Assuming our single market equivalence nonsense allows us to make our own trade deals; any country we find it worth making a deal with will also be of interest to the EU who will want to create a deal. Given that, do you think we'll be able to get a deal as good as a trading union 10 times our size? We might be able to get a deal a bit faster (presumably by conceding on everything), but in the long run will we be able to do anything better outside the EU than within?
The argument would be that we can tailor agreements to better suit our specific strengths and interests, and have the flexibility to modify/renegotiate them in line with those priorities as events progress over time. Combined with the ability to do things quicker, those are the upsides to being outside of the EU from a trade agreement perspective. The downside is that we'll have less negotiating weight, but as a G7 economy, that really means nothing except when it comes to the EU, China, and the US. It is possible that the above advantages will still compensate for that overall even with the big 3, but it is difficult to tell on that point until we're ten years in the future.
I suppose what I'm trying to say here is that it's all very well and good to shout 'we'll have less negotiating power', but unless that power is utilised in your best interests, it's not entirely efficient. It matters little to us whether that extra power exists if it is expended upon getting lesser export rates for Swedish bolt-together furniture or additional protection for German Bratwurst, as opposed to breaks in the banking networks (just to flourish an imaginary example out of the blue).
Negotiating weight and trade power is about what you do with it, and how well you can link it into other incentives. We may well find ten years down the line that we're actually generally alright, all things considered. In fact, that is, I personally think, the overall likelihood. As ever though, just my ha'penny.
Assuming our single market equivalence nonsense allows us to make our own trade deals; any country we find it worth making a deal with will also be of interest to the EU who will want to create a deal. Given that, do you think we'll be able to get a deal as good as a trading union 10 times our size? We might be able to get a deal a bit faster (presumably by conceding on everything), but in the long run will we be able to do anything better outside the EU than within?
The argument would be that we can tailor agreements to better suit our specific strengths and interests, and have the flexibility to modify/renegotiate them in line with those priorities as events progress over time. Combined with the ability to do things quicker, those are the upsides to being outside of the EU from a trade agreement perspective. The downside is that we'll have less negotiating weight, but as a G7 economy, that really means nothing except when it comes to the EU, China, and the US. It is possible that the above advantages will still compensate for that overall even with the big 3, but it is difficult to tell on that point until we're ten years in the future.
That analysis is missing two key points.
One is obvious: "Just how different are the UK trade needs compared to the wider EU?" and the answer is an obvious "not much".
If you look at the exports treemap of the UK, France and Germany they are extremely similar.
Top 3 exports, all accounting for half-ish of exports are invariably these ones:
- Machinery
- Vehicles (cars, airplanes, parts, etc.)
- Chemicals
Medical equipment is also up there, so are plastic products, wine and liquor, textiles, etc. In fact most Western economies look remarkably similar with only minor glitches (for example the UK has oil, which of course Germany and France don't, and there's Gold there too, but more goes in than out so the net effect is negligible it is the actual trading process in gold that provides the UK with something)
And this is reflected in the structure of the trade agreements that the EU has struck with partners worldwide. They tend to favour machinery, vehicles, chemicals, and so and so. So the argument that EU deals do not favour UK just don't hold water.
Which leads me to the next point: "Is it worth sacrificing the power from within to go on our own?" The UK, for all the rhetoric in the leave side has been one of the leading forces in shaping up the EU trade policy.
All of the above for the most part apply to goods so what about the great British industry: Services. Why hasn't the EU done more about easing services in their trade deals? And the answer is it has. Services are the most local industry ever. There are thousands of big and tiny barriers that every country has carved for themselves to make it harder for competitors to try to get a cut of your home pie, and that's why besides the EU there isn't a single free trade agreement that includes services. None. They will ask an arm and a leg for that, because they know they will upset very influential segments of the country (bankers, lawyers, notaries, etc.)
Real case scenario: when the EU asked India for free flow of services the answer was they wanted immigration restrictions for Indian citizens to the EU lifted. Is the UK willing to go there? Considering the forces that set Brexit in motion I don't think so. Another real-case scenario. Canada allows EU companies to tender for public contracts as part of their FTA, but not the other way around, will the UK be able to pull their weight like that in a future negotiation? Again, I don't think so.
But of course that in 10 years you'll still be generally alright. The UK will still be a developed western economy, a little (relatively) poorer, a little less relevant in the world stage, but still there.
Points worth noting on this most holy of days off (it's my birthday);
- As a WTO member you benefit (read: free ride) through MFN rules from others trade agreements. You get the same tariff rates as each nation offers in its most favourable trade deals.
- A massive portion of the EU's "trade deals" are just agreements with the likes of Lichtenstein and Andorra.
- Smaller countries have an easier time with trade deals on the simple basis that they have a much narrower set of economic interests. It doesn't always work out, but basically the problem the EU has and the reason it's notorious as the most protectionist trade bloc on the planet (we have tariffs against the import of Unicycles for Gods sake) is because of the vast swathe of interests the EU has to protect. The UK has no sizable orange growing community to protect. Or grape growers. Or wine makers. Or Banana sellers. Or a myriad of other elements, which can make it easier to agree deals because you're more flexible on a broad range of terms.
This is why New Zealand has a trade deal with China (one that both parties would like to expand further) and the EU doesn't.
bouncingboredom wrote: Points worth noting on this most holy of days off (it's my birthday);
- As a WTO member you benefit (read: free ride) through MFN rules from others trade agreements. You get the same tariff rates as each nation offers in its most favourable trade deals.
It's way more complicated than that. Otherwise a single free trade deal between two countries would mean the whole world would trade without any tariff.
MFN works only for exemptions for countries under WTO rules, which are rather rare.
- A massive portion of the EU's "trade deals" are just agreements with the likes of Lichtenstein and Andorra.
Lichtenstein is in the EEA, Andorra is in the Customs union. No need for that.
- Smaller countries have an easier time with trade deals on the simple basis that they have a much narrower set of economic interests. It doesn't always work out, but basically the problem the EU has and the reason it's notorious as the most protectionist trade bloc on the planet (we have tariffs against the import of Unicycles for Gods sake) is because of the vast swathe of interests the EU has to protect. The UK has no sizable orange growing community to protect. Or grape growers. Or wine makers. Or Banana sellers. Or a myriad of other elements, which can make it easier to agree deals because you're more flexible on a broad range of terms.
It works like that if you're a literal banana republic. The UK might not have a developed agricultural sector but it's a significant producer of meat products and spirits, which still have to be protected much i the same way as grapes and wine. Which leads me to your NZ example, more of this later.
This is why New Zealand has a trade deal with China (one that both parties would like to expand further) and the EU doesn't.
Look at NZ exports:
Agricultural products, minerals.... all very primary sector. Of course it's easy for them for strike trade deals. The UK economy couldn't be any different from NZ's.
Implying that someone reads the Daily Mail, now that is an insult.
You do understand that these are the rules with which we currently trade with most of the world, don't you?
Wrong. The UK now rides on literally hundreds of sectorial agreements that go beyond pure WTO rules.
Mauritania used to be the only nation that traded on pure WTO rules until their intention to join ECOWAS, so the UK starts behind Mauritania in the trade race.
jouso wrote: It's way more complicated than that. Otherwise a single free trade deal between two countries would mean the whole world would trade without any tariff.
No, you only get the rates that the two countries have agreed to and nobody goes 100% tariff free. It's normally just a rate reduction as opposed to a rate removal.
Lichtenstein is in the EEA, Andorra is in the Customs union. No need for that.
You understand that these are included under the list of countries that the EU presents itself as having trade deals with. So when they say "we have deals with over x number of countries", these are being included. Other top notch concluded partners include the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Palestinian Authority. Seriously, look up the list. There's a handful of what we would recognise as significant partners like Mexico and South Korea, but not many.
It works like that if you're a literal banana republic. The UK might not have a developed agricultural sector but it's a significant producer of meat products and spirits, which still have to be protected much i the same way as grapes and wine. Which leads me to your NZ example, more of this later.
No, it's a generally applicable rule. The less industries you have to protect, the more flexibility you have to work with. This is basic trade stuff.
Look at NZ exports; Agricultural products, minerals.... all very primary sector. Of course it's easy for them for strike trade deals. The UK economy couldn't be any different from NZ's.
You do understand that agricultural products are the hardest to negotiate for? So what you're in effect saying is that New Zealand - despite being a fraction of the size of just our own economy - is able to negotiate successfully in the areas considered most difficult to strike trade deals. You're not really helping your argument much to be honest.
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jouso wrote: Wrong. The UK now rides on literally hundreds of sectorial agreements that go beyond pure WTO rules.
Look at the map you've just posted from. It contains most of worlds largest economies. And as I pointed out, a lot of the claimed mass of agreements that the EU has are nothing of the sort.
jouso wrote: It's way more complicated than that. Otherwise a single free trade deal between two countries would mean the whole world would trade without any tariff.
No, you only get the rates that the two countries have agreed to and nobody goes 100% tariff free. It's normally just a rate reduction as opposed to a rate removal.
Which is why there are precious little cases of that. It's basically a don't cheat deterrent.
Lichtenstein is in the EEA, Andorra is in the Customs union. No need for that.
You understand that these are included under the list of countries that the EU presents itself as having trade deals with. So when they say "we have deals with over x number of countries", these are being included. Other top notch concluded partners include the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Palestinian Authority. Seriously, look up the list. There's a handful of what we would recognise as significant partners like Mexico and South Korea, but not many.
It works like that if you're a literal banana republic. The UK might not have a developed agricultural sector but it's a significant producer of meat products and spirits, which still have to be protected much i the same way as grapes and wine. Which leads me to your NZ example, more of this later.
No, it's a generally applicable rule. The less industries you have to protect, the more flexibility you have to work with. This is basic trade stuff.
Look at NZ exports; Agricultural products, minerals.... all very primary sector. Of course it's easy for them for strike trade deals. The UK economy couldn't be any different from NZ's.
You do understand that agricultural products are the hardest to negotiate for? So what you're in effect saying is that New Zealand - despite being a fraction of the size of just our own economy - is able to negotiate successfully in the areas considered most difficult to strike trade deals. You're not really helping your argument much to be honest.
The primary sector is not the hardest to protect, it usually turns out that most economies (and especially developing ones) rely on those. NZ-China trade is simple as it gets, since China is a net importer of everything New Zealanders produce (minerals and foodstuffs) while NZ is happy to open their gates to manufactured goods from China since their industrial sector is tiny.
jouso wrote: Wrong. The UK now rides on literally hundreds of sectorial agreements that go beyond pure WTO rules.
Look at the map you've just posted from. It contains most of worlds largest economies. And as I pointed out, a lot of the claimed mass of agreements that the EU has are nothing of the sort.
I don't think you bothered to read the text then. The US and the EU have literally hundreds of sectorial trade agreements. A FTA doesn't just come out of the blue, it is a process of aggregating sectorial agreements into one single piece of binding agreement. EU-US trade is as close as free as it gets, despite being nominally through WTO rules, because those are supplemented by thousands of pages of bilateral agreements. There's not a single country on earth that the EU trades under pure WTO rules with.
Once Brexit kicks in, the UK is out of those, and will need to rebuild them from the start. Remember: deals are incremental, and take decades to get to the following step. There's no cake and eat it here either, a deal will be fast and bad (for British interests at least) or will require extended periods of being in a disadvantaged position.
The argument would be that we can tailor agreements to better suit our specific strengths and interests, and have the flexibility to modify/renegotiate them in line with those priorities as events progress over time. Combined with the ability to do things quicker, those are the upsides to being outside of the EU from a trade agreement perspective. The downside is that we'll have less negotiating weight, but as a G7 economy, that really means nothing except when it comes to the EU, China, and the US. It is possible that the above advantages will still compensate for that overall even with the big 3, but it is difficult to tell on that point until we're ten years in the future.
Yet that isn't what is happening. They can't point to a single country where there has been progress to even work towards a free trade deal (something the Tories are promoting).
The best they have managed to come up with is joining the TTP, which is the polar opposite to a dynamic flexible agreement because it would be joining something already set up and agreed. That's worse than what we have with the EU by a mile where we at least get a say as to the deal that is put forward. In anything the issue with TTP shows just how weak our bargaining position is on our own.
Us teachers have another education secretary to look forward to after Justine Greened was pushed elsewhere and decided to resign instead.
Imbecile Chris Grayling still has a job. Honestly, out of all the MPs they could pick they still rely on people like him. Why I should be surprised, we have a string of education secretaries with no background in education whatsoever, and recently an obnoxious sexist put in charge of universities.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Us teachers have another education secretary to look forward to after Justine Greened was pushed elsewhere and decided to resign instead.
Imbecile Chris Grayling still has a job. Honestly, out of all the MPs they could pick they still rely on people like him. Why I should be surprised, we have a string of education secretaries with no background in education whatsoever, and recently an obnoxious sexist put in charge of universities.
I couldn’t quite believe that after his sterling work for the NHS and having just cancelled 50,000 operations, Jeremy Hunt’s responsibilities have been expanded to social care as well. The mind boggles at the responsibilities given to these incompetents.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I couldn’t quite believe that after his sterling work for the NHS and having just cancelled 50,000 operations, Jeremy Hunt’s responsibilities have been expanded to social care as well. The mind boggles at the responsibilities given to these incompetents.
Apparently, Hunt refused to move. Justine Greening was sacked for refusing to move posts.
Surely May is done now? She can’t control her cabinet, what hope for the rest of her job?
Howard A Treesong wrote: I couldn’t quite believe that after his sterling work for the NHS and having just cancelled 50,000 operations, Jeremy Hunt’s responsibilities have been expanded to social care as well. The mind boggles at the responsibilities given to these incompetents.
It makes sense from one perspective, which is that it is the crisis in social care which is ramping up the crisis in the NHS.
The BBC reported that up to 50% of hospital beds are now occupied by patients who are well enough to be discharged, but can't be bcause their local councils do not have the social care in place to accomodate them in the community.
From this angle it makes sense for one ministry to be in charge of both the NHS and the social care system, rather than social care being the responsibility of local councils.
Of course, it is the reduction of the central government grant to local councils that led to the social care crisis, and the cancelling of dozens of NHS walk-in centres that has helped stoke the A&E crisis at the front end.
The problem is that these issues have been clear for years. It requires a re-organisation of the role of local councils and the NHS in managing people through the whole patient journey (or some such management speak phrase.)
In short, Jeremy Hunt is part of the problem, and naming him responsible for social care does not create any kind of solution.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It will always baffle me that someone can be appointed a Minister with absolutely no actual experience in that area.
Doesn't matter who's formed the Government, that just strikes me as a recipe for disaster.
It wouldn't be so bad if MPs, especially those who cut their way to cabinet positions, weren't often also the kinds of people who will think that their "common sense" trumps the collective experience of the people actually working in the fields.
For a particularly egregious example see Professor David Nutt being fired by Alan Johnson, because apparently being an ex-postman gives you more expertise on the dangers of drugs than a professor specialising in psychology and psychopharmacology.
Just look at some of the utter imbeciles we've had in high positions in my lifetime.
How galling must it be to be a health or education professional, and be told how to do your job by someone you know full well has absolutely no idea what they're talking about. Or worse, be told you're actually getting enough money and to stop being wasteful by someone who'll happily vote themselves large pay rises year in, year out.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I couldn’t quite believe that after his sterling work for the NHS and having just cancelled 50,000 operations, Jeremy Hunt’s responsibilities have been expanded to social care as well. The mind boggles at the responsibilities given to these incompetents.
Being cynical, Hunt has an almost unique ability to be completely oblivious to the hatred he causes, so he's a good candidate to sit smugly whilst people get upset at what they are doing to social care too. As said, they are very closely linked and it's the damage to social care that's having the obvious impact on the NHS. People stuck in beds because there's no care. People admittedly with more serious conditions because there's less care.
