaghari-Ratcliffe the buck stops with Iran not the UK. She is an Iranian citizen in an Iranian jail because Iran lacks a free and fair judiciary. The rest is just media and pointscoring nonsense.
Oh for goodness sake. If one gives credit to Johnson for sticking it to the EU, inventing a vaccine, and saving most of the 800,000 people that Eadric claimed this time last year would die of Covid, fair enough, but no one who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool Boris fanboi can give him anything other than stark criticism for Mrs Ratcliffe's plight. His thoughtless, verbal diarrhea, intervention as FS made a bad situation catastrophic.
Away with your nonsense!
Bulldust.
The situation already was catastrophic. She was already imprisoned and being abused as a pawn before Johnson spoke. That is why Johnson was asked about her.
To say otherwise is to put the cart before the horse.
She is an Iranian citizen being abused by the Iranian dictatorial government with its compliant and corrupt courts. To put this on anyone other than Iran is narcissistic codswallop.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
Here comes the Boris fanboy troll.
Yawn, that really is old and tired.
I'll criticise Boris when he deserves it. I'll criticise Iran when they do.
With Zaghari-Ratcliffe the buck stops with Iran not the UK. She is an Iranian citizen in an Iranian jail because Iran lacks a free and fair judiciary. The rest is just media and pointscoring nonsense.
I just get tired of your political contortions.... perhaps I'm getting too old myself.
"With a customs border in the Irish Sea, the UK becomes the first country in the world not to be able to freely trade with itself. Let that sink in as Johnson crows about his deal ..."
What about the Canary Islands? They're a part of Spain but outside the EU customs union? The GB-NI barriers will probably be more substantial in some areas, but I wouldn't say the UK is the first country ever to do that.
Is that true Re canary Islands? I can only see they are outside VAT harmonisation area
Maybe Heligoland (former outpost of the British Empire) is an example...
There are a number of examples. It is far, far from unprecedented and normally due to historical quirks or geography.
Incidentally yes Heligoland is specifically one. It is recognised as part of Germany and a territory of the EU but not covered by the EU's customs rules.
Other examples: Faroe Islands, Greenland, French overseas territories, the German territory of Busingen, Italian Livigno, Italian Campione d'Italia, Italina waters of Lake Lugano, Neterlands Antilles, Spain's Ceuta and Spain's Mililla.
So all in all it was a really, really dumb argument to suggest it was a world first.
Fair point. Accepted. Greenland of course is a bit of a special case, win that it what one might call 'semi-independent'!
The Faroe Islands and others are also not part of the EU.
Sky: "200 Britons 'flee Swiss ski resort under cover of night' after being told to quarantine"
Oh, the poor things. Having their luxury skiing holidays disrupted IN THE MIDDLE OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC.
Madness.
Hopefully airlines and Swiss border posts will be told to stop them going anywhere. Thoughtless idiots.
Unfortunately it's the opposite of thoughtless. They cannot have escaped knowledge of why they needed to stay put, but wilfully ignored it anyway. That's so much worse than thoughtlessness.
Nice opening speech from Our Great Leader, Mike Smithson, this morning.
That I share his sentiments is hardly surprising since I am only marginally behind in in age as well as hair style. So well done Boris, whatever else we may say about you. You got this one right.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
Can't read the whole article but the UK government has been clear for years that it cannot protect dual nationals in their other nationality country. If you want British protection in your other country you have to renounce that country nationality.
Gentle reminder that whilst economics matter, if they were the whole deal the UK would've voted 85% to stay in. Politics, identity, these things are also important.
You main point is valid.
But don’t forget Brexiters were told throughout that leaving the EU would see us “prosper mightily”. Boris and Gove maintain this fiction even now.
A fair bit of discussion about Erasmus scheme in recent days. With claims both about what UK students have lost through not being able to go to European universities, or the UK have lost through EU students not coming here.
A question.
Assuming the British Govt reasons for why they have withdrawn from the scheme are true (EU tripling cost) and setting to one side the debate about whether the new Govt scheme represents an adequate replacement, has there been any comment in the EU press about how EU students have now lost the opportunity to come to the EU and study for a year at some of the World's best universities? And even criticism if this IS something that has been triggered by the EU overplaying its hand and perhaps failing to recognise what an asset UK universities possibly were to the scheme compared to perhaps other third party "associate" members?
That is a very heroic assumption in your first line.
Indeed - but if it's true that the cost tripled, then it provided an excuse that wouldn't otherwise have been available. And it must surely be true that the UK brought a lot more to the scheme than your average country.
Did the EU "triple the cost", or are they tripling the size of Erasmus?
"With a customs border in the Irish Sea, the UK becomes the first country in the world not to be able to freely trade with itself. Let that sink in as Johnson crows about his deal ..."
What about the Canary Islands? They're a part of Spain but outside the EU customs union? The GB-NI barriers will probably be more substantial in some areas, but I wouldn't say the UK is the first country ever to do that.
Is that true Re canary Islands? I can only see they are outside VAT harmonisation area
Maybe Heligoland (former outpost of the British Empire) is an example...
There are a number of examples. It is far, far from unprecedented and normally due to historical quirks or geography.
Incidentally yes Heligoland is specifically one. It is recognised as part of Germany and a territory of the EU but not covered by the EU's customs rules.
Other examples: Faroe Islands, Greenland, French overseas territories, the German territory of Busingen, Italian Livigno, Italian Campione d'Italia, Italina waters of Lake Lugano, Neterlands Antilles, Spain's Ceuta and Spain's Mililla.
So all in all it was a really, really dumb argument to suggest it was a world first.
Fair point. Accepted. Greenland of course is a bit of a special case, win that it what one might call 'semi-independent'!
The Faroe Islands and others are also not part of the EU.
And others?
Heliogoland, Busingen, Livigno, Campione d'Italia, the Italian waters of Lake Lugano, Ceuta and Melilla are all in the EU but not the EU's customs area.
Gentle reminder that whilst economics matter, if they were the whole deal the UK would've voted 85% to stay in. Politics, identity, these things are also important.
It was about immigration. People are fed up with 'darkies' and foreigners coming in. Even though these immigrants contribute immensely to this country, it doesn't matter to these uneducated, pasty, lazy trash.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
Here comes the Boris fanboy troll.
Yawn, that really is old and tired.
I'll criticise Boris when he deserves it. I'll criticise Iran when they do.
With Zaghari-Ratcliffe the buck stops with Iran not the UK. She is an Iranian citizen in an Iranian jail because Iran lacks a free and fair judiciary. The rest is just media and pointscoring nonsense.
They are definitely the primary ones to blame, just as any authoritarian regime 'reacting' to things some western politician says are to blame as they use such things as an excuse. Doesn't mean there cannot be things to criticise on this end as well.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
Here comes the Boris fanboy troll.
Yawn, that really is old and tired.
I'll criticise Boris when he deserves it. I'll criticise Iran when they do.
With Zaghari-Ratcliffe the buck stops with Iran not the UK. She is an Iranian citizen in an Iranian jail because Iran lacks a free and fair judiciary. The rest is just media and pointscoring nonsense.
Oh for goodness sake. If one gives credit to Johnson for sticking it to the EU, inventing a vaccine, and saving most of the 800,000 people that Eadric claimed this time last year would die of Covid, fair enough, but no one who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool Boris fanboi can give him anything other than stark criticism for Mrs Ratcliffe's plight. His thoughtless, verbal diarrhea, intervention as FS made a bad situation catastrophic.
Away with your nonsense!
Bulldust.
The situation already was catastrophic. She was already imprisoned and being abused as a pawn before Johnson spoke. That is why Johnson was asked about her.
To say otherwise is to put the cart before the horse.
She is an Iranian citizen being abused by the Iranian dictatorial government with its compliant and corrupt courts. To put this on anyone other than Iran is narcissistic codswallop.
There's little doubt that Johnson's catastrophic error in the HoC made the poor woman's situation worse. It was just about as bad a statement as could have been made.
A fair bit of discussion about Erasmus scheme in recent days. With claims both about what UK students have lost through not being able to go to European universities, or the UK have lost through EU students not coming here.
A question.
Assuming the British Govt reasons for why they have withdrawn from the scheme are true (EU tripling cost) and setting to one side the debate about whether the new Govt scheme represents an adequate replacement, has there been any comment in the EU press about how EU students have now lost the opportunity to come to the EU and study for a year at some of the World's best universities? And even criticism if this IS something that has been triggered by the EU overplaying its hand and perhaps failing to recognise what an asset UK universities possibly were to the scheme compared to perhaps other third party "associate" members?
