We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
Theoretically the EU could be lobbied by the French to impose some new standard which benefits their farmers and costs ours. The reason they couldn't come up with a practical example is because there aren't any.
Even now, Max is talking about biotech in the future. Meanwhile, to guard against these theoretical future events, we erected big trade barriers to make it expensive at best and commercially non-viable at worst for our producers today. To ensure that our identical to the EU standards are kept separate from their identical to the UK standards.
But we have a concrete example of where we've leveraged regulatory divergence from the EU to our advantage on AI. As I said, I'm not particularly fussed by this deal and I think it will probably help in the very short term but you're pretending it has no downside risk which is patently false. If EU regulations on gene editing and wider food biotech doesn't change a nascent UK industry will be sold off to the US and all of the IP and jobs will be transferred. Maybe that's a sacrifice worth paying for ease of exports for traditional companies, but it is still a downside risk and pretending it isn't does you no favours.
That has got the potential to be an advantage in the future in a world where the EU industry is too lazy to bother. I accept that. But the alternative - as you proposed - is that to protect that possible future we should continue to pay more for less now by maintaining the SPS border between GB and EU where the standards are practically identical.
I don't think the upside is as big as you do though. IMO we're trading a potential blockbuster industry for the UK for an extra £3-4bn worth if low margin exports to the EU. It doesn't feel like a good trade to me today, though I'm open to being proved wrong.
Geographically and biologically it doesn’t feel like something it would be easy to diverge on without creating more trading barriers than we already have. Not just the as-is, but a ratcheting up of border controls on biosecurity. But IANAE.
Eventually the EU will have to allow gene edited food and agriculture, global warming will necessitate it otherwise swathes of the Med become unviable for farming and traditional selective breeding methods are too slow.
I think there may be a 5-10 year period where, yes, exporting to the EU becomes progressively more difficult as we continue to diverge but then as the EU is forced to relax it's own blocks on gene editing and agricultural biotechnology the UK would be very, very well placed to export billions in IP licences and agricultural services to agribusiness all across the continent.
Sir Keir is gimp to the dominatrix that is the EU.
Oddly Boris Johnson forgets he was pegged senseless by the EU by putting a border in the Irish Sea, something Boris Johnson said no UK PM could ever do.
I tend to think NI Unionists were the pegged, as usual Johnson looked on blithely, only caring that it wasn’t him.
Nah, the DUP were cucked, not pegged.
He went to their conference, lied, got them to bring down Theresa May, then did what he said he wouldn’t, now they regret opposing Theresa May’s deal.
https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1924465843724759082 "The talks have been proceeding for a little while. We realize there's a bit of an impasse here, and I think the President [Trump] is going to say to president Putin, "Look, are you serious? Are you real about this?"
Honestly, I think that president Putin doesn't quite know how to get out of the war. This is a little bit of a guess, but I think the President would agree that part of this is I'm not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself for how to unwind the war that's been going on for a few years now.
There's fundamental mistrust between Russia and the West. It's one of the things the President thinks is frankly stupid, and we should be able to move beyond the mistakes that have been made in the past, but that takes two to tango. I know the President's willing to do that, but if Russia's not willing to do that, then we're eventually just going to have to say, 'This is not our war.' "
Which is of course exactly what Putin wishes.
What the VP misses that the President knows is that forcing Russia into a closer alliance with China is suboptimal, and therefore my prediction is the United States will continue to seek an end to the SMO.
Let’s face it, no western govt will call them out and no one will be held to account for it.
The IDF will just carry on without fear of any comeback. No one will ever stand trial.
The international war crimes tribunal, or whatever it is called, is merely a tool of western hegemony used to prosecute African Warlords and East Europeans. You will never see an American, Brit, Israeli or other western soldier there.
No nation should Co-operate with it.
I partly agree, but I'd say that the International Criminal Court is trying to do more. It has indicted Netanyahu and the Israeli defence minister. The problem is precisely that lots of nations won't co-operate with it (and Trump is actively trying to destroy it).
Since its first indictment in 8 July 2005, the ICC's record is:
Indicted but at large: 28 Died before being detained: 8 Detained in pre-trial phase: 1 Trial ongoing: 4 Died in custody: 1 Acquitted or charges dismissed/withdrawn: 15 Served or serving sentence: 9
Presumably the 9 serving time are East Europeans and African warlords.
You only have to look at the U.K. and how the murderous Marine A was treated as a victim and fetishised by some in the media and on daytime TV.
The ICC only applies where legal proceedings haven’t been initiated by one of the countries concerned.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
There is a basic problem - we can't dictate standards to others. With so much of UK food and drink imported and exported, creating separate standards for GB and NI/EU just isn't viable. Even creating separate GB labelling has been a ballache, with UKCA an expensive woeful misstep which thankfully we dropped.
We are of course free to set higher food standards than the EU, just not lower standards. Which in essence is what you are proposing that we do.
Creating different standards 100% is viable. It may be a headache but if that's the choice we make, suck it up. No reason you can't put a sticker on something saying "not for EU" ... oh wait, they already do that, perfectly viably.
Its not a linear scale, different is not necessarily either higher or lower.
Much EU red tape is bad policy based on protecting producer interests, with no regard to the consumer. That's awful protectionism which should be axed.
Axing protectionism that is not necessary is now a "lower" standard.
You're talking in generalities and making slogans. As usual. About an industry I work in and you do not.
"Not for EU" is an expensive arse of a thing to work - ask the industry. And the practical outcome is a whole load of producers who simply stopped selling in the UK because your "sticker" is a pile of regulatory paperwork which they decided not to pay for.
Tough shit if it's an expensive arse, it's a perfectly viable expensive arse.
You can argue its not worth it. Others like MaxPB have provided excellent arguments why it is worth it. Thats a debate worth having.
Saying it's not viable? That's just a lie. It's viable, the fact you dislike it or find it expensive or an arse doesn't make it unviable.
lol - tough shit?
Your proposal to add a stack of cost onto food because ideology means the following: 1. Consumers pay more for the same thing. "Tough shit" 2. Consumers find there is less product choice. "Tough shit" 3. Consumers find availability gaps because although there's stock in the warehouse, its export only. "Tough shit"
Can we do it - and have higher costs and less choice? Sure. But in the real world we're not doing it because it makes sense only to ideologues like your good self who don't have a clue how things work.
I await the Tories to go out and make the case for why the deal should be scrapped and food should be scarcer and more expensive. Will be fun to watch.
"Can we do it ... Sure. "
Then its viable.
You are making the fallacy of thinking "I work in this sector so my word is gospel" when actually what it means is "I work in this sector so I have a vested interest".
The role of politicians is to balance competing vested interests. Yours is just one.
Too often politicians, especially in the EU, put vested producer interests first to the detriment of potential growth sectors like biotech, as Max has richly portrayed.
You may think this is a good idea. Argue that then. Don't claim its not viable to change (when you know for a fact it is), or that because you have a vested interest we should pay no heed to alternative viewpoints like the potential for growth in biotech and other sectors.
I think your problem is - no disrespect - that you're playing deliberately dumb on this one.
There is a world of difference between something being technically possible and being economically viable.
Can we impose further barriers and restrictions on ourselves? Sure - but at what cost?
People need food to be cheaper. You want to make it more expensive. Diverging on standards is not just "a sticker" as you put it. We're already making farms non-viable and you're here saying to want to shut down more of them because reasons.
Again, its theory vs reality. And yes - I have a vested interest in wanting more choice and better value in the food we buy. Its called citizenship.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
There is a basic problem - we can't dictate standards to others. With so much of UK food and drink imported and exported, creating separate standards for GB and NI/EU just isn't viable. Even creating separate GB labelling has been a ballache, with UKCA an expensive woeful misstep which thankfully we dropped.
We are of course free to set higher food standards than the EU, just not lower standards. Which in essence is what you are proposing that we do.
Creating different standards 100% is viable. It may be a headache but if that's the choice we make, suck it up. No reason you can't put a sticker on something saying "not for EU" ... oh wait, they already do that, perfectly viably.
Its not a linear scale, different is not necessarily either higher or lower.
Much EU red tape is bad policy based on protecting producer interests, with no regard to the consumer. That's awful protectionism which should be axed.
Axing protectionism that is not necessary is now a "lower" standard.
You're talking in generalities and making slogans. As usual. About an industry I work in and you do not.
"Not for EU" is an expensive arse of a thing to work - ask the industry. And the practical outcome is a whole load of producers who simply stopped selling in the UK because your "sticker" is a pile of regulatory paperwork which they decided not to pay for.
Tough shit if it's an expensive arse, it's a perfectly viable expensive arse.
You can argue its not worth it. Others like MaxPB have provided excellent arguments why it is worth it. Thats a debate worth having.
Saying it's not viable? That's just a lie. It's viable, the fact you dislike it or find it expensive or an arse doesn't make it unviable.
lol - tough shit?
Your proposal to add a stack of cost onto food because ideology means the following: 1. Consumers pay more for the same thing. "Tough shit" 2. Consumers find there is less product choice. "Tough shit" 3. Consumers find availability gaps because although there's stock in the warehouse, its export only. "Tough shit"
Can we do it - and have higher costs and less choice? Sure. But in the real world we're not doing it because it makes sense only to ideologues like your good self who don't have a clue how things work.
I await the Tories to go out and make the case for why the deal should be scrapped and food should be scarcer and more expensive. Will be fun to watch.
"Can we do it ... Sure. "
Then its viable.
You are making the fallacy of thinking "I work in this sector so my word is gospel" when actually what it means is "I work in this sector so I have a vested interest".
The role of politicians is to balance competing vested interests. Yours is just one.
Too often politicians, especially in the EU, put vested producer interests first to the detriment of potential growth sectors like biotech, as Max has richly portrayed.
You may think this is a good idea. Argue that then. Don't claim its not viable to change (when you know for a fact it is), or that because you have a vested interest we should pay no heed to alternative viewpoints like the potential for growth in biotech and other sectors.
I think your problem is - no disrespect - that you're playing deliberately dumb on this one.
There is a world of difference between something being technically possible and being economically viable.
Can we impose further barriers and restrictions on ourselves? Sure - but at what cost?
People need food to be cheaper. You want to make it more expensive. Diverging on standards is not just "a sticker" as you put it. We're already making farms non-viable and you're here saying to want to shut down more of them because reasons.
Again, its theory vs reality. And yes - I have a vested interest in wanting more choice and better value in the food we buy. Its called citizenship.
There are many competing economically viable choices and the status quo is one of them. We have done it for a few years now - you dislike it, that much is crystal clear, but its still viably done.
You don't see the upside in divergence. Max and I do.
You think your opinion is the only one that matters due to your vested interest, I do not.
As someone blinded by their own vested interest, I think you don't see the wood for the trees.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
Theoretically the EU could be lobbied by the French to impose some new standard which benefits their farmers and costs ours. The reason they couldn't come up with a practical example is because there aren't any.
Even now, Max is talking about biotech in the future. Meanwhile, to guard against these theoretical future events, we erected big trade barriers to make it expensive at best and commercially non-viable at worst for our producers today. To ensure that our identical to the EU standards are kept separate from their identical to the UK standards.
But we have a concrete example of where we've leveraged regulatory divergence from the EU to our advantage on AI. As I said, I'm not particularly fussed by this deal and I think it will probably help in the very short term but you're pretending it has no downside risk which is patently false. If EU regulations on gene editing and wider food biotech doesn't change a nascent UK industry will be sold off to the US and all of the IP and jobs will be transferred. Maybe that's a sacrifice worth paying for ease of exports for traditional companies, but it is still a downside risk and pretending it isn't does you no favours.
That has got the potential to be an advantage in the future in a world where the EU industry is too lazy to bother. I accept that. But the alternative - as you proposed - is that to protect that possible future we should continue to pay more for less now by maintaining the SPS border between GB and EU where the standards are practically identical.
I don't think the upside is as big as you do though. IMO we're trading a potential blockbuster industry for the UK for an extra £3-4bn worth if low margin exports to the EU. It doesn't feel like a good trade to me today, though I'm open to being proved wrong.
The challenge with biotech is getting consumers to eat it. In reality so much food has already been bioengineered without anyone noticing, but overt GM remains a big consumer no no.
Sir Keir is gimp to the dominatrix that is the EU.
Oddly Boris Johnson forgets he was pegged senseless by the EU by putting a border in the Irish Sea, something Boris Johnson said no UK PM could ever do.
An outrageous slur sir. The Boris deal was Oven Ready. And was clearly Best for Britain when he negotiated it, though just like wine into blood in transmogrifies into something else when someone else extends it.
He knew he couldn't win the GE on a No Deal platform so he needed a deal, any deal, even one that "No UK prime minister could ever accept".
I assumed that the orange-ball thing was a reference to the Stephen Milligan story from the mid-90s. Boris's happy place as a brick-chucking journalist.
Though whether it's ever prudent for a Conservative politician to make sex scandal references is another matter.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
I am content with the reset though with close links to the Scottish fishermen I can understand why they are angry
Amazing how quick the news media move on
Sky now all about Trump's present phone call with Putin
*Some of them* are angry. Others are delighted. Even the angry fishermen will benefit from easier trading to their biggest export market. Which they have been demanding ever since the TCA went in.
Given the impacts, I’d guess it’s East coast unhappy, West coast happy.
Pelagic and demersal fishing is far more concentrated in Scottish waters, shellfish is more evenly spread around the UK.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
There is a basic problem - we can't dictate standards to others. With so much of UK food and drink imported and exported, creating separate standards for GB and NI/EU just isn't viable. Even creating separate GB labelling has been a ballache, with UKCA an expensive woeful misstep which thankfully we dropped.
We are of course free to set higher food standards than the EU, just not lower standards. Which in essence is what you are proposing that we do.
Creating different standards 100% is viable. It may be a headache but if that's the choice we make, suck it up. No reason you can't put a sticker on something saying "not for EU" ... oh wait, they already do that, perfectly viably.
Its not a linear scale, different is not necessarily either higher or lower.
Much EU red tape is bad policy based on protecting producer interests, with no regard to the consumer. That's awful protectionism which should be axed.
Axing protectionism that is not necessary is now a "lower" standard.
You're talking in generalities and making slogans. As usual. About an industry I work in and you do not.
"Not for EU" is an expensive arse of a thing to work - ask the industry. And the practical outcome is a whole load of producers who simply stopped selling in the UK because your "sticker" is a pile of regulatory paperwork which they decided not to pay for.
Tough shit if it's an expensive arse, it's a perfectly viable expensive arse.
You can argue its not worth it. Others like MaxPB have provided excellent arguments why it is worth it. Thats a debate worth having.
Saying it's not viable? That's just a lie. It's viable, the fact you dislike it or find it expensive or an arse doesn't make it unviable.
lol - tough shit?
Your proposal to add a stack of cost onto food because ideology means the following: 1. Consumers pay more for the same thing. "Tough shit" 2. Consumers find there is less product choice. "Tough shit" 3. Consumers find availability gaps because although there's stock in the warehouse, its export only. "Tough shit"
Can we do it - and have higher costs and less choice? Sure. But in the real world we're not doing it because it makes sense only to ideologues like your good self who don't have a clue how things work.
I await the Tories to go out and make the case for why the deal should be scrapped and food should be scarcer and more expensive. Will be fun to watch.
"Can we do it ... Sure. "
Then its viable.
You are making the fallacy of thinking "I work in this sector so my word is gospel" when actually what it means is "I work in this sector so I have a vested interest".
The role of politicians is to balance competing vested interests. Yours is just one.
Too often politicians, especially in the EU, put vested producer interests first to the detriment of potential growth sectors like biotech, as Max has richly portrayed.
You may think this is a good idea. Argue that then. Don't claim its not viable to change (when you know for a fact it is), or that because you have a vested interest we should pay no heed to alternative viewpoints like the potential for growth in biotech and other sectors.
I think your problem is - no disrespect - that you're playing deliberately dumb on this one.
There is a world of difference between something being technically possible and being economically viable.
Can we impose further barriers and restrictions on ourselves? Sure - but at what cost?