Just look at some of the utter imbeciles we've had in high positions in my lifetime.
How galling must it be to be a health or education professional, and be told how to do your job by someone you know full well has absolutely no idea what they're talking about. Or worse, be told you're actually getting enough money and to stop being wasteful by someone who'll happily vote themselves large pay rises year in, year out.
They used to complain about this in Ancient Rome as well.
Just look at some of the utter imbeciles we've had in high positions in my lifetime.
How galling must it be to be a health or education professional, and be told how to do your job by someone you know full well has absolutely no idea what they're talking about. Or worse, be told you're actually getting enough money and to stop being wasteful by someone who'll happily vote themselves large pay rises year in, year out.
I couldn't agree more. I've always though ministers should have to pass a 101 level test to show some basic competency in a field before becoming responsible for it. If a party can't find anyone willing and capable to fill a role, it rolls over to the shadow government, then any opposition party. If you can't find any MP that can pass the test then you need to get better MPs.
Chris Grayling (Transport) is a qualified medical doctor.
This gives him a strong scientific education, but clearly his handling of cases like the East Coast franchise or the Southern Railways union dispute are nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics.
Just look at some of the utter imbeciles we've had in high positions in my lifetime.
How galling must it be to be a health or education professional, and be told how to do your job by someone you know full well has absolutely no idea what they're talking about. Or worse, be told you're actually getting enough money and to stop being wasteful by someone who'll happily vote themselves large pay rises year in, year out.
They used to complain about this in Ancient Rome as well.
Something being b0rken for a long time means there's a more pressing need to fix it.
Remember all the times that ministers told us they were making contingency preparations for no-deal Brexit, setting aside £3bn and appointing a no-deal minister etc...?
Well, according to a letter from Davis to May (leaked to FT) they are now consulting lawyers about EU's own contingency preparations for a no-deal Brexit.
In the words of @patmcfaddenmp: "It seems extraordinary that the government is exercised about the EU preparing for a no deal scenario when it has set aside £3bn in its most recent Budget to do exactly the same thing..."
Key to Dexeu complaint is that EU - in its advice to companies - is ignoring likelihood that UK will get a 2-year transition period. Davis has urged May to call on Commission to withdraw the advice and has consulted lawyers....
Commission spokesman all deadpan just now: "We in the European Commission we are surprised that the United Kingdom is surprised that we are preparing for a scenario announced by the UK government itself."
.. if this happened in a political sitcom you'd laugh but shrug it off as unrealistic.
Davis: We must get serious about walking away without a deal.
EU: Okay let's get serious about walking away without a deal.
Davis: How dare you get serious about walking away without a deal!
.. and Davis is considered one of the smart ones.
..lest we forget...
Grayling is gonna be an ace quiz answer/bit of trivia in the future.
It’s like jury service. Every time someone suggests making jury service optional the first argument against it is that if someone is wanting to volunteer you really don’t want on a jury. I’d say the same about politics. Equally however I wouldn’t want 400 randomly chosen MPs.
Big promise by @LiamFox just now in the HoC in answer to my questions: the UK will reach new trade agreements with all 65 of the countries we currently trade with through EU agreements by the end of March 2019
uh huh.
.. so , given holidays etc etc that's more than one a week then.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I couldn’t quite believe that after his sterling work for the NHS and having just cancelled 50,000 operations, Jeremy Hunt’s responsibilities have been expanded to social care as well. The mind boggles at the responsibilities given to these incompetents.
It makes sense from one perspective, which is that it is the crisis in social care which is ramping up the crisis in the NHS.
The BBC reported that up to 50% of hospital beds are now occupied by patients who are well enough to be discharged, but can't be bcause their local councils do not have the social care in place to accomodate them in the community.
From this angle it makes sense for one ministry to be in charge of both the NHS and the social care system, rather than social care being the responsibility of local councils.
Of course, it is the reduction of the central government grant to local councils that led to the social care crisis, and the cancelling of dozens of NHS walk-in centres that has helped stoke the A&E crisis at the front end.
The problem is that these issues have been clear for years. It requires a re-organisation of the role of local councils and the NHS in managing people through the whole patient journey (or some such management speak phrase.)
In short, Jeremy Hunt is part of the problem, and naming him responsible for social care does not create any kind of solution.
Of course in 2013 there was a re-organisation. The government moved some in hospital social care elements out of the NHS and into local government and then preceded to start slashing those budgets (cynically) as it is easier to attack local government funding than NHS funding. Council's now have to undertake social care roles that use to be done by the NHS (like hospital discharge teams). The government is basically going round in circles and chasing their own tail.
Big promise by @LiamFox just now in the HoC in answer to my questions: the UK will reach new trade agreements with all 65 of the countries we currently trade with through EU agreements by the end of March 2019
uh huh.
.. so , given holidays etc etc that's more than one a week then.
Every week for the next 16 months or so.
uh huh.
Well he is technically correct because even WTO could be counted as a new 'Trade deal'. It doesn't mean any of them will be any good...
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.. if this happened in a political sitcom you'd laugh but shrug it off as unrealistic.
Davis: We must get serious about walking away without a deal.
EU: Okay let's get serious about walking away without a deal.
Davis: How dare you get serious about walking away without a deal!
.. and Davis is considered one of the smart ones.
It just shows how unrealistic their expectations are and that they truly thought they would get everything they still have but not pay for it. Hence they resort to...."mummy they are being really mean and not letting me get what I want....waaaaaaaah"
If we had halfway competent people in charge there is a chance that Brexit would not turn out to be a total catastrophe. But watching this bunch of chuckleclucks do Brexit is like watching a slow motion car crash, with the added fun that we are all stuck in the back seat I'm beginning to wish they would just get it over with so we can bury the Tories and move on to rebuilding.
Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage tweeted: "We are heading in a worrying direction."
If they banned passengers from bringing copies of the DM on board, then it would be worrying.
Otherwise, this is just market forces in action. There probably just aren't enough people buying it to make selling it worthwhile.
I only buy the DM's sister paper, the Mail on Sunday, for Peter Hitchen's column. And even then I usually just nick my Dad's, and its available for free online as well.
The Virgin spokesperson added that when it stocked the paper, which it stopped carrying in November, it only sold one copy for every four trains.
The Virgin spokesperson added that when it stocked the paper, which it stopped carrying in November, it only sold one copy for every four trains.
I chuckled at the Mail outrage earlier. Though all virgin needed to say was the above as reason to cease carrying it.
I would like to know what the figures are for the other rags they carry, The Mirror,Times and Telegraph. I never see anyone buying papers on the train.
Frankly I would prefer the railway companies to run a good service of trains on time before worrying about whether they have free WiFi and charging points.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Maybe I'm showing my age here, but am I the only person these days who turns up for a long distance train journey with a pile of books?
Free Wi-Fi be damned!
I'm not that much younger than you and I bring a book, netflix on my cell and a nintendo switch (and a powerpack to keep things going)
I don't miss the days when I had to pack 3-4 books for an American or Pacific trip and still I had to scour the airport shops for some extra reading material.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Maybe I'm showing my age here, but am I the only person these days who turns up for a long distance train journey with a pile of books?
I tend to do work when I'm travelling these days, gives me more leisure time at home. Books for shorter trips / when I can't be bothered working.
Kilkrazy wrote: That is the great advantage of a Kindle. You can carry a whole library in one pocket.
Yeah, but can a kindle:
Be used as a doorstop, stop a knife, clobber a street robber, prop up a dodgy table/chair, proxy as terrain for miniature wargames, be used as fuel in an emergency etc etc
as well as being something too read?
When kindle can do all that, then I'll give up the humble book.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Maybe I'm showing my age here, but am I the only person these days who turns up for a long distance train journey with a pile of books?
I tend to do work when I'm travelling these days, gives me more leisure time at home. Books for shorter trips / when I can't be bothered working.
Not having a go at you, but working whilst on the move, due to laptops etc etc
has to be one of the most insidious things modern capitalism ever inflicted on mankind.
At least in the days of coal mines, yeah, you might have been poor, but once you left the pit, you left the pit for the day.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Maybe I'm showing my age here, but am I the only person these days who turns up for a long distance train journey with a pile of books?
Free Wi-Fi be damned!
I'm not that much younger than you and I bring a book, netflix on my cell and a nintendo switch (and a powerpack to keep things going)
I don't miss the days when I had to pack 3-4 books for an American or Pacific trip and still I had to scour the airport shops for some extra reading material.
The things took up a lot of space and weight.
In my humble experience of long distance travel, phones and laptops have kinda prevented random conversations being struck up with strangers. True, on the rare occasions, some of those people turned out to be reactionary nutters, but I've had many a classic conversation over the years with strangers on trains and planes.
Not having a go at you, but working whilst on the move, due to laptops etc etc
has to be one of the most insidious things modern capitalism ever inflicted on mankind.
At least in the days of coal mines, yeah, you might have been poor, but once you left the pit, you left the pit for the day.
I sort of agree. But if you've got dead time from travelling, would you rather spend that doing work, so that you can spend your free time on hobby/family stuff?
I don't like the idea of being 'always on' but I love the flexibility of doing an hours work on the train home, so I can spend that hour I bunked off early with me kids.
In my humble experience of long distance travel, phones and laptops have kinda prevented random conversations being struck up with strangers. True, on the rare occasions, some of those people turned out to be reactionary nutters, but I've had many a classic conversation over the years with strangers on trains and planes.
Surely you get the same issue with books? Admittedly, the threshold for getting a phone out seems to be a lot lower than for a book.
Kilkrazy wrote: Frankly I would prefer the railway companies to run a good service of trains on time before worrying about whether they have free WiFi and charging points.
True, but if you're going to be stuck on a train for hours with no seat, no air conditioning and no openable windows the least they could do is let you browse junk on the internet whilst your train gets ever behind schedule and the temperature climbs steadily higher (or decreases steadily, depending on the time of year).
What really baffles me is that Trains are allowed to pack us in under conditions you're not allowed to transport livestock in.
I mean, it's crazy. I have to get the train home tonight, the 7:49 from Waterloo East. In theory, it'll be quiet.
In reality? I can almost guarantee a deeply unpleasant journey home, because of course it will be.
Oh, and one last moan? Utter gimboids who board the train early, and dump their stupid folding bikes where people will have to stand at the next station.
And double gimboids who sit in the aisle seat in the vain hope nobody will ask them shift their selfish backsides.
"Brexit supporters will present the EU's chief negotiator with a hamper of English sparkling wine, cheddar cheese and Shakespeare plays at a meeting in Brussels today, as they warn him against under-estimating Britain's global influence”
"The gifts will help Mr Barnier to fully grasp the powerful commercial position Britain occupies globally"
...
...yyeeaahh.. bet that really impressed him.
Doesn't at all look like the only prize at some awful raffle to raise funds for a church steeple or something.
Jokes about it's taste aside that's marmite, as in invented by German chemist Justus von Liebig, named after French earthenware marmite and produced by Dutch British company Unilever.
As is PG Tips -- and unilever has said it is against Brexit.
Yet all the while there is a remedy which, if it were generally and spontaneously adopted, would as if by a miracle transform the whole scene, and would in a few years make all Europe, or the greater part of it, as free and as happy as Switzerland is today.
What is this sovereign remedy?
It is to re-create the European Family, or as much of it as we can, and provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom.
We must build a kind of United States of Europe.
In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living.
The Gin -- which is good is made by a company who imports goods from around the world and have moved their HQ to Dublin due to Brexit
Theresa May is facing fresh reshuffle embarrassment amid claims that she breached the Ministerial Code with her Downing Street PR stunt to promote the Tory party’s new top ranks.
Labour has written to the Prime Minister to complain that she was in clear breach of rules which forbid the use of any Government and taxpayer-funded property for party political purposes, HuffPost can reveal.
May led a parade of Conservative party chairmen and vice-chairmen in Downing Street on Monday as she started her shake-up of ministerial ranks.
The Conservative Party subsequently retweeted the picture on both their main twitter account and the Conservative Press account.
But just one of the appointees, party chairman Brandon Lewis, was given a Government post and the rest were all party jobs.
Section 6 of the Ministerial Code – which was updated only this week - says that Government property should not be used for “party political activities”, a strict rule that carries sanctions if breached.
It declares: “Ministers are provided with facilities at Government expense to enable them to carry out their official duties. These facilities should not generally be used for Party or constituency activities.”
Those found guilty of any breach face the humiliation of an official reprimand by the independent adviser on the ministerial code, Sir Alex Allen, and possible calls for an apology.
Jon Trickett, Labour’s Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, told HuffPost UK: “Theresa May’s shambolic and much-hyped reshuffle was just a smokescreen for an overhaul of the Tory Party machine that failed to deliver the Prime Minister a majority at the General Election.
“Her shameless use of public property to bolster publicity for her hollow attempt to revitalise her broken party is a clear breach of the ministerial code.
“This is yet another example of Theresa May and her Government undermining the high standards of public office and she should apologise immediately.”
However, any breach of the ministerial code relies on the Prime Minister triggering an investigation first.
Section 1 of the code states that the process can only look at an allegation if “the Prime Minister, having consulted the Cabinet Secretary feels that it warrants further investigation”.
No.10 may also rely on a possible get-out clause that states “a particular exception is recognised in the case of official residences”.
Yet the Conservatives could be forced to pay up for the stunt. The code adds: “Where Ministers host Party or personal events in these residences it should be at their own or Party expense with no cost falling to the public purse.”
It remains unclear if the use of Downing Street for party purposes was cleared by Sue Gray, the Cabinet Office’s head of Propriety and Ethics.
One Tory insider told HuffPost: “As soon as they took that photo outside Number 10, my head banged the desk. An avoidable mistake.”
A Government spokesman said: “Given that section 6.2 of the Ministerial Code explicitly states that official residences can be used to host party events, there has clearly been no wrongdoing.
“A photo with a party political dimension, on the doorstep of the official residence of No10, is quite acceptable – and as Labour know that has been the case under successive administrations.”
Now as it happens I'm not especially fussed about a photo-op outside NO. 10 -- nor are most people I imagine.
BUt how badly run is an organisation that cannot follow rules that it writes and updates itself ?
"Brexit supporters will present the EU's chief negotiator with a hamper of English sparkling wine, cheddar cheese and Shakespeare plays at a meeting in Brussels today, as they warn him against under-estimating Britain's global influence”
"The gifts will help Mr Barnier to fully grasp the powerful commercial position Britain occupies globally"
...
...yyeeaahh.. bet that really impressed him.
Shows how clueless some really are. Barnier is French politician. The country is the largest exporter of wine (and by far and wide higher quality than the UKs) as well as the third largest producer of cheese (and for the most part is by far superior to the slabs of fat we mostly produce). Probably thought we were trying to poison him after he tried some!
Now as it happens I'm not especially fussed about a photo-op outside NO. 10 -- nor are most people I imagine.
But how badly run is an organisation that cannot follow rules that it writes and updates itself ?
This is the Tories we are talking about. Item 1 of the new rules states "All rules here apply to all MPs with the exception of Conservative MPs; friends of Conservative MPs; relatives of Conservative MPs; those that have donated to the Conservative party; any Conservative party member; any people previously mentioned that inform the Conservative party an individual should be exempt from such rules; and Toby Young"
In more serious news, the NHS are now having to cut back on cancer care because they don't have the staff and resources. In Oxford they are going to push back treatment to the longest wait 'allowed' and discussing reducing treatment of symptoms from six cycles to four.
"Brexit supporters will present the EU's chief negotiator with a hamper of English sparkling wine, cheddar cheese and Shakespeare plays at a meeting in Brussels today, as they warn him against under-estimating Britain's global influence”
"The gifts will help Mr Barnier to fully grasp the powerful commercial position Britain occupies globally"
...