That is a very heroic assumption in your first line.
Indeed - but if it's true that the cost tripled, then it provided an excuse that wouldn't otherwise have been available. And it must surely be true that the UK brought a lot more to the scheme than your average country.
I haven’t seen any indication of what this apparent tripling of the cost means compared to what non EU countries pay to participate; is it roughly comparable?
I read that Spain, Germany, France and Italy are the most popular destinations, so perhaps the UK is a bit more of an average country than it thinks it is.
Quel surprise, they don't count the real world though TUD. Great world power my large Kilmarnock bunnet
What is a large Kilmarnock bunnet? On second thoughts, perhaps I don’t want to know.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
Yes, but that wasn't what I was talking about. Johnson had nothing to do with her original kidnapping and incarceration. I was pointing out that Johnson's constant bungling over her case *since that time* demonstrate with brutal clarity why he is not fit for high office. An inability to master basic details, a lack of thought in what he says, and a total disregard for the consequences, which are very negative for others.
That seems a really bad example of how it started ... How it's going.
He's making the same point in both Tweets.
Oh no he’s not.
Christmas? It's behind you...
FOM Erasmus Anyone giving a fcuk what fishermen think Credibility of Scottish Tories Access to a pool of recruits for care home work Respect for the promises of HMG No border in the Irish Sea
All behind us, feel free to add to the pile. (at least one of these things may never have existed)
You forgot
#NoDealSNP and #NoDealNicola
Not sure if Tories fixating on no deal is quite the winning strategy they think it is when only a few short weeks ago their dear leader was stating that no deal would be 'wonderful for Britain' and 'allow us to do whatever we want'. Ye don't think Lyin' Boris was lyin' d'ye?!
Still, carry on yooning, it seems to have been working marvellously well for you thus far.
"With a customs border in the Irish Sea, the UK becomes the first country in the world not to be able to freely trade with itself. Let that sink in as Johnson crows about his deal ..."
What about the Canary Islands? They're a part of Spain but outside the EU customs union? The GB-NI barriers will probably be more substantial in some areas, but I wouldn't say the UK is the first country ever to do that.
Is that true Re canary Islands? I can only see they are outside VAT harmonisation area
Maybe Heligoland (former outpost of the British Empire) is an example...
There are a number of examples. It is far, far from unprecedented and normally due to historical quirks or geography.
Incidentally yes Heligoland is specifically one. It is recognised as part of Germany and a territory of the EU but not covered by the EU's customs rules.
Other examples: Faroe Islands, Greenland, French overseas territories, the German territory of Busingen, Italian Livigno, Italian Campione d'Italia, Italina waters of Lake Lugano, Neterlands Antilles, Spain's Ceuta and Spain's Mililla.
So all in all it was a really, really dumb argument to suggest it was a world first.
Fair point. Accepted. Greenland of course is a bit of a special case, win that it what one might call 'semi-independent'!
The Faroe Islands and others are also not part of the EU.
And others?
Heliogoland, Busingen, Livigno, Campione d'Italia, the Italian waters of Lake Lugano, Ceuta and Melilla are all in the EU but not the EU's customs area.
So far from "world first".
Meanwhile the still to be finalised Gibraltar Agreement looks like they will enter Schengen, meaning passport checks for British arrivals but not for Spaniards crossing the land border.
Vaccine rollout will be the big story of 2021. Unfortunately (predictions follow) - it is not going to go smoothly.
The target of getting 25m at risk population by April will be missed. The logistical challenges are considerable and this govt's delivery record questionable. Vaccine will end up being wasted. It will be hard to identify the right people. There will be another IT debacle.
But most importantly - the manufacturers will not make the promised orders at the promised time - they are already missing them. We will see political pressure to help certain countries first regardless of existing orders.
Lockdown 3 will be lifted too early and as a result we will have Lockdown 4. Calls to vaccinate health workers earlier will intensify. Sadly as many people will die of COVID in 2021 in the UK as in 2020.
The bright news is that the vaccine will work and life will return to normality by next Winter. The economy will come roaring back once the virus is beaten.
In domestic politics, Boris Johnson will come under pressure from the ERG to seize the opportunities of Brexit, such as they are. To head off criticism, he will reshuffle his cabinet and make Priti Patel chancellor.
Relations with the EU will, after an initial honeymoon period, deteriorate as both sides claim the other is not respecting the deal. Both sides will make legal threats. To increase the UK's leverage, Boris Johnson will aggressively pursue a US trade deal, exacerbating relations with Europe.
Brexit will however increasingly come to be accepted by the majority. Starmer will pick a fight with Tony Blair/Alastair Campbell and demote anyone suggesting the UK should rejoin.
Overall 2021 will not be the tonic of a year people are hoping for. The struggle against the virus will consume most of it.
You're a bundle of cheer!
One thing - I really don't understand your prediction on COVID deaths if you also think the vaccine will be effective. It will take a serious change in the nature of the virus for this to happen given the demographics of who it kills. Vaccine delays may impact how soon we can start opening up and get back to normal. It's going to have to start killing under 70s in significant numbers for it to beat 2020 on deaths isn't it?
Think it depends how long the vaccine will take to roll out. Plus remember vaccinated people will still die from COVID and most people still haven't got the disease yet.
I think this Winter will be really bad. More people in hospital with COVID now than at start of March lockdown + a more virulent strain + we aren't yet in national lockdown.
We have better treatments but I think likely 2nd wave will be worse.
I wouldn't be quite so pessimistic, but think that you are closer to the truth than the Daily Express, "back to normal by Feb" headlines.
Then there is the massive legacy to deal with. Lots of disability alongside all the deaths. The massive waiting lists and backlogs of other diseases*, the closed businesses that will never re-open, reduced tax receipts for both business and personal tax, and masses and masses of government debt. The big cloud may be that perhaps the virus ain't done with mutating just yet.
* 70% fewer diagnoses of diabetes type 2 this year for example.
Normal is never coming back, at least not for me. For example, my firm has got out of its London leases retain one building. We’re all working at home 3/5 from next year. We’re not alone. That’s a lot of sandwiches not bought.
Retail likewise needs to up its online offer or go to the wall. Apart from food 95% of my spend has been online and almost exclusively with free delivery or free pick up.
The move online is now unstoppable. A few challenges though: 1. How to operate a pick model. Supermarkets take orders online and then pay someone to walk round the shop picking orders. People then complain about cross-offs and substitutes as "I ordered a week ago" - the picker can only pick what is there the same as if you went round the store in person. Or you could shut the store and operate as a warehouse but the same problem is there.
Alternately run centralised warehouses and have local pick points, which is how the likes of Currys are operating in a "closed shop but you can collect" environment. In effect the retail estates of so many of these chains isn't just worthless, it actively costs them money.
2. Online loses money. Until the start of the pandemic each online shop cost the retailer between £5 and £10. The more they do online the more money it costs them - and there's only so many efficiencies the extra volume can unlock. You could try and charge people the actual delivery cost and they would refuse it. This is a big problem for anyone who isn't Amazon - they can afford to make a huge loss delivering things as the rest of their empire is profitable.
3.Strategically the move online absolutely fucks our economy. We are a service led shopping economy built on moving people to places to work and shop and consume. If they don't need to travel as much to work then less need to spend £lots on twatty coffee in expensive offices and shopping. How do we employ all the people who used to service our "needs" when we long since decided to sell off our capacity to actually make things?
I notice that online delivery charges (from Sainsbury) are edging up to £4-5 in the daytime, which seems to me fair enough - there are still some slots (late at night) which are actually free, which seems bonkers. People are ordering from home for a reason and saving petrol by doing it - I think we'd pay a fiver a time unless really hard up.
But of course it's true that large sections of the consumer service economy have been skipped this year and may not return (the fact that few people bother to buy expensive sandwiches is a GDP hit but not obviously a decline in their standard of living). It's one of the central jobs of government to help support and retrain people hit by this kind of unexpected shift, and though the "Data is her future although she doesn't know it yet" ad about ballet-dancers was unbelievably crass, it's the right general idea for people whose jobs really aren't coming back.
Still free delivery from Waitrose. As long as you spend at least £40. Which isn't difficult at Waitrose.
I'm assuming that the price of second hand vans must have shot up, with so many people setting themselves up as self employed delivery drivers.
Mr. Walker, aye, and the alternative was that we'd all have starved to death because of economic Armageddon. Unsurprisingly, the path is somewhere between those.