People need food to be cheaper. You want to make it more expensive. Diverging on standards is not just "a sticker" as you put it. We're already making farms non-viable and you're here saying to want to shut down more of them because reasons.
Again, its theory vs reality. And yes - I have a vested interest in wanting more choice and better value in the food we buy. Its called citizenship.
There are many competing economically viable choices and the status quo is one of them. We have done it for a few years now - you dislike it, that much is crystal clear, but its still viably done.
You don't see the upside in divergence. Max and I do.
You think your opinion is the only one that matters due to your vested interest, I do not.
As someone blinded by their own vested interest, I think you don't see the wood for the trees.
A comedy post, even from you. I think my opinion is laughably irrelevant. I am nobody in this industry. But I *am* in this industry, so know better than to embarass myself by trying to claim that Not For EU is just a sticker.
To flip your comment over, you don't see the downside in divergence. Dismiss costs as what was it, a "simple sticker". Ignores the breakdown in both imports to and exports from the UK as if it hasn't happened.
I am quite happy to protect potential future upsides - but as I said to Max you have to get past the "Frankenstein food" label which gets unfairly stuck on anything thats had some genetic twiddling done to it.
Sir Keir is gimp to the dominatrix that is the EU.
Oddly Boris Johnson forgets he was pegged senseless by the EU by putting a border in the Irish Sea, something Boris Johnson said no UK PM could ever do.
An outrageous slur sir. The Boris deal was Oven Ready. And was clearly Best for Britain when he negotiated it, though just like wine into blood in transmogrifies into something else when someone else extends it.
He knew he couldn't win the GE on a No Deal platform so he needed a deal, any deal, even one that "No UK prime minister could ever accept".
During the negotiations there were questions asked as to whether our negotiating team knew what they were doing. We found out since that Frost and Johnson had to be told by the officials what they had actually negotiated and what that meant.
Ideology and zeal are great. When it is backed by even a basic understanding of what it is you are doing. Problem was that neither of them had a clue.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
Theoretically the EU could be lobbied by the French to impose some new standard which benefits their farmers and costs ours. The reason they couldn't come up with a practical example is because there aren't any.
Even now, Max is talking about biotech in the future. Meanwhile, to guard against these theoretical future events, we erected big trade barriers to make it expensive at best and commercially non-viable at worst for our producers today. To ensure that our identical to the EU standards are kept separate from their identical to the UK standards.
But we have a concrete example of where we've leveraged regulatory divergence from the EU to our advantage on AI. As I said, I'm not particularly fussed by this deal and I think it will probably help in the very short term but you're pretending it has no downside risk which is patently false. If EU regulations on gene editing and wider food biotech doesn't change a nascent UK industry will be sold off to the US and all of the IP and jobs will be transferred. Maybe that's a sacrifice worth paying for ease of exports for traditional companies, but it is still a downside risk and pretending it isn't does you no favours.
That has got the potential to be an advantage in the future in a world where the EU industry is too lazy to bother. I accept that. But the alternative - as you proposed - is that to protect that possible future we should continue to pay more for less now by maintaining the SPS border between GB and EU where the standards are practically identical.
I don't think the upside is as big as you do though. IMO we're trading a potential blockbuster industry for the UK for an extra £3-4bn worth if low margin exports to the EU. It doesn't feel like a good trade to me today, though I'm open to being proved wrong.
The challenge with biotech is getting consumers to eat it. In reality so much food has already been bioengineered without anyone noticing, but overt GM remains a big consumer no no.
We've had GM food for decades at this point, I think the GM scare stories from the 90s and 00s all just petered out. It's all already in the food chain and there's no going back. I also don't think the same pushback from farmers will come this time either because they need the gene editing to keep their farms viable in the long term. The soil is becoming less nutritious, the climate is playing havoc with planting and harvesting cycles and they're much more ready for a technological solution than 20-30 years ago.
In the future GM crops will have a huge price advantage over non-GM crops and that will be the fundamental driver of consumer acceptance. A £1 loaf from GM wheat vs a £1.90 loaf from non-GM wheat, otherwise identical in taste and quality but because the GM wheat can be grown reliably in poor conditions the costs are much lower.
Mr Football-in-my-Garden seems to have a persecution complex - incoming Daily Mail Quotation warning:
Mr Bakhaty, 77, claimed the school 'deliberately' built the football pitch to 'upset' him and his wife.
Er .. it's a Primary School.
(Added essential Daily Mail context: "The school, whose alumni include former glamour model Lucy Pinder and television presenter Philipa Forrester..")
tbf if the school is losing a football every other day then maybe it ought to have thought a bit harder about where to put the pitch, how high to build the fence, and whether to hire a better football coach.
ETA it has been a long time but I really can't recall ever losing a ball from playground football games. Is it possible one or two of the kids are either shockingly bad strikers or are deliberately targeting the complainant?
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
There is a basic problem - we can't dictate standards to others. With so much of UK food and drink imported and exported, creating separate standards for GB and NI/EU just isn't viable. Even creating separate GB labelling has been a ballache, with UKCA an expensive woeful misstep which thankfully we dropped.
We are of course free to set higher food standards than the EU, just not lower standards. Which in essence is what you are proposing that we do.
Creating different standards 100% is viable. It may be a headache but if that's the choice we make, suck it up. No reason you can't put a sticker on something saying "not for EU" ... oh wait, they already do that, perfectly viably.
Its not a linear scale, different is not necessarily either higher or lower.
Much EU red tape is bad policy based on protecting producer interests, with no regard to the consumer. That's awful protectionism which should be axed.
Axing protectionism that is not necessary is now a "lower" standard.
You're talking in generalities and making slogans. As usual. About an industry I work in and you do not.
"Not for EU" is an expensive arse of a thing to work - ask the industry. And the practical outcome is a whole load of producers who simply stopped selling in the UK because your "sticker" is a pile of regulatory paperwork which they decided not to pay for.
Tough shit if it's an expensive arse, it's a perfectly viable expensive arse.
You can argue its not worth it. Others like MaxPB have provided excellent arguments why it is worth it. Thats a debate worth having.
Saying it's not viable? That's just a lie. It's viable, the fact you dislike it or find it expensive or an arse doesn't make it unviable.
lol - tough shit?
Your proposal to add a stack of cost onto food because ideology means the following: 1. Consumers pay more for the same thing. "Tough shit" 2. Consumers find there is less product choice. "Tough shit" 3. Consumers find availability gaps because although there's stock in the warehouse, its export only. "Tough shit"
Can we do it - and have higher costs and less choice? Sure. But in the real world we're not doing it because it makes sense only to ideologues like your good self who don't have a clue how things work.
I await the Tories to go out and make the case for why the deal should be scrapped and food should be scarcer and more expensive. Will be fun to watch.
"Can we do it ... Sure. "
Then its viable.
You are making the fallacy of thinking "I work in this sector so my word is gospel" when actually what it means is "I work in this sector so I have a vested interest".
The role of politicians is to balance competing vested interests. Yours is just one.
Too often politicians, especially in the EU, put vested producer interests first to the detriment of potential growth sectors like biotech, as Max has richly portrayed.
You may think this is a good idea. Argue that then. Don't claim its not viable to change (when you know for a fact it is), or that because you have a vested interest we should pay no heed to alternative viewpoints like the potential for growth in biotech and other sectors.
I think your problem is - no disrespect - that you're playing deliberately dumb on this one.
There is a world of difference between something being technically possible and being economically viable.
Can we impose further barriers and restrictions on ourselves? Sure - but at what cost?
People need food to be cheaper. You want to make it more expensive. Diverging on standards is not just "a sticker" as you put it. We're already making farms non-viable and you're here saying to want to shut down more of them because reasons.
Again, its theory vs reality. And yes - I have a vested interest in wanting more choice and better value in the food we buy. Its called citizenship.
There are many competing economically viable choices and the status quo is one of them. We have done it for a few years now - you dislike it, that much is crystal clear, but its still viably done.
You don't see the upside in divergence. Max and I do.
You think your opinion is the only one that matters due to your vested interest, I do not.
As someone blinded by their own vested interest, I think you don't see the wood for the trees.
A comedy post, even from you. I think my opinion is laughably irrelevant. I am nobody in this industry. But I *am* in this industry, so know better than to embarass myself by trying to claim that Not For EU is just a sticker.
To flip your comment over, you don't see the downside in divergence. Dismiss costs as what was it, a "simple sticker". Ignores the breakdown in both imports to and exports from the UK as if it hasn't happened.
I am quite happy to protect potential future upsides - but as I said to Max you have to get past the "Frankenstein food" label which gets unfairly stuck on anything thats had some genetic twiddling done to it.
I never said there are no downsides, and I never said it was just a sticker (though a sticker is part of it, it of course represents far more behind the scenes).
You pretend it is all one-way traffic, no downside, only sunlit uplands.
I am saying there are pros and cons to be debated.
Yes you have to get past the Franknstein label. I think people can and will, but should be given a choice, in a liberal free market backed by scientific research and development, not a closed, protectionist one.
If people choose not to, that's their choice, if they choose to, that's their choice. People should have a choice, but the EU wants to take the choice away via regulations and you're pretending there's no risk in that and that its not viable to make an alternative choice.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
Wick isn't boring. Its bleakness and emptiness are fascinating. I would love it if work sent me to Wick for a couple of days. I nearly got to go once, but a colleague got the gig. If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
Wick isn't boring. Its bleakness and emptiness are fascinating. I would love it if work sent me to Wick for a couple of days. I nearly got to go once, but a colleague got the gig. If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
There is a basic problem - we can't dictate standards to others. With so much of UK food and drink imported and exported, creating separate standards for GB and NI/EU just isn't viable. Even creating separate GB labelling has been a ballache, with UKCA an expensive woeful misstep which thankfully we dropped.
We are of course free to set higher food standards than the EU, just not lower standards. Which in essence is what you are proposing that we do.
Creating different standards 100% is viable. It may be a headache but if that's the choice we make, suck it up. No reason you can't put a sticker on something saying "not for EU" ... oh wait, they already do that, perfectly viably.
Its not a linear scale, different is not necessarily either higher or lower.
Much EU red tape is bad policy based on protecting producer interests, with no regard to the consumer. That's awful protectionism which should be axed.
Axing protectionism that is not necessary is now a "lower" standard.
You're talking in generalities and making slogans. As usual. About an industry I work in and you do not.
"Not for EU" is an expensive arse of a thing to work - ask the industry. And the practical outcome is a whole load of producers who simply stopped selling in the UK because your "sticker" is a pile of regulatory paperwork which they decided not to pay for.
Tough shit if it's an expensive arse, it's a perfectly viable expensive arse.
You can argue its not worth it. Others like MaxPB have provided excellent arguments why it is worth it. Thats a debate worth having.
Saying it's not viable? That's just a lie. It's viable, the fact you dislike it or find it expensive or an arse doesn't make it unviable.
lol - tough shit?
Your proposal to add a stack of cost onto food because ideology means the following: 1. Consumers pay more for the same thing. "Tough shit" 2. Consumers find there is less product choice. "Tough shit" 3. Consumers find availability gaps because although there's stock in the warehouse, its export only. "Tough shit"
Can we do it - and have higher costs and less choice? Sure. But in the real world we're not doing it because it makes sense only to ideologues like your good self who don't have a clue how things work.
I await the Tories to go out and make the case for why the deal should be scrapped and food should be scarcer and more expensive. Will be fun to watch.
"Can we do it ... Sure. "
Then its viable.
You are making the fallacy of thinking "I work in this sector so my word is gospel" when actually what it means is "I work in this sector so I have a vested interest".
The role of politicians is to balance competing vested interests. Yours is just one.
Too often politicians, especially in the EU, put vested producer interests first to the detriment of potential growth sectors like biotech, as Max has richly portrayed.
You may think this is a good idea. Argue that then. Don't claim its not viable to change (when you know for a fact it is), or that because you have a vested interest we should pay no heed to alternative viewpoints like the potential for growth in biotech and other sectors.
I think your problem is - no disrespect - that you're playing deliberately dumb on this one.
There is a world of difference between something being technically possible and being economically viable.
Can we impose further barriers and restrictions on ourselves? Sure - but at what cost?
People need food to be cheaper. You want to make it more expensive. Diverging on standards is not just "a sticker" as you put it. We're already making farms non-viable and you're here saying to want to shut down more of them because reasons.
Again, its theory vs reality. And yes - I have a vested interest in wanting more choice and better value in the food we buy. Its called citizenship.
There are many competing economically viable choices and the status quo is one of them. We have done it for a few years now - you dislike it, that much is crystal clear, but its still viably done.
You don't see the upside in divergence. Max and I do.
You think your opinion is the only one that matters due to your vested interest, I do not.
As someone blinded by their own vested interest, I think you don't see the wood for the trees.
A comedy post, even from you. I think my opinion is laughably irrelevant. I am nobody in this industry. But I *am* in this industry, so know better than to embarass myself by trying to claim that Not For EU is just a sticker.
To flip your comment over, you don't see the downside in divergence. Dismiss costs as what was it, a "simple sticker". Ignores the breakdown in both imports to and exports from the UK as if it hasn't happened.
I am quite happy to protect potential future upsides - but as I said to Max you have to get past the "Frankenstein food" label which gets unfairly stuck on anything thats had some genetic twiddling done to it.
I used to work in the supply of consumables, some for the food industry. A common standard for Europe is a good thing it means you can supply one product to 20 plus markets. Imagine the other way and a different product, or slightly different product, for different nations. The costs associated with that. I’m glad of a common standard and a common approach.
Mr Football-in-my-Garden seems to have a persecution complex - incoming Daily Mail Quotation warning:
Mr Bakhaty, 77, claimed the school 'deliberately' built the football pitch to 'upset' him and his wife.
Er .. it's a Primary School.
(Added essential Daily Mail context: "The school, whose alumni include former glamour model Lucy Pinder and television presenter Philipa Forrester..")
tbf if the school is losing a football every other day then maybe it ought to have thought a bit harder about where to put the pitch, how high to build the fence, and whether to hire a better football coach.
ETA it has been a long time but I really can't recall ever losing a ball from playground football games. Is it possible one or two of the kids are either shockingly bad strikers or are deliberately targeting the complainant?
They aren't - that was the period before mitigation, which I think the action is about.
The Mail has a decent timeline. And a picture of the estimable (& essential to the story) "former glamour model Lucy Pinder", who appears to have procured two of the footballs.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
Wick isn't boring. Its bleakness and emptiness are fascinating. I would love it if work sent me to Wick for a couple of days. I nearly got to go once, but a colleague got the gig. If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
lol!
When I was choosing my archetypal boring place in middle England I nearly went for Nuneaton, over Newent. It was only the tedious small minded "sound" of the latter name that won the day
Western Europe has quite a few boring areas - not dismal enough to be interestingly bleak, like Wick, simply meh
Chunks of northern and central France. Most of inland Denmark in winter. Various mid size German cities, in fact large swathes of Germany away from mountains and sea
The burbs of Milan. The bit between Rotterdam and Amstersdam. The Veneto is a surprisingly boring part of Italy. It's like everything got packed into Venice and the rest is shite, despite the Palladio villas
Anyway, in much bigger news, Donald Trump is right now on the phone to Vladimir Putin, resolving the Ukraine war. It was always coming down to this. Can these two big powerful men who like and understand each other do a deal that brings a lasting equitable peace?
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
Theoretically the EU could be lobbied by the French to impose some new standard which benefits their farmers and costs ours. The reason they couldn't come up with a practical example is because there aren't any.
Even now, Max is talking about biotech in the future. Meanwhile, to guard against these theoretical future events, we erected big trade barriers to make it expensive at best and commercially non-viable at worst for our producers today. To ensure that our identical to the EU standards are kept separate from their identical to the UK standards.
But we have a concrete example of where we've leveraged regulatory divergence from the EU to our advantage on AI. As I said, I'm not particularly fussed by this deal and I think it will probably help in the very short term but you're pretending it has no downside risk which is patently false. If EU regulations on gene editing and wider food biotech doesn't change a nascent UK industry will be sold off to the US and all of the IP and jobs will be transferred. Maybe that's a sacrifice worth paying for ease of exports for traditional companies, but it is still a downside risk and pretending it isn't does you no favours.