...yyeeaahh.. bet that really impressed him.
Shows how clueless some really are. Barnier is French politician. The country is the largest exporter of wine (and by far and wide higher quality than the UKs) as well as the third largest producer of cheese (and for the most part is by far superior to the slabs of fat we mostly produce). Probably thought we were trying to poison him after he tried some!
The UK makes some of the best cheese in the world and our sparkling wine is doing very well winning award after award. Most of France wouldn’t believe you, mostly because the French have a deep belief in the superiority of France to all other countries and the belief that French culture, art and cuisine is superior to all others. This leads to a view of British food that is about 30 years out of date. In the last 15-20 years the UKs food revolution means that we have a lot of artisan producers making very high quality products of all sorts and winning awards in many areas. If you want to talk about slabs of fat you have to talk about Boursin and Laughing Cow.
There are many things many Brexit supporters are clueless about, but I’m guessing they didn’t rock up with a box of seriously strong, a bottle of buckkie and a soda stream.
The UK makes some of the best cheese in the world and our sparkling wine is doing very well winning award after award. Most of France wouldn’t believe you, mostly because the French have a deep belief in the superiority of France to all other countries and the belief that French culture, art and cuisine is superior to all others. This leads to a view of British food that is about 30 years out of date. In the last 15-20 years the UKs food revolution means that we have a lot of artisan producers making very high quality products of all sorts and winning awards in many areas. If you want to talk about slabs of fat you have to talk about Boursin and Laughing Cow.
There are many things many Brexit supporters are clueless about, but I’m guessing they didn’t rock up with a box of seriously strong, a bottle of buckkie and a soda stream.
French wine and cheese is by far superior. Competitions come and go and is subject to individual tastes and current trends. Also it's hardly a useful thing to evidence how good our exports are when these two items are overwhelmed by French exports of the same material.
They have many years of marketing. Same reason people pay so much for diamond engagement rings (DeBeers marketing in the 1950s), Irish and Japanese Whiskey/Whisky does not sell like scotch and US cars sell so well in the US but not the rest of the world. Sales and exports is not evidence of quality.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: What really baffles me is that Trains are allowed to pack us in under conditions you're not allowed to transport livestock in.
I don't think it's the operators fault here; unless they are over subscribing the reservations. Have you ever seen a passenger turn down a train because it's too busy? I've only seem it with every 5 minute tube trains. I've seen conductors preventing passengers boarding when they can barely close the doors.
Steve steveson wrote: Most of France wouldn’t believe you, mostly because the French have a deep belief in the superiority of France to all other countries and the belief that French culture, art and cuisine is superior to all others.
Sounds like another country as well. Maybe we should form a club. Several other nearby countries seem to have similar beliefs, wonder if they'd like to join.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Maybe I'm showing my age here, but am I the only person these days who turns up for a long distance train journey with a pile of books?
Free Wi-Fi be damned!
Edinburgh to Penzance, which takes about 2 days on our rail network. is the perfect opportunity for reading some military history. Bring back British Rail
I don't travel by train anymore, but back when I was at Teesside Uni, or when I was travelling to places like Stockport or Nottingham for wargaming tournaments I'd take Game of Thrones books with me.
Steve steveson wrote: They have many years of marketing. Same reason people pay so much for diamond engagement rings (DeBeers marketing in the 1950s), Irish and Japanese Whiskey/Whisky does not sell like scotch and US cars sell so well in the US but not the rest of the world. Sales and exports is not evidence of quality.
Absolutely true, but it's very relevant when you're trying to leverage your exports' economic power.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: What really baffles me is that Trains are allowed to pack us in under conditions you're not allowed to transport livestock in.
I don't think it's the operators fault here; unless they are over subscribing the reservations. Have you ever seen a passenger turn down a train because it's too busy? I've only seem it with every 5 minute tube trains. I've seen conductors preventing passengers boarding when they can barely close the doors.
Hey in Japan the conductors push passengers IN so the door can be closed That's funny experience!
Cheddar. That's a genuine English invention, and exceptionally popular world wide.
Yes, I do like my Brie (oooh, Bacon and Brie sandwich....magnifique), but you just cannat whack a big block of Cheddar for the sheer versatility it offers.
I've only just seen the actual hamper photos. Two Anglo-Dutch products (one produced in Sri Lanka), a book about the founding father of the ECHR and visionary of a united states of Europe, a collection of plays predominantly set in Europe and including many reworkings of Greek and Roman originals. Booze from a very pro-EU Scottish company...
Nobody had heard of Northampton shoemaking? Tweed? Heritage clothing? Whisky? Britain is world leading in some (albeit niche) produce. They've just missed all of them bar cheese.
Even then we're only the 10th largest cheese exporter. So whilst we may have invented some of it (if one invents cheese), we're not really a world leader.
We produce a lot of world famous culture as well; plays, theater, films, music.
I'm sure it'd be possible to produce a good hamper with minimum effort, but lets face it, minimum effort seems too much for those running Brexit :(
British sparkling wine -- the high end stuff -- actually is very good quality. We don't produce a lot of it though, and we do consume a lot of champagne, so this is an area where the EU should want to have low trade barriers.
That said, a large amount of British "exports" are service related -- things like banking, insurance, legal, design, research, education -- and don't come under a typical trade agreement. That is why people are talking about Canada +++ as a model for a special deal.
The problem is that the more special this deal becomes, the more difficult it is for the EU to make concessions without compromising the core principles of freedom of movement and so on.
The first is what the question should be. The obvious choice would be a binary choice:
1. Accept the terms offered. (After we see what they turn out to be...)
2. Refuse the terms offered and stay within the EU under the existing arrangements. (Which leaves open the possibility of leaving again at some future time.)
The actual wording and even the order of the available choices can affect voting, though, so the design of the ballot paper itself is a big bone of contention. There is also the whole hassle of setting up campaigns. You can't not campaign. The Election Commission needs to oversee the process and it will pick two official campaigns to match the two questions.
The second problem is that a second referendum is unlikely to produce a decisive result (which I would count as being at least a 55:45 split -- it needs to be specified in the bill to make a new referendum.) Then neither side will have a reason to "shut up".
In any case why should they? I think it's insulting for a politician to talk about voters needing to "shut up" in a democracy, but that's Farage for you, a man who seven times has failed to be elected to the parliament he wants to be soverign.
I do know one lady who voted Brexit because she assumed it was like a GE, so voted against her Remainer MP, who she doesn't like, hoping he would be voted out.
I'm sure there were just as many who voted the opposite way for equally hatstand reasons, would be nice to think a bit more research goes in second time around (though I'd be surprised if it happens atall).
He's only out for himself here - if there's another referendum and he loses, he avoids being demonised for destroying the country and can claim he's been stitched up; que tv interviews all over the place, and maybe a book.
Or if it's somehow a clear vote for leave, he can press on talking about the EU having been validated by people. Queue tv interviews all over the place, and maybe a book.
Maybe he'll become part of that establishment.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Well, maybe not the populated bits. But we could just dump them all slap bang in the middle?
Get a middle aged, middle class Lord of the Flies going on. We could televise it and all. That'd be good for a laugh?
Why bother sending them that far? Use that Scottish island that's infected with anthrax. Or that farmho0use between the carriageways of the M6; they could subsist on service-station sandwiches thrown by passing motorists.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Well, maybe not the populated bits. But we could just dump them all slap bang in the middle?
Get a middle aged, middle class Lord of the Flies going on. We could televise it and all. That'd be good for a laugh?
Why bother sending them that far? Use that Scottish island that's infected with anthrax. Or that farmho0use between the carriageways of the M6; they could subsist on service-station sandwiches thrown by passing motorists.
We're not sullying any part of Scotland with them. That's right out.
Herzlos wrote: Even then we're only the 10th largest cheese exporter. So whilst we may have invented some of it (if one invents cheese), we're not really a world leader.
The earliest records of confirmed cheese making go back to the 5500BC in Poland. It is likely it goes back way before then though.
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Herzlos wrote: He's only out for himself here - if there's another referendum and he loses, he avoids being demonised for destroying the country and can claim he's been stitched up; que tv interviews all over the place, and maybe a book.
Or if it's somehow a clear vote for leave, he can press on talking about the EU having been validated by people. Queue tv interviews all over the place, and maybe a book.
Maybe he'll become part of that establishment.
I think we need to think wider here. This is a political play. Lets think about what has happened since the Wrexit vote.
Voters have flocked to two parties. Remainers have generally tended towards Labour as the party that it is trying to minimise the damage from leaving (free movement and trade) vs Leavers that have generally flocked to Conservative (because they are hard right view of we can do anything we want and be OK). (Please note the generally comment).
UKIP has been gutted, they have left by voters like yesterday's chutney to join newUKIP.
So what happens with a new referendum. For Tories that opens up the divisions in the party. May has to make a stance somewhere eventually (though I expect lots of robotic procrastination). That likely means hard right supporters leave as May takes a flopping around somewhere in the middle approach. Labour has to take a stance and being predominantly pro-EU will probably align along that. However that will lose them votes in very anti-EU areas (though pick up students/SE votes). Most of these that leave will go to UKIP. All of a sudden UKIP have 15% of the vote again and can start being a play maker. At the moment they are nothing party.
I think Farage has realised that politically for him and his party it is better that the country continually argues with itself about the EU rather than giving people in the Remain camp the ability to point out just how idiotic the whole thing is (and eventually damn him). HE probably also likes his EU salary for doing the square root of nothing at all.
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In other news the Department of Destroying the Country are advertising for new jobs in how to undertake this in the fastest and most spectacular fashion.
The specification includes the statement "hopefuls do not need any previous experience or knowledge of the EU or to speak other languages - but the department says it would “welcome applications from candidates with a background in management consultancy". I think we can see that David Davis has a taken a direct role in these job descriptions as it isn't going to work very well when you employ people with no idea how of what you are talking about. Although that sums up David Davis pretty well.
Because they're good at it. They're literally born and bred to do it, and they're good at getting the general public to vote against its own best interests to keep them in power.
Apparently Farage is 'warming' to another referendum, to silence remain voters for once and for all.
Personally I reckon he's getting cold feet from all the negative aspects of Brexit and is praying the electorate will bail him out so they never experience the true depths of crud we're sliding into. After all, better to live with losing a referendum, than being responsible for destroying a country.
Here we go again. Company was paying out dividends to shareholders last year but are up to their eyeballs in debt and there’s a near £600 million pension ‘shortfall’. ie, yet again company owners and shareholders stuff their faces while thousands of ordinary workers have their financial futures destroyed.
Typical Tories really why should we be surprised that they are trying to take the 'credit' (not that I'd really expect Labour/LDs etc to do any different).
There's times I despair but at least things cannot get any dafter.
Spoiler:
.. oh.
oh dear.
It's just denial. It's easier for people to persuade themselves there is some conspiracy then actually face up to the facts that these people present (and that they can't refute).
Here we go again. Company was paying out dividends to shareholders last year but are up to their eyeballs in debt and there’s a near £600 million pension ‘shortfall’. ie, yet again company owners and shareholders stuff their faces while thousands of ordinary workers have their financial futures destroyed.
This company has been in a mess for a few months now. I agree though it does raise the question as to why the system still has no ability to force companies to put away reserves where future forecast show an uncertain outlook. Is a big government contractor. Will make a bit of a mess if they go under. HS2 will almost certainly be delayed and go up in cost.
Here we go again. Company was paying out dividends to shareholders last year but are up to their eyeballs in debt and there’s a near £600 million pension ‘shortfall’. ie, yet again company owners and shareholders stuff their faces while thousands of ordinary workers have their financial futures destroyed.
More directors need to be hammered hard for trading whilst insolvent.
I'd strongly support a change in the law to prevent companies with pension deficits paying any dividends to shareholders until the pension is back up to date
Private companies can’t be trusted with pensions. It’s been demonstrated over and over. They’re just a source of other people’s money to exploit, if it all goes wrong bosses just let the company go belly up and they retire to the Bahamas because they’re never held to account. Scum like Philip Green only paid back half of what he looted from BHS, which funnily enough amounted the the same value as the total pension deficit when it folded. He still kept £200 million in dividends despite graciously giving some back, while thousands of workers faced their pensions in shortfall. It’s just not good enough.
Ideology aside, surely having any one private company maintaining such a large slice of public service infrastructure was an obvious problem waiting to happen?
Howard A Treesong wrote: Private companies can’t be trusted with pensions. It’s been demonstrated over and over. They’re just a source of other people’s money to exploit, if it all goes wrong bosses just let the company go belly up and they retire to the Bahamas because they’re never held to account. Scum like Philip Green only paid back half of what he looted from BHS, which funnily enough amounted the the same value as the total pension deficit when it folded. He still kept £200 million in dividends despite graciously giving some back, while thousands of workers faced their pensions in shortfall. It’s just not good enough.
Given that it is over 25 years since the Maxell case I think it is reasonable to have expected Government's to learn that businesses will take a risk now with money that isn't their own with the hope things will improve in the future. It is getting even more important now that businesses have to provide pension provision to their staff that these pensions are placed in funds that cannot be accessed by the business and should be reported separately as part of the financial statements. The current system too easily allows bad news to be buried and hold over debts that eventually cripple the company. If there are debts building then these should be resolved prior to paying out dividends. It would also be wise that Directors/CEOs are not allowed to hold shares in the same company to avoid conflict of interests (we only need to look at the history of GW for what happens).
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Mr. Burning wrote: Ideology aside, surely having any one private company maintaining such a large slice of public service infrastructure was an obvious problem waiting to happen?
I can't be the only one to see that can I?
It is the too big to fail mentality. Large businesses can operate more efficiently and tend to aggressively buy out/force out smaller businesses as that reduces competition and they can more effectively dictate the rates being charged. As such Carillion has positioned itself to out compete the market on government contracts as much as possible. But in doing so they've indebted themselves heavily upfront on the assumption that they will survive and profit in the long term. Even when they know they are indebted up to the eyeballs they will tend to keep applying for more contracts because they hope that these are successful and will use the profit from one contract to prop another. Indeed there are contracts that are called 'loss leading' because businesses deliberately set themselves up to make a loss because they want that contract for some reason (sometimes as a reference). However if large numbers of the contracts start not producing the profits as expected to offset any losses then things can spiral badly as cash flow dwindles (and larger companies are more exposed than smaller ones here because they can build up a level of debt and interest payments that smaller companies would never even be able allowed to by the banks).
Government contracts do tend to check financial health before awarding contracts but they are limited to what the yearly accounting reports state. It is difficult to award contracts selectively outside of an open procurement process because that can lead to corruption. The principle is that all procurements are open and fair for all parties. It is the checks that are failing (which would have knocked Carillion out, however what happens if they are the only company applying) and they need to be improved (both in terms of how they are checked and how businesses report their financial health).
We're all familiar with the old Napoleon maxim about lucky generals, and I look at this government and think they must have shot a unicorn or something, because they seem to lurch from one crisis to another, mostly self-inflicted.
Commentators on other newspaper forums are saying that the government should just nationalise this company, seeing as they mostly do government work anyway, and therefore, the taxpayer may as well own what they are paying for.
But is this possible under EU nationalization rules?
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: We're all familiar with the old Napoleon maxim about lucky generals, and I look at this government and think they must have shot a unicorn or something, because they seem to lurch from one crisis to another, mostly self-inflicted.
There is a clue here...
Commentators on other newspaper forums are saying that the government should just nationalise this company, seeing as they mostly do government work anyway, and therefore, the taxpayer may as well own what they are paying for.
But is this possible under EU nationalization rules?