Mr. (?) S, immigration was a major factor. But I'd suggest implying half the country is racist isn't necessarily the most persuasive opening gambit.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
I dont agree with Philip that there is noone to criticise but Iran in this, but it seems undeniable that the poor woman is being mistreated because the regime wants to do so, and while we should not provide easy excuses to do so, they would find something regardless.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
Here comes the Boris fanboy troll.
Yawn, that really is old and tired.
I'll criticise Boris when he deserves it. I'll criticise Iran when they do.
With Zaghari-Ratcliffe the buck stops with Iran not the UK. She is an Iranian citizen in an Iranian jail because Iran lacks a free and fair judiciary. The rest is just media and pointscoring nonsense.
They are definitely the primary ones to blame, just as any authoritarian regime 'reacting' to things some western politician says are to blame as they use such things as an excuse. Doesn't mean there cannot be things to criticise on this end as well.
If we paid our bill it probably wouldn't have happened. And we've made a comprehensive hash of Anglo-Iranian relations for many years.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
I dont agree with Philip that there is noone to criticise but Iran in this, but it seems undeniable that the poor woman is being mistreated because the regime wants to do so, and while we should not provide easy excuses to do so, they would find something regardless.
Certainly the Foreign Secretary should not be providing easy excuses.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
What a disgusting argument. Many, probably most, legal cases and medical procedures have a predictable outcome from the off. Do you think that in all those cases where the predictable outcome is a loss the lawyers or doctors involved have a free pass for any degree of negligence, incompetence and lack of professionalism whatever because no matter what the surgeon did it was really the cancer that was to blame?
There are contexts where you can't actually defend a shit without looking slightly like the W Edinburgh hotel yourself.
A fair bit of discussion about Erasmus scheme in recent days. With claims both about what UK students have lost through not being able to go to European universities, or the UK have lost through EU students not coming here.
A question.
Assuming the British Govt reasons for why they have withdrawn from the scheme are true (EU tripling cost) and setting to one side the debate about whether the new Govt scheme represents an adequate replacement, has there been any comment in the EU press about how EU students have now lost the opportunity to come to the EU and study for a year at some of the World's best universities? And even criticism if this IS something that has been triggered by the EU overplaying its hand and perhaps failing to recognise what an asset UK universities possibly were to the scheme compared to perhaps other third party "associate" members?
That is a very heroic assumption in your first line.
Indeed - but if it's true that the cost tripled, then it provided an excuse that wouldn't otherwise have been available. And it must surely be true that the UK brought a lot more to the scheme than your average country.
I haven’t seen any indication of what this apparent tripling of the cost means compared to what non EU countries pay to participate; is it roughly comparable?
I read that Spain, Germany, France and Italy are the most popular destinations, so perhaps the UK is a bit more of an average country than it thinks it is.
Quel surprise, they don't count the real world though TUD. Great world power my large Kilmarnock bunnet
What is a large Kilmarnock bunnet? On second thoughts, perhaps I don’t want to know.
Something one needs to wear to keep one's head warm on a windswept Christmas day fixture at Rugby Park?
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
Here comes the Boris fanboy troll.
Yawn, that really is old and tired.
I'll criticise Boris when he deserves it. I'll criticise Iran when they do.
With Zaghari-Ratcliffe the buck stops with Iran not the UK. She is an Iranian citizen in an Iranian jail because Iran lacks a free and fair judiciary. The rest is just media and pointscoring nonsense.
Oh for goodness sake. If one gives credit to Johnson for sticking it to the EU, inventing a vaccine, and saving most of the 800,000 people that Eadric claimed this time last year would die of Covid, fair enough, but no one who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool Boris fanboi can give him anything other than stark criticism for Mrs Ratcliffe's plight. His thoughtless, verbal diarrhea, intervention as FS made a bad situation catastrophic.
Away with your nonsense!
Bulldust.
The situation already was catastrophic. She was already imprisoned and being abused as a pawn before Johnson spoke. That is why Johnson was asked about her.
To say otherwise is to put the cart before the horse.
She is an Iranian citizen being abused by the Iranian dictatorial government with its compliant and corrupt courts. To put this on anyone other than Iran is narcissistic codswallop.
There's little doubt that Johnson's catastrophic error in the HoC made the poor woman's situation worse. It was just about as bad a statement as could have been made.
Perhaps.
But she was already in jail before he spoke. She had been jailed for five years before he spoke. The Iranians had already filed extra charges to increase her sentence before he spoke.
The idea that she's only in jail because Johnson misspoke is a lie. Yes the Iranians seized upon what he said but she was already in jail and they were already increasing her sentence and filing new claims and getting a longer sentence for her before any of that happened.
Johnson may not be perfect but he does not have a Tardis. It would require a Tardis to have all the things happening before he spoke blamed upon him. Its just easier to blame Boris than to blame the dodgy Iranians for how they choose to abuse their own citizens it seems.
A fair bit of discussion about Erasmus scheme in recent days. With claims both about what UK students have lost through not being able to go to European universities, or the UK have lost through EU students not coming here.
A question.
Assuming the British Govt reasons for why they have withdrawn from the scheme are true (EU tripling cost) and setting to one side the debate about whether the new Govt scheme represents an adequate replacement, has there been any comment in the EU press about how EU students have now lost the opportunity to come to the EU and study for a year at some of the World's best universities? And even criticism if this IS something that has been triggered by the EU overplaying its hand and perhaps failing to recognise what an asset UK universities possibly were to the scheme compared to perhaps other third party "associate" members?
That is a very heroic assumption in your first line.
Indeed - but if it's true that the cost tripled, then it provided an excuse that wouldn't otherwise have been available. And it must surely be true that the UK brought a lot more to the scheme than your average country.
I haven’t seen any indication of what this apparent tripling of the cost means compared to what non EU countries pay to participate; is it roughly comparable?
I read that Spain, Germany, France and Italy are the most popular destinations, so perhaps the UK is a bit more of an average country than it thinks it is.
Quel surprise, they don't count the real world though TUD. Great world power my large Kilmarnock bunnet
What is a large Kilmarnock bunnet? On second thoughts, perhaps I don’t want to know.
"With a customs border in the Irish Sea, the UK becomes the first country in the world not to be able to freely trade with itself. Let that sink in as Johnson crows about his deal ..."
What about the Canary Islands? They're a part of Spain but outside the EU customs union? The GB-NI barriers will probably be more substantial in some areas, but I wouldn't say the UK is the first country ever to do that.
Is that true Re canary Islands? I can only see they are outside VAT harmonisation area
Maybe Heligoland (former outpost of the British Empire) is an example...
There are a number of examples. It is far, far from unprecedented and normally due to historical quirks or geography.
Incidentally yes Heligoland is specifically one. It is recognised as part of Germany and a territory of the EU but not covered by the EU's customs rules.
Other examples: Faroe Islands, Greenland, French overseas territories, the German territory of Busingen, Italian Livigno, Italian Campione d'Italia, Italina waters of Lake Lugano, Neterlands Antilles, Spain's Ceuta and Spain's Mililla.
So all in all it was a really, really dumb argument to suggest it was a world first.
Fair point. Accepted. Greenland of course is a bit of a special case, win that it what one might call 'semi-independent'!
The Faroe Islands and others are also not part of the EU.
And others?
Heliogoland, Busingen, Livigno, Campione d'Italia, the Italian waters of Lake Lugano, Ceuta and Melilla are all in the EU but not the EU's customs area.
So far from "world first".
Meanwhile the still to be finalised Gibraltar Agreement looks like they will enter Schengen, meaning passport checks for British arrivals but not for Spaniards crossing the land border.
While the EU's Ireland will be out of Schengen and in a Common Travel Area with the UK, meaning passport checks for fellow EU arrivals but not for Britons crossing the land border.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
Here comes the Boris fanboy troll.
Yawn, that really is old and tired.
I'll criticise Boris when he deserves it. I'll criticise Iran when they do.
With Zaghari-Ratcliffe the buck stops with Iran not the UK. She is an Iranian citizen in an Iranian jail because Iran lacks a free and fair judiciary. The rest is just media and pointscoring nonsense.
Oh for goodness sake. If one gives credit to Johnson for sticking it to the EU, inventing a vaccine, and saving most of the 800,000 people that Eadric claimed this time last year would die of Covid, fair enough, but no one who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool Boris fanboi can give him anything other than stark criticism for Mrs Ratcliffe's plight. His thoughtless, verbal diarrhea, intervention as FS made a bad situation catastrophic.