That has got the potential to be an advantage in the future in a world where the EU industry is too lazy to bother. I accept that. But the alternative - as you proposed - is that to protect that possible future we should continue to pay more for less now by maintaining the SPS border between GB and EU where the standards are practically identical.
I don't think the upside is as big as you do though. IMO we're trading a potential blockbuster industry for the UK for an extra £3-4bn worth if low margin exports to the EU. It doesn't feel like a good trade to me today, though I'm open to being proved wrong.
The challenge with biotech is getting consumers to eat it. In reality so much food has already been bioengineered without anyone noticing, but overt GM remains a big consumer no no.
We've had GM food for decades at this point, I think the GM scare stories from the 90s and 00s all just petered out. It's all already in the food chain and there's no going back. I also don't think the same pushback from farmers will come this time either because they need the gene editing to keep their farms viable in the long term. The soil is becoming less nutritious, the climate is playing havoc with planting and harvesting cycles and they're much more ready for a technological solution than 20-30 years ago.
In the future GM crops will have a huge price advantage over non-GM crops and that will be the fundamental driver of consumer acceptance. A £1 loaf from GM wheat vs a £1.90 loaf from non-GM wheat, otherwise identical in taste and quality but because the GM wheat can be grown reliably in poor conditions the costs are much lower.
I wouldn't be so confident. Consumers get persuaded to take up positions they don't understand - the flap about "ultra-processed" foods being one example. Ironically the media who do the scare stories are those on the right, and they do so for political reasons...
No doubts that the Telegraph, Mail et al are gunning for Starmer on this. Hmm
Maybe this won't be the modest Labour triumph I expected. Maybe it will do nothing for Labour at all
Stuff will get cheaper or more expensive and on that hangs Labour's triumph. That is why ending Starmer's tweet with putting money in your pocket is stupid.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
Theoretically the EU could be lobbied by the French to impose some new standard which benefits their farmers and costs ours. The reason they couldn't come up with a practical example is because there aren't any.
Even now, Max is talking about biotech in the future. Meanwhile, to guard against these theoretical future events, we erected big trade barriers to make it expensive at best and commercially non-viable at worst for our producers today. To ensure that our identical to the EU standards are kept separate from their identical to the UK standards.
But we have a concrete example of where we've leveraged regulatory divergence from the EU to our advantage on AI. As I said, I'm not particularly fussed by this deal and I think it will probably help in the very short term but you're pretending it has no downside risk which is patently false. If EU regulations on gene editing and wider food biotech doesn't change a nascent UK industry will be sold off to the US and all of the IP and jobs will be transferred. Maybe that's a sacrifice worth paying for ease of exports for traditional companies, but it is still a downside risk and pretending it isn't does you no favours.
That has got the potential to be an advantage in the future in a world where the EU industry is too lazy to bother. I accept that. But the alternative - as you proposed - is that to protect that possible future we should continue to pay more for less now by maintaining the SPS border between GB and EU where the standards are practically identical.
I don't think the upside is as big as you do though. IMO we're trading a potential blockbuster industry for the UK for an extra £3-4bn worth if low margin exports to the EU. It doesn't feel like a good trade to me today, though I'm open to being proved wrong.
The challenge with biotech is getting consumers to eat it. In reality so much food has already been bioengineered without anyone noticing, but overt GM remains a big consumer no no.
We've had GM food for decades at this point, I think the GM scare stories from the 90s and 00s all just petered out. It's all already in the food chain and there's no going back. I also don't think the same pushback from farmers will come this time either because they need the gene editing to keep their farms viable in the long term. The soil is becoming less nutritious, the climate is playing havoc with planting and harvesting cycles and they're much more ready for a technological solution than 20-30 years ago.
In the future GM crops will have a huge price advantage over non-GM crops and that will be the fundamental driver of consumer acceptance. A £1 loaf from GM wheat vs a £1.90 loaf from non-GM wheat, otherwise identical in taste and quality but because the GM wheat can be grown reliably in poor conditions the costs are much lower.
I wouldn't be so confident. Consumers get persuaded to take up positions they don't understand - the flap about "ultra-processed" foods being one example. Ironically the media who do the scare stories are those on the right, and they do so for political reasons...
Consumers can in a free market make whatever choice they want, but there's a reason more consumers will go for the Aldi own brand affordable version of something than the M&S Organic version of it.
If people want to pay more for organic, let them. We shouldn't be outlawing all alternatives though.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
Wick isn't boring. Its bleakness and emptiness are fascinating. I would love it if work sent me to Wick for a couple of days. I nearly got to go once, but a colleague got the gig. If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
There must be even duller places. Nuneaton had an interesting by election in 1965, three days before Churchill died and nine days before his state funeral. I remember all of these among my earliest political/state occasion memories. I was ten.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
Wick isn't boring. Its bleakness and emptiness are fascinating. I would love it if work sent me to Wick for a couple of days. I nearly got to go once, but a colleague got the gig. If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
There must be even duller places. Nuneaton had an interesting by election in 1965, three days before Churchill died and nine days before his state funeral. I remember all of these among my earliest political/state occasion memories. I was ten.
My paternal grandmother died in Nuneaton
I always found that rather sad, not just coz she died. She was born and grew up in stunning and striking corners of Cornwall..... and died in Nuneaton
I am content with the reset though with close links to the Scottish fishermen I can understand why they are angry
Amazing how quick the news media move on
Sky now all about Trump's present phone call with Putin
*Some of them* are angry. Others are delighted. Even the angry fishermen will benefit from easier trading to their biggest export market. Which they have been demanding ever since the TCA went in.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
Theoretically the EU could be lobbied by the French to impose some new standard which benefits their farmers and costs ours. The reason they couldn't come up with a practical example is because there aren't any.
Even now, Max is talking about biotech in the future. Meanwhile, to guard against these theoretical future events, we erected big trade barriers to make it expensive at best and commercially non-viable at worst for our producers today. To ensure that our identical to the EU standards are kept separate from their identical to the UK standards.
But we have a concrete example of where we've leveraged regulatory divergence from the EU to our advantage on AI. As I said, I'm not particularly fussed by this deal and I think it will probably help in the very short term but you're pretending it has no downside risk which is patently false. If EU regulations on gene editing and wider food biotech doesn't change a nascent UK industry will be sold off to the US and all of the IP and jobs will be transferred. Maybe that's a sacrifice worth paying for ease of exports for traditional companies, but it is still a downside risk and pretending it isn't does you no favours.
That has got the potential to be an advantage in the future in a world where the EU industry is too lazy to bother. I accept that. But the alternative - as you proposed - is that to protect that possible future we should continue to pay more for less now by maintaining the SPS border between GB and EU where the standards are practically identical.
I don't think the upside is as big as you do though. IMO we're trading a potential blockbuster industry for the UK for an extra £3-4bn worth if low margin exports to the EU. It doesn't feel like a good trade to me today, though I'm open to being proved wrong.
The challenge with biotech is getting consumers to eat it. In reality so much food has already been bioengineered without anyone noticing, but overt GM remains a big consumer no no.
We've had GM food for decades at this point, I think the GM scare stories from the 90s and 00s all just petered out. It's all already in the food chain and there's no going back. I also don't think the same pushback from farmers will come this time either because they need the gene editing to keep their farms viable in the long term. The soil is becoming less nutritious, the climate is playing havoc with planting and harvesting cycles and they're much more ready for a technological solution than 20-30 years ago.
In the future GM crops will have a huge price advantage over non-GM crops and that will be the fundamental driver of consumer acceptance. A £1 loaf from GM wheat vs a £1.90 loaf from non-GM wheat, otherwise identical in taste and quality but because the GM wheat can be grown reliably in poor conditions the costs are much lower.
I wouldn't be so confident. Consumers get persuaded to take up positions they don't understand - the flap about "ultra-processed" foods being one example. Ironically the media who do the scare stories are those on the right, and they do so for political reasons...
Consumers, largely, will listen to farmers. Last time out the farmers didn't want GM crops, this time they will to keep their land and farms viable. There will definitely be some loonybin green party and vegan types that will shout and scream but if the flat cap wearing farmer says "this has passed my safety test" then the public will absolutely buy in.
We've had GM food for decades at this point, I think the GM scare stories from the 90s and 00s all just petered out. It's all already in the food chain and there's no going back. I also don't think the same pushback from farmers will come this time either because they need the gene editing to keep their farms viable in the long term. The soil is becoming less nutritious, the climate is playing havoc with planting and harvesting cycles and they're much more ready for a technological solution than 20-30 years ago.
Even if 90% of GM food is safe, at some point researchers will discover a GM crop is giving people cancer and the whole thing will come crashing down.
It's probably not wise to get too dependant on engineered crops.
No doubts that the Telegraph, Mail et al are gunning for Starmer on this. Hmm
Maybe this won't be the modest Labour triumph I expected. Maybe it will do nothing for Labour at all
Could go several ways.
On one hand, it should redeem Starmer a bit with the kind of remainery metropolitan liberal who has been really unhappy with him after last week.
It probably won't do much across the 52:48 divide. On both sides, that was more irrational than any of us want to admit, which is why appeals to reason either way make fairly little difference.
The interesting one is what happens on the pro-Brexit side. The effect seems to be to rally the Brexit army to the flag of the 2019 settlement... I get it emotionally, but there is a risk that they now look like the crazies. (There was a bit of that when the Windsor deal was agreed, but it never really ignited.)
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
There is a basic problem - we can't dictate standards to others. With so much of UK food and drink imported and exported, creating separate standards for GB and NI/EU just isn't viable. Even creating separate GB labelling has been a ballache, with UKCA an expensive woeful misstep which thankfully we dropped.
We are of course free to set higher food standards than the EU, just not lower standards. Which in essence is what you are proposing that we do.
Creating different standards 100% is viable. It may be a headache but if that's the choice we make, suck it up. No reason you can't put a sticker on something saying "not for EU" ... oh wait, they already do that, perfectly viably.
Its not a linear scale, different is not necessarily either higher or lower.
Much EU red tape is bad policy based on protecting producer interests, with no regard to the consumer. That's awful protectionism which should be axed.
Axing protectionism that is not necessary is now a "lower" standard.
You're talking in generalities and making slogans. As usual. About an industry I work in and you do not.
"Not for EU" is an expensive arse of a thing to work - ask the industry. And the practical outcome is a whole load of producers who simply stopped selling in the UK because your "sticker" is a pile of regulatory paperwork which they decided not to pay for.
Tough shit if it's an expensive arse, it's a perfectly viable expensive arse.
You can argue its not worth it. Others like MaxPB have provided excellent arguments why it is worth it. Thats a debate worth having.
Saying it's not viable? That's just a lie. It's viable, the fact you dislike it or find it expensive or an arse doesn't make it unviable.
lol - tough shit?
Your proposal to add a stack of cost onto food because ideology means the following: 1. Consumers pay more for the same thing. "Tough shit" 2. Consumers find there is less product choice. "Tough shit" 3. Consumers find availability gaps because although there's stock in the warehouse, its export only. "Tough shit"
Can we do it - and have higher costs and less choice? Sure. But in the real world we're not doing it because it makes sense only to ideologues like your good self who don't have a clue how things work.
I await the Tories to go out and make the case for why the deal should be scrapped and food should be scarcer and more expensive. Will be fun to watch.
"Can we do it ... Sure. "
Then its viable.
You are making the fallacy of thinking "I work in this sector so my word is gospel" when actually what it means is "I work in this sector so I have a vested interest".
The role of politicians is to balance competing vested interests. Yours is just one.
Too often politicians, especially in the EU, put vested producer interests first to the detriment of potential growth sectors like biotech, as Max has richly portrayed.
You may think this is a good idea. Argue that then. Don't claim its not viable to change (when you know for a fact it is), or that because you have a vested interest we should pay no heed to alternative viewpoints like the potential for growth in biotech and other sectors.
I think your problem is - no disrespect - that you're playing deliberately dumb on this one.
There is a world of difference between something being technically possible and being economically viable.
Can we impose further barriers and restrictions on ourselves? Sure - but at what cost?
People need food to be cheaper. You want to make it more expensive. Diverging on standards is not just "a sticker" as you put it. We're already making farms non-viable and you're here saying to want to shut down more of them because reasons.
Again, its theory vs reality. And yes - I have a vested interest in wanting more choice and better value in the food we buy. Its called citizenship.
There are many competing economically viable choices and the status quo is one of them. We have done it for a few years now - you dislike it, that much is crystal clear, but its still viably done.
You don't see the upside in divergence. Max and I do.
You think your opinion is the only one that matters due to your vested interest, I do not.
As someone blinded by their own vested interest, I think you don't see the wood for the trees.
A comedy post, even from you. I think my opinion is laughably irrelevant. I am nobody in this industry. But I *am* in this industry, so know better than to embarass myself by trying to claim that Not For EU is just a sticker.
To flip your comment over, you don't see the downside in divergence. Dismiss costs as what was it, a "simple sticker". Ignores the breakdown in both imports to and exports from the UK as if it hasn't happened.
I am quite happy to protect potential future upsides - but as I said to Max you have to get past the "Frankenstein food" label which gets unfairly stuck on anything thats had some genetic twiddling done to it.
I never said there are no downsides, and I never said it was just a sticker (though a sticker is part of it, it of course represents far more behind the scenes).
You pretend it is all one-way traffic, no downside, only sunlit uplands.
I am saying there are pros and cons to be debated.
Yes you have to get past the Franknstein label. I think people can and will, but should be given a choice, in a liberal free market backed by scientific research and development, not a closed, protectionist one.
If people choose not to, that's their choice, if they choose to, that's their choice. People should have a choice, but the EU wants to take the choice away via regulations and you're pretending there's no risk in that and that its not viable to make an alternative choice.
You're inserting what you think in place of what I said.
Which "alternative choice" is it which I claimed wasn't viable? Specifically? You are talking in generalities about principles, whilst dismissing practical realioty as "vested interest.
One immediate benefit will be the binning of the Not for EU bullshit. Which simplifies production and supply chain and ultimately reduces retail prices through lower costs. We have gained nothing by adding this barrier.
Can we add more barriers? Sure. But they aren't economically viable if we want more choice and lower costs, especially if - like Not For EU - they add no value.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
Theoretically the EU could be lobbied by the French to impose some new standard which benefits their farmers and costs ours. The reason they couldn't come up with a practical example is because there aren't any.
Even now, Max is talking about biotech in the future. Meanwhile, to guard against these theoretical future events, we erected big trade barriers to make it expensive at best and commercially non-viable at worst for our producers today. To ensure that our identical to the EU standards are kept separate from their identical to the UK standards.
But we have a concrete example of where we've leveraged regulatory divergence from the EU to our advantage on AI. As I said, I'm not particularly fussed by this deal and I think it will probably help in the very short term but you're pretending it has no downside risk which is patently false. If EU regulations on gene editing and wider food biotech doesn't change a nascent UK industry will be sold off to the US and all of the IP and jobs will be transferred. Maybe that's a sacrifice worth paying for ease of exports for traditional companies, but it is still a downside risk and pretending it isn't does you no favours.
That has got the potential to be an advantage in the future in a world where the EU industry is too lazy to bother. I accept that. But the alternative - as you proposed - is that to protect that possible future we should continue to pay more for less now by maintaining the SPS border between GB and EU where the standards are practically identical.
I don't think the upside is as big as you do though. IMO we're trading a potential blockbuster industry for the UK for an extra £3-4bn worth if low margin exports to the EU. It doesn't feel like a good trade to me today, though I'm open to being proved wrong.
The challenge with biotech is getting consumers to eat it. In reality so much food has already been bioengineered without anyone noticing, but overt GM remains a big consumer no no.
We've had GM food for decades at this point, I think the GM scare stories from the 90s and 00s all just petered out. It's all already in the food chain and there's no going back. I also don't think the same pushback from farmers will come this time either because they need the gene editing to keep their farms viable in the long term. The soil is becoming less nutritious, the climate is playing havoc with planting and harvesting cycles and they're much more ready for a technological solution than 20-30 years ago.