Yes. E.g. Lloyds Bank group and Northern Rock, Network Rail, Eurotunnel, etc.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: We're all familiar with the old Napoleon maxim about lucky generals, and I look at this government and think they must have shot a unicorn or something, because they seem to lurch from one crisis to another, mostly self-inflicted.
There is a clue here...
Commentators on other newspaper forums are saying that the government should just nationalise this company, seeing as they mostly do government work anyway, and therefore, the taxpayer may as well own what they are paying for.
But is this possible under EU nationalization rules?
Yes. E.g. Lloyds Bank group and Northern Rock, Network Rail, Eurotunnel, etc.
The only problem is that once the taxpayers have bailed yet another massive private enterprise out, we will end up adding to our debt, and the shareholders and Directors of Carrillion will skip off into the sunset with nary a worry, again.
Personally, having worked with them for the last 6 years, I can completely understand how they've managed to cock this up, the sheer amount of money pouring out of the MoD budget into their coffers for risible amount of work is eyewatering and we are only one govt dept neck deep in their contracts.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: We're all familiar with the old Napoleon maxim about lucky generals, and I look at this government and think they must have shot a unicorn or something, because they seem to lurch from one crisis to another, mostly self-inflicted.
Commentators on other newspaper forums are saying that the government should just nationalise this company, seeing as they mostly do government work anyway, and therefore, the taxpayer may as well own what they are paying for.
But is this possible under EU nationalization rules?
State aid is illegal, not renationalisation. State aid is things like Apple and Ireland where one company gets a benefit not available to other companies. A state owned or operated business is perfectly legal. Look at the energy company EDF Energy they are solely owned by the French government.
The only problem is that once the taxpayers have bailed yet another massive private enterprise out, we will end up adding to our debt, and the shareholders and Directors of Carrillion will skip off into the sunset with nary a worry, again.
This is the problem for the government politically. They spend all the time hammering Labour for doing this with the banks and placing the debt on the UK. If they do it for Carrillion their argument against Labour is substantially weakened (and really favours the bailing out the wealthy whilst the poor suffer argument).
I would expect shares in Carillion to collapse tomorrow.
To be realistic, a couple of billion to bail out Carillion is peanuts in regards to the national finances, and well worth it to keep all the different operations running.
Therefore the best course of action is for the government to nationalise the company by buying 51% of the shares at a bargain basement price.
The more serious issue is the problem of this system in which private businesses take the profits while the general public take the losses.
Kilkrazy wrote: To be realistic, a couple of billion to bail out Carillion is peanuts in regards to the national finances, and well worth it to keep all the different operations running.
Therefore the best course of action is for the government to nationalise the company by buying 51% of the shares at a bargain basement price.
The more serious issue is the problem of this system in which private businesses take the profits while the general public take the losses.
Yes, but for a government that has spent seven years bashing the same message over and over. For a vast swathe of the public that they have 'persuaded' with such a message they don't really understand the magnitude of the difference between £100bn and £1bn (£0.9bn I think is the amount quoted) then it's a hard sell.
Nationally it might be a good idea; politically it's a real problem. Never mind that really goes against the Tory principles of the state operating nothing at all.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: We're all familiar with the old Napoleon maxim about lucky generals, and I look at this government and think they must have shot a unicorn or something, because they seem to lurch from one crisis to another, mostly self-inflicted.
Commentators on other newspaper forums are saying that the government should just nationalise this company, seeing as they mostly do government work anyway, and therefore, the taxpayer may as well own what they are paying for.
But is this possible under EU nationalization rules?
Yes. This is how many EU countries have nationalised rail services, as is said every time you bring up the strawman argument of how the EU is in the way of nationalisation as opposed to our own political parties.
As we’ve seen with the way they manage the rail franchises and the NHS. The ideology of privatisation comes before cost, they would rather take more losses through all the upheaval and delays caused by trying to rewarding current building contracts to other firms, than just bailing out the company to keep everything going.
Meanwhile this business with the parole board letting a serial rapist out is getting more attention. He’s guilty of raping a dozen and police say it’s likely in the hundreds. God knows what the priorities of the people making these decisions are, I suspect that they’re under pressure to reduce the prison population. I’m sure they’d think again if there was a chance he’d be their new neighbour or it was their wives and daughters that had been raped. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing I was responsible for letting monsters like him out of prison, I wonder how they do.
So.....if they nationalise Carillion they're hypocrites who do what they slag Labour off for and are just bailing out their rich mates,and if they don't then they're heartless politicians who put privatisation ideologies above necessity?
Ketara wrote: So.....if they nationalise Carillion they're hypocrites who do what they slag Labour off for and are just bailing out their rich mates,and if they don't then they're heartless politicians who put privatisation ideologies above necessity?
Bit of a 'can't win' scenario there, methinks.
Well, it's only a can't win for the politicians. For the people whose livelihoods depend on their employer not going bankrupt, one of those is definitely a winning scenario. And it's only a can't win scenario for the politicians because of their own idiotic ideology and their short sighted attacks on their opponents without considering the implications of how that will affect them when they are in a similar position.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: We're all familiar with the old Napoleon maxim about lucky generals, and I look at this government and think they must have shot a unicorn or something, because they seem to lurch from one crisis to another, mostly self-inflicted.
Commentators on other newspaper forums are saying that the government should just nationalise this company, seeing as they mostly do government work anyway, and therefore, the taxpayer may as well own what they are paying for.
But is this possible under EU nationalization rules?
Yes. This is how many EU countries have nationalised rail services, as is said every time you bring up the strawman argument of how the EU is in the way of nationalisation as opposed to our own political parties.
Well, you learn something new every day.
So what's the difference between state aid and nationalisation?
If a government gives state aid to Company X, it will do so with taxpayers' money.
If a government decides to nationalise the railways, it will do so with taxpayers' money...
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Ketara wrote: So.....if they nationalise Carillion they're hypocrites who do what they slag Labour off for and are just bailing out their rich mates,and if they don't then they're heartless politicians who put privatisation ideologies above necessity?
Bit of a 'can't win' scenario there, methinks.
This is where political skill comes in if you're a good politician.
For example, 100 years ago, Lloyd George was keeping back troops from Haig, as Lloyd George didn't like Haig, and also, because he was fed up with the casulties on the Western Front.
Haig's supporters in the Commons accused Lloyd George of withholding 400,000 troops, and we know for a fact that he did it. He even admitted it later on.
But did Lloyd George stand up in the Commons and plead mea culpa?
Of course not. He pulls out facts and figures that proved that troops were heading for Flanders.
But they were cooks, and lorry drivers, and other important logistic support. By the time people realised that they weren't front-line troops, another problem averted attention.
So Haig was right, and technically, Lloyd George was keeping his word to support Haig.
So you see how good politicians and statesmen avoid, evade, and conquer problems?
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: We're all familiar with the old Napoleon maxim about lucky generals, and I look at this government and think they must have shot a unicorn or something, because they seem to lurch from one crisis to another, mostly self-inflicted.
Commentators on other newspaper forums are saying that the government should just nationalise this company, seeing as they mostly do government work anyway, and therefore, the taxpayer may as well own what they are paying for.
But is this possible under EU nationalization rules?
Yes. This is how many EU countries have nationalised rail services, as is said every time you bring up the strawman argument of how the EU is in the way of nationalisation as opposed to our own political parties.
Well, you learn something new every day.
So what's the difference between state aid and nationalisation?
If a government gives state aid to Company X, it will do so with taxpayers' money.
If a government decides to nationalise the railways, it will do so with taxpayers' money...
The difference is that if a government nationalises the railways they're not favoritizing one private actor over another and thus removing one possible avenue for nepotism or corruption, whereas a government supporting one private actor over others would open for all kinds of shady shenanigans.
Years of reading Private Eye have taught me that all sorts of state aid happens under the table at motorway service stations at 3am, despite the regulations being in place, so I'm not convinced there's much difference between the two.
Ketara wrote: So.....if they nationalise Carillion they're hypocrites who do what they slag Labour off for and are just bailing out their rich mates,and if they don't then they're heartless politicians who put privatisation ideologies above necessity?
Bit of a 'can't win' scenario there, methinks.
They’ve dug the hole for themselves by taking this unwavering line on the wonders of privatisation. Now likely going to waste a huge amount of money, delay many essential projects, bin the pensions of thousands, because of a mixture of ideology and pride.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Years of reading Private Eye have taught me that all sorts of state aid happens under the table at motorway service stations at 3am, despite the regulations being in place, so I'm not convinced there's much difference between the two.
So what's the difference between state aid and nationalisation?
If a government gives state aid to Company X, it will do so with taxpayers' money.
If a government decides to nationalise the railways, it will do so with taxpayers' money...
I'm going to assume you are being serious, as the only other option is that you are being willfully obstructive and disingenuous, so I will try and explain:
Lets say you have lost your job and your car has broken down:
Nationalization - I buy your car off you, fix it and use it myself. I could employ you to drive the car for me if I wanted to, but I don't have to.
State aid - I give you £500 to fix your car on the basis that it will help you get a job.I may ask you to pay it back once you have got a job, or I may just decide you can have the money on the basis that if you are not working you can't come to the pub with me and that is worth more than £500 to me.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Years of reading Private Eye have taught me that all sorts of state aid happens under the table at motorway service stations at 3am, despite the regulations being in place, so I'm not convinced there's much difference between the two.
Renationalisation doesn't tend to go on under the table though because, well, it's pretty obvious who is running something. Whether state aid happens or not under the table, it is always illegal (though interpretation and case law make things murky). Renationalisation is bringing a service under government control (or a business solely owned by it). There's no under hand operation because all the staff TUPE across to the government body/agency/council etc. In this case it will save jobs. If on the other hand the government gave relief on part of the contracts then that might be considered state aid, or unfair procurement practices, which would likely be challenged.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Years of reading Private Eye have taught me that all sorts of state aid happens under the table at motorway service stations at 3am, despite the regulations being in place, so I'm not convinced there's much difference between the two.
You being convinced doesn't change the facts. Government buying a company is ok. Government giving cash to a company is not ok.
Ketara wrote: So.....if they nationalise Carillion they're hypocrites who do what they slag Labour off for and are just bailing out their rich mates,and if they don't then they're heartless politicians who put privatisation ideologies above necessity?
Bit of a 'can't win' scenario there, methinks.
Pretty much, but that's the price of their ideology. Guess they'll have to suck it up.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Meanwhile this business with the parole board letting a serial rapist out is getting more attention. He’s guilty of raping a dozen and police say it’s likely in the hundreds. God knows what the priorities of the people making these decisions are, I suspect that they’re under pressure to reduce the prison population. I’m sure they’d think again if there was a chance he’d be their new neighbour or it was their wives and daughters that had been raped. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing I was responsible for letting monsters like him out of prison, I wonder how they do.
Maybe they just value their paychecks too much. I'd rather resign than let him let out, but perhaps they lack the will to do the same. Alternatively, maybe they're incredibly gullible (read. stupid), and believed whatever story he feed them. Or perhaps they're of a particularly warped mindset that believes he's a victim of society and that's all everyone else's fault he commits rape. Or a combination of all three.
Also, I felt the need to share this. If anyone ever finds themselves the subject of an invoice for parking in a private car park (not parking fines for public land as that's a different matter), don't immediately pay up. It is possible to beat them, and I think I did just that.
The whole gamble on that one though is that they won't pursue the cost of it through the Small Claims Court, on account it typically costs more to pursue than the fine itself.
We should at least give some passing thought to the possibility that the parole board actually might be a group of well-trained, experienced professionals following a legal process and guidelines set down by the government to come to a genuine decision.
1. The law prevents the board from revealing their deliberations.
2. The board are not allowed to take into account alleged crimes that someone hasn't even been charged with, yet alone convicted of.
And so on.
There have been a few cases in recent years where the legal system has delivered a seemingly ludicrous result, the people and government have complained, and the reply has been, "We are following the rules you laid down for us."
Ketara wrote: So.....if they nationalise Carillion they're hypocrites who do what they slag Labour off for and are just bailing out their rich mates,and if they don't then they're heartless politicians who put privatisation ideologies above necessity?
Bit of a 'can't win' scenario there, methinks.
Pretty much, but that's the price of their ideology. Guess they'll have to suck it up.
I'm not sure it's really so much anything to do with them as it the people holding the views.
If I believe that the ice cream man driving down my street is a corporate exploiter of childish innocence, but the one that bypasses it a heartless crusher of children's dreams who withholds what they want, it doesn't have a huge amount to do with the ice cream man himself. It just boils down to the fact that I hate ice cream men and will castigate him regardless of whatever he does. His very existence is clearly an affront to me, and so he can never make a 'right' or correct choice. Literally the only thing he could do that I would approve of is to cease existing.
Which, I suspect, is the view of most people adopting such stances towards the Tories here. I'm not sure that it's the most logical way to approach political/economic analysis though.
Kilkrazy wrote: We should at least give some passing thought to the possibility that the parole board actually might be a group of well-trained, experienced professionals following a legal process and guidelines set down by the government to come to a genuine decision.
1. The law prevents the board from revealing their deliberations.
2. The board are not allowed to take into account alleged crimes that someone hasn't even been charged with, yet alone convicted of.
And so on.
There have been a few cases in recent years where the legal system has delivered a seemingly ludicrous result, the people and government have complained, and the reply has been, "We are following the rules you laid down for us."
Not having a go at you, but given that courts and prisons are at breaking point, it's probably a given that the parole boards are probably hanging on by their fingernails as well, so the experienced professionals are likely to be overworked, understaffed, and have poor morale.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Meanwhile this business with the parole board letting a serial rapist out is getting more attention. He’s guilty of raping a dozen and police say it’s likely in the hundreds. God knows what the priorities of the people making these decisions are, I suspect that they’re under pressure to reduce the prison population. I’m sure they’d think again if there was a chance he’d be their new neighbour or it was their wives and daughters that had been raped. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing I was responsible for letting monsters like him out of prison, I wonder how they do.
Maybe they just value their paychecks too much. I'd rather resign than let him let out, but perhaps they lack the will to do the same. Alternatively, maybe they're incredibly gullible (read. stupid), and believed whatever story he feed them. Or perhaps they're of a particularly warped mindset that believes he's a victim of society and that's all everyone else's fault he commits rape. Or a combination of all three.
Also, I felt the need to share this. If anyone ever finds themselves the subject of an invoice for parking in a private car park (not parking fines for public land as that's a different matter), don't immediately pay up. It is possible to beat them, and I think I did just that.
Good on you.
I'm glad somebody has the guts to stand up to these pirates.
Kilkrazy wrote: We should at least give some passing thought to the possibility that the parole board actually might be a group of well-trained, experienced professionals following a legal process and guidelines set down by the government to come to a genuine decision.
1. The law prevents the board from revealing their deliberations.
2. The board are not allowed to take into account alleged crimes that someone hasn't even been charged with, yet alone convicted of.
And so on.
There have been a few cases in recent years where the legal system has delivered a seemingly ludicrous result, the people and government have complained, and the reply has been, "We are following the rules you laid down for us."
This. If the police believe he has committed more crimes with enough certainty for it to affect his parole then they should charge him for them and prove it in a court of law.
Kilkrazy wrote: We should at least give some passing thought to the possibility that the parole board actually might be a group of well-trained, experienced professionals following a legal process and guidelines set down by the government to come to a genuine decision.
1. The law prevents the board from revealing their deliberations.
2. The board are not allowed to take into account alleged crimes that someone hasn't even been charged with, yet alone convicted of.
And so on.
There have been a few cases in recent years where the legal system has delivered a seemingly ludicrous result, the people and government have complained, and the reply has been, "We are following the rules you laid down for us."
Not having a go at you, but given that courts and prisons are at breaking point, it's probably a given that the parole boards are probably hanging on by their fingernails as well, so the experienced professionals are likely to be overworked, understaffed, and have poor morale. ...