Away with your nonsense!
Bulldust.
The situation already was catastrophic. She was already imprisoned and being abused as a pawn before Johnson spoke. That is why Johnson was asked about her.
To say otherwise is to put the cart before the horse.
She is an Iranian citizen being abused by the Iranian dictatorial government with its compliant and corrupt courts. To put this on anyone other than Iran is narcissistic codswallop.
Oh for goodness' sake. If you can't see that the evil Iranian regime was not later, ably assisted by your bungling friend you are living in a fantasy.
It is not a fantasy I need to be part of. Au Revoir!
A fair bit of discussion about Erasmus scheme in recent days. With claims both about what UK students have lost through not being able to go to European universities, or the UK have lost through EU students not coming here.
A question.
Assuming the British Govt reasons for why they have withdrawn from the scheme are true (EU tripling cost) and setting to one side the debate about whether the new Govt scheme represents an adequate replacement, has there been any comment in the EU press about how EU students have now lost the opportunity to come to the EU and study for a year at some of the World's best universities? And even criticism if this IS something that has been triggered by the EU overplaying its hand and perhaps failing to recognise what an asset UK universities possibly were to the scheme compared to perhaps other third party "associate" members?
That is a very heroic assumption in your first line.
Indeed - but if it's true that the cost tripled, then it provided an excuse that wouldn't otherwise have been available. And it must surely be true that the UK brought a lot more to the scheme than your average country.
I haven’t seen any indication of what this apparent tripling of the cost means compared to what non EU countries pay to participate; is it roughly comparable?
I read that Spain, Germany, France and Italy are the most popular destinations, so perhaps the UK is a bit more of an average country than it thinks it is.
Quel surprise, they don't count the real world though TUD. Great world power my large Kilmarnock bunnet
What is a large Kilmarnock bunnet? On second thoughts, perhaps I don’t want to know.
Something one needs to wear to keep one's head warm on a windswept Christmas day fixture at Rugby Park?
A trilby more the thing at Palmerston Park apparently.
PT said, inter alia "The idea that she's only in jail because Johnson misspoke is a lie. Yes the Iranians seized upon what he said but she was already in jail and they were already increasing her sentence and filing new claims and getting a longer sentence for her before any of that happened."
At no point have I suggested she wasn't in jail already. And, yes, the Iranians were looking at further charges before the crassly incompetent statement was made in there HoC, which seems to have made an already bad situation worse.
Leader of fisher folk on R4 asked by Nick Robinson asked if he was unhappy with BJ’s deal; angry, disappointed and betrayed are better descriptions was the reply.
Govey will be on later to tell him why he was wrong.
He's on now and struggling.
A lot of soundbites but uncomfortable silences on the detail of increased bureaucracy.
Having spent decades arguing why red tape was Bad for business and then specifics about how EU rules are red tape that we had to bin then now need to explain that red tape is Good. Only by imposing large amounts of complex and costly red tape on business can they make it more efficient and more competitive. Or something.
This is why the two sides will never agree. To me (and perhaps you) the fact that UK businesses are going to be saddled with huge new costs and processes is already an indication that Brexit is a failure. To others it is us taking back control.
That Spectator article is a load of tosh, much like what Gove was spouting this morning.
Finance is no-one's favourite industry but it exports many of its services, employs loads of people and brings in lots of tax revenue, far more than fishing ever has or ever will.
When it has to depend on the say so of the EU Commission (note: not our government) to know whether and how it can continue to operate, whether our laws and rules are equivalent to the EU's laws and rules - even after Britain has regained "sovereignty" and "become independent" - we have in no sense "taken back control".
Still, who cares? All those fishing revenues will doubtless be more than enough to pay for all the "levelling up" the government is now promising.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
Here comes the Boris fanboy troll.
Yawn, that really is old and tired.
I'll criticise Boris when he deserves it. I'll criticise Iran when they do.
With Zaghari-Ratcliffe the buck stops with Iran not the UK. She is an Iranian citizen in an Iranian jail because Iran lacks a free and fair judiciary. The rest is just media and pointscoring nonsense.
Oh for goodness sake. If one gives credit to Johnson for sticking it to the EU, inventing a vaccine, and saving most of the 800,000 people that Eadric claimed this time last year would die of Covid, fair enough, but no one who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool Boris fanboi can give him anything other than stark criticism for Mrs Ratcliffe's plight. His thoughtless, verbal diarrhea, intervention as FS made a bad situation catastrophic.
Away with your nonsense!
Bulldust.
The situation already was catastrophic. She was already imprisoned and being abused as a pawn before Johnson spoke. That is why Johnson was asked about her.
To say otherwise is to put the cart before the horse.
She is an Iranian citizen being abused by the Iranian dictatorial government with its compliant and corrupt courts. To put this on anyone other than Iran is narcissistic codswallop.
Oh for goodness' sake. If you can't see that the evil Iranian regime was not later, ably assisted by your bungling friend you are living in a fantasy.
It is not a fantasy I need to be part of. Au Revoir!
No the regime wasn't assisted because the regime doesn't have a free and fair judiciary.
If Iran had a free and fair judiciary then what Johnson said wouldn't have mattered because it wasn't saying what the Iranians twisted it to. Since Iran doesn't have a free and fair judiciary they didn't need anything from Johnson to convict her - any more than they did the first time the convicted her or how they had ALREADY filed extra charges to increase her sentence.
The Johnson thing is a sideline. The root of the issue is and always has been that Iran abuses its citizens, of which she is one.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
Mr. Walker, aye, and the alternative was that we'd all have starved to death because of economic Armageddon. Unsurprisingly, the path is somewhere between those.
Mr. (?) S, immigration was a major factor. But I'd suggest implying half the country is racist isn't necessarily the most persuasive opening gambit.
I wouldn't use the word "racist". Just "prejudiced" - whether that is against foreigners generally, specific races, generalised class snobbery, or even in our case locally against those evil Durham bastards over the river.
We won't cure this by calling people racist, but at the same time we can't ignore the reality that a lot of people are prejudiced against other people who aren't them. Having now defeated the evil FrogHuns we will now be encouraged to go back to being prejudiced against the poor or single mothers or the Scotch. We have to have it in for some other poor sods otherwise we might realise what is actually going on and have it in for the fat men at the top of the pile, and we can't have that can we?
What I have found really strange is that our vaccines for the flu have been relatively ineffective over the years, better some than others and dependent upon a fair amount of guesswork as to what the dominant strand is going to be in any particular year. So far, the success rate with vaccines against Covid seems to be much, much higher and a variety of different techniques have all produced pretty similar results.
Has our flu efforts just been half-hearted and underfunded, has the wall of money thrown at Covid produced some genuinely new breakthroughs, or have we just been surprisingly lucky? I get the impression that the world has learned a huge amount about the spread and DNA of viruses through this pandemic. Hopefully this will spill into other areas once the immediate panic is over.
There's this theory, espoused by some derided by others, that one of the benefits from global warming is milder winters which have put a check on flu season.
Isn't it more likely that the distancing people have done in aggregate will have pushed R for the flu right down ? If people are distancing for the sake of one virus, it's going to effect every other virus transmitted in a similiar manner
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
I am not sure that really answers it; many of the French feel the same about being French in my experience, ditto the Germans.
Patriotism. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
PT said, inter alia "The idea that she's only in jail because Johnson misspoke is a lie. Yes the Iranians seized upon what he said but she was already in jail and they were already increasing her sentence and filing new claims and getting a longer sentence for her before any of that happened."
At no point have I suggested she wasn't in jail already. And, yes, the Iranians were looking at further charges before the crassly incompetent statement was made in there HoC, which seems to have made an already bad situation worse.
C'mon, Boris's hands were tied. Tied by him being an incompetent buffoon, but tied nevertheless.
What I have found really strange is that our vaccines for the flu have been relatively ineffective over the years, better some than others and dependent upon a fair amount of guesswork as to what the dominant strand is going to be in any particular year. So far, the success rate with vaccines against Covid seems to be much, much higher and a variety of different techniques have all produced pretty similar results.
Has our flu efforts just been half-hearted and underfunded, has the wall of money thrown at Covid produced some genuinely new breakthroughs, or have we just been surprisingly lucky? I get the impression that the world has learned a huge amount about the spread and DNA of viruses through this pandemic. Hopefully this will spill into other areas once the immediate panic is over.
There's this theory, espoused by some derided by others, that one of the benefits from global warming is milder winters which have put a check on flu season.