In the future GM crops will have a huge price advantage over non-GM crops and that will be the fundamental driver of consumer acceptance. A £1 loaf from GM wheat vs a £1.90 loaf from non-GM wheat, otherwise identical in taste and quality but because the GM wheat can be grown reliably in poor conditions the costs are much lower.
I wouldn't be so confident. Consumers get persuaded to take up positions they don't understand - the flap about "ultra-processed" foods being one example. Ironically the media who do the scare stories are those on the right, and they do so for political reasons...
Consumers, largely, will listen to farmers. Last time out the farmers didn't want GM crops, this time they will to keep their land and farms viable. There will definitely be some loonybin green party and vegan types that will shout and scream but if the flat cap wearing farmer says "this has passed my safety test" then the public will absolutely buy in.
Its interesting how both the hippy left and the libertarian right agree with each other on this issue albeit for different reasons...
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
We've had GM food for decades at this point, I think the GM scare stories from the 90s and 00s all just petered out. It's all already in the food chain and there's no going back. I also don't think the same pushback from farmers will come this time either because they need the gene editing to keep their farms viable in the long term. The soil is becoming less nutritious, the climate is playing havoc with planting and harvesting cycles and they're much more ready for a technological solution than 20-30 years ago.
Even if 90% of GM food is safe, at some point researchers will discover a GM crop is giving people cancer and the whole thing will come crashing down.
It's probably not wise to get too dependant on engineered crops.
There are GM crops, and there are GM crops. All our crops are modified; in my lifetime barley and wheat have been 'modified' by breeding to have shorter stalks; which use less energy to grow, and are less susceptible to winds. Scientific genetic modification can be relatively harmless; e.g. modifying or introducing a gene from another plant to make a crop less susceptible to a pest, or drought.
But companies like Monsanto, who IIRC wanted to introduce *sterilised* GM crops ("terminator") so you would need to continue buying from them, were just shits. And they gave such crops an unjustifiably bad name. But you cannot trust them - and that's the issue.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
Wick isn't boring. Its bleakness and emptiness are fascinating. I would love it if work sent me to Wick for a couple of days. I nearly got to go once, but a colleague got the gig. If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
There must be even duller places. Nuneaton had an interesting by election in 1965, three days before Churchill died and nine days before his state funeral. I remember all of these among my earliest political/state occasion memories. I was ten.
My paternal grandmother died in Nuneaton
I always found that rather sad, not just coz she died. She was born and grew up in stunning and striking corners of Cornwall..... and died in Nuneaton
The bathos stings
There may be worse fates than to die in the town where George Eliot was born, and the perhaps unlikely site of a priory established from Fontevraud, a place to stir the imagination even in Nuneaton does not.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
There is a basic problem - we can't dictate standards to others. With so much of UK food and drink imported and exported, creating separate standards for GB and NI/EU just isn't viable. Even creating separate GB labelling has been a ballache, with UKCA an expensive woeful misstep which thankfully we dropped.
We are of course free to set higher food standards than the EU, just not lower standards. Which in essence is what you are proposing that we do.
Creating different standards 100% is viable. It may be a headache but if that's the choice we make, suck it up. No reason you can't put a sticker on something saying "not for EU" ... oh wait, they already do that, perfectly viably.
Its not a linear scale, different is not necessarily either higher or lower.
Much EU red tape is bad policy based on protecting producer interests, with no regard to the consumer. That's awful protectionism which should be axed.
Axing protectionism that is not necessary is now a "lower" standard.
You're talking in generalities and making slogans. As usual. About an industry I work in and you do not.
"Not for EU" is an expensive arse of a thing to work - ask the industry. And the practical outcome is a whole load of producers who simply stopped selling in the UK because your "sticker" is a pile of regulatory paperwork which they decided not to pay for.
Tough shit if it's an expensive arse, it's a perfectly viable expensive arse.
You can argue its not worth it. Others like MaxPB have provided excellent arguments why it is worth it. Thats a debate worth having.
Saying it's not viable? That's just a lie. It's viable, the fact you dislike it or find it expensive or an arse doesn't make it unviable.
lol - tough shit?
Your proposal to add a stack of cost onto food because ideology means the following: 1. Consumers pay more for the same thing. "Tough shit" 2. Consumers find there is less product choice. "Tough shit" 3. Consumers find availability gaps because although there's stock in the warehouse, its export only. "Tough shit"
Can we do it - and have higher costs and less choice? Sure. But in the real world we're not doing it because it makes sense only to ideologues like your good self who don't have a clue how things work.
I await the Tories to go out and make the case for why the deal should be scrapped and food should be scarcer and more expensive. Will be fun to watch.
"Can we do it ... Sure. "
Then its viable.
You are making the fallacy of thinking "I work in this sector so my word is gospel" when actually what it means is "I work in this sector so I have a vested interest".
The role of politicians is to balance competing vested interests. Yours is just one.
Too often politicians, especially in the EU, put vested producer interests first to the detriment of potential growth sectors like biotech, as Max has richly portrayed.
You may think this is a good idea. Argue that then. Don't claim its not viable to change (when you know for a fact it is), or that because you have a vested interest we should pay no heed to alternative viewpoints like the potential for growth in biotech and other sectors.
I think your problem is - no disrespect - that you're playing deliberately dumb on this one.
There is a world of difference between something being technically possible and being economically viable.
Can we impose further barriers and restrictions on ourselves? Sure - but at what cost?
People need food to be cheaper. You want to make it more expensive. Diverging on standards is not just "a sticker" as you put it. We're already making farms non-viable and you're here saying to want to shut down more of them because reasons.
Again, its theory vs reality. And yes - I have a vested interest in wanting more choice and better value in the food we buy. Its called citizenship.
There are many competing economically viable choices and the status quo is one of them. We have done it for a few years now - you dislike it, that much is crystal clear, but its still viably done.
You don't see the upside in divergence. Max and I do.
You think your opinion is the only one that matters due to your vested interest, I do not.
As someone blinded by their own vested interest, I think you don't see the wood for the trees.
A comedy post, even from you. I think my opinion is laughably irrelevant. I am nobody in this industry. But I *am* in this industry, so know better than to embarass myself by trying to claim that Not For EU is just a sticker.
To flip your comment over, you don't see the downside in divergence. Dismiss costs as what was it, a "simple sticker". Ignores the breakdown in both imports to and exports from the UK as if it hasn't happened.
I am quite happy to protect potential future upsides - but as I said to Max you have to get past the "Frankenstein food" label which gets unfairly stuck on anything thats had some genetic twiddling done to it.
I never said there are no downsides, and I never said it was just a sticker (though a sticker is part of it, it of course represents far more behind the scenes).
You pretend it is all one-way traffic, no downside, only sunlit uplands.
I am saying there are pros and cons to be debated.
Yes you have to get past the Franknstein label. I think people can and will, but should be given a choice, in a liberal free market backed by scientific research and development, not a closed, protectionist one.
If people choose not to, that's their choice, if they choose to, that's their choice. People should have a choice, but the EU wants to take the choice away via regulations and you're pretending there's no risk in that and that its not viable to make an alternative choice.
You're inserting what you think in place of what I said.
Which "alternative choice" is it which I claimed wasn't viable? Specifically? You are talking in generalities about principles, whilst dismissing practical realioty as "vested interest.
One immediate benefit will be the binning of the Not for EU bullshit. Which simplifies production and supply chain and ultimately reduces retail prices through lower costs. We have gained nothing by adding this barrier.
Can we add more barriers? Sure. But they aren't economically viable if we want more choice and lower costs, especially if - like Not For EU - they add no value.
Except they do add value.
They add the value of allowing us to evolve alternative regulations that enable better growth potential through biotech research and development.
They add the value of allowing us to evolve by not embracing their protectionist dogmas, unless we democratically choose to do so.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
There is a basic problem - we can't dictate standards to others. With so much of UK food and drink imported and exported, creating separate standards for GB and NI/EU just isn't viable. Even creating separate GB labelling has been a ballache, with UKCA an expensive woeful misstep which thankfully we dropped.
We are of course free to set higher food standards than the EU, just not lower standards. Which in essence is what you are proposing that we do.
Creating different standards 100% is viable. It may be a headache but if that's the choice we make, suck it up. No reason you can't put a sticker on something saying "not for EU" ... oh wait, they already do that, perfectly viably.
Its not a linear scale, different is not necessarily either higher or lower.
Much EU red tape is bad policy based on protecting producer interests, with no regard to the consumer. That's awful protectionism which should be axed.
Axing protectionism that is not necessary is now a "lower" standard.
You're talking in generalities and making slogans. As usual. About an industry I work in and you do not.
"Not for EU" is an expensive arse of a thing to work - ask the industry. And the practical outcome is a whole load of producers who simply stopped selling in the UK because your "sticker" is a pile of regulatory paperwork which they decided not to pay for.
Tough shit if it's an expensive arse, it's a perfectly viable expensive arse.
You can argue its not worth it. Others like MaxPB have provided excellent arguments why it is worth it. Thats a debate worth having.
Saying it's not viable? That's just a lie. It's viable, the fact you dislike it or find it expensive or an arse doesn't make it unviable.
lol - tough shit?
Your proposal to add a stack of cost onto food because ideology means the following: 1. Consumers pay more for the same thing. "Tough shit" 2. Consumers find there is less product choice. "Tough shit" 3. Consumers find availability gaps because although there's stock in the warehouse, its export only. "Tough shit"
Can we do it - and have higher costs and less choice? Sure. But in the real world we're not doing it because it makes sense only to ideologues like your good self who don't have a clue how things work.
I await the Tories to go out and make the case for why the deal should be scrapped and food should be scarcer and more expensive. Will be fun to watch.
"Can we do it ... Sure. "
Then its viable.
You are making the fallacy of thinking "I work in this sector so my word is gospel" when actually what it means is "I work in this sector so I have a vested interest".
The role of politicians is to balance competing vested interests. Yours is just one.
Too often politicians, especially in the EU, put vested producer interests first to the detriment of potential growth sectors like biotech, as Max has richly portrayed.
You may think this is a good idea. Argue that then. Don't claim its not viable to change (when you know for a fact it is), or that because you have a vested interest we should pay no heed to alternative viewpoints like the potential for growth in biotech and other sectors.
I think your problem is - no disrespect - that you're playing deliberately dumb on this one.
There is a world of difference between something being technically possible and being economically viable.
Can we impose further barriers and restrictions on ourselves? Sure - but at what cost?
People need food to be cheaper. You want to make it more expensive. Diverging on standards is not just "a sticker" as you put it. We're already making farms non-viable and you're here saying to want to shut down more of them because reasons.
Again, its theory vs reality. And yes - I have a vested interest in wanting more choice and better value in the food we buy. Its called citizenship.
There are many competing economically viable choices and the status quo is one of them. We have done it for a few years now - you dislike it, that much is crystal clear, but its still viably done.
You don't see the upside in divergence. Max and I do.
You think your opinion is the only one that matters due to your vested interest, I do not.
As someone blinded by their own vested interest, I think you don't see the wood for the trees.
A comedy post, even from you. I think my opinion is laughably irrelevant. I am nobody in this industry. But I *am* in this industry, so know better than to embarass myself by trying to claim that Not For EU is just a sticker.
To flip your comment over, you don't see the downside in divergence. Dismiss costs as what was it, a "simple sticker". Ignores the breakdown in both imports to and exports from the UK as if it hasn't happened.
I am quite happy to protect potential future upsides - but as I said to Max you have to get past the "Frankenstein food" label which gets unfairly stuck on anything thats had some genetic twiddling done to it.
I never said there are no downsides, and I never said it was just a sticker (though a sticker is part of it, it of course represents far more behind the scenes).
You pretend it is all one-way traffic, no downside, only sunlit uplands.
I am saying there are pros and cons to be debated.
Yes you have to get past the Franknstein label. I think people can and will, but should be given a choice, in a liberal free market backed by scientific research and development, not a closed, protectionist one.
If people choose not to, that's their choice, if they choose to, that's their choice. People should have a choice, but the EU wants to take the choice away via regulations and you're pretending there's no risk in that and that its not viable to make an alternative choice.
You're inserting what you think in place of what I said.
Which "alternative choice" is it which I claimed wasn't viable? Specifically? You are talking in generalities about principles, whilst dismissing practical realioty as "vested interest.
One immediate benefit will be the binning of the Not for EU bullshit. Which simplifies production and supply chain and ultimately reduces retail prices through lower costs. We have gained nothing by adding this barrier.
Can we add more barriers? Sure. But they aren't economically viable if we want more choice and lower costs, especially if - like Not For EU - they add no value.
Except they do add value.
They add the value of allowing us to evolve alternative regulations that enable better growth potential through biotech research and development.
They add the value of allowing us to evolve by not embracing their protectionist dogmas, unless we democratically choose to do so.
You may not value those values, but they exist.
Dogma vs practical reality.
'Don't worry about your food costing more and there being less of it. Enjoy the benefits of not embracing their protectionist dogma.'
'No, that protectionist dogma wasn't responsible for food being cheaper and more freely available before.'
What do you mean you don't care about any of this shit?'
Looking at the deal (is THIS one an agreement yet?), I have a bit of sympathy for Kemi-Kaze (!) and Nonny-Nonny-Nigel (!!), in that there does not seem to be much for them to latch onto.
Even so, I'm surprised that they have gone for "fishing" rather than for the carbon market or energy prices more heavily.
As I see it, on fishing:
- Starmer has preserved the quotas as at 2020, which were a Conservative negotiated agreement, so dissing that is dissing their own policy. - Fish catch has increased since then but they can't easily sell it at a good price due to loss of market access and "fresh in France etc" markets having vanished, and have to swallow the costs of a mountain of paperwork. - Now the paperwork will reduce, and they can sell it to their traditional market, which should boost income by reduction of cost, on increased prices through timely access to market, and because of the increase in product caught since 2020 which will continue. - Quotas are fixed (by percentage?) until 2038, which means stability for investment. And is only worse if otherwise they would have increased for the UK industry and it could have been sold at good prices.
All they have to go at are imagined improvements that exist in their heads.
That seems to be a decent position for Starmer to defend, without any particular substantive weaknesses to be pointed at by the Opposition parties, other than "But BUT BUT it is worse than the thing I imagine my party would have created."
Watch that big mussels-in-Devon project which suffered a setback in 2020.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Oradour-sur-Glane is a must-visit, though it will cast a pall over the subsequent few days I'm afraid.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
Ah, you live in one of these god awful little newbuild redbrick hutches that blight our fair land. I can now see why you spend so much time running away from it
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
I vote the most boring place in britain to be Betws-y-Coed, 20 of us spent a week in wales in our early 20's one day we spent in that place....the most interesting thing we could find was there was a big grassy area and in the middle of it for no apparent reason was a brick so we sat round it and smoked weed for most of the day
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
Wick isn't boring. Its bleakness and emptiness are fascinating. I would love it if work sent me to Wick for a couple of days. I nearly got to go once, but a colleague got the gig. If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
lol!
When I was choosing my archetypal boring place in middle England I nearly went for Nuneaton, over Newent. It was only the tedious small minded "sound" of the latter name that won the day
Western Europe has quite a few boring areas - not dismal enough to be interestingly bleak, like Wick, simply meh
Chunks of northern and central France. Most of inland Denmark in winter. Various mid size German cities, in fact large swathes of Germany away from mountains and sea
The burbs of Milan. The bit between Rotterdam and Amstersdam. The Veneto is a surprisingly boring part of Italy. It's like everything got packed into Venice and the rest is shite, despite the Palladio villas
The less posh bits of Geneva
Nuneaton
How do you find Romney Marsh in November or February?
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
Theoretically the EU could be lobbied by the French to impose some new standard which benefits their farmers and costs ours. The reason they couldn't come up with a practical example is because there aren't any.
Even now, Max is talking about biotech in the future. Meanwhile, to guard against these theoretical future events, we erected big trade barriers to make it expensive at best and commercially non-viable at worst for our producers today. To ensure that our identical to the EU standards are kept separate from their identical to the UK standards.