That would be a different issue to the parole board themselves being a bunch of idiot layabout political hacks who don't give a feth.
Kilkrazy wrote: We should at least give some passing thought to the possibility that the parole board actually might be a group of well-trained, experienced professionals following a legal process and guidelines set down by the government to come to a genuine decision.
1. The law prevents the board from revealing their deliberations.
2. The board are not allowed to take into account alleged crimes that someone hasn't even been charged with, yet alone convicted of.
And so on.
There have been a few cases in recent years where the legal system has delivered a seemingly ludicrous result, the people and government have complained, and the reply has been, "We are following the rules you laid down for us."
Not having a go at you, but given that courts and prisons are at breaking point, it's probably a given that the parole boards are probably hanging on by their fingernails as well, so the experienced professionals are likely to be overworked, understaffed, and have poor morale. ...
That would be a different issue to the parole board themselves being a bunch of idiot layabout political hacks who don't give a feth.
Pure speculation on my part, but it's possible that perhaps a mistake was made as a result of all the factors I mentioned?
God knows our prisons, courts, and parole services, have made more than a few over the years.
I’m not out of the woods yet, as they’ve yet to respond to my final message. But I’ve let them know they’ll have to fight me to the bitter end, and even then they still won’t get a penny out of me.
I also reminded them that they have inadequate signs for their place warning of what they’ll do which is a legal requirement. And that there’s a lot of pot holes on their property that anyone could trip and hurt themselves over at any time.
They’ll have to ask themselves, is all that worth £320?
The whole gamble on that one though is that they won't pursue the cost of it through the Small Claims Court, on account it typically costs more to pursue than the fine itself.
There's usually no legal basis to the charge and the parking companies lose quite regularly in court against someone who has done their research. Look for the parking forum on moneysaving expert.com for all the details. There's often the option for q counterclaim for breach of dpa (~£500).
They have all sorts of hoops to jump through to hold the keeper liable and no requirement to tell them who the driver is.
You can't be held to a contract you didn't see (poor signage) and there are graCe periods at the start and end that are often ignored.
Pm me the details and I'll see if I can talk you through getting it dropped and giving them a bloody nose.
Curiosity, court costs them more than they make; the business model is purely extorting as something like 30% pay up without question and another 30% at the threat of court.
I’m not out of the woods yet, as they’ve yet to respond to my final message. But I’ve let them know they’ll have to fight me to the bitter end, and even then they still won’t get a penny out of me.
I also reminded them that they have inadequate signs for their place warning of what they’ll do which is a legal requirement. And that there’s a lot of pot holes on their property that anyone could trip and hurt themselves over at any time.
They’ll have to ask themselves, is all that worth £320?
Just be wary though because if the court does decide they are correct, then you can end up paying the court costs, the original costs, plus any interest accrued (which is a nasty way of increasing the cost over time to make it viable for them to chase it). It really depends on how confident you are in the case and is always best to consult that lawyer because none of us here are likely to be experts.
Only the costs on the sign, + about £50 court costs. That's usually less than on the invoices by the time it gets to court. They can't make you pay for debt collectors, solicitors etc.
They also have generally bad form for turning up to court so there's honestly no point paying it before court, knowing that the experience will cost them hundreds more than you are liable for. Plus you can allocate it to a court near you.
£320 sounds like 2 invoices plus debt collection "fees", so you're probably arguing with debt recovery plus? They can be completely ignored as powerless.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Meanwhile this business with the parole board letting a serial rapist out is getting more attention. He’s guilty of raping a dozen and police say it’s likely in the hundreds. God knows what the priorities of the people making these decisions are, I suspect that they’re under pressure to reduce the prison population. I’m sure they’d think again if there was a chance he’d be their new neighbour or it was their wives and daughters that had been raped. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing I was responsible for letting monsters like him out of prison, I wonder how they do.
Maybe they just value their paychecks too much. I'd rather resign than let him let out, but perhaps they lack the will to do the same. Alternatively, maybe they're incredibly gullible (read. stupid), and believed whatever story he feed them. Or perhaps they're of a particularly warped mindset that believes he's a victim of society and that's all everyone else's fault he commits rape. Or a combination of all three.
I think we have to be careful about jumping to conclusions and generally assume the parole board is doing its job. They run parole's all the time but we only hear about those people that have committed horrific crimes. The point of prison is both a punishment and re-enablement of the person back into society. We don't know why the parole board made its decision. If, arbitrarily, after the crime they identified the person as having a disorder of some form and that medication has successfully treated that condition then they may have decided that the person no longer is a threat to society and that the person wasn't truly in control of their actions. In that case they may make the decision that it is suitable for the person to be released. To me it is surprising that someone who has been committed of multiple rapes would be allowed out so quickly when IIRC the judge indicated that should only occur when it was safe to do so. That might imply they identified a cause and perhaps the person is truly reformed (whether by medication or understanding). What I think we should avoid is becoming a frothing lynch mob accusing people of not doing their job - I'm sure that in this case they would be aware of just high profile it would be and were likely to be more pedantic over the evidence base. If on the other hand the police think he committed other crimes then he should be charged and that evidence brought forward and then a judge makes a decision on those cases. It is not for the parole board to be jurors and judges.
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Herzlos wrote: Only the costs on the sign, + about £50 court costs. That's usually less than on the invoices by the time it gets to court. They can't make you pay for debt collectors, solicitors etc.
They also have generally bad form for turning up to court so there's honestly no point paying it before court, knowing that the experience will cost them hundreds more than you are liable for. Plus you can allocate it to a court near you.
£320 sounds like 2 invoices plus debt collection "fees", so you're probably arguing with debt recovery plus? They can be completely ignored as powerless.
It largely depends on if there is a contract. If the court decides that the signage was correct and on it states "By parking here you are accepting the terms and conditions at X" then you have less ground for argument (and again interest payments could escalate). It really depends on whether it is a fly by night operation or a more robust operation. Again the only real resort is to consult a lawyer because otherwise you are taking a risk.
For a "by parking here you agree to pay £100" contract to fly it needs to be unmissable, unambiguous and fair.
If you didn't see the sign (dark, too small, too high) then you can't agree to it.
If it's a "no parking. Breach costs £100" then it's never valid; you can't contractually agree to something that's forbidden.
You'd still need to argue the case in court though, and the parking companies rely on people feeling it's too much effort or iare intimidated. The material they send to make it sound like a slam dunk for the parking company are entirely misleading.
I'm not sure it's really so much anything to do with them as it the people holding the views.
....
Which, I suspect, is the view of most people adopting such stances towards the Tories here. I'm not sure that it's the most logical way to approach political/economic analysis though.
Which is why, when I came back from holiday, I gave up on this thread for the most part. I notice for example that the recent run of positive economic news has gone largely absent here as it would run counter to the general threads thinking.
The parole board issue and Carillion actually have an odd similarity. As Killkrazy pointed out, the parole board are actually quite limited in the number of things they're able to consider, such as alleged crimes that someone hasn't actually been charged with. The authorising bodies that have given Carillion some of their contracts are similarly limited in the number of factors that can be considered when making their deliberations, which helps explain why Carillion have been able to keep winning contracts despite their precarious position. In general, you absolutely let Carillion go bust. No government aid should be forthcoming.
Lastly, on the issue of state aid, countries across the EU have been doing it for years. There are a tremendous number of loopholes that permit this, such as a single source contract to pay a company to replace a security wall/fence around a "strategic asset" such as nuclear power plant, for which you can pay them a ridiculous amount of money, even if the wall doesn't need replacing. This was a favourite trick of the Italian government for a long while. You can also use research grants, carbon reduction measures and a myriad of other tricks to funnel state money into private enterprises.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Meanwhile this business with the parole board letting a serial rapist out is getting more attention. He’s guilty of raping a dozen and police say it’s likely in the hundreds. God knows what the priorities of the people making these decisions are, I suspect that they’re under pressure to reduce the prison population. I’m sure they’d think again if there was a chance he’d be their new neighbour or it was their wives and daughters that had been raped. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing I was responsible for letting monsters like him out of prison, I wonder how they do.
Maybe they just value their paychecks too much. I'd rather resign than let him let out, but perhaps they lack the will to do the same. Alternatively, maybe they're incredibly gullible (read. stupid), and believed whatever story he feed them. Or perhaps they're of a particularly warped mindset that believes he's a victim of society and that's all everyone else's fault he commits rape. Or a combination of all three.
Also, I felt the need to share this. If anyone ever finds themselves the subject of an invoice for parking in a private car park (not parking fines for public land as that's a different matter), don't immediately pay up. It is possible to beat them, and I think I did just that.
Parole decisions undoubtedly help society be reintegrating the incarcerated back into the wider world. John Warboys is a high profile case due to the nature of his crimes and failings of the board and justice system to notify victims (some of whom chose not to have such information disclosed to them I might add).
If Warboys has met the stringent conditions needed then he should be released.
If the parole board has made failings then that should be investigated.
remember that their are many hundreds of criminals waiting for release via parole boards who have done smaller criminal acts who are willing to change and who have changed, to deny Warboys a release, jeopardises them, the system, and us.
I’m not out of the woods yet, as they’ve yet to respond to my final message. But I’ve let them know they’ll have to fight me to the bitter end, and even then they still won’t get a penny out of me.
I also reminded them that they have inadequate signs for their place warning of what they’ll do which is a legal requirement. And that there’s a lot of pot holes on their property that anyone could trip and hurt themselves over at any time.
They’ll have to ask themselves, is all that worth £320?
I had one of these a while ago, as did a friend of mine in a completely difervent area. We dealt with it quite simply by contacting the retailer that hired the company to manage the parking, provided a receipt, and asked them to deal with it. They did in both cases, and we received letters from the parking companies saying that the chage had been cancelled.
No legalese or other appeals or nonsense required.
Ketara wrote: So.....if they nationalise Carillion they're hypocrites who do what they slag Labour off for and are just bailing out their rich mates,and if they don't then they're heartless politicians who put privatisation ideologies above necessity?
Bit of a 'can't win' scenario there, methinks.
Pretty much, but that's the price of their ideology. Guess they'll have to suck it up.
I'm not sure it's really so much anything to do with them as it the people holding the views.
If I believe that the ice cream man driving down my street is a corporate exploiter of childish innocence, but the one that bypasses it a heartless crusher of children's dreams who withholds what they want, it doesn't have a huge amount to do with the ice cream man himself. It just boils down to the fact that I hate ice cream men and will castigate him regardless of whatever he does. His very existence is clearly an affront to me, and so he can never make a 'right' or correct choice. Literally the only thing he could do that I would approve of is to cease existing.
Which, I suspect, is the view of most people adopting such stances towards the Tories here. I'm not sure that it's the most logical way to approach political/economic analysis though.
So, why is it a problem to call out the Tories on their BS? I don't hate the Tories blindly, I intensely dislike what they are doing and their ideology, but I understand that they are motivated by a belief that they are right and what they doing is, in their opinion, in the best interests of the country.
The icecream analogy is a bit of a stretch and I can't even be bothered to understand what you're gibbering on about there.
Needless to say, political beliefs are strong, but please don't assume you are the only one who can see the other side, or is "balanced" and everyone else is blinded by partisanship.
I’m not out of the woods yet, as they’ve yet to respond to my final message. But I’ve let them know they’ll have to fight me to the bitter end, and even then they still won’t get a penny out of me.
I also reminded them that they have inadequate signs for their place warning of what they’ll do which is a legal requirement. And that there’s a lot of pot holes on their property that anyone could trip and hurt themselves over at any time.
They’ll have to ask themselves, is all that worth £320?
Just be wary though because if the court does decide they are correct, then you can end up paying the court costs, the original costs, plus any interest accrued (which is a nasty way of increasing the cost over time to make it viable for them to chase it). It really depends on how confident you are in the case and is always best to consult that lawyer because none of us here are likely to be experts.
I would like to say that if you were pretty much caught unawares in what looked like a free car park, then yes, fight them tooth and nail. If however you knowingly parked on private property and/or saw the sign then you should pay up. I've been on both sides of the argument, having had to fight a ticket and been frustrated that my rented car parking space (as part of my shop) had been pinched by someone who thought they, out of the whole town, deserved free parking at someone else's expense.
MarkNorfolk wrote: I would like to say that if you were pretty much caught unawares in what looked like a free car park, then yes, fight them tooth and nail. If however you knowingly parked on private property and/or saw the sign then you should pay up. I've been on both sides of the argument, having had to fight a ticket and been frustrated that my rented car parking space (as part of my shop) had been pinched by someone who thought they, out of the whole town, deserved free parking at someone else's expense.
It's the former. It was a simple 'free' car park in a shopping complex. It wasn't like I parked in a company car park or the car park of an an apartment bloc were it's obvious that you shouldn't be there.
It's the former. It was a simple 'free' car park in a shopping complex. It wasn't like I parked in a company car park or the car park of an an apartment bloc were it's obvious that you shouldn't be there.
I had something similar - I moved house a couple of years ago and had to visit a client's premises on a trading estate for work. The road had double yellow lines so of course, I found a space where there weren't any double yellow lines. When I came out to leave for home, I found a ticket on my windscreen. It turns out the road is unadopted and a private parking company tickets anyone who parks on the road. To be clear, I was not obstructing entrances or anything like that; I simply did not know that it was a private road and there was a charge - the signage was not obvious. I appealed using the parking company's own website stating I thought the charge unfair given the confusing nature of the double yellow lines but it was of course, denied. I heard nothing else about it.
Fast forward two years and 2 months later and a few months ago, I had a letter from a debt recovery company asking me to pay £99 for this ticket which I had long since forgotten about. After researching, it turns out there is something like a time limit of 6 years for these sorts of parking tickets which surprised me a little.
On there, there are links to a database that shows just how many court cases have been brought against tickets issued by private parking companies - in my own case, it was something like 178 tickets went to court out of 100,000+ issued so I am reasonably confident it won't be pursued. It's important to note that even if you get threatening letters purporting to be from bailiffs or debt recovery agents, they have absolutely no legal recourse to collect anything from you. Only the private parking company can recover money from you by taking you to court. All the debt recovery firms can do is threaten, bluster, try to scare you into paying an inflated 'settlement' figure and advise their client whether to go to court or not.
I can't even be bothered to understand what you're gibbering on about there.
I can't help but wonder why you'd even bother responding in a mildly rude fashion to a post which you've literally just said that you're not even reading/understanding properly. How you'd expect that to lead to a productive, friendly, in line with Rule 1# political discussion is beyond me. Either way, it doesn't do much for protests of political neutrality.
I regret even answering them back. Should have just completely ignored them outright. At least it wasn't through my mobile so they won't be able to call me.
I probably shouldn't have thrown the initial letters out either. But I'll spin that to my advantage if needs be.
Speaking of tickets and fines, my Brother received an £80 on the spot fine from a Warden for cycling down a main street in Peterborough that has a cycling ban. The street apparently has sign-age at either end, but he entered the street in the middle from a side street where there are no signs and so naturally he didn't see the warnings.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Speaking of tickets and fines, my Brother received an £80 on the spot fine from a Warden for cycling down a main street in Peterborough that has a cycling ban. The street apparently has sign-age at either end, but he entered the street in the middle from a side street where there are no signs and so naturally he didn't see the warnings.
He might be able to successfully argue that. However, these kinds of fines are backed by law so be careful.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Oh the weird thing was he told me it said on the back of the ticket "You waive your right to an appeal".
Says who?? Is that even legally enforceable?
I’m pretty sure you can always appeal them in court. And for once I think you have a case there. They really should put signs on all entrances to the street.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Oh the weird thing was he told me it said on the back of the ticket "You waive your right to an appeal".