Isn't it more likely that the distancing people have done in aggregate will have pushed R for the flu right down ? If people are distancing for the sake of one virus, it's going to effect every other virus transmitted in a similiar manner
Also flu jab takeup will have been sky high this year
Leader of fisher folk on R4 asked by Nick Robinson asked if he was unhappy with BJ’s deal; angry, disappointed and betrayed are better descriptions was the reply.
Govey will be on later to tell him why he was wrong.
He's on now and struggling.
A lot of soundbites but uncomfortable silences on the detail of increased bureaucracy.
Having spent decades arguing why red tape was Bad for business and then specifics about how EU rules are red tape that we had to bin then now need to explain that red tape is Good. Only by imposing large amounts of complex and costly red tape on business can they make it more efficient and more competitive. Or something.
This is why the two sides will never agree. To me (and perhaps you) the fact that UK businesses are going to be saddled with huge new costs and processes is already an indication that Brexit is a failure. To others it is us taking back control.
That Spectator article is a load of tosh, much like what Gove was spouting this morning.
Finance is no-one's favourite industry but it exports many of its services, employs loads of people and brings in lots of tax revenue, far more than fishing ever has or ever will.
When it has to depend on the say so of the EU Commission (note: not our government) to know whether and how it can continue to operate, whether our laws and rules are equivalent to the EU's laws and rules - even after Britain has regained "sovereignty" and "become independent" - we have in no sense "taken back control".
Still, who cares? All those fishing revenues will doubtless be more than enough to pay for all the "levelling up" the government is now promising.
I don't understand why some people think "taking back control" ever referred to trade with other countries?
Taking back control means we are in control of laws within this country. Not globally. The EU is in control of their area just as we are in control of ours.
But Finance as your example is an expert industry at finding a way to work worldwide regardless of what politicians want.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
PT said, inter alia "The idea that she's only in jail because Johnson misspoke is a lie. Yes the Iranians seized upon what he said but she was already in jail and they were already increasing her sentence and filing new claims and getting a longer sentence for her before any of that happened."
At no point have I suggested she wasn't in jail already. And, yes, the Iranians were looking at further charges before the crassly incompetent statement was made in there HoC, which seems to have made an already bad situation worse.
I don't see how it is any worse.
Do you accept all of these thoughts of mine?
They wanted her in jail.
They had already jailed her.
They had no intention of letting her out.
They had filed extra charges to jail her for longer
Their judiciary is neither free nor fair.
Whether she is guilty or innocent is immaterial to their judiciary.
If all of those are true then I don't see how his statement made it any worse. If you dispute any of them, then I'm curious which one?
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Very, very true. Britain's Trump. One wonders whether he will cling on too long and end up humiliated, as Trump looks like being.
A fair bit of discussion about Erasmus scheme in recent days. With claims both about what UK students have lost through not being able to go to European universities, or the UK have lost through EU students not coming here.
A question.
Assuming the British Govt reasons for why they have withdrawn from the scheme are true (EU tripling cost) and setting to one side the debate about whether the new Govt scheme represents an adequate replacement, has there been any comment in the EU press about how EU students have now lost the opportunity to come to the EU and study for a year at some of the World's best universities? And even criticism if this IS something that has been triggered by the EU overplaying its hand and perhaps failing to recognise what an asset UK universities possibly were to the scheme compared to perhaps other third party "associate" members?
That is a very heroic assumption in your first line.
Indeed - but if it's true that the cost tripled, then it provided an excuse that wouldn't otherwise have been available. And it must surely be true that the UK brought a lot more to the scheme than your average country.
I haven’t seen any indication of what this apparent tripling of the cost means compared to what non EU countries pay to participate; is it roughly comparable?
I read that Spain, Germany, France and Italy are the most popular destinations, so perhaps the UK is a bit more of an average country than it thinks it is.
Quel surprise, they don't count the real world though TUD. Great world power my large Kilmarnock bunnet
What is a large Kilmarnock bunnet? On second thoughts, perhaps I don’t want to know.
Mr. Walker, aye, and the alternative was that we'd all have starved to death because of economic Armageddon. Unsurprisingly, the path is somewhere between those.
Mr. (?) S, immigration was a major factor. But I'd suggest implying half the country is racist isn't necessarily the most persuasive opening gambit.
I don’t remember threats of mass starvation.
In reality, the Brexiters lied - and continued lying - as an essential part of the project. The mendacity was baked in.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Very, very true. Britain's Trump. One wonders whether he will cling on too long and end up humiliated, as Trump looks like being.
Boris and Trump. Two peas in a pod. Oh, how much comfort that idea gives to the Boris-haters.
There's nothing in it, of course. Let's start with Boris is a winner, Trump is a loser.
PT said, inter alia "The idea that she's only in jail because Johnson misspoke is a lie. Yes the Iranians seized upon what he said but she was already in jail and they were already increasing her sentence and filing new claims and getting a longer sentence for her before any of that happened."
At no point have I suggested she wasn't in jail already. And, yes, the Iranians were looking at further charges before the crassly incompetent statement was made in there HoC, which seems to have made an already bad situation worse.
I don't see how it is any worse.
Do you accept all of these thoughts of mine?
They wanted her in jail.
They had already jailed her.
They had no intention of letting her out.
They had filed extra charges to jail her for longer
Their judiciary is neither free nor fair.
Whether she is guilty or innocent is immaterial to their judiciary.
If all of those are true then I don't see how his statement made it any worse. If you dispute any of them, then I'm curious which one?
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Very, very true. Britain's Trump. One wonders whether he will cling on too long and end up humiliated, as Trump looks like being.
Boris and Trump. Two peas in a pod. Oh, how much comfort that idea gives to the Boris-haters.
There's nothing in it, of course. Let's start with Boris is a winner, Trump is a loser.
Mr. Walker, if deception's the problem then the reneged upon referendum was a milestone on the road to leaving the EU.
Promising people a say then denying it isn't exactly a recipe for concord.
The Leave campaign was entirely complacent. And Remain full of prophesies of doom. Both were dreadful. If we have another referendum at some point I hope the campaigns are rather more enlightening.
"With a customs border in the Irish Sea, the UK becomes the first country in the world not to be able to freely trade with itself. Let that sink in as Johnson crows about his deal ..."
What about the Canary Islands? They're a part of Spain but outside the EU customs union? The GB-NI barriers will probably be more substantial in some areas, but I wouldn't say the UK is the first country ever to do that.
Is that true Re canary Islands? I can only see they are outside VAT harmonisation area
Maybe Heligoland (former outpost of the British Empire) is an example...
There are a number of examples. It is far, far from unprecedented and normally due to historical quirks or geography.
Incidentally yes Heligoland is specifically one. It is recognised as part of Germany and a territory of the EU but not covered by the EU's customs rules.
Other examples: Faroe Islands, Greenland, French overseas territories, the German territory of Busingen, Italian Livigno, Italian Campione d'Italia, Italina waters of Lake Lugano, Neterlands Antilles, Spain's Ceuta and Spain's Mililla.
So all in all it was a really, really dumb argument to suggest it was a world first.
Fair point. Accepted. Greenland of course is a bit of a special case, win that it what one might call 'semi-independent'!
The Faroe Islands and others are also not part of the EU.
And others?
Heliogoland, Busingen, Livigno, Campione d'Italia, the Italian waters of Lake Lugano, Ceuta and Melilla are all in the EU but not the EU's customs area.
So far from "world first".
Meanwhile the still to be finalised Gibraltar Agreement looks like they will enter Schengen, meaning passport checks for British arrivals but not for Spaniards crossing the land border.
While the EU's Ireland will be out of Schengen and in a Common Travel Area with the UK, meaning passport checks for fellow EU arrivals but not for Britons crossing the land border.
Do you have a point to make about that?
There's no passport checks for EU nationals crossing the Irish land border either.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Very, very true. Britain's Trump. One wonders whether he will cling on too long and end up humiliated, as Trump looks like being.
Boris and Trump. Two peas in a pod. Oh, how much comfort that idea gives to the Boris-haters.
There's nothing in it, of course. Let's start with Boris is a winner, Trump is a loser.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
Plenty of countries manage to have a Federal system without it inevitably leading to internal political division.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Mr. Walker, if deception's the problem then the reneged upon referendum was a milestone on the road to leaving the EU.
Promising people a say then denying it isn't exactly a recipe for concord.
The Leave campaign was entirely complacent. And Remain full of prophesies of doom. Both were dreadful. If we have another referendum at some point I hope the campaigns are rather more enlightening.