But we have a concrete example of where we've leveraged regulatory divergence from the EU to our advantage on AI. As I said, I'm not particularly fussed by this deal and I think it will probably help in the very short term but you're pretending it has no downside risk which is patently false. If EU regulations on gene editing and wider food biotech doesn't change a nascent UK industry will be sold off to the US and all of the IP and jobs will be transferred. Maybe that's a sacrifice worth paying for ease of exports for traditional companies, but it is still a downside risk and pretending it isn't does you no favours.
That has got the potential to be an advantage in the future in a world where the EU industry is too lazy to bother. I accept that. But the alternative - as you proposed - is that to protect that possible future we should continue to pay more for less now by maintaining the SPS border between GB and EU where the standards are practically identical.
I don't think the upside is as big as you do though. IMO we're trading a potential blockbuster industry for the UK for an extra £3-4bn worth if low margin exports to the EU. It doesn't feel like a good trade to me today, though I'm open to being proved wrong.
The challenge with biotech is getting consumers to eat it. In reality so much food has already been bioengineered without anyone noticing, but overt GM remains a big consumer no no.
We've had GM food for decades at this point, I think the GM scare stories from the 90s and 00s all just petered out. It's all already in the food chain and there's no going back. I also don't think the same pushback from farmers will come this time either because they need the gene editing to keep their farms viable in the long term. The soil is becoming less nutritious, the climate is playing havoc with planting and harvesting cycles and they're much more ready for a technological solution than 20-30 years ago.
In the future GM crops will have a huge price advantage over non-GM crops and that will be the fundamental driver of consumer acceptance. A £1 loaf from GM wheat vs a £1.90 loaf from non-GM wheat, otherwise identical in taste and quality but because the GM wheat can be grown reliably in poor conditions the costs are much lower.
I wouldn't be so confident. Consumers get persuaded to take up positions they don't understand - the flap about "ultra-processed" foods being one example. Ironically the media who do the scare stories are those on the right, and they do so for political reasons...
Consumers, largely, will listen to farmers. Last time out the farmers didn't want GM crops, this time they will to keep their land and farms viable. There will definitely be some loonybin green party and vegan types that will shout and scream but if the flat cap wearing farmer says "this has passed my safety test" then the public will absolutely buy in.
See my post below. I have arable farmers in my family; and they were generally in favour of GM crops in the 1990s. What really ****** them off was the concept of terminator genes, meaning seed retention was off the cards, and the GM providers could increase costs later. That was bad enough for 'wealthy' western farmers; for those in the third world such dependence could have been disastrous if it had taken off.
(AIUI there is another issue of 'heritage' breeds, which may be better in certain climate and ground conditions, which the big GM concerns would not care about but farmer often do. The GM companies would only care for the big concerns.)
Mr Football-in-my-Garden seems to have a persecution complex - incoming Daily Mail Quotation warning:
Mr Bakhaty, 77, claimed the school 'deliberately' built the football pitch to 'upset' him and his wife.
Er .. it's a Primary School.
(Added essential Daily Mail context: "The school, whose alumni include former glamour model Lucy Pinder and television presenter Philipa Forrester..")
tbf if the school is losing a football every other day then maybe it ought to have thought a bit harder about where to put the pitch, how high to build the fence, and whether to hire a better football coach.
ETA it has been a long time but I really can't recall ever losing a ball from playground football games. Is it possible one or two of the kids are either shockingly bad strikers or are deliberately targeting the complainant?
They aren't - that was the period before mitigation, which I think the action is about.
The Mail has a decent timeline. And a picture of the estimable (& essential to the story) "former glamour model Lucy Pinder", who appears to have procured two of the footballs.
So the school put a netting roof over the pitch in July 22 following which the couple were still unhappy, took legal action and when the Judge did a site visit there were 20 footballs in the garden.... something smells as fishy as a Brexit red-tape delayed consignment of high quality UK shellfish.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
Theoretically the EU could be lobbied by the French to impose some new standard which benefits their farmers and costs ours. The reason they couldn't come up with a practical example is because there aren't any.
Even now, Max is talking about biotech in the future. Meanwhile, to guard against these theoretical future events, we erected big trade barriers to make it expensive at best and commercially non-viable at worst for our producers today. To ensure that our identical to the EU standards are kept separate from their identical to the UK standards.
But we have a concrete example of where we've leveraged regulatory divergence from the EU to our advantage on AI. As I said, I'm not particularly fussed by this deal and I think it will probably help in the very short term but you're pretending it has no downside risk which is patently false. If EU regulations on gene editing and wider food biotech doesn't change a nascent UK industry will be sold off to the US and all of the IP and jobs will be transferred. Maybe that's a sacrifice worth paying for ease of exports for traditional companies, but it is still a downside risk and pretending it isn't does you no favours.
That has got the potential to be an advantage in the future in a world where the EU industry is too lazy to bother. I accept that. But the alternative - as you proposed - is that to protect that possible future we should continue to pay more for less now by maintaining the SPS border between GB and EU where the standards are practically identical.
I don't think the upside is as big as you do though. IMO we're trading a potential blockbuster industry for the UK for an extra £3-4bn worth if low margin exports to the EU. It doesn't feel like a good trade to me today, though I'm open to being proved wrong.
The challenge with biotech is getting consumers to eat it. In reality so much food has already been bioengineered without anyone noticing, but overt GM remains a big consumer no no.
We've had GM food for decades at this point, I think the GM scare stories from the 90s and 00s all just petered out. It's all already in the food chain and there's no going back. I also don't think the same pushback from farmers will come this time either because they need the gene editing to keep their farms viable in the long term. The soil is becoming less nutritious, the climate is playing havoc with planting and harvesting cycles and they're much more ready for a technological solution than 20-30 years ago.
In the future GM crops will have a huge price advantage over non-GM crops and that will be the fundamental driver of consumer acceptance. A £1 loaf from GM wheat vs a £1.90 loaf from non-GM wheat, otherwise identical in taste and quality but because the GM wheat can be grown reliably in poor conditions the costs are much lower.
I wouldn't be so confident. Consumers get persuaded to take up positions they don't understand - the flap about "ultra-processed" foods being one example. Ironically the media who do the scare stories are those on the right, and they do so for political reasons...
Consumers, largely, will listen to farmers. Last time out the farmers didn't want GM crops, this time they will to keep their land and farms viable. There will definitely be some loonybin green party and vegan types that will shout and scream but if the flat cap wearing farmer says "this has passed my safety test" then the public will absolutely buy in.
I'm reasonably "green" - all they need to do is demonstrate that these crops have some positive environmental/ecological benefits then I'm in, and so will most other people like me. We've had a catastrophic fall in insect life in the UK and anything that helps to reverse that will be welcome, particularly reducing the use of pesticides and fertilisers.
It's also an important part of climate change adaptation. The UK is expected to get warmer and wetter. How do we adjust for that - or better, take advantage?
In terms of human consumption, just look at the absolute crap that most people eat on a daily basis. You'll get some people who take their food seriously, like those who eat organic stuff or grow their own veg, but 95% of people won't care.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
Wick isn't boring. Its bleakness and emptiness are fascinating. I would love it if work sent me to Wick for a couple of days. I nearly got to go once, but a colleague got the gig. If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
lol!
When I was choosing my archetypal boring place in middle England I nearly went for Nuneaton, over Newent. It was only the tedious small minded "sound" of the latter name that won the day
Western Europe has quite a few boring areas - not dismal enough to be interestingly bleak, like Wick, simply meh
Chunks of northern and central France. Most of inland Denmark in winter. Various mid size German cities, in fact large swathes of Germany away from mountains and sea
The burbs of Milan. The bit between Rotterdam and Amstersdam. The Veneto is a surprisingly boring part of Italy. It's like everything got packed into Venice and the rest is shite, despite the Palladio villas
The less posh bits of Geneva
Nuneaton
How do you find Romney Marsh in November or February?
I approve
I love the mad churches of Romney Marsh, and in November and Feb they would be redolent with moody noom
This is an attempt to find the most BORING place, with no noom at all, either dark or bright. The most desperately dull and characterless, not interestingly characterless either, they are too characterless for that
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
Ah, you live in one of these god awful little newbuild redbrick hutches that blight our fair land. I can now see why you spend so much time running away from it
But I always run back to it. Whereas you spend as much time as possible away not only from your home, but the UK - yet always pretend to know what is going on here.
The built environment is much more than "little newbuild redbrick hutches". I'd much rather bring up a kid here, amongst the "little newbuild redbrick hutches", than in London. Within walking distance - and we could safely walk - there were five different kids' playgrounds. Including one with a zipline and large sandpit. That's priceless.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
Come on, we could do so much better than these identikit horrors. Surely.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
I vote the most boring place in britain to be Betws-y-Coed, 20 of us spent a week in wales in our early 20's one day we spent in that place....the most interesting thing we could find was there was a big grassy area and in the middle of it for no apparent reason was a brick so we sat round it and smoked weed for most of the day
Southern Sweden - Skane - is fucking boring. Flat, grey, averagely prosperous, nothing happens
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
I vote the most boring place in britain to be Betws-y-Coed, 20 of us spent a week in wales in our early 20's one day we spent in that place....the most interesting thing we could find was there was a big grassy area and in the middle of it for no apparent reason was a brick so we sat round it and smoked weed for most of the day
Southern Sweden - Skane - is fucking boring. Flat, grey, averagely prosperous, nothing happens
Then they need to put a random brick somewhere for no apparent reason...nods
The brick did entertain us for hours speculating on the meaning of a single brick being there without rhyme or reason
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Those are five bedroom houses on sale for over £400K. Most people cannot afford such houses, and those who can tend to be boomers or the children of the rich.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
Wick isn't boring. Its bleakness and emptiness are fascinating. I would love it if work sent me to Wick for a couple of days. I nearly got to go once, but a colleague got the gig. If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
lol!
When I was choosing my archetypal boring place in middle England I nearly went for Nuneaton, over Newent. It was only the tedious small minded "sound" of the latter name that won the day
Western Europe has quite a few boring areas - not dismal enough to be interestingly bleak, like Wick, simply meh
Chunks of northern and central France. Most of inland Denmark in winter. Various mid size German cities, in fact large swathes of Germany away from mountains and sea
The burbs of Milan. The bit between Rotterdam and Amstersdam. The Veneto is a surprisingly boring part of Italy. It's like everything got packed into Venice and the rest is shite, despite the Palladio villas
The less posh bits of Geneva
Nuneaton
How do you find Romney Marsh in November or February?
I approve
I love the mad churches of Romney Marsh, and in November and Feb they would be redolent with moody noom
This is an attempt to find the most BORING place, with no noom at all, either dark or bright. The most desperately dull and characterless, not interestingly characterless either, they are too characterless for that
Which of the Romney Marsh Churches is your favourite?
I go for Brookland St Augustine, with it's separated bell tower and medieval lead font. And I can't remember which one it was (maybe St Mary in the Marsh), but the church key hanging on a nail in the porch of the farmhouse next door, with an outline drawn around it so you hung it back on the correct nail.
But that time we did not get into Fairfield to see the triple decker pulpit.
And, equally atmospheric, the WW1 Sound Mirrors of the Marsh, to hear incoming aircraft.
My other favourite Kent Church is probably Tudeley All Saints, with its full set of Chagall stained glass.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
I vote the most boring place in britain to be Betws-y-Coed, 20 of us spent a week in wales in our early 20's one day we spent in that place....the most interesting thing we could find was there was a big grassy area and in the middle of it for no apparent reason was a brick so we sat round it and smoked weed for most of the day
I'd stay there for a week, no problem. I'd definitely take a mountain bike though.
Too much terrain.
To be truly dull it has to be flat.
From these parts I would tentatively submit: Gainsborough.
I learnt something new today. Several American Presidents have said that the USA has never fought against Russia. But there is a book called The Lenin Plot which says that Lloyd George persuaded President Wilson to send troops to protect military supplies sent to Russia by the Allies from the Red Army. About 4500 men went and they did indeed fight the Bolsheviks around Archangel.
Mr Football-in-my-Garden seems to have a persecution complex - incoming Daily Mail Quotation warning:
Mr Bakhaty, 77, claimed the school 'deliberately' built the football pitch to 'upset' him and his wife.
Er .. it's a Primary School.
(Added essential Daily Mail context: "The school, whose alumni include former glamour model Lucy Pinder and television presenter Philipa Forrester..")
tbf if the school is losing a football every other day then maybe it ought to have thought a bit harder about where to put the pitch, how high to build the fence, and whether to hire a better football coach.
ETA it has been a long time but I really can't recall ever losing a ball from playground football games. Is it possible one or two of the kids are either shockingly bad strikers or are deliberately targeting the complainant?
They aren't - that was the period before mitigation, which I think the action is about.
The Mail has a decent timeline. And a picture of the estimable (& essential to the story) "former glamour model Lucy Pinder", who appears to have procured two of the footballs.
So the school put a netting roof over the pitch in July 22 following which the couple were still unhappy, took legal action and when the Judge did a site visit there were 20 footballs in the garden.... something smells as fishy as a Brexit red-tape delayed consignment of high quality UK shellfish.
Anyway, in much bigger news, Donald Trump is right now on the phone to Vladimir Putin, resolving the Ukraine war. It was always coming down to this. Can these two big powerful men who like and understand each other do a deal that brings a lasting equitable peace?
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
We diverged on AI regulations quite substantially and the UK's AI industry is larger than the EU27 combined by quite a large amount. That's hundreds of thousands of very highly paid jobs in the UK that would otherwise be in the US or somewhere in Asia and it's still our fastest growing industry and will likely become position 3 after finance and pharma in the next decade.
Gene editing and food biotech is/was the next big divergence that could drive a big new UK industry to make up for lost EU exports but alas we may never know as I suspect the innovators will sell their nascent startups to US rivals and move to the US over the next few years as Brussels snuffs the life out of them.
Allie Renison of the IoD is on X claiming that EU laws are being seriously relaxed RIGHT NOW to allow European companies to do this tech wizardry, following the success in the UK
So unless they can frame those laws to hinder the UK but still allow EU tech to do it (that seems very hard) our pessimism MIGHT be misplaced
The EC may look to relax the current tough regulations on it, yet it will be the know nothing MEPs that protect "traditional farming" and vote it down. A potential huge future industry for the UK may end up being thrown away by Hungarian or Belgian MEPs representing areas just as they made trouble for trade deals in the past. It's not an industry that they have or could realistically attract so blocking it off literally makes no difference to them. All of the onerous AI regulations came from the EU parliament rather than the commission too, again it's MEPs from countries who don't have serious AI industries or ambition voting to block something they'll never benefit from anyway.
What I am very glad to see is that the government has refused to trade away tech and financial regulations. I think we could have wiped 4-7% off GDP growth in the next 10 years if they had while the EU catches up to the rest of the world.
One thing that does give me modest hope is that Starmer's government do seem aware of British advantages and opportunities in tech areas. It's not just talk they genuinely seem to get it (or so I forlornly believe)
It's not surprising that they get it - as it offers one of the very few avenues for Britain to escape its low productivity, need-migration nightmare of stagnancy and social angst. Also it could save the NHS
I think it's so big now that they can't afford to fuck it up. AI jobs leaving the UK would result in huge losses in income tax and NI. Ideologically I'm sure that Starmer would love to sign us back up to dynamic alignment on finance and tech with the EU but the very real economic hit would impoverish the nation.
Why don't we just scrap GDPR?
In terms of slightly pointless red tape that constrains more innovative industries including AI, that's got to be pretty high up the list.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Those are five bedroom houses on sale for over £400K. Most people cannot afford such houses, and those who can tend to be boomers or the children of the rich.