Says who?? Is that even legally enforceable?
Sorry.. edit as I thought we were talking about something else. This is not a charge but a civil fine. I’m assuming this is on Bridge Street? If so, I’m afraid he is going to have to pay it. It’s a very questionable ban on cycling, but is legal.
bouncingboredom wrote: The parole board issue and Carillion actually have an odd similarity. As Killkrazy pointed out, the parole board are actually quite limited in the number of things they're able to consider, such as alleged crimes that someone hasn't actually been charged with. The authorising bodies that have given Carillion some of their contracts are similarly limited in the number of factors that can be considered when making their deliberations, which helps explain why Carillion have been able to keep winning contracts despite their precarious position.
That's not really true. The awarding organisations have lots of flexibility and it is entirely up to them as to what criteria they set as part of the procurement barring a few exceptions (such as you can't be selective by race, can't say "won't contract to someone with a CEO named Bob Smith" etc). However otherwise they are in control of the awarding criteria. What they can't do is treat different companies differently throughout the process. It is extremely common for procuring bodies to evaluate companies financial health (liquidity tests etc). However if you set the criteria and everyone fails then you have two options, either scrap the process and start again with different criteria or you waive that criteria completely. You can't edit the criteria once you've seen the submission as that leads to criteria selection of who you want consciously or sub-consciously want to pass and fail. It is rare that procurement process get canned completely and restarted because there is usually significant management/government pressure to get things actioned (imagine HS2 being delayed because no one passed the finance tests). As such there is a tendency to let some things be waived. My suspicion is that this is what has happened here in recent procurements. The tests were taken but several or all failed the tests hence they all went through and so on.
As for not awarding contracts to businesses making losses that is a rather short sighted approach. Many companies can have a bad year (say they didn't forecast a drop in the £, the increased costs in steel after an ill informed vote ) yet overall they are stable. Not awarding contracts can effectively condemns them to going bust (and might as well do that immediately). What is really needed is a method to identify those that are stable but had a bad year compared to those that are just failing and have little reasonable chance of pulling it around.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Oh the weird thing was he told me it said on the back of the ticket "You waive your right to an appeal".
Says who?? Is that even legally enforceable?
Sorry.. edit as I thought we were talking about something else. This is not a charge but a civil fine. I’m assuming this is on Bridge Street? If so, I’m afraid he is going to have to pay it. It’s a very questionable ban on cycling, but is legal.
It's probably to do with payment. If you pay then you waive your right to appeal (you've acknowledged you were wrong by paying) and is usually associated with paying early to avoid a higher fine.
In Wrexit related news Norway is now putting pressure on the EU that the UK can't be given better rights that it has for less (noting they pay more person then the UK does).
France is fighting off attempts by Luxembourg, among other countries, to allow UK-based financial services a “backdoor” to single market access post-Brexit by allowing City of London firms to gain so-called “passporting” rights through continental shell companies allowing real operations to continue in the UK. The internal row is viewed by EU officials as a precursor to a more divisive debate within the 27 over what to offer London on financial services, with senior officials warning that, as it stands, the EU will “not go very far”.
So I think we can start to count out passporting rights.
Member states have ruled out allowing British carriers the freedom to fly passengers and luggage between destinations on the continent post-Brexit, with UK carriers to be permitted only four of the nine “freedoms” to operate they currently enjoy. There are also plans in the negotiations on fisheries to link access to British waters for EU vessels with access to the European market for UK importers.
Airline jobs going abroad then. No real change for fisheries which really had to happen anyway because fish don't give two hoots about who owns what piece of water.
EU leaders are taking control of the talks on the future trading relationship and are expected to incorporate stricter enforcement mechanisms than in any trade deal previously signed to ensure a “level playing field” in terms of levels of tax and state aid.
Not really a surprise as they don't want another tax haven on the door step given that they are trying to control this type of activity. Additionally any future trade deals are likely have to comply with the EU rules if we want access to an open market. Again this is not a surprise as they won't want the UK to become a warehouse for lower standard goods into the UK. (None of this is a bad idea as it maintains our standards too and at least helps try and control things like panama tax havens).
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Oh the weird thing was he told me it said on the back of the ticket "You waive your right to an appeal".
Says who?? Is that even legally enforceable?
Sorry.. edit as I thought we were talking about something else. This is not a charge but a civil fine. I’m assuming this is on Bridge Street? If so, I’m afraid he is going to have to pay it. It’s a very questionable ban on cycling, but is legal.
Yeah, sure its a legit fine.
But there were no warning signs on the entrance to the street that he passed through.
And he says the back of the paper said "You waive your rights to an appeal". Is that true, Is that legally enforceable? (waiving the right to an appeal just because it says so in the small print).
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Oh the weird thing was he told me it said on the back of the ticket "You waive your right to an appeal".
Says who?? Is that even legally enforceable?
Sorry.. edit as I thought we were talking about something else. This is not a charge but a civil fine. I’m assuming this is on Bridge Street? If so, I’m afraid he is going to have to pay it. It’s a very questionable ban on cycling, but is legal.
Yeah, sure its a legit fine.
But there were no warning signs on the entrance to the street that he passed through.
And he says the back of the paper said "You waive your rights to an appeal". Is that true, Is that legally enforceable? (waiving the right to an appeal just because it says so in the small print).
Whilst it bugs me that they didn’t have signs up on the high street, this one might be better dealt with by paying up. It’s usally less if you pay quickly. The stakes are higher when you’re dealing with real penalty notices.
Whirlwind wrote: That's not really true. The awarding organisations have lots of flexibility and it is entirely up to them as to what criteria they set as part of the procurement barring a few exceptions
I'm afraid you massively underestimate the nature of the legal confines around public purchasing. This extends to such minuate as the nature of electronic communications (literally the government can be sued in some circumstances for using communication methods deemed to exclude certain potential bidders). There is a tremendous legal minefield to be negotiated and it is more common than you would think for contractors to take legal action.
In Wrexit related news Norway is now putting pressure on the EU that the UK can't be given better rights that it has for less (noting they pay more person then the UK does).
Why would anyone think we would get better rights for less. That's a perfectly reasonable position for Norway to take in my opinion. And it's highly unlikely we'll get better terms than Norway for less.
So I think we can start to count out passporting rights.
Except that the EU's own securities regulator produced a report a few years back on the possibility of asset managers outside the EU getting passporting rights and decided there was no good reason why it shouldn't happen. This included assessments of tax havens! An executive at Deutsche Bank has already said he only expects the EU to make a pudding out of the crumbs of London after brexit and a number of leading financial firms have openly told reporters that they don't plan to shift anywhere near as many jobs as people have been speculating. Basically the European bankers with any sense are quite happy with the way things are and are very worried about a financial shock if the EU tries to block London. Virtually everyone except for EU politicians and remain supporters has woken up to the fact that London is going nowhere and the EU is virtually certain to grant very favourable banking terms.
We're also seeing the interesting first signs that political rhetoric is giving way to economic reality. The German automotive industry has hired Deloitte to produce a number of briefings (aimed at German politicians) explaining how important the UK is to their sector and how important it is for the EU to sign a positive deal. This was always the stage in the negotiations (as was explained endlessly pre-referendum) where things get interesting, because now politicians have to put their money where their mouths are and we're already seeing the signs of buckling and infighting. As for your bit on the fisheries, the EU has no chance of gaining unrestricted access to UK waters. UK has already begun the process of withdrawing from a number of treaties in that regard.
Not really a surprise as they don't want another tax haven on the door step given that they are trying to control this type of activity.
They have basically no control over this. Which is how it should be. You also seem to be blithely ignorant to just how cosy the EU really is with many tax havens, President Juncker having been the Prime Minister of one for several years.
I'm afraid you massively underestimate the nature of the legal confines around public purchasing. This extends to such minuate as the nature of electronic communications (literally the government can be sued in some circumstances for using communication methods deemed to exclude certain potential bidders). There is a tremendous legal minefield to be negotiated and it is more common than you would think for contractors to take legal action.
Not really.... You are moving the goal posts. We are referring as to how you evaluate and determine what you can include in a contract. How you advertise said contract is different and depending on the type of contract and its value falls either under what are abbreviated as Official Journal Of the European Union (OJEU) contracts or fall under the contract procedure rules of the individual organisation (the former being much onerous in terms of how you advertise and inform people of the procurement).
Why would anyone think we would get better rights for less. That's a perfectly reasonable position for Norway to take in my opinion. And it's highly unlikely we'll get better terms than Norway for less.
Erm the government thinks it can?
Except that the EU's own securities regulator produced a report a few years back on the possibility of asset managers outside the EU getting passporting rights and decided there was no good reason why it shouldn't happen. This included assessments of tax havens! An executive at Deutsche Bank has already said he only expects the EU to make a pudding out of the crumbs of London after brexit and a number of leading financial firms have openly told reporters that they don't plan to shift anywhere near as many jobs as people have been speculating. Basically the European bankers with any sense are quite happy with the way things are and are very worried about a financial shock if the EU tries to block London. Virtually everyone except for EU politicians and remain supporters has woken up to the fact that London is going nowhere and the EU is virtually certain to grant very favourable banking terms.
Nothing will move immediately (too expensive) but you'll get a transfer over time as it becomes more viable to operate in the larger more powerful market. Subsidiaries are already being set up. It just means over time that the subsidiaries will become more useful over time as the EU becomes a greater value then the London. It will also help the EU that the banking authority has been relocated. Companies will want to be near where the 'seat of power' is.
This was always the stage in the negotiations (as was explained endlessly pre-referendum) where things get interesting, because now politicians have to put their money where their mouths are and we're already seeing the signs of buckling and infighting. As for your bit on the fisheries, the EU has no chance of gaining unrestricted access to UK waters. UK has already begun the process of withdrawing from a number of treaties in that regard.
One industry is not really having much influence though. It's not affecting Germany's approach to the Wrexit. The UK has more to lose from having a trade barrier for cars. The one thing I would predict is that there will be limited barriers for cars. However you can still have that and numerous other areas with no agreement. The EU are by far more coordinated than the UK which has no idea what it wants really (apart from a bigly good deal).
They have basically no control over this. Which is how it should be. You also seem to be blithely ignorant to just how cosy the EU really is with many tax havens, President Juncker having been the Prime Minister of one for several years.
In 2019 much more stringent controls on tax in terms of transparency will come into force. It should not be a surprise that a lot of people bank rolling the leave campaign are set to not 'benefit' from such rules.
bouncingboredom wrote: Except that the EU's own securities regulator produced a report a few years back on the possibility of asset managers outside the EU getting passporting rights and decided there was no good reason why it shouldn't happen.
Other than sheer bloody mindedness. Seems to be a good bit of that from the posturing on both sides determined to spite their own faces for ideological reasons. I’m sure there are still those in the EU that want to make brexit painful simply to deter other nations following. And on our side there are those who just want to stick it to Europe to win popularity with some over here.
Whirlwind wrote:You are moving the goal posts. We are referring as to how you evaluate and determine what you can include in a contract.
Erm, no. As anyone that cares to check back will see I was talking about the awarding of contracts, which is what you replied to. So unlucky, another failed attempt to try and discredit someone because they pointed out something inconvenient to you. And then you wonder why this thread is becoming an echo chamber.
Erm the government thinks it can?
The government thinks no such thing. If you actually listen to what they're saying they're trying to get the best deal they can, but they no full well that they won't get an equivalent deal to Norway unless they meet the same obligations.
Nothing will move immediately (too expensive) but you'll get a transfer over time as it becomes more viable to operate in the larger more powerful market. Subsidiaries are already being set up. It just means over time that the subsidiaries will become more useful over time as the EU becomes a greater value then the London. It will also help the EU that the banking authority has been relocated. Companies will want to be near where the 'seat of power' is.
You don't seem to be listening. The people involved in the financial sector in the EU are not expecting any major movements, not the day after Brexit or the month after Brexit or the decade after Brexit. They're quite happy with the way things run right now (because everyone wins and makes lots of money). They're expecting to hoover up some small fry business on the side, the "crumbs of the city of London" but not much else. You do not seem to grasp the idea that British based banks will still be operating heavily in the EU market after Brexit, which is the whole point of the subsidaries (a requirement to gain the passporting rights). There is a myriad of reasons why there are only three really big financial centres in the world, none of which will be compromised by Brexit. I also think you're underestimating just how good banks and other financial institutions are at getting around rules designed by politicians, amd how much politicians actively aid this to benefit themselves.
One industry is not really having much influence though. It's not affecting Germany's approach to the Wrexit. The UK has more to lose from having a trade barrier for cars. The one thing I would predict is that there will be limited barriers for cars. However you can still have that and numerous other areas with no agreement. The EU are by far more coordinated than the UK which has no idea what it wants really (apart from a bigly good deal).
It's not just one industry though (just wait till the French farmers union gets involved. They make UKIP look like the green party). You do not seem to understand just how much some of the key dominoes in the Euro chain like Germany, France, Holland and Ireland have to lose from a bad deal. Germany is especially worried. There's a reason the European central bank is pumping around 60 billion euros worth of liquidity into the eurozone each month (though it might be reduced to a mere 30 billion euros per month soon...), and it's not because the eurozone is a super stable economic bloc. You, like seemingly some of the more bombastic EU politicians, just do not seem to understand the scale of the knock on effects to the Eurozone from a bad deal. Thankfully most of the people that matter do and they've already begun leaning on their respective governments. The EU is no more a unified front than I am a trained neuro-surgeon. The signs of this are becoming more apparent by the day. The fact that you choose to ignore these because you're busy shouting "WREXIT" in every other comment is irrelevant.
In 2019 much more stringent controls on tax in terms of transparency will come into force. It should not be a surprise that a lot of people bank rolling the leave campaign are set to not 'benefit' from such rules.
Ah yes, government tax regulation. How many centuries have governments been trying to clamp down on avoidance? How has that worked out? And when the president of the organisation attempting it is notorious for being one of the biggest corporate handshakers and tax avoidance artists in the business, you really think there's going to be a massive clampdown?
Howard A Treesong wrote:Other than sheer bloody mindedness. Seems to be a good bit of that from the posturing on both sides determined to spite their own faces for ideological reasons. I’m sure there are still those in the EU that want to make brexit painful simply to deter other nations following. And on our side there are those who just want to stick it to Europe to win popularity with some over here.
Neither sides extremists are going to get what they want. The final deal is likely to be what any good trade deal should be; a win-win for all. Politicians have to talk tough, it's part of their game. But behind closed doors, and especially with civil servants hanging off their ears, most of them tend to be a lot more, I guess normal is the word I'm looking for. Rationale perhaps? When faced with the consequences of a bad deal on this scale, that's when the rhetoric will rapidly go out of the window and the desire to not tank each others economies will come to the fore, because neither of us gain by giving the other side a bad lot.
I can't even be bothered to understand what you're gibbering on about there.
I can't help but wonder why you'd even bother responding in a mildly rude fashion to a post which you've literally just said that you're not even reading/understanding properly. How you'd expect that to lead to a productive, friendly, in line with Rule 1# political discussion is beyond me. Either way, it doesn't do much for protests of political neutrality.
If you're truly after political discourse, pack in the patronising analogies and attitude and we'll get along just fine.
Getting private transport emission free is arguably more important than public transport on account of relative carbon footprint. Plus, it's likely be very expensive to electrify the entire rail network. Finally, for all I know Diesel may in fact be the most efficient option for trains, given the electricity needs to be provided from somewhere.
So I think we can start to count out passporting rights.
Except that the EU's own securities regulator produced a report a few years back on the possibility of asset managers outside the EU getting passporting rights and decided there was no good reason why it shouldn't happen.
AIFMD is just for a fraction of asset management, itself a fraction of financial services, and is happening already. Banking services covered by MIFID/MIFIR, CRDIV/CRR, consumer financial products, etc. aren't covered.