I reject equivalence between the two campaigns (or philosophies). Brexit is, essentially, a lie. Hence why so many Remainers struggled to “get on board”.
But I agree that we ought to have had a referendum on Lisbon and that the Renain campaign was poor. Both were examples of elite complacency.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Very, very true. Britain's Trump. One wonders whether he will cling on too long and end up humiliated, as Trump looks like being.
Boris and Trump. Two peas in a pod. Oh, how much comfort that idea gives to the Boris-haters.
There's nothing in it, of course. Let's start with Boris is a winner, Trump is a loser.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
Can't read the whole article but the UK government has been clear for years that it cannot protect dual nationals in their other nationality country. If you want British protection in your other country you have to renounce that country nationality.
The article is not very clear but seems to imply that no British citizen is entitled to help not just those who are dual citizens. If so, what in earth is the value in a British passport?
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Very, very true. Britain's Trump. One wonders whether he will cling on too long and end up humiliated, as Trump looks like being.
Boris and Trump. Two peas in a pod. Oh, how much comfort that idea gives to the Boris-haters.
There's nothing in it, of course. Let's start with Boris is a winner, Trump is a loser.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Very, very true. Britain's Trump. One wonders whether he will cling on too long and end up humiliated, as Trump looks like being.
Boris and Trump. Two peas in a pod. Oh, how much comfort that idea gives to the Boris-haters.
There's nothing in it, of course. Let's start with Boris is a winner, Trump is a loser.
Trump is now a loser. He won in 2016, remember.
All political careers end in failure, as a Brexiter once noted.
Leader of fisher folk on R4 asked by Nick Robinson asked if he was unhappy with BJ’s deal; angry, disappointed and betrayed are better descriptions was the reply.
Govey will be on later to tell him why he was wrong.
He's on now and struggling.
A lot of soundbites but uncomfortable silences on the detail of increased bureaucracy.
Having spent decades arguing why red tape was Bad for business and then specifics about how EU rules are red tape that we had to bin then now need to explain that red tape is Good. Only by imposing large amounts of complex and costly red tape on business can they make it more efficient and more competitive. Or something.
This is why the two sides will never agree. To me (and perhaps you) the fact that UK businesses are going to be saddled with huge new costs and processes is already an indication that Brexit is a failure. To others it is us taking back control.
That Spectator article is a load of tosh, much like what Gove was spouting this morning.
Finance is no-one's favourite industry but it exports many of its services, employs loads of people and brings in lots of tax revenue, far more than fishing ever has or ever will.
When it has to depend on the say so of the EU Commission (note: not our government) to know whether and how it can continue to operate, whether our laws and rules are equivalent to the EU's laws and rules - even after Britain has regained "sovereignty" and "become independent" - we have in no sense "taken back control".
Still, who cares? All those fishing revenues will doubtless be more than enough to pay for all the "levelling up" the government is now promising.
I don't understand why some people think "taking back control" ever referred to trade with other countries?
Taking back control means we are in control of laws within this country. Not globally. The EU is in control of their area just as we are in control of ours.
But Finance as your example is an expert industry at finding a way to work worldwide regardless of what politicians want.
As usual you misunderstand. We are not in control of our laws here in the U.K. regarding a very important part of our economy because we are dependent on the EU Commission approving them. If they don't those businesses will have to stop or move.
Depending on "equivalence" is a loss of control not taking it back, as everyone from the Governor of the Bank of England down has said - repeatedly. But of course you know better than those who have worked in this industry all their lives.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Lol.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better.
Neither of those statements is true
Ask the "fisherfolk" if BoZo delivered for them?
Brexit was explicitly sold as "better than we had"
PT said, inter alia "The idea that she's only in jail because Johnson misspoke is a lie. Yes the Iranians seized upon what he said but she was already in jail and they were already increasing her sentence and filing new claims and getting a longer sentence for her before any of that happened."
At no point have I suggested she wasn't in jail already. And, yes, the Iranians were looking at further charges before the crassly incompetent statement was made in there HoC, which seems to have made an already bad situation worse.
I don't see how it is any worse.
Do you accept all of these thoughts of mine?
They wanted her in jail.
They had already jailed her.
They had no intention of letting her out.
They had filed extra charges to jail her for longer
Their judiciary is neither free nor fair.
Whether she is guilty or innocent is immaterial to their judiciary.
If all of those are true then I don't see how his statement made it any worse. If you dispute any of them, then I'm curious which one?
I'd dispute two, in fact. Points 3 and 4.
But point 4 is a matter of fact.
Johnson spoke in November.
The Iranian regime filed extra charges to jail her for longer in October.
I know that October is the tenth month of the year and November translates to 'ninth month' but October is before November. No ifs or buts about that.
If you dispute it, then please explain how you view October to be after November?
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
The entire Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/Johnson saga on its own is an absolutely object lesson in why Johnson is totally unfit for high office. If an object lesson were needed.
Bulldust.
Its an example of Iran being twunts. They would have done the same thing with or without Johnson.
They would have been able to claim the UK government had admitted she broke Iranian law around journalism when she hadn't?
They don't have a free and fair judiciary and it is preposterous to suggest they do.
It was a sham, we all know that and they would have invented whatever pretext they needed to do so with or without Johnson.
Anyone who puts the blame for Zaghari-Ratcliffe's situation on anyone other than the Iranians really isn't seeing the wood for the trees.
Here comes the Boris fanboy troll.
Yawn, that really is old and tired.
I'll criticise Boris when he deserves it. I'll criticise Iran when they do.
With Zaghari-Ratcliffe the buck stops with Iran not the UK. She is an Iranian citizen in an Iranian jail because Iran lacks a free and fair judiciary. The rest is just media and pointscoring nonsense.
Oh for goodness sake. If one gives credit to Johnson for sticking it to the EU, inventing a vaccine, and saving most of the 800,000 people that Eadric claimed this time last year would die of Covid, fair enough, but no one who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool Boris fanboi can give him anything other than stark criticism for Mrs Ratcliffe's plight. His thoughtless, verbal diarrhea, intervention as FS made a bad situation catastrophic.
Away with your nonsense!
Bulldust.
The situation already was catastrophic. She was already imprisoned and being abused as a pawn before Johnson spoke. That is why Johnson was asked about her.
To say otherwise is to put the cart before the horse.
She is an Iranian citizen being abused by the Iranian dictatorial government with its compliant and corrupt courts. To put this on anyone other than Iran is narcissistic codswallop.
There's little doubt that Johnson's catastrophic error in the HoC made the poor woman's situation worse. It was just about as bad a statement as could have been made.
Perhaps.
But she was already in jail before he spoke. She had been jailed for five years before he spoke. The Iranians had already filed extra charges to increase her sentence before he spoke.
The idea that she's only in jail because Johnson misspoke is a lie. Yes the Iranians seized upon what he said but she was already in jail and they were already increasing her sentence and filing new claims and getting a longer sentence for her before any of that happened.
Johnson may not be perfect but he does not have a Tardis. It would require a Tardis to have all the things happening before he spoke blamed upon him. Its just easier to blame Boris than to blame the dodgy Iranians for how they choose to abuse their own citizens it seems.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was chosen to be a pawn ina contract dispute because she was a woman and a mother. The Iranians cynically assumed that the UK Government would fold as a result. It is negotiating, Iranian style.
The only difference between them and the Mafia is that they haven't started sending her fingers home, one at a time. Other than that....
"With a customs border in the Irish Sea, the UK becomes the first country in the world not to be able to freely trade with itself. Let that sink in as Johnson crows about his deal ..."
What about the Canary Islands? They're a part of Spain but outside the EU customs union? The GB-NI barriers will probably be more substantial in some areas, but I wouldn't say the UK is the first country ever to do that.
Is that true Re canary Islands? I can only see they are outside VAT harmonisation area
Maybe Heligoland (former outpost of the British Empire) is an example...
There are a number of examples. It is far, far from unprecedented and normally due to historical quirks or geography.
Incidentally yes Heligoland is specifically one. It is recognised as part of Germany and a territory of the EU but not covered by the EU's customs rules.
Other examples: Faroe Islands, Greenland, French overseas territories, the German territory of Busingen, Italian Livigno, Italian Campione d'Italia, Italina waters of Lake Lugano, Neterlands Antilles, Spain's Ceuta and Spain's Mililla.
So all in all it was a really, really dumb argument to suggest it was a world first.
Fair point. Accepted. Greenland of course is a bit of a special case, win that it what one might call 'semi-independent'!