Indeed. Which makes it even more amazing and depressing - to me - that they are so numbingly boring, characterless, soul-less, and bleakly landscaped. Devoid of life and charm, just awful, and with - as far as I can see - no attempt to build shops, pubs, life alongside them
And we KEEP building these dire redbrick developments up and down the country, with their pinched little windows and stupid little porches and then the endless endless black tarmac for the endless endless cars
PUKE
The King has shown how it can be done, otherwise. God Bless His Majesty
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
We diverged on AI regulations quite substantially and the UK's AI industry is larger than the EU27 combined by quite a large amount. That's hundreds of thousands of very highly paid jobs in the UK that would otherwise be in the US or somewhere in Asia and it's still our fastest growing industry and will likely become position 3 after finance and pharma in the next decade.
Gene editing and food biotech is/was the next big divergence that could drive a big new UK industry to make up for lost EU exports but alas we may never know as I suspect the innovators will sell their nascent startups to US rivals and move to the US over the next few years as Brussels snuffs the life out of them.
Allie Renison of the IoD is on X claiming that EU laws are being seriously relaxed RIGHT NOW to allow European companies to do this tech wizardry, following the success in the UK
So unless they can frame those laws to hinder the UK but still allow EU tech to do it (that seems very hard) our pessimism MIGHT be misplaced
The EC may look to relax the current tough regulations on it, yet it will be the know nothing MEPs that protect "traditional farming" and vote it down. A potential huge future industry for the UK may end up being thrown away by Hungarian or Belgian MEPs representing areas just as they made trouble for trade deals in the past. It's not an industry that they have or could realistically attract so blocking it off literally makes no difference to them. All of the onerous AI regulations came from the EU parliament rather than the commission too, again it's MEPs from countries who don't have serious AI industries or ambition voting to block something they'll never benefit from anyway.
What I am very glad to see is that the government has refused to trade away tech and financial regulations. I think we could have wiped 4-7% off GDP growth in the next 10 years if they had while the EU catches up to the rest of the world.
One thing that does give me modest hope is that Starmer's government do seem aware of British advantages and opportunities in tech areas. It's not just talk they genuinely seem to get it (or so I forlornly believe)
It's not surprising that they get it - as it offers one of the very few avenues for Britain to escape its low productivity, need-migration nightmare of stagnancy and social angst. Also it could save the NHS
I think it's so big now that they can't afford to fuck it up. AI jobs leaving the UK would result in huge losses in income tax and NI. Ideologically I'm sure that Starmer would love to sign us back up to dynamic alignment on finance and tech with the EU but the very real economic hit would impoverish the nation.
Why don't we just scrap GDPR?
In terms of slightly pointless red tape that constrains more innovative industries including AI, that's got to be pretty high up the list.
Also get rid of the right to be forgotten bollocks which seems to be mostly used by bad actors who dont want their prior calumnies reported on
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
Wick isn't boring. Its bleakness and emptiness are fascinating. I would love it if work sent me to Wick for a couple of days. I nearly got to go once, but a colleague got the gig. If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
lol!
When I was choosing my archetypal boring place in middle England I nearly went for Nuneaton, over Newent. It was only the tedious small minded "sound" of the latter name that won the day
Western Europe has quite a few boring areas - not dismal enough to be interestingly bleak, like Wick, simply meh
Chunks of northern and central France. Most of inland Denmark in winter. Various mid size German cities, in fact large swathes of Germany away from mountains and sea
The burbs of Milan. The bit between Rotterdam and Amstersdam. The Veneto is a surprisingly boring part of Italy. It's like everything got packed into Venice and the rest is shite, despite the Palladio villas
The less posh bits of Geneva
Nuneaton
How do you find Romney Marsh in November or February?
I approve
I love the mad churches of Romney Marsh, and in November and Feb they would be redolent with moody noom
This is an attempt to find the most BORING place, with no noom at all, either dark or bright. The most desperately dull and characterless, not interestingly characterless either, they are too characterless for that
Which of the Romney Marsh Churches is your favourite?
I go for Brookland St Augustine, with it's separated bell tower and medieval lead font. And I can't remember which one it was (maybe St Mary in the Marsh), but the church key hanging on a nail in the porch of the farmhouse next door, with an outline drawn around it so you hung it back on the correct nail.
But that time we did not get into Fairfield to see the triple decker pulpit.
And, equally atmospheric, the WW1 Sound Mirrors of the Marsh, to hear incoming aircraft.
My other favourite Kent Church is probably Tudeley All Saints, with its full set of Chagall stained glass.
The BBC news was a lot fairer with the coverage on today’s deal. So the Tories crummy CPTTP deal worth 2 billion , Labours deal with India 5 billion , today’s EU deal 9 billion .
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
We diverged on AI regulations quite substantially and the UK's AI industry is larger than the EU27 combined by quite a large amount. That's hundreds of thousands of very highly paid jobs in the UK that would otherwise be in the US or somewhere in Asia and it's still our fastest growing industry and will likely become position 3 after finance and pharma in the next decade.
Gene editing and food biotech is/was the next big divergence that could drive a big new UK industry to make up for lost EU exports but alas we may never know as I suspect the innovators will sell their nascent startups to US rivals and move to the US over the next few years as Brussels snuffs the life out of them.
Allie Renison of the IoD is on X claiming that EU laws are being seriously relaxed RIGHT NOW to allow European companies to do this tech wizardry, following the success in the UK
So unless they can frame those laws to hinder the UK but still allow EU tech to do it (that seems very hard) our pessimism MIGHT be misplaced
The EC may look to relax the current tough regulations on it, yet it will be the know nothing MEPs that protect "traditional farming" and vote it down. A potential huge future industry for the UK may end up being thrown away by Hungarian or Belgian MEPs representing areas just as they made trouble for trade deals in the past. It's not an industry that they have or could realistically attract so blocking it off literally makes no difference to them. All of the onerous AI regulations came from the EU parliament rather than the commission too, again it's MEPs from countries who don't have serious AI industries or ambition voting to block something they'll never benefit from anyway.
What I am very glad to see is that the government has refused to trade away tech and financial regulations. I think we could have wiped 4-7% off GDP growth in the next 10 years if they had while the EU catches up to the rest of the world.
One thing that does give me modest hope is that Starmer's government do seem aware of British advantages and opportunities in tech areas. It's not just talk they genuinely seem to get it (or so I forlornly believe)
It's not surprising that they get it - as it offers one of the very few avenues for Britain to escape its low productivity, need-migration nightmare of stagnancy and social angst. Also it could save the NHS
I think it's so big now that they can't afford to fuck it up. AI jobs leaving the UK would result in huge losses in income tax and NI. Ideologically I'm sure that Starmer would love to sign us back up to dynamic alignment on finance and tech with the EU but the very real economic hit would impoverish the nation.
Why don't we just scrap GDPR?
In terms of slightly pointless red tape that constrains more innovative industries including AI, that's got to be pretty high up the list.
Depends, how much do you value data protection over “AI companies”?
The amount of hacks and data leaks recently suggest we need more GDPR not less
https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1924465843724759082 "The talks have been proceeding for a little while. We realize there's a bit of an impasse here, and I think the President [Trump] is going to say to president Putin, "Look, are you serious? Are you real about this?"
Honestly, I think that president Putin doesn't quite know how to get out of the war. This is a little bit of a guess, but I think the President would agree that part of this is I'm not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself for how to unwind the war that's been going on for a few years now.
There's fundamental mistrust between Russia and the West. It's one of the things the President thinks is frankly stupid, and we should be able to move beyond the mistakes that have been made in the past, but that takes two to tango. I know the President's willing to do that, but if Russia's not willing to do that, then we're eventually just going to have to say, 'This is not our war.' "
Mr Football-in-my-Garden seems to have a persecution complex - incoming Daily Mail Quotation warning:
Mr Bakhaty, 77, claimed the school 'deliberately' built the football pitch to 'upset' him and his wife.
Er .. it's a Primary School.
(Added essential Daily Mail context: "The school, whose alumni include former glamour model Lucy Pinder and television presenter Philipa Forrester..")
tbf if the school is losing a football every other day then maybe it ought to have thought a bit harder about where to put the pitch, how high to build the fence, and whether to hire a better football coach.
ETA it has been a long time but I really can't recall ever losing a ball from playground football games. Is it possible one or two of the kids are either shockingly bad strikers or are deliberately targeting the complainant?
Haven't been following but at that rate the footballs must be quite new ones. Presumably the householder is allowed to sell them on ebay or wherever?
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
We diverged on AI regulations quite substantially and the UK's AI industry is larger than the EU27 combined by quite a large amount. That's hundreds of thousands of very highly paid jobs in the UK that would otherwise be in the US or somewhere in Asia and it's still our fastest growing industry and will likely become position 3 after finance and pharma in the next decade.
Gene editing and food biotech is/was the next big divergence that could drive a big new UK industry to make up for lost EU exports but alas we may never know as I suspect the innovators will sell their nascent startups to US rivals and move to the US over the next few years as Brussels snuffs the life out of them.
Allie Renison of the IoD is on X claiming that EU laws are being seriously relaxed RIGHT NOW to allow European companies to do this tech wizardry, following the success in the UK
So unless they can frame those laws to hinder the UK but still allow EU tech to do it (that seems very hard) our pessimism MIGHT be misplaced
The EC may look to relax the current tough regulations on it, yet it will be the know nothing MEPs that protect "traditional farming" and vote it down. A potential huge future industry for the UK may end up being thrown away by Hungarian or Belgian MEPs representing areas just as they made trouble for trade deals in the past. It's not an industry that they have or could realistically attract so blocking it off literally makes no difference to them. All of the onerous AI regulations came from the EU parliament rather than the commission too, again it's MEPs from countries who don't have serious AI industries or ambition voting to block something they'll never benefit from anyway.
What I am very glad to see is that the government has refused to trade away tech and financial regulations. I think we could have wiped 4-7% off GDP growth in the next 10 years if they had while the EU catches up to the rest of the world.
One thing that does give me modest hope is that Starmer's government do seem aware of British advantages and opportunities in tech areas. It's not just talk they genuinely seem to get it (or so I forlornly believe)
It's not surprising that they get it - as it offers one of the very few avenues for Britain to escape its low productivity, need-migration nightmare of stagnancy and social angst. Also it could save the NHS
I think it's so big now that they can't afford to fuck it up. AI jobs leaving the UK would result in huge losses in income tax and NI. Ideologically I'm sure that Starmer would love to sign us back up to dynamic alignment on finance and tech with the EU but the very real economic hit would impoverish the nation.
Why don't we just scrap GDPR?
In terms of slightly pointless red tape that constrains more innovative industries including AI, that's got to be pretty high up the list.
Depends, how much do you value data protection over “AI companies”?
The amount of hacks and data leaks recently suggest we need more GDPR not less
GDPR does absolutely nothing to stop hacks and data leaks.....tells us you know nothing about it
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Those are five bedroom houses on sale for over £400K. Most people cannot afford such houses, and those who can tend to be boomers or the children of the rich.
Indeed. Which makes it even more amazing and depressing - to me - that they are so numbingly boring, characterless, soul-less, and bleakly landscaped. Devoid of life and charm, just awful, and with - as far as I can see - no attempt to build shops, pubs, life alongside them
And we KEEP building these dire redbrick developments up and down the country, with their pinched little windows and stupid little porches and then the endless endless black tarmac for the endless endless cars
PUKE
The King has shown how it can be done, otherwise. God Bless His Majesty
You obscure the force of your central point by surrounding it with ephemera.
Those windows. They are windows that suck the soul from your body.
All else is but a passing fart on a windy hilltop. But those windows are unspeakably pinched.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
Come on, we could do so much better than these identikit horrors. Surely.
We could. And if you came to my part of the town - built around 2000 - you can see that they succeeded.
But please don't ignore the important part of my post - you could have a lovely, well built an unique house in the middle of a 10-lane motorway and it'd be a shit house. The environment the house is in matters as much - in my view more - than the house itself. People are focusing too much on the building, and not where it sits.
This is where the 15-minute cities (and similar) are utterly correct - and the concepts' detractors are being silly. When my son was a toddler, being able to easily push him safely in a pram to nursery, the supermarket, five different playparks, a leisure centre, the doctor's, the library, etc, etc, was absolutely priceless. A friend of mine who lives in South London had to drive to get to most of those - except the supermarket, which was across a busy main road.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
Consulted just means ignored in reality. Didn't we also have a right to a consultation on reducing the CAP when Blair gave up a third of the rebate? Our politicians never learn.
I'm trying to get worked up about this deal.... but I can't
It's OK, fuck it, we have to follow EU rules on food so companies can have an easier time exporting there. I hate the ECJ doing anything over our heads but... pff.... it's biscuits and sausages
Also if we are going to follow any food standards I would genuinely prefer us to go the EU way than the US way. The EU way on food is one of the few areas the EU is clearly superior by a distance
I also like the egates (even tho the EU refusing to let us use them was sheer spite in the first place); the pet passports; youth mobility - let the Spanish girls come work in our bars again
I am sorry for the fisherpeople but at least their deal hasn't gotten WORSE
The deal is not gamechanging. It's more a modest but needed rapprochement after a nasty divorce, so the kids can stop being traumatised by all the acrimony and tea-pot throwing. It will do
Yes, I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it will mean that some gene editing and the UK's food biotech industry is now regulated from Brussels rather than from Westminster, it's an area where the UK is probably among the global leaders and the EU very much not so expect hostile regulations from Brussels to damage what is currently a small but very fast growing industry in this country. I expect what could have become a $10bn industry might just end up being strangled at birth or just end up being sold to US competitors for the IP and then once the EU catches up to where we would have been otherwise it will be too late and we'll end up having to import the IP/licences from the US.
It's probably not a deal breaker but it's a definite downside risk factor in that it doesn't necessarily kill many jobs today but it will probably prevent us from having a big food biotech industry.
Yes, that's the one area that genuinely troubles me
Indeed, and this is what I mean by being a rule taker. Dynamic alignment vs mutual standards recognition was always the debate and the government basically just waved the white flag. I think this is a short term gain for a probable long term loss overall because Brussels is a poorer regulator. Just as the government is pushing UK regulators for a growth agenda we've signed away food regulation to a known entity which is a big drag on growth. However, given that the industry is small it won't be a huge overall loss in near terms and really we'll never know what would have happened otherwise so will we miss what we never had?
The previous government had eight years to come up with some ideas as to how diverging standards might benefit us, and of course they didn’t, because the downsides would have outweighed any upside.
Theoretically the EU could be lobbied by the French to impose some new standard which benefits their farmers and costs ours. The reason they couldn't come up with a practical example is because there aren't any.
Even now, Max is talking about biotech in the future. Meanwhile, to guard against these theoretical future events, we erected big trade barriers to make it expensive at best and commercially non-viable at worst for our producers today. To ensure that our identical to the EU standards are kept separate from their identical to the UK standards.
But we have a concrete example of where we've leveraged regulatory divergence from the EU to our advantage on AI. As I said, I'm not particularly fussed by this deal and I think it will probably help in the very short term but you're pretending it has no downside risk which is patently false. If EU regulations on gene editing and wider food biotech doesn't change a nascent UK industry will be sold off to the US and all of the IP and jobs will be transferred. Maybe that's a sacrifice worth paying for ease of exports for traditional companies, but it is still a downside risk and pretending it isn't does you no favours.
That has got the potential to be an advantage in the future in a world where the EU industry is too lazy to bother. I accept that. But the alternative - as you proposed - is that to protect that possible future we should continue to pay more for less now by maintaining the SPS border between GB and EU where the standards are practically identical.
I don't think the upside is as big as you do though. IMO we're trading a potential blockbuster industry for the UK for an extra £3-4bn worth if low margin exports to the EU. It doesn't feel like a good trade to me today, though I'm open to being proved wrong.
The challenge with biotech is getting consumers to eat it. In reality so much food has already been bioengineered without anyone noticing, but overt GM remains a big consumer no no.
We've had GM food for decades at this point, I think the GM scare stories from the 90s and 00s all just petered out. It's all already in the food chain and there's no going back. I also don't think the same pushback from farmers will come this time either because they need the gene editing to keep their farms viable in the long term. The soil is becoming less nutritious, the climate is playing havoc with planting and harvesting cycles and they're much more ready for a technological solution than 20-30 years ago.