An executive at Deutsche Bank has already said he only expects the EU to make a pudding out of the crumbs of London after brexit and a number of leading financial firms have openly told reporters that they don't plan to shift anywhere near as many jobs as people have been speculating. Basically the European bankers with any sense are quite happy with the way things are and are very worried about a financial shock if the EU tries to block London. Virtually everyone except for EU politicians and remain supporters has woken up to the fact that London is going nowhere and the EU is virtually certain to grant very favourable banking terms.
Because everyone outside the torysphere now bets on a really soft Brexit, with UK paying for market access. Job loss will be proportional to degree of access.
We're also seeing the interesting first signs that political rhetoric is giving way to economic reality. The German automotive industry has hired Deloitte to produce a number of briefings (aimed at German politicians) explaining how important the UK is to their sector and how important it is for the EU to sign a positive deal. This was always the stage in the negotiations (as was explained endlessly pre-referendum) where things get interesting, because now politicians have to put their money where their mouths are and we're already seeing the signs of buckling and infighting.
Commissioning impact reports is just good practice (i.e. exactly the opposite of what David Davis did, or what Nicola Sturgeon just did, or what the EU published long time ago).
All of them read the same: UK should stay in the common market or there will be damage. The onus is on the UK to set the tone on how much do they want to minimise damage on both sides of the equation.
Herzlos wrote: There's massive electrification projects going on up here, so they are still moving in that direction.
Targetting a percentage of electric cars by 2030 doesn't necesarily mean much work/investment from the governent.
There needs to be a charging network, especially for people who do not have secure parking outside our houses to allow us to have our own charging points.
In Henley currently there are four charging points compared to 600 or more council car park slots. Two of these charging points belong to the town's service centre for electric and hybrid vehicles, meaning that in all the five council car parks there are two points, which are often ICEd.
At the other end of my daily commute -- Redbridge Park & Ride in Oxford -- there is one charging point compared to over 1,000 parking slots.
If the government doesn't get a proper grip on this situation, it will end up like BT Openreach, with delayed, patchy and low quality coverage.
Indeed, but that can be a relatively gradual roll-out and I can see a lot of larger destinations expanding charging on their own initiative to lure in customers - shopping centres, tourist attractions, concert venues, airports. Essentially everywhere with large car parks that use them to entice customers.
The government can then fund infrastructure everywhere else piecemeal.
Or take the money intended to be invested in infrastructure, chuck it to their Cowboy Builder mates to pay themselves obscene bonuses, before running the company into the ground to require yet more Tax Payer cash to sort it out, including redundancy packages and Golden Goodbyes to said Cowboy Builders.
Herzlos wrote: Indeed, but that can be a relatively gradual roll-out and I can see a lot of larger destinations expanding charging on their own initiative to lure in customers - shopping centres, tourist attractions, concert venues, airports. Essentially everywhere with large car parks that use them to entice customers.
The government can then fund infrastructure everywhere else piecemeal.
To be sure, there are signs this is already happening. For example, Westgate Shopping Centre in Oxford opened in November with 1,000 car park slots including 50 EV charging points. This while a very low percentage is still a lot better than most places.
However, if the government wants to have an effective strategy it needs to prime the pump.
People want electric cars but they are put off by the expense and by the difficulty of charging them.
Recently, demand for EVs has been stimulated by government grants. The government should also offer grants for plumbing in charge points, to encourage much wider provisin.
Getting private transport emission free is arguably more important than public transport on account of relative carbon footprint. Plus, it's likely be very expensive to electrify the entire rail network. Finally, for all I know Diesel may in fact be the most efficient option for trains, given the electricity needs to be provided from somewhere.
Electric trains are about 15% more efficient than direct diesel equivalent, even if you burnt the diesel to generate the power, because you're not lugging the mass of the engines and fuel everywhere you go. They are also future-proof, as electricity can be generated from any means, rather than being tied into hydrocarbon fuels (at best bio-diesel, which could reduce the carbon footprint, but not NOx and particulate emissions). The decision seems to partly have been taken because the new diesel trains will be "hybrid" and that's a popular catchphrase that politicians (sort of) understand. Fully electric vehicles are superior (from an environmental point of view), but that's impractical with cars at the moment*, so hybrids are a good option. That logic does not hold true for railways, where electrification is eminently practical; yes, there is an infrastructure cost, but it's a proven technology. Most of the rest of Europe electrified the bulk of their network decades ago.
I absolutely support more charging infrastructure for private vehicles, but it shouldn't be an either/or.
* I'm aware that things are improving and need more investment to improve further, but owning an electric car still has hassles, particularly for long-distance travel.
I’ve just found out that a lot of the management in the Belfast City Council waste management office are off on ‘stress leave’. That’s usually a prerequisite to them either leaving or getting sacked. Hopefully that place will finally turn itself around.
For anybody that's interested, and if you're not, why not?
There was an important vote in The Commons last night regarding Scotland.
Now, under the 1998 Scotland Act, everything that is not reserved to Westminster goes to the Scottish Parliament, and there's a similar act for Welsh devolution.
Now, a lot of powers coming back from Brussels were supposed to be heading to Edinburgh and Cardiff.
Scottish Tory MPs vowed to fight to the last, man the barricades, defy the PM etc etc to get these powers for Scotland
And then last night they voted with the government to retain these new powers...so much for tough talk...
Feth me, and forget my pro-Scottish Indy stance for a minute here, but what do the Tories think this will do for preserving the UK or stopping the SNP?
What an incompetent, short-sighted, bunch of fething idiots.
And yet, come the next GE, millions of people will vote for them...
Hey, I'm happy that they have handed the SNP such a gift, but God Almighty, if they can't even do the basics, no wonder the NHS is crumbling, crime is increasing, and Brexit negotiations are looking wobbly...
I think it's a mix of incompetence and arrogance; the party is at its smallest and oldest for a long time, the pool of talent is crap, and only seems to draw folk after power.
For all her talk, Davidson was never going to defy Westminster orders. Doing that would require a spine, and I'm sure she wants to move up to the 'big leagues'.
Hopefull this will spark another demand for independence but I think everyone is so burnt out they'll get away with it again.
I think it's a mix of incompetence and arrogance; the party is at its smallest and oldest for a long time, the pool of talent is crap, and only seems to draw folk after power.
For all her talk, Davidson was never going to defy Westminster orders. Doing that would require a spine, and I'm sure she wants to move up to the 'big leagues'.
Hopefull this will spark another demand for independence but I think everyone is so burnt out they'll get away with it again.
Ruth Davidson isn an MSP and didn't have a vote last night.
Ruth Davidson isn an MSP and didn't have a vote last night.
She's also the leader of the Scottish Tory party, and the one promising to make sure her MP's voted in Scotlands interests even if that's against Westminster.
As far as I'm aware, she's the only one that was making a big deal about Scottish Tory MP's standing up for their own country, everyone else assumed they'd just do what they were told.
I think it's a mix of incompetence and arrogance; the party is at its smallest and oldest for a long time, the pool of talent is crap, and only seems to draw folk after power.
For all her talk, Davidson was never going to defy Westminster orders. Doing that would require a spine, and I'm sure she wants to move up to the 'big leagues'.
Hopefull this will spark another demand for independence but I think everyone is so burnt out they'll get away with it again.
I find it absolutely astonishing that the Conservative and Unionist Party would actively try and sabotage the Union they profess to love.
You get to a certain age, you live to see everything.
I think it's a mix of incompetence and arrogance; the party is at its smallest and oldest for a long time, the pool of talent is crap, and only seems to draw folk after power.
For all her talk, Davidson was never going to defy Westminster orders. Doing that would require a spine, and I'm sure she wants to move up to the 'big leagues'.
Hopefull this will spark another demand for independence but I think everyone is so burnt out they'll get away with it again.
Ruth Davidson isn an MSP and didn't have a vote last night.
True, but with her 13 Tory MPs, which she claims to 'control' she is arguably in an even stronger position than the DUP with regards to balance of power.
The DUP got 1 billion for Northern Ireland.
Ruth Davidson got £0.00 for Scotland.
Davidson, in all her years, has yet to utter a single statement that is even remotely Conservative.
She is as much a Conservative as Atlee was...
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Mozzyfuzzy wrote: Which in all honesty was the primary reason I voted remain.
Just didn't trust our politicians to do it very well, when they can't handle the things they're already doing very well.
That and by staying in the EU we can annoy the rest of the continent.
What?? I thought you were the cut me open, I'll bleed Brexit type?
The BBC wrote:
Payments stopped to former Carillion directors Payments to former Carillion directors have been stopped from the date of the company’s liquidation, says the Cabinet Office.
Minister Oliver Dowden told BBC Radio 4’s World At One:
I can confirm that any payments to directors beyond liquidation date have been stopped. So these people aren’t going to be paid.
The move includes severance payments. A spokesman for the Insolvency Service said:
Any bonus payment to directors, beyond the liquidation date, have been stopped and this includes the severance payments which were being paid to some senior executives who left the company.
Whirlwind wrote:You are moving the goal posts. We are referring as to how you evaluate and determine what you can include in a contract.
Erm, no. As anyone that cares to check back will see I was talking about the awarding of contracts, which is what you replied to. So unlucky, another failed attempt to try and discredit someone because they pointed out something inconvenient to you. And then you wonder why this thread is becoming an echo chamber.
I did that's why I stated what I did and to quote your own wording:-
The authorising bodies that have given Carillion some of their contracts are similarly limited in the number of factors that can be considered when making their deliberations, which helps explain why Carillion have been able to keep winning contracts despite their precarious position.
You then moved that onto how they get advertised in that and the communication of those bids
This extends to such minuate as the nature of electronic communications (literally the government can be sued in some circumstances for using communication methods deemed to exclude certain potential bidders).
You are confusing two points and moving the goal posts in the discussion. I am quite happy to talk about the process that must be undertaken for the types of contracts and how they are advertised and how people can respond, but that was never the original point of the discussion. This latter point is about how procurement processes are advertised (and as pointed out these are subject to the value and type of the procurement you are undertaking). However we were talking about in awarding of contracts and what factors can be considered as part of those deliberations. In that case that is entirely in control of the awarding body. They can decide the evaluation criteria and as long as it isn't discriminatory (e.g. racist) or requires illegal actions (e.g. illegal disposal of waste) then you can set both the contract criteria and the awarding criteria as the awarding body see fit. It will be an echo chamber when you close your eyes, ears and mind and can only see that your arguments are being pointed out as incorrect.
The government thinks no such thing. If you actually listen to what they're saying they're trying to get the best deal they can, but they no full well that they won't get an equivalent deal to Norway unless they meet the same obligations.
To go back to the same guardian article previously linked
"However, in Brussels it is the mood music coming from London that is causing concern ahead of talks on the transition period that will come once the European council has adopted negotiating directives on 29 February.
Downing Street’s Brexit adviser, Olly Robbins, suggested in a recent cabinet meeting that the UK would operate on three levels post-Brexit with the EU, with some sectors being entirely free from Brussels regulation while others were fully converged to allow frictionless trade. In a third “basket” of sectors, the two sides could share the same goals but “achieve them through different means”. One senior EU official said: “It’s what we always thought the UK would be going for and that’s why we have been quite clear that we don’t think that it is on.”"
Ergo they are simply not listening to the realities of the situation. My prediction is that the last 12 months will be repeated. We will get endless tripe of trying to put a square peg into a round hole until at the last minute they concede on pretty much anything major because they simply have no choice.
You don't seem to be listening. The people involved in the financial sector in the EU are not expecting any major movements, not the day after Brexit or the month after Brexit or the decade after Brexit. They're quite happy with the way things run right now (because everyone wins and makes lots of money).
I'll point you in the direction of this article and let it sink in...(Dec 2017)
Indeed, since the UK voted to leave the EU, the EBA has observed that European banks have significantly reduced their exposure to the UK. In the 12 months starting from June 2016, lenders from other EU-member countries slashed their assets tied to the UK from €1.94 trillion to €1.59 trillion, while their liabilities also shrunk during the same period, from €1.67 trillion to €1.34 trillion. Of particular note is the 35-percent reduction in banks’ holdings of derivatives with exposure to the UK by a hefty 35 percent, marking the biggest asset-class reduction....
....As far as staffing is concerned, the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) expects around 75,000 banking and insurance jobs in the UK to be lost to the EU should a trade deal not materialise, with the regulator’s CEO, Sam Woods, forecasting around 10,000 UK-based jobs potentially on the chopping block on “day one” of Brexit. Think-tank Bruegel, meanwhile, projects a loss of 10,000 banking jobs and 20,000 financial-services roles as clients could withdraw a total of $2.1 trillion worth of assets from the country. HSBC has been among the most vocal institutions regarding potential migrations out of London, with CEO Stuart Gulliver having stated his intentions earlier in the year to relocate around 1,000 jobs from London to Paris—a number that represents the bank’s estimate of the proportion of its workforce in London that is involved with products covered by EU legislation. Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and BNP Paribas have made similar pronouncements in recent times....
...Some of the biggest American banks are also reportedly formulating “stop gap” solutions as a way to potentially prevent jobs leaving London before new staff are added to their European operations. Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Bank of America have been reported to be aiming to use London branches of their EU subsidiaries to ensure business continuity prior to the completion of their new headquarters on the continent. While this may prove to provide temporary relief for London-based staff, however, there is little guarantee that their jobs will be secure in the long run....
The only method that would stop the damage is gaining those passporting rights. France will likely resist this extremely hard without a very hefty payout (as it has the most to benefit).
You, like seemingly some of the more bombastic EU politicians, just do not seem to understand the scale of the knock on effects to the Eurozone from a bad deal. Thankfully most of the people that matter do and they've already begun leaning on their respective governments. The EU is no more a unified front than I am a trained neuro-surgeon. The signs of this are becoming more apparent by the day. The fact that you choose to ignore these because you're busy shouting "WREXIT" in every other comment is irrelevant.
I think it's more the realities that they realise that the UK only accounts for 16% of the exports from the Eurozone, which whilst it might have an impact with some tariffs and some areas is nowhere near the impact that it would have on the UK which exports 50% of its goods to the Eurozone. The farming industry will have little to worry as they will still have a CAP whereas its largely uncertain what farmers will get post the early 2020s. If they get nothing or minimal amounts then they may find just growing wild flowers is much more lucrative. The UK government will also be acutely aware that huge increases on tariffs on imports of food will drive inflation on these goods (as 50% of our food comes from abroad and a lot from the EU) and with the number of people on very low wages will have a significant impact on their lives (assuming any Tories in government actually care). Brexit does indeed mean Wrexit...
In 2019 much more stringent controls on tax in terms of transparency will come into force. It should not be a surprise that a lot of people bank rolling the leave campaign are set to not 'benefit' from such rules.
Ah yes, government tax regulation. How many centuries have governments been trying to clamp down on avoidance? How has that worked out? And when the president of the organisation attempting it is notorious for being one of the biggest corporate handshakers and tax avoidance artists in the business, you really think there's going to be a massive clampdown?
I think any clampdown is better than none. I don't expect the world to change in a day (except for the UK which apparently wants to go back to September 1954 and stay there permanently.
I don't see how it can't; the company has ceased trading and is liquidation, so all outgoings (including wages and bonus') stop.
The directors could make a claim for the money owed as debtors, but (AIUI) would be at the back of the queue.
Hopefully, the iquidator will direct the £29m in cash to the smaller companies who risk collapse from the unpaid debt.
It largely depends on how they actioned it. And legally what they are entitled to. I suppose if they have managed to legally place themselves at the top for settling debts then they will get the first share of any distribution of assets. Although they may not be paid in the traditional sense, the company may owe them a debt that they have to pay off first.