The Faroe Islands and others are also not part of the EU.
And others?
Heliogoland, Busingen, Livigno, Campione d'Italia, the Italian waters of Lake Lugano, Ceuta and Melilla are all in the EU but not the EU's customs area.
So far from "world first".
Meanwhile the still to be finalised Gibraltar Agreement looks like they will enter Schengen, meaning passport checks for British arrivals but not for Spaniards crossing the land border.
While the EU's Ireland will be out of Schengen and in a Common Travel Area with the UK, meaning passport checks for fellow EU arrivals but not for Britons crossing the land border.
Do you have a point to make about that?
There's no passport checks for EU nationals crossing the Irish land border either.
Nor if Gibraltar is in Schengen will there be passport checks for British nationals crossing the Gibraltar/Spain land border either.
That is the point. @IanB2 was making an absurd argument.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Very, very true. Britain's Trump. One wonders whether he will cling on too long and end up humiliated, as Trump looks like being.
Boris and Trump. Two peas in a pod. Oh, how much comfort that idea gives to the Boris-haters.
There's nothing in it, of course. Let's start with Boris is a winner, Trump is a loser.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Lol.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
"With the voters"
That's why at every stage Boris has done what he can to avoid the people's representatives - MPs in Parliament - from having any say or scrutiny.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Lol.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
It makes the bold assumption that Whitehall is a little c*** free zone.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
Can't read the whole article but the UK government has been clear for years that it cannot protect dual nationals in their other nationality country. If you want British protection in your other country you have to renounce that country nationality.
The article is not very clear but seems to imply that no British citizen is entitled to help not just those who are dual citizens. If so, what in earth is the value in a British passport?
I've read the article. She's a dual citizen in a country that does not recognise dual citizenship. As far as Iran is concerned she's Iranian.
Dual citizenship can be an advantage - but the big disadvantage is no help from Britain in the country of your other citizenship - and that is something the UK government has been very clear on for years.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Very, very true. Britain's Trump. One wonders whether he will cling on too long and end up humiliated, as Trump looks like being.
Boris and Trump. Two peas in a pod. Oh, how much comfort that idea gives to the Boris-haters.
There's nothing in it, of course. Let's start with Boris is a winner, Trump is a loser.
Trump is now a loser. He won in 2016, remember.
Not the popular vote. Not an 80 seat majority.
Boris didn't win the popular vote either. A British PM rarely does. Eden, in 1955 was the last one to get close, and before him Attlee.
Things to do, now, so off for a while. Play nicely!
Leader of fisher folk on R4 asked by Nick Robinson asked if he was unhappy with BJ’s deal; angry, disappointed and betrayed are better descriptions was the reply.
Govey will be on later to tell him why he was wrong.
He's on now and struggling.
A lot of soundbites but uncomfortable silences on the detail of increased bureaucracy.
Having spent decades arguing why red tape was Bad for business and then specifics about how EU rules are red tape that we had to bin then now need to explain that red tape is Good. Only by imposing large amounts of complex and costly red tape on business can they make it more efficient and more competitive. Or something.
This is why the two sides will never agree. To me (and perhaps you) the fact that UK businesses are going to be saddled with huge new costs and processes is already an indication that Brexit is a failure. To others it is us taking back control.
That Spectator article is a load of tosh, much like what Gove was spouting this morning.
Finance is no-one's favourite industry but it exports many of its services, employs loads of people and brings in lots of tax revenue, far more than fishing ever has or ever will.
When it has to depend on the say so of the EU Commission (note: not our government) to know whether and how it can continue to operate, whether our laws and rules are equivalent to the EU's laws and rules - even after Britain has regained "sovereignty" and "become independent" - we have in no sense "taken back control".
Still, who cares? All those fishing revenues will doubtless be more than enough to pay for all the "levelling up" the government is now promising.
I don't understand why some people think "taking back control" ever referred to trade with other countries?
Taking back control means we are in control of laws within this country. Not globally. The EU is in control of their area just as we are in control of ours.
But Finance as your example is an expert industry at finding a way to work worldwide regardless of what politicians want.
As usual you misunderstand. We are not in control of our laws here in the U.K. regarding a very important part of our economy because we are dependent on the EU Commission approving them. If they don't those businesses will have to stop or move.
Depending on "equivalence" is a loss of control not taking it back, as everyone from the Governor of the Bank of England down has said - repeatedly. But of course you know better than those who have worked in this industry all their lives.
What trade within this country between entities within this country with no connections to Europe depends upon "equivalence"?
"Equivalence" is required for international trade, I never disputed that. So I'm not claiming to know better since I agree it is required for international trade but that isn't the point. Taking back control is about domestic arrangements not international ones.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
I do get confused easily. It is not ok to say some leavers are xenophobic? But its ok to say a vast swathe of people voted Brexit because of little c**ts from Luxembourg? Right!
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Lol.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
"With the voters"
That's why at every stage Boris has done what he can to avoid the people's representatives - MPs in Parliament - from having any say or scrutiny.
If the voters are unhappy with that they get a say no later than 2024.
Vaccine rollout will be the big story of 2021. Unfortunately (predictions follow) - it is not going to go smoothly.
The target of getting 25m at risk population by April will be missed. The logistical challenges are considerable and this govt's delivery record questionable. Vaccine will end up being wasted. It will be hard to identify the right people. There will be another IT debacle.
But most importantly - the manufacturers will not make the promised orders at the promised time - they are already missing them. We will see political pressure to help certain countries first regardless of existing orders.
Lockdown 3 will be lifted too early and as a result we will have Lockdown 4. Calls to vaccinate health workers earlier will intensify. Sadly as many people will die of COVID in 2021 in the UK as in 2020.
The bright news is that the vaccine will work and life will return to normality by next Winter. The economy will come roaring back once the virus is beaten.
In domestic politics, Boris Johnson will come under pressure from the ERG to seize the opportunities of Brexit, such as they are. To head off criticism, he will reshuffle his cabinet and make Priti Patel chancellor.
Relations with the EU will, after an initial honeymoon period, deteriorate as both sides claim the other is not respecting the deal. Both sides will make legal threats. To increase the UK's leverage, Boris Johnson will aggressively pursue a US trade deal, exacerbating relations with Europe.
Brexit will however increasingly come to be accepted by the majority. Starmer will pick a fight with Tony Blair/Alastair Campbell and demote anyone suggesting the UK should rejoin.
Overall 2021 will not be the tonic of a year people are hoping for. The struggle against the virus will consume most of it.
You're a bundle of cheer!
One thing - I really don't understand your prediction on COVID deaths if you also think the vaccine will be effective. It will take a serious change in the nature of the virus for this to happen given the demographics of who it kills. Vaccine delays may impact how soon we can start opening up and get back to normal. It's going to have to start killing under 70s in significant numbers for it to beat 2020 on deaths isn't it?
Think it depends how long the vaccine will take to roll out. Plus remember vaccinated people will still die from COVID and most people still haven't got the disease yet.
I think this Winter will be really bad. More people in hospital with COVID now than at start of March lockdown + a more virulent strain + we aren't yet in national lockdown.
We have better treatments but I think likely 2nd wave will be worse.
I wouldn't be quite so pessimistic, but think that you are closer to the truth than the Daily Express, "back to normal by Feb" headlines.
Then there is the massive legacy to deal with. Lots of disability alongside all the deaths. The massive waiting lists and backlogs of other diseases*, the closed businesses that will never re-open, reduced tax receipts for both business and personal tax, and masses and masses of government debt. The big cloud may be that perhaps the virus ain't done with mutating just yet.
* 70% fewer diagnoses of diabetes type 2 this year for example.
Normal is never coming back, at least not for me. For example, my firm has got out of its London leases retain one building. We’re all working at home 3/5 from next year. We’re not alone. That’s a lot of sandwiches not bought.
Retail likewise needs to up its online offer or go to the wall. Apart from food 95% of my spend has been online and almost exclusively with free delivery or free pick up.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
Can't read the whole article but the UK government has been clear for years that it cannot protect dual nationals in their other nationality country. If you want British protection in your other country you have to renounce that country nationality.
The article is not very clear but seems to imply that no British citizen is entitled to help not just those who are dual citizens. If so, what in earth is the value in a British passport?
Getting in to a foreign country is the much bigger value of the passport. Consular assistance is rarely used and most people who need it seem to say it wasnt particularly helpful, slow and bureaucratic (a very biased sample I am sure, if things went well, it wouldnt make the media or be discussed as widely).