In the future GM crops will have a huge price advantage over non-GM crops and that will be the fundamental driver of consumer acceptance. A £1 loaf from GM wheat vs a £1.90 loaf from non-GM wheat, otherwise identical in taste and quality but because the GM wheat can be grown reliably in poor conditions the costs are much lower.
I disagree with you completely about GM. Read this sentence back:
I also don't think the same pushback from farmers will come this time either because they need the gene editing to keep their farms viable in the long term. The soil is becoming less nutritious
If the soil becomes less nutritious, the food becomes less nitritious. You can't magic up nutrients that aren't there. We will be doing the same thing with genes that we are with nitrogen fertilisers, giving food bulk but not adding nutrition. We'd better hope your prediction doesn't come true.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
Come on, we could do so much better than these identikit horrors. Surely.
We could. And if you came to my part of the town - built around 2000 - you can see that they succeeded.
But please don't ignore the important part of my post - you could have a lovely, well built an unique house in the middle of a 10-lane motorway and it'd be a shit house. The environment the house is in matters as much - in my view more - than the house itself. People are focusing too much on the building, and not where it sits.
This is where the 15-minute cities (and similar) are utterly correct - and the concepts' detractors are being silly. When my son was a toddler, being able to easily push him safely in a pram to nursery, the supermarket, five different playparks, a leisure centre, the doctor's, the library, etc, etc, was absolutely priceless. A friend of mine who lives in South London had to drive to get to most of those - except the supermarket, which was across a busy main road.
But that is merely your view of a nice environment, personally I would absolutely detest it.
The BBC news was a lot fairer with the coverage on today’s deal. So the Tories crummy CPTTP deal worth 2 billion , Labours deal with India 5 billion , today’s EU deal 9 billion .
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Those are five bedroom houses on sale for over £400K. Most people cannot afford such houses, and those who can tend to be boomers or the children of the rich.
A generation or two ago, that kind of person would have aspired to a big house on the Lutterworth Road with lots of frontage and a big garden. That development is a depressing downgrade.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
Wick isn't boring. Its bleakness and emptiness are fascinating. I would love it if work sent me to Wick for a couple of days. I nearly got to go once, but a colleague got the gig. If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
lol!
When I was choosing my archetypal boring place in middle England I nearly went for Nuneaton, over Newent. It was only the tedious small minded "sound" of the latter name that won the day
Western Europe has quite a few boring areas - not dismal enough to be interestingly bleak, like Wick, simply meh
Chunks of northern and central France. Most of inland Denmark in winter. Various mid size German cities, in fact large swathes of Germany away from mountains and sea
The burbs of Milan. The bit between Rotterdam and Amstersdam. The Veneto is a surprisingly boring part of Italy. It's like everything got packed into Venice and the rest is shite, despite the Palladio villas
The less posh bits of Geneva
Nuneaton
How do you find Romney Marsh in November or February?
I approve
I love the mad churches of Romney Marsh, and in November and Feb they would be redolent with moody noom
This is an attempt to find the most BORING place, with no noom at all, either dark or bright. The most desperately dull and characterless, not interestingly characterless either, they are too characterless for that
Which of the Romney Marsh Churches is your favourite?
I go for Brookland St Augustine, with it's separated bell tower and medieval lead font. And I can't remember which one it was (maybe St Mary in the Marsh), but the church key hanging on a nail in the porch of the farmhouse next door, with an outline drawn around it so you hung it back on the correct nail.
But that time we did not get into Fairfield to see the triple decker pulpit.
And, equally atmospheric, the WW1 Sound Mirrors of the Marsh, to hear incoming aircraft.
My other favourite Kent Church is probably Tudeley All Saints, with its full set of Chagall stained glass.
Fairfield is my favourite, stuck in that field
But I also like Brookland
OK, to the shops, there to buy me some FISH
Tudeley is worth the trip. It's like being in a modernist fish tank or glass fruit bowl - you need clear light. They also do arts events, so timing can get double bubble.
Mr Football-in-my-Garden seems to have a persecution complex - incoming Daily Mail Quotation warning:
Mr Bakhaty, 77, claimed the school 'deliberately' built the football pitch to 'upset' him and his wife.
Er .. it's a Primary School.
(Added essential Daily Mail context: "The school, whose alumni include former glamour model Lucy Pinder and television presenter Philipa Forrester..")
tbf if the school is losing a football every other day then maybe it ought to have thought a bit harder about where to put the pitch, how high to build the fence, and whether to hire a better football coach.
ETA it has been a long time but I really can't recall ever losing a ball from playground football games. Is it possible one or two of the kids are either shockingly bad strikers or are deliberately targeting the complainant?
Haven't been following but at that rate the footballs must be quite new ones. Presumably the householder is allowed to sell them on ebay or wherever?
The kids are 100% doing it deliberately. They'll have refused to throw one back and it's escalated from there.
It will now be a rite of passage in Winchester to punt a ball into their garden.
We're holidaying near Poitiers in the summer. Any suggestions on things to see/ do / avoid? Puy du Pou and Futoroscope are on the list. What else? We're driving, so transport generally shouldn't be an issue.
Avoid the area of Poitiers, one of the most boring corners of France
Boring areas are interesting; you get a truer feel for a place when it's not trying.
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
I was kinda teasing, tho it is one of the less appealing regions of a generally beautiful country
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
Wick isn't boring. Its bleakness and emptiness are fascinating. I would love it if work sent me to Wick for a couple of days. I nearly got to go once, but a colleague got the gig. If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
lol!
When I was choosing my archetypal boring place in middle England I nearly went for Nuneaton, over Newent. It was only the tedious small minded "sound" of the latter name that won the day
Western Europe has quite a few boring areas - not dismal enough to be interestingly bleak, like Wick, simply meh
Chunks of northern and central France. Most of inland Denmark in winter. Various mid size German cities, in fact large swathes of Germany away from mountains and sea
The burbs of Milan. The bit between Rotterdam and Amstersdam. The Veneto is a surprisingly boring part of Italy. It's like everything got packed into Venice and the rest is shite, despite the Palladio villas
The less posh bits of Geneva
Nuneaton
How do you find Romney Marsh in November or February?
I approve
I love the mad churches of Romney Marsh, and in November and Feb they would be redolent with moody noom
This is an attempt to find the most BORING place, with no noom at all, either dark or bright. The most desperately dull and characterless, not interestingly characterless either, they are too characterless for that
Have you actually been here, or are you sneering from a lack of knowledge?
If not, let's do a test. I'll bring you here and show you what it's like to live here as a real person. Then we'll do the same from you gaff in Camden.
Mr Football-in-my-Garden seems to have a persecution complex - incoming Daily Mail Quotation warning:
Mr Bakhaty, 77, claimed the school 'deliberately' built the football pitch to 'upset' him and his wife.
Er .. it's a Primary School.
(Added essential Daily Mail context: "The school, whose alumni include former glamour model Lucy Pinder and television presenter Philipa Forrester..")
tbf if the school is losing a football every other day then maybe it ought to have thought a bit harder about where to put the pitch, how high to build the fence, and whether to hire a better football coach.
ETA it has been a long time but I really can't recall ever losing a ball from playground football games. Is it possible one or two of the kids are either shockingly bad strikers or are deliberately targeting the complainant?
Haven't been following but at that rate the footballs must be quite new ones. Presumably the householder is allowed to sell them on ebay or wherever?
The kids are 100% doing it deliberately. It will now be a rite of passage in Winchester to punt a ball into their garden.
What the kids need to do is get a sheet of plyboard big enough to cover their front door, get some imitation brick finish tiles and cover the plywood with them then in the night prop it up against their front door with some solid wedging support so they open the door and it looks like someone bricked them in like we did with arseholes when I was a kid
Mr Football-in-my-Garden seems to have a persecution complex - incoming Daily Mail Quotation warning:
Mr Bakhaty, 77, claimed the school 'deliberately' built the football pitch to 'upset' him and his wife.
Er .. it's a Primary School.
(Added essential Daily Mail context: "The school, whose alumni include former glamour model Lucy Pinder and television presenter Philipa Forrester..")
tbf if the school is losing a football every other day then maybe it ought to have thought a bit harder about where to put the pitch, how high to build the fence, and whether to hire a better football coach.
ETA it has been a long time but I really can't recall ever losing a ball from playground football games. Is it possible one or two of the kids are either shockingly bad strikers or are deliberately targeting the complainant?
Haven't been following but at that rate the footballs must be quite new ones. Presumably the householder is allowed to sell them on ebay or wherever?
The kids are 100% doing it deliberately. It will now be a rite of passage in Winchester to punt a ball into their garden.
Absolutely they were winding him up when it opened.
I've had my photo quota today, but this is the size of the bushes between the two. It was temporary and they dealt with it. The neighbour is like a dog with a bone; he's like one of those nimbies who think they own the view.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
Come on, we could do so much better than these identikit horrors. Surely.
We could. And if you came to my part of the town - built around 2000 - you can see that they succeeded.
But please don't ignore the important part of my post - you could have a lovely, well built an unique house in the middle of a 10-lane motorway and it'd be a shit house. The environment the house is in matters as much - in my view more - than the house itself. People are focusing too much on the building, and not where it sits.
This is where the 15-minute cities (and similar) are utterly correct - and the concepts' detractors are being silly. When my son was a toddler, being able to easily push him safely in a pram to nursery, the supermarket, five different playparks, a leisure centre, the doctor's, the library, etc, etc, was absolutely priceless. A friend of mine who lives in South London had to drive to get to most of those - except the supermarket, which was across a busy main road.
I know there are practicalities, but honestly, they just look so ... depressing.
You could surely have all these facilities with just a little less density, a bit more green, and a bit less uniformity.
When gardens are postage stamps overlooked by the 10 neighbours it is no wonder they all end up as astroturf.
[Edit: I think the house in the M62 would be quite an interesting place to live, to be honest]
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
Come on, we could do so much better than these identikit horrors. Surely.
We could. And if you came to my part of the town - built around 2000 - you can see that they succeeded.
But please don't ignore the important part of my post - you could have a lovely, well built an unique house in the middle of a 10-lane motorway and it'd be a shit house. The environment the house is in matters as much - in my view more - than the house itself. People are focusing too much on the building, and not where it sits.
This is where the 15-minute cities (and similar) are utterly correct - and the concepts' detractors are being silly. When my son was a toddler, being able to easily push him safely in a pram to nursery, the supermarket, five different playparks, a leisure centre, the doctor's, the library, etc, etc, was absolutely priceless. A friend of mine who lives in South London had to drive to get to most of those - except the supermarket, which was across a busy main road.
But that is merely your view of a nice environment, personally I would absolutely detest it.
If you don't mind me asking- why?
(My bit of just-before-the-war outer London suburbia is probably one of the last bits to get it right. Facilities- including a train to properly get the hell out of here- in walking distance, enough gardens and parks. Once you don't have to provide a pile of parking, agreeable urban design isn't that difficult.)
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
Come on, we could do so much better than these identikit horrors. Surely.
We could. And if you came to my part of the town - built around 2000 - you can see that they succeeded.
But please don't ignore the important part of my post - you could have a lovely, well built an unique house in the middle of a 10-lane motorway and it'd be a shit house. The environment the house is in matters as much - in my view more - than the house itself. People are focusing too much on the building, and not where it sits.
This is where the 15-minute cities (and similar) are utterly correct - and the concepts' detractors are being silly. When my son was a toddler, being able to easily push him safely in a pram to nursery, the supermarket, five different playparks, a leisure centre, the doctor's, the library, etc, etc, was absolutely priceless. A friend of mine who lives in South London had to drive to get to most of those - except the supermarket, which was across a busy main road.
I know there are practicalities, but honestly, they just look so ... depressing.
You could surely have all these facilities with just a little less density, a bit more green, and a bit less uniformity.
When gardens are postage stamps overlooked by the 10 neighbours it is no wonder they all end up as astroturf.
They look hideous and generic. We have three or four developments around by me and they all look pretty samey. Tiny front drives, tiny gardens, houses overlooking each other. I’ll stay where I am
The BBC news was a lot fairer with the coverage on today’s deal. So the Tories crummy CPTTP deal worth 2 billion , Labours deal with India 5 billion , today’s EU deal 9 billion .
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
Come on, we could do so much better than these identikit horrors. Surely.
We could. And if you came to my part of the town - built around 2000 - you can see that they succeeded.
But please don't ignore the important part of my post - you could have a lovely, well built an unique house in the middle of a 10-lane motorway and it'd be a shit house. The environment the house is in matters as much - in my view more - than the house itself. People are focusing too much on the building, and not where it sits.
This is where the 15-minute cities (and similar) are utterly correct - and the concepts' detractors are being silly. When my son was a toddler, being able to easily push him safely in a pram to nursery, the supermarket, five different playparks, a leisure centre, the doctor's, the library, etc, etc, was absolutely priceless. A friend of mine who lives in South London had to drive to get to most of those - except the supermarket, which was across a busy main road.
I know there are practicalities, but honestly, they just look so ... depressing.
You could surely have all these facilities with just a little less density, a bit more green, and a bit less uniformity.
When gardens are postage stamps overlooked by the 10 neighbours it is no wonder they all end up as astroturf.
[Edit: I think the house in the M62 would be quite an interesting place to live, to be honest]
At that density it's just silly not to build flats. You could put a half of the land over to 1-bed and 2-bed flats with a nice park, the other half to big family homes with decent gardens.
Mr Football-in-my-Garden seems to have a persecution complex - incoming Daily Mail Quotation warning:
Mr Bakhaty, 77, claimed the school 'deliberately' built the football pitch to 'upset' him and his wife.
Er .. it's a Primary School.
(Added essential Daily Mail context: "The school, whose alumni include former glamour model Lucy Pinder and television presenter Philipa Forrester..")
tbf if the school is losing a football every other day then maybe it ought to have thought a bit harder about where to put the pitch, how high to build the fence, and whether to hire a better football coach.
ETA it has been a long time but I really can't recall ever losing a ball from playground football games. Is it possible one or two of the kids are either shockingly bad strikers or are deliberately targeting the complainant?
Haven't been following but at that rate the footballs must be quite new ones. Presumably the householder is allowed to sell them on ebay or wherever?
Would that not be theft?
He knows who they belong to, and there is proof of intention to permanently deprive them of ownership.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
Come on, we could do so much better than these identikit horrors. Surely.
We could. And if you came to my part of the town - built around 2000 - you can see that they succeeded.
But please don't ignore the important part of my post - you could have a lovely, well built an unique house in the middle of a 10-lane motorway and it'd be a shit house. The environment the house is in matters as much - in my view more - than the house itself. People are focusing too much on the building, and not where it sits.
This is where the 15-minute cities (and similar) are utterly correct - and the concepts' detractors are being silly. When my son was a toddler, being able to easily push him safely in a pram to nursery, the supermarket, five different playparks, a leisure centre, the doctor's, the library, etc, etc, was absolutely priceless. A friend of mine who lives in South London had to drive to get to most of those - except the supermarket, which was across a busy main road.
But that is merely your view of a nice environment, personally I would absolutely detest it.
If you don't mind me asking- why?
(My bit of just-before-the-war outer London suburbia is probably one of the last bits to get it right. Facilities- including a train to properly get the hell out of here- in walking distance, enough gardens and parks. Once you don't have to provide a pile of parking, agreeable urban design isn't that difficult.)
Because I grew up in the country, I don't like be on top of lots of people and having to tolerate their shit like the woman next door to me who routinely puts her extra loud washing machine on at 5am which on spin cycle slams repeatedly against the shared wall. Hell is other people
Mr Football-in-my-Garden seems to have a persecution complex - incoming Daily Mail Quotation warning:
Mr Bakhaty, 77, claimed the school 'deliberately' built the football pitch to 'upset' him and his wife.
Er .. it's a Primary School.
(Added essential Daily Mail context: "The school, whose alumni include former glamour model Lucy Pinder and television presenter Philipa Forrester..")
tbf if the school is losing a football every other day then maybe it ought to have thought a bit harder about where to put the pitch, how high to build the fence, and whether to hire a better football coach.
ETA it has been a long time but I really can't recall ever losing a ball from playground football games. Is it possible one or two of the kids are either shockingly bad strikers or are deliberately targeting the complainant?
Haven't been following but at that rate the footballs must be quite new ones. Presumably the householder is allowed to sell them on ebay or wherever?
The kids are 100% doing it deliberately. It will now be a rite of passage in Winchester to punt a ball into their garden.
Absolutely they were winding him up when it opened.
I've had my photo quota today, but this is the size of the bushes between the two. It was temporary and they dealt with it. The neighbour is like a dog with a bone; he's like one of those nimbies who think they own the view.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
Come on, we could do so much better than these identikit horrors. Surely.
We could. And if you came to my part of the town - built around 2000 - you can see that they succeeded.
But please don't ignore the important part of my post - you could have a lovely, well built an unique house in the middle of a 10-lane motorway and it'd be a shit house. The environment the house is in matters as much - in my view more - than the house itself. People are focusing too much on the building, and not where it sits.
This is where the 15-minute cities (and similar) are utterly correct - and the concepts' detractors are being silly. When my son was a toddler, being able to easily push him safely in a pram to nursery, the supermarket, five different playparks, a leisure centre, the doctor's, the library, etc, etc, was absolutely priceless. A friend of mine who lives in South London had to drive to get to most of those - except the supermarket, which was across a busy main road.
I know there are practicalities, but honestly, they just look so ... depressing.
You could surely have all these facilities with just a little less density, a bit more green, and a bit less uniformity.
When gardens are postage stamps overlooked by the 10 neighbours it is no wonder they all end up as astroturf.
So you want bigger gardens? That means fewer houses per acre, which means greater cost. Ditto individual designs. One thing my part of town got right was using copycat designs, but interspersing them. So there is an identikit house to ours around the corner, but built in a different brick. Or an identical one five streets away. And in the row I can see out of my window, there are three different roof heights and two different roof angles.
But it does not go against my main point: the situation a house is in matter as much, if not more, than an individual house's design - as long as it meets standards.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
Nuneaton is thankful you will never want to go there. The architecture of these new towns is specifically designed accordiing to stringent guidelines to keep the likes of SeanT out. And as someone who lives in a new town I too am thankful. Let's home more people from Hong Kong and less Camden ****s
Come on, we could do so much better than these identikit horrors. Surely.
We could. And if you came to my part of the town - built around 2000 - you can see that they succeeded.
But please don't ignore the important part of my post - you could have a lovely, well built an unique house in the middle of a 10-lane motorway and it'd be a shit house. The environment the house is in matters as much - in my view more - than the house itself. People are focusing too much on the building, and not where it sits.
This is where the 15-minute cities (and similar) are utterly correct - and the concepts' detractors are being silly. When my son was a toddler, being able to easily push him safely in a pram to nursery, the supermarket, five different playparks, a leisure centre, the doctor's, the library, etc, etc, was absolutely priceless. A friend of mine who lives in South London had to drive to get to most of those - except the supermarket, which was across a busy main road.
But that is merely your view of a nice environment, personally I would absolutely detest it.
The BBC news was a lot fairer with the coverage on today’s deal. So the Tories crummy CPTTP deal worth 2 billion , Labours deal with India 5 billion , today’s EU deal 9 billion .
When the Tories negotiate the UK loses .
Suck it up Kemi !
Ok dear.
I was using Kemi’s line and reversing it !
Thus showing you had internalised it and been upset by it.
Comments
I think there may be a 5-10 year period where, yes, exporting to the EU becomes progressively more difficult as we continue to diverge but then as the EU is forced to relax it's own blocks on gene editing and agricultural biotechnology the UK would be very, very well placed to export billions in IP licences and agricultural services to agribusiness all across the continent.
He went to their conference, lied, got them to bring down Theresa May, then did what he said he wouldn’t, now they regret opposing Theresa May’s deal.
So https://ccrc.gov.uk/decision/blackman-alexander/ wasn’t and wouldn’t be subject to the ICC
Anyway, nowhere in France is properly boring if you look properly.
There is a world of difference between something being technically possible and being economically viable.
Can we impose further barriers and restrictions on ourselves? Sure - but at what cost?
People need food to be cheaper. You want to make it more expensive. Diverging on standards is not just "a sticker" as you put it. We're already making farms non-viable and you're here saying to want to shut down more of them because reasons.
Again, its theory vs reality. And yes - I have a vested interest in wanting more choice and better value in the food we buy. Its called citizenship.
Mr Bakhaty, 77, claimed the school 'deliberately' built the football pitch to 'upset' him and his wife.
Er .. it's a Primary School.
(Added essential Daily Mail context: "The school, whose alumni include former glamour model Lucy Pinder and television presenter Philipa Forrester..")
You don't see the upside in divergence. Max and I do.
You think your opinion is the only one that matters due to your vested interest, I do not.
As someone blinded by their own vested interest, I think you don't see the wood for the trees.
‘Bring on the Gimp ‘
In my experience, nowhere in the world is boring, if you look properly
Yes, even Wick. And Newent
To flip your comment over, you don't see the downside in divergence. Dismiss costs as what was it, a "simple sticker". Ignores the breakdown in both imports to and exports from the UK as if it hasn't happened.
I am quite happy to protect potential future upsides - but as I said to Max you have to get past the "Frankenstein food" label which gets unfairly stuck on anything thats had some genetic twiddling done to it.
Ideology and zeal are great. When it is backed by even a basic understanding of what it is you are doing. Problem was that neither of them had a clue.
In the future GM crops will have a huge price advantage over non-GM crops and that will be the fundamental driver of consumer acceptance. A £1 loaf from GM wheat vs a £1.90 loaf from non-GM wheat, otherwise identical in taste and quality but because the GM wheat can be grown reliably in poor conditions the costs are much lower.
ETA it has been a long time but I really can't recall ever losing a ball from playground football games. Is it possible one or two of the kids are either shockingly bad strikers or are deliberately targeting the complainant?
You pretend it is all one-way traffic, no downside, only sunlit uplands.
I am saying there are pros and cons to be debated.
Yes you have to get past the Franknstein label. I think people can and will, but should be given a choice, in a liberal free market backed by scientific research and development, not a closed, protectionist one.
If people choose not to, that's their choice, if they choose to, that's their choice. People should have a choice, but the EU wants to take the choice away via regulations and you're pretending there's no risk in that and that its not viable to make an alternative choice.
Maybe this won't be the modest Labour triumph I expected. Maybe it will do nothing for Labour at all
If you were told you had to spend two days in x, what value of x would provoke the greatest ennui? I suggest: Nuneaton.
The Mail has a decent timeline. And a picture of the estimable (& essential to the story) "former glamour model Lucy Pinder", who appears to have procured two of the footballs.
When I was choosing my archetypal boring place in middle England I nearly went for Nuneaton, over Newent. It was only the tedious small minded "sound" of the latter name that won the day
Western Europe has quite a few boring areas - not dismal enough to be interestingly bleak, like Wick, simply meh
Chunks of northern and central France. Most of inland Denmark in winter. Various mid size German cities, in fact large swathes of Germany away from mountains and sea
The burbs of Milan. The bit between Rotterdam and Amstersdam. The Veneto is a surprisingly boring part of Italy. It's like everything got packed into Venice and the rest is shite, despite the Palladio villas
The less posh bits of Geneva
Nuneaton
If people want to pay more for organic, let them. We shouldn't be outlawing all alternatives though.
I always found that rather sad, not just coz she died. She was born and grew up in stunning and striking corners of Cornwall..... and died in Nuneaton
The bathos stings
http://fis-net.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?monthyear=5-2022&day=18&id=118060&l=e&country=0&special=0&ndb=1&df=0
The BBC will no doubt reel out the usual suspects from Fraserburgh and Peterhead, whilst ignoring the beneficiaries in the salmon and shellfish sectors. The SNP and the Tories should remember there are fishermen’s votes in constituencies outwith Banff and Buchan.
It's probably not wise to get too dependant on engineered crops.
On one hand, it should redeem Starmer a bit with the kind of remainery metropolitan liberal who has been really unhappy with him after last week.
It probably won't do much across the 52:48 divide. On both sides, that was more irrational than any of us want to admit, which is why appeals to reason either way make fairly little difference.
The interesting one is what happens on the pro-Brexit side. The effect seems to be to rally the Brexit army to the flag of the 2019 settlement... I get it emotionally, but there is a risk that they now look like the crazies. (There was a bit of that when the Windsor deal was agreed, but it never really ignited.)
Which "alternative choice" is it which I claimed wasn't viable? Specifically? You are talking in generalities about principles, whilst dismissing practical realioty as "vested interest.
One immediate benefit will be the binning of the Not for EU bullshit. Which simplifies production and supply chain and ultimately reduces retail prices through lower costs. We have gained nothing by adding this barrier.
Can we add more barriers? Sure. But they aren't economically viable if we want more choice and lower costs, especially if - like Not For EU - they add no value.
Look at this stunning development on the outskirts of the town. They are new builds yet the express a timeless beauty, the elegance of the best Georgian townhouses married with the flamboyance of Victorian Gothic, even the adorable oddities of Tudor and Jacobean. Most of all, they scream: NUNEATON
These are houses that could only be in Nuneaton, the same way the Ca d'Oro could only exist on the Grand Canal. They have the intrinsic beauty of Nuneaton stonework and artistry, and capture the Nuneaton essence in their noom. Every single brick is, simply, Nuneaton, down to its atoms
https://www.crestnicholson.com/developments/warwickshire/sketchley-gardens
But companies like Monsanto, who IIRC wanted to introduce *sterilised* GM crops ("terminator") so you would need to continue buying from them, were just shits. And they gave such crops an unjustifiably bad name. But you cannot trust them - and that's the issue.
They add the value of allowing us to evolve alternative regulations that enable better growth potential through biotech research and development.
They add the value of allowing us to evolve by not embracing their protectionist dogmas, unless we democratically choose to do so.
You may not value those values, but they exist.
'Don't worry about your food costing more and there being less of it. Enjoy the benefits of not embracing their protectionist dogma.'
'No, that protectionist dogma wasn't responsible for food being cheaper and more freely available before.'
What do you mean you don't care about any of this shit?'
Even so, I'm surprised that they have gone for "fishing" rather than for the carbon market or energy prices more heavily.
As I see it, on fishing:
- Starmer has preserved the quotas as at 2020, which were a Conservative negotiated agreement, so dissing that is dissing their own policy.
- Fish catch has increased since then but they can't easily sell it at a good price due to loss of market access and "fresh in France etc" markets having vanished, and have to swallow the costs of a mountain of paperwork.
- Now the paperwork will reduce, and they can sell it to their traditional market, which should boost income by reduction of cost, on increased prices through timely access to market, and because of the increase in product caught since 2020 which will continue.
- Quotas are fixed (by percentage?) until 2038, which means stability for investment. And is only worse if otherwise they would have increased for the UK industry and it could have been sold at good prices.
All they have to go at are imagined improvements that exist in their heads.
That seems to be a decent position for Starmer to defend, without any particular substantive weaknesses to be pointed at by the Opposition parties, other than "But BUT BUT it is worse than the thing I imagine my party would have created."
Watch that big mussels-in-Devon project which suffered a setback in 2020.
(AIUI there is another issue of 'heritage' breeds, which may be better in certain climate and ground conditions, which the big GM concerns would not care about but farmer often do. The GM companies would only care for the big concerns.)
It's also an important part of climate change adaptation. The UK is expected to get warmer and wetter. How do we adjust for that - or better, take advantage?
In terms of human consumption, just look at the absolute crap that most people eat on a daily basis. You'll get some people who take their food seriously, like those who eat organic stuff or grow their own veg, but 95% of people won't care.
I love the mad churches of Romney Marsh, and in November and Feb they would be redolent with moody noom
This is an attempt to find the most BORING place, with no noom at all, either dark or bright. The most desperately dull and characterless, not interestingly characterless either, they are too characterless for that
Basically, the sort of place that @JosiasJessop and @BartholomewRoberts live
The built environment is much more than "little newbuild redbrick hutches". I'd much rather bring up a kid here, amongst the "little newbuild redbrick hutches", than in London. Within walking distance - and we could safely walk - there were five different kids' playgrounds. Including one with a zipline and large sandpit. That's priceless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Cjk0zst3Cs
The brick did entertain us for hours speculating on the meaning of a single brick being there without rhyme or reason
I go for Brookland St Augustine, with it's separated bell tower and medieval lead font. And I can't remember which one it was (maybe St Mary in the Marsh), but the church key hanging on a nail in the porch of the farmhouse next door, with an outline drawn around it so you hung it back on the correct nail.
But that time we did not get into Fairfield to see the triple decker pulpit.
And, equally atmospheric, the WW1 Sound Mirrors of the Marsh, to hear incoming aircraft.
My other favourite Kent Church is probably Tudeley All Saints, with its full set of Chagall stained glass.
Too much terrain.
To be truly dull it has to be flat.
From these parts I would tentatively submit: Gainsborough.
In terms of slightly pointless red tape that constrains more innovative industries including AI, that's got to be pretty high up the list.
And we KEEP building these dire redbrick developments up and down the country, with their pinched little windows and stupid little porches and then the endless endless black tarmac for the endless endless cars
PUKE
The King has shown how it can be done, otherwise. God Bless His Majesty
But I also like Brookland
OK, to the shops, there to buy me some FISH
When the Tories negotiate the UK loses .
Suck it up Kemi !
The amount of hacks and data leaks recently suggest we need more GDPR not less
Those windows. They are windows that suck the soul from your body.
All else is but a passing fart on a windy hilltop. But those windows are unspeakably pinched.
But please don't ignore the important part of my post - you could have a lovely, well built an unique house in the middle of a 10-lane motorway and it'd be a shit house. The environment the house is in matters as much - in my view more - than the house itself. People are focusing too much on the building, and not where it sits.
This is where the 15-minute cities (and similar) are utterly correct - and the concepts' detractors are being silly. When my son was a toddler, being able to easily push him safely in a pram to nursery, the supermarket, five different playparks, a leisure centre, the doctor's, the library, etc, etc, was absolutely priceless. A friend of mine who lives in South London had to drive to get to most of those - except the supermarket, which was across a busy main road.
I also don't think the same pushback from farmers will come this time either because they need the gene editing to keep their farms viable in the long term. The soil is becoming less nutritious
If the soil becomes less nutritious, the food becomes less nitritious. You can't magic up nutrients that aren't there. We will be doing the same thing with genes that we are with nitrogen fertilisers, giving food bulk but not adding nutrition. We'd better hope your prediction doesn't come true.
It will now be a rite of passage in Winchester to punt a ball into their garden.
If not, let's do a test. I'll bring you here and show you what it's like to live here as a real person. Then we'll do the same from you gaff in Camden.
I've had my photo quota today, but this is the size of the bushes between the two. It was temporary and they dealt with it. The neighbour is like a dog with a bone; he's like one of those nimbies who think they own the view.
https://ddynlz3dz2bw0g.archive.is/Mdvwr/37caebee27d6343d1a1a046868d64ec47f4a0a1b.jpg
You could surely have all these facilities with just a little less density, a bit more green, and a bit less uniformity.
When gardens are postage stamps overlooked by the 10 neighbours it is no wonder they all end up as astroturf.
[Edit: I think the house in the M62 would be quite an interesting place to live, to be honest]
(My bit of just-before-the-war outer London suburbia is probably one of the last bits to get it right. Facilities- including a train to properly get the hell out of here- in walking distance, enough gardens and parks. Once you don't have to provide a pile of parking, agreeable urban design isn't that difficult.)
https://x.com/owenjonesjourno/status/1924414675732562295
I watched my dad die from advanced prostate cancer.
But then my dad didn’t arm a genocide and facilitate the total destruction of a health care system, condemning other cancer patients to death.
Joe Biden is a monster. He should be treated by medics while he’s in prison.
He knows who they belong to, and there is proof of intention to permanently deprive them of ownership.
I hope the school replace it with a cricket pitch - or driving range.
But it does not go against my main point: the situation a house is in matter as much, if not more, than an individual house's design - as long as it meets standards.
You seem to want really expensive houses.