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
Can't read the whole article but the UK government has been clear for years that it cannot protect dual nationals in their other nationality country. If you want British protection in your other country you have to renounce that country nationality.
The article is not very clear but seems to imply that no British citizen is entitled to help not just those who are dual citizens. If so, what in earth is the value in a British passport?
I've read the article. She's a dual citizen in a country that does not recognise dual citizenship. As far as Iran is concerned she's Iranian.
Dual citizenship can be an advantage - but the big disadvantage is no help from Britain in the country of your other citizenship - and that is something the UK government has been very clear on for years.
Understood. But the way the article is written suggests that the FCO is now saying that even someone who is only a British citizen is not entitled to help.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
Plenty of countries manage to have a Federal system without it inevitably leading to internal political division.
England could do the same if it wishes.
As noted elsewhere England considers itself not as other countries. Of course that's not really true, I'd guess most countries if they were in a Union in which they *always* have 80%+ of the MPs wouldn't be too enthusiastic about changing things.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Lol.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
It makes the bold assumption that Whitehall is a little c*** free zone.
Britain is exceptional, we have the biggest c***s.
Comments
Away with your nonsense!
The situation already was catastrophic. She was already imprisoned and being abused as a pawn before Johnson spoke. That is why Johnson was asked about her.
To say otherwise is to put the cart before the horse.
She is an Iranian citizen being abused by the Iranian dictatorial government with its compliant and corrupt courts. To put this on anyone other than Iran is narcissistic codswallop.
That I share his sentiments is hardly surprising since I am only marginally behind in in age as well as hair style. So well done Boris, whatever else we may say about you. You got this one right.
But don’t forget Brexiters were told throughout that leaving the EU would see us “prosper mightily”. Boris and Gove maintain this fiction even now.
No doubt the SNP have their own version of this.
"Starting from 2021 until the end of 2027, the EU plans to triple the number of students who benefit from the Erasmus+"
https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/eu-to-expand-erasmus-programme-in-next-7-years-institutions-agree-to-invest-over-e26-billion/
Heliogoland, Busingen, Livigno, Campione d'Italia, the Italian waters of Lake Lugano, Ceuta and Melilla are all in the EU but not the EU's customs area.
So far from "world first".
On second thoughts, perhaps I don’t want to know.
I'm assuming that the price of second hand vans must have shot up, with so many people setting themselves up as self employed delivery drivers.
Mr. (?) S, immigration was a major factor. But I'd suggest implying half the country is racist isn't necessarily the most persuasive opening gambit.
There are contexts where you can't actually defend a shit without looking slightly like the W Edinburgh hotel yourself.
But she was already in jail before he spoke.
She had been jailed for five years before he spoke.
The Iranians had already filed extra charges to increase her sentence before he spoke.
The idea that she's only in jail because Johnson misspoke is a lie. Yes the Iranians seized upon what he said but she was already in jail and they were already increasing her sentence and filing new claims and getting a longer sentence for her before any of that happened.
Johnson may not be perfect but he does not have a Tardis. It would require a Tardis to have all the things happening before he spoke blamed upon him. Its just easier to blame Boris than to blame the dodgy Iranians for how they choose to abuse their own citizens it seems.
Do you have a point to make about that?
It is not a fantasy I need to be part of. Au Revoir!
https://twitter.com/DrW0mbat/status/1343368304379920385?s=20
The wife is hooked....
"The idea that she's only in jail because Johnson misspoke is a lie. Yes the Iranians seized upon what he said but she was already in jail and they were already increasing her sentence and filing new claims and getting a longer sentence for her before any of that happened."
At no point have I suggested she wasn't in jail already. And, yes, the Iranians were looking at further charges before the crassly incompetent statement was made in there HoC, which seems to have made an already bad situation worse.
Finance is no-one's favourite industry but it exports many of its services, employs loads of people and brings in lots of tax revenue, far more than fishing ever has or ever will.
When it has to depend on the say so of the EU Commission (note: not our government) to know whether and how it can continue to operate, whether our laws and rules are equivalent to the EU's laws and rules - even after Britain has regained "sovereignty" and "become independent" - we have in no sense "taken back control".
Still, who cares? All those fishing revenues will doubtless be more than enough to pay for all the "levelling up" the government is now promising.
If Iran had a free and fair judiciary then what Johnson said wouldn't have mattered because it wasn't saying what the Iranians twisted it to.
Since Iran doesn't have a free and fair judiciary they didn't need anything from Johnson to convict her - any more than they did the first time the convicted her or how they had ALREADY filed extra charges to increase her sentence.
The Johnson thing is a sideline. The root of the issue is and always has been that Iran abuses its citizens, of which she is one.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
We won't cure this by calling people racist, but at the same time we can't ignore the reality that a lot of people are prejudiced against other people who aren't them. Having now defeated the evil FrogHuns we will now be encouraged to go back to being prejudiced against the poor or single mothers or the Scotch. We have to have it in for some other poor sods otherwise we might realise what is actually going on and have it in for the fat men at the top of the pile, and we can't have that can we?
If people are distancing for the sake of one virus, it's going to effect every other virus transmitted in a similiar manner
Patriotism. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
Tied by him being an incompetent buffoon, but tied nevertheless.
Taking back control means we are in control of laws within this country. Not globally. The EU is in control of their area just as we are in control of ours.
But Finance as your example is an expert industry at finding a way to work worldwide regardless of what politicians want.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Do you accept all of these thoughts of mine?
- They wanted her in jail.
- They had already jailed her.
- They had no intention of letting her out.
- They had filed extra charges to jail her for longer
- Their judiciary is neither free nor fair.
- Whether she is guilty or innocent is immaterial to their judiciary.
If all of those are true then I don't see how his statement made it any worse. If you dispute any of them, then I'm curious which one?Britain's Trump. One wonders whether he will cling on too long and end up humiliated, as Trump looks like being.
I have never had as much fun as the times I’ve been to Glasgow. Maybe my favourite city in the U.K. (after London, obvs).
In reality, the Brexiters lied - and continued lying - as an essential part of the project. The mendacity was baked in.
There's nothing in it, of course. Let's start with Boris is a winner, Trump is a loser.
Promising people a say then denying it isn't exactly a recipe for concord.
The Leave campaign was entirely complacent. And Remain full of prophesies of doom. Both were dreadful. If we have another referendum at some point I hope the campaigns are rather more enlightening.
England could do the same if it wishes.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
But I agree that we ought to have had a referendum on Lisbon and that the Renain campaign was poor. Both were examples of elite complacency.
Depending on "equivalence" is a loss of control not taking it back, as everyone from the Governor of the Bank of England down has said - repeatedly. But of course you know better than those who have worked in this industry all their lives.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
Ask the "fisherfolk" if BoZo delivered for them?
Brexit was explicitly sold as "better than we had"
It's total bollocks
Celebrations and congratulations should be postponed until we see how fast and efficient the roll-out actually is.
Johnson spoke in November.
The Iranian regime filed extra charges to jail her for longer in October.
I know that October is the tenth month of the year and November translates to 'ninth month' but October is before November. No ifs or buts about that.
If you dispute it, then please explain how you view October to be after November?
https://twitter.com/CathNoakes/status/1343300215349112832?s=20
The only difference between them and the Mafia is that they haven't started sending her fingers home, one at a time. Other than that....
That is the point. @IanB2 was making an absurd argument.
https://twitter.com/radiosweden/status/1343500019467431941
That's why at every stage Boris has done what he can to avoid the people's representatives - MPs in Parliament - from having any say or scrutiny.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqUKaC-W4AECliU?format=jpg&name=large
Dual citizenship can be an advantage - but the big disadvantage is no help from Britain in the country of your other citizenship - and that is something the UK government has been very clear on for years.
Things to do, now, so off for a while. Play nicely!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55465079
"Equivalence" is required for international trade, I never disputed that. So I'm not claiming to know better since I agree it is required for international trade but that isn't the point. Taking back control is about domestic arrangements not international ones.
https://twitter.com/benatipsosmori/status/1343513242614837249
Skiers Behaving Badly.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55465079
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
He obviously had a poor relationship with May and seemed to blunder from one inappropriate quip to another.
Probably the lowest point was claiming that Sirte in Libya could be another Dubai, “they just need to clear away the dead bodies”.
Most of his energy indeed was expended on writing highly paid articles for the Telegraph, and finding ways of undermining the then Prime Minister.
Obviously he is not to blame for the imprisonment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Nor does he seem to have helped matters.
https://twitter.com/Independent/status/1343512107715878914