This news also seems to have passed by and worth flagging with regards the NHS. 1/10 nurses are now leaving the NHS for better climates. In fact more nurses are leaving than joining the NHS. I would guess this is also having an impact on the service and the problems we are seeing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42653542
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Herzlos wrote: I don't see how it can't; the company has ceased trading and is liquidation, so all outgoings (including wages and bonus') stop.
The directors could make a claim for the money owed as debtors, but (AIUI) would be at the back of the queue.
Hopefully, the iquidator will direct the £29m in cash to the smaller companies who risk collapse from the unpaid debt.
Staff pay is usually near the front of the queue for paying by liquidated companies, but the directors who flew the company into the sewage plant while distributing record dividends to shareholders and bonuses to themselves by the mechanism of cheating contractors and the pension fund, and arranged massive pay for themselves for up to a year after having left the company, are frankly lucky not to be strung up to lampposts, yet alone think they are going to seen any more millions.
Filth.
I am not normally a person to approve of rescinding the rule of law, but when the rule of law overwhelming favours the power elite at the expense of the ordinary people, something eventually is going to change.
jouso wrote:Banking services covered by MIFID/MIFIR, CRDIV/CRR, consumer financial products, etc. aren't covered.
I didn't say they were, I said the EU's financial regulators seem to think granting passporting rights to non-EU entities is not a problem. This is important predominantly because it makes it difficult for EU politicians to argue otherwise later down the line.
Because everyone outside the torysphere now bets on a really soft Brexit, with UK paying for market access. Job loss will be proportional to degree of access.
Aside from the transition period I don't think anyone is seriously expecting the UK to make payments to the EU. An idea was muted recently that the City might be prepared to make contributions if the government agreed to pay for market access, something which both the government and then City reps themselves almost immediately shot down.
Commissioning impact reports is just good practice (i.e. exactly the opposite of what David Davis did, or what Nicola Sturgeon just did, or what the EU published long time ago).
These were not impact reports in the dry, financial sense. These were short, shiny, infographic laden sales pitches designed to catch politicians eyes and drop not so subtle hints.
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Whirlwind wrote:You are confusing two points and moving the goal posts in the discussion.
No, I mentioned communications as in when people communicate with one another, such as when submitting bid documents. There are rules in place to prevent government from doing things like using an unusual format or software type that would inhibit certain companies (normally smaller ones) from fairly competing for a contract, which was used an example to rectify your mistaken opinion that government bodies are basically free to discrimate almost as much as they like. At no point have I deviated from the concept of the bidding process and at no point have I talked about advertising in anyway, shape or form, which therefore makes a good chunk of your argument a basic strawman.
Ergo they are simply not listening to the realities of the situation. My prediction is that the last 12 months will be repeated. We will get endless tripe of trying to put a square peg into a round hole until at the last minute they concede on pretty much anything major because they simply have no choice.
You can't even grasp the meaning of the quote that you brought up, so I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to explain it. You don't seem to understand that companies in this country, if they're going to export to the EU, can freely choose to align their product with EU standards, in the same way that Coca-Cola for example has to make sure its products sold in the EU comply with EU law. You basically took that quote from the Guardian and tried to turn it into something it isn't, yet another example of a strawman. At the rate you're collecting these you'll soon be able to shoot a Wicker Man remake.
I'll point you in the direction of this article and let it sink in...To quote a few points:-
"As far as staffing is concerned, the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) expects around 75,000 banking and insurance jobs in the UK to be lost to the EU should a trade deal not materialise... HSBC has been among the most vocal institutions regarding potential migrations out of London, with CEO Stuart Gulliver having stated his intentions earlier in the year to relocate around 1,000 jobs from London to Paris—a number that represents the bank’s estimate of the proportion of its workforce in London that is involved with products covered by EU legislation"
The only method that would stop the damage is gaining those passporting rights. France will likely resist this extremely hard without a very hefty payout (as it has the most to benefit).
"Deutsche Bank plans to move hundreds of staff out of London as a result of Brexit rather than the thousands first feared, a senior executive has said. It is the latest global lender to roll back on suggestions of an exodus from the City caused by Britain's departure from the European Union... Mr Hoops said a few senior traders would relocate to Frankfurt as well as risk managers and legal and support staff. But the lion's share of traders will remain in London," he added... Last October, Sergio Ermotti, the head of Swiss banking giant UBS, said its "worst case scenario" of having to shift 1,000 jobs out of London due to Brexit was looking "more and more unlikely"... A few days later, HSBC said that its transfer of employees from London to Paris may be less than the 1,000 previously thought."
I think it's more the realities that they realise that the UK only accounts for 16% of the exports from the Eurozone, which whilst it might have an impact with some tariffs and some areas is nowhere near the impact that it would have on the UK which exports 50% of its goods to the Eurozone.
We only export 43% to the EU, and that's been falling in the long run which is precisely why we'll benefit from leaving the EU's protectionist bloc. You also don't seem to grasp just how much damage it would do to the Eurozone alone if (hypothetically) just the German, French and Irish exports to the UK were severely hampered, especially in the case of Germany as the heart of the Eurozone. This is currency union that is pumping out 60 billion Euros worth of quantative easing per month to try and keep itself afloat and drag it out of the one of the worst economic crises since the great depression. Luckily more sensible people across the channel seem to understand this, which is why a good deal for all is likely to be the outcome.
The farming industry will have little to worry as they will still have a CAP
Let's just hope one of the biggest net contributors to the EU doesn't leave soon then, forcing the EU to implement massive budget cuts. Oh wait....
"We estimate that Brexit will leave a permanent shortfall of €10.2 billion per year in the EU budget...Therefore, large spending categories like CAP are likely to come under pressure if the EU budget is cut" [Directorate-General for Internal Policies advice to the Agricultural committee]
.
The UK government will also be acutely aware that huge increases on tariffs on imports of food will drive inflation on these goods (as 50% of our food comes from abroad and a lot from the EU) and with the number of people on very low wages will have a significant impact on their lives (assuming any Tories in government actually care). Brexit does indeed mean Wrexit...
If only the government had some method of preventing this at its disposal, like, I dunno, reducing tariff rates on imported food, especially stuff that we don't grow in the UK or that grows only seasonally here, which would allow exporters from countries than produce stuff cheaper than in the EU to sell us even cheaper food? "Wrexit" means only one thing; that you do not understand or just willfully refuse to acknowledge the many advantages to leaving the EU, and are so narrow minded about the possibilities that you're bordering on Stockholm Syndrome.
I'm positive any deal we have for financial market access will involve a payment. I wouldn't be surprised if that payment is more than we currently pay post rebate.
jouso wrote:Banking services covered by MIFID/MIFIR, CRDIV/CRR, consumer financial products, etc. aren't covered.
I didn't say they were, I said the EU's financial regulators seem to think granting passporting rights to non-EU entities is not a problem. This is important predominantly because it makes it difficult for EU politicians to argue otherwise later down the line.
It's not a problem in the same way it is not a problem from the UK to open their waters to fishing fleets from all over the world.
Why would they? Or, more to the point, in exchange for what?
Because everyone outside the torysphere now bets on a really soft Brexit, with UK paying for market access. Job loss will be proportional to degree of access.
Aside from the transition period I don't think anyone is seriously expecting the UK to make payments to the EU. An idea was muted recently that the City might be prepared to make contributions if the government agreed to pay for market access, something which both the government and then City reps themselves almost immediately shot down.
Then, we're back to this simple graphic.
No payment means Canada (meaning no free flow of services).
Commissioning impact reports is just good practice (i.e. exactly the opposite of what David Davis did, or what Nicola Sturgeon just did, or what the EU published long time ago).
These were not impact reports in the dry, financial sense. These were short, shiny, infographic laden sales pitches designed to catch politicians eyes and drop not so subtle hints.
That's not how they work. Those free-to-download brochures aren't commissioned by anyone other than Deloitte themselves. They're short, shiny, infographic laden sales pitches because they're selling your company just how well informed they are about the legal and economic changing scenarios so of course you should absolutely give them a pile of money to solve your company problems in compliance, strategy, etc.
jouso wrote:Banking services covered by MIFID/MIFIR, CRDIV/CRR, consumer financial products, etc. aren't covered.
I didn't say they were, I said the EU's financial regulators seem to think granting passporting rights to non-EU entities is not a problem. This is important predominantly because it makes it difficult for EU politicians to argue otherwise later down the line.
It's not a problem in the same way it is not a problem from the UK to open their waters to fishing fleets from all over the world.
Why would they? Or, more to the point, in exchange for what?
Yeah. Banking is good source of jobs. UK banks already have moved jobs to Europe due to brexit. They obviously want more. More money, more jobs. UK needs to give something hefty back or there's multiple countries who would be happy to get as many jobs from UK banks as possible. All? No. But even 30% would be pretty nice deal. Rest can stay in UK without banking passport.
Banking is, and has been for a long time, a major industry for the uk. Lloyds has been running for 350 years. Even a 1% loss could damage our economy, and one of the reasons why London has grown in current years is because of passporting. International banks and other organisations using the UK as an EU base, with the benefits of our regulations and stability with access to the rest of the EU.
The eccentric soap opera that is UKIP continues - an everyday story of ordinary racist folk going about their lives.
I do like "I have seen people die, I have seen people blown up, I have seen people shot. Even the Taliban doesn’t quite prepare you for Ukip, though.".
That's a pretty big majority for Remain, if accurate. Seems to be an increase in likelihood of a 2nd referendum. I wonder if this was the long game from the Tories, somehow (partically because I don't believe they are stupid enough for the last 18 months behaviour to be genuine)
No, I mentioned communications as in when people communicate with one another, such as when submitting bid documents. There are rules in place to prevent government from doing things like using an unusual format or software type that would inhibit certain companies (normally smaller ones) from fairly competing for a contract, which was used an example to rectify your mistaken opinion that government bodies are basically free to discrimate almost as much as they like. At no point have I deviated from the concept of the bidding process and at no point have I talked about advertising in anyway, shape or form, which therefore makes a good chunk of your argument a basic strawman.
I've already quoted your own wording and how you've moved to different topics so I will quote again your original statement:-
"The authorising bodies that have given Carillion some of their contracts are similarly limited in the number of factors that can be considered when making their deliberations, which helps explain why Carillion have been able to keep winning contracts despite their precarious position."
This is just wrong. There is nothing stopping organisations contracting out work to require people to use mail, floppy discs, stone tablets and so forth. The method included in contracts is generally appropriate to the contract in hand (else it adds an unnecessary cost). The evaluation method, as long as it is not asking a company to break the law (flytip their waste for example) is entirely up to contracting body. In the end the entire point of an evaluation process is discriminatory because you are trying to find the company that provides the highest quality service for the most effective cost. Yes some methods do put in requirements that effectively exclude small businesses (you don't want your local scrap person running a multimillion £ waste energy from waste facility). What you can't do is evaluate proposals using different types of criteria during the process to favour one or another bidder - so hence using the above example if you daftly set the criteria that the scrap person does win then you have to either award it to them or withdraw the whole process. However the original criteria you are free to set as you like within the remits of not asking people to act illegally. To be honest sometimes I do have to check what you are saying to challenge it. But in this case I know you are speaking garbage...
You can't even grasp the meaning of the quote that you brought up, so I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to explain it. You don't seem to understand that companies in this country, if they're going to export to the EU, can freely choose to align their product with EU standards, in the same way that Coca-Cola for example has to make sure its products sold in the EU comply with EU law. You basically took that quote from the Guardian and tried to turn it into something it isn't, yet another example of a strawman. At the rate you're collecting these you'll soon be able to shoot a Wicker Man remake.
Throwing insults about as a way of distracting from the point is just away of admitting you have no real argument put forward. No one is denying that people won't still be able to trade. They could be hit twice though, once for complying with the EU market requirements (which might be freater than the UKs) and secondly for any additional tariffs. That makes it more difficult to trade and as they are less competitive.
"Deutsche Bank plans to move hundreds of staff out of London as a result of Brexit rather than the thousands first feared, a senior executive has said. It is the latest global lender to roll back on suggestions of an exodus from the City caused by Britain's departure from the European Union... Mr Hoops said a few senior traders would relocate to Frankfurt as well as risk managers and legal and support staff. But the lion's share of traders will remain in London," he added... Last October, Sergio Ermotti, the head of Swiss banking giant UBS, said its "worst case scenario" of having to shift 1,000 jobs out of London due to Brexit was looking "more and more unlikely"... A few days later, HSBC said that its transfer of employees from London to Paris may be less than the 1,000 previously thought."
Hang on you want to compare an media outlet dedicated to the news specifically in the banking world to a mass media corporation owned by Murdoch who wants to the see the UK leave the EU? I am sure know which one I think I'd put more faith in. I'll have to remind myself next time I want to read a scientific journal I instead must read the Daily Fail the next day because they sure will be able to make more sense on the issue.
We only export 43% to the EU, and that's been falling in the long run which is precisely why we'll benefit from leaving the EU's protectionist bloc.
Less than you would think. Germany's exports and imports with regards the UK are decreasing relatively compared to those outside the Eurozone. If the EU was really 'protectionist' as you state then surely that should be the opposite way round. The EU is becoming less reliant on the UK not more. As for Ireland that's a moot point. No agreement means we stick with the same EU rules to maintain the open border. The UK has already agreed this. Hence Ireland doesn't have to worry at all (unless the Government were lying...oh wait it's the Tories)...
"We estimate that Brexit will leave a permanent shortfall of €10.2 billion per year in the EU budget...Therefore, large spending categories like CAP are likely to come under pressure if the EU budget is cut" [Directorate-General for Internal Policies advice to the Agricultural committee]
.
The UK government will also be acutely aware that huge increases on tariffs on imports of food will drive inflation on these goods (as 50% of our food comes from abroad and a lot from the EU) and with the number of people on very low wages will have a significant impact on their lives (assuming any Tories in government actually care). Brexit does indeed mean Wrexit...
If only the government had some method of preventing this at its disposal, like, I dunno, reducing tariff rates on imported food, especially stuff that we don't grow in the UK or that grows only seasonally here, which would allow exporters from countries than produce stuff cheaper than in the EU to sell us even cheaper food? "Wrexit" means only one thing; that you do not understand or just willfully refuse to acknowledge the many advantages to leaving the EU, and are so narrow minded about the possibilities that you're bordering on Stockholm Syndrome.
Back to insults I see, running out of rational arguments? No one is arguing that there is financial impact on the EU. However CAP isn't going to disappear so there will still be an EU advantage over UK farmers. It might be reduced but it's unlikely to disappear completely. It's more likely we'll see these foods go up in price to accommodate this loss of income. Given we import a significant fraction of our food then that's not really going to do the lowest earners any favours at all.
Oh and on aside if you really must use three quarters of a page please spoiler it.
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Kilkrazy wrote: Brexit: EU relocates Galileo satellite system installation from UK to Spain
This was inevitable. There was an article a while back that noted the problems the space industry would face with EU contracts. Because most of these types of satellites have military uses they are limited to being worked on by the people of those countries (same goes with NASA to a large extent). Basically the rules state that only EU countries may work on these projects (very much summarised). As such for the companies to maintain their presence in the projects they have to relocate. But don't worry we'll have our cheese to sell...
Police forces are failing to meet the official standards for forensic science, making miscarriages of justice inevitable, the government’s forensic regulator has said.
In her annual report, Gillian Tully highlighted her growing concerns about the failure of some forensic firms used by the police to meet basic quality standards. It means innocent people could be wrongly convicted and offenders escaping justice.
The routine outsourcing of criminal forensic work to unaccredited laboratories worries Tully, with some not subject to independent oversight.
She told the Guardian that without urgent action there would inevitably be miscarriages of justice, including in cases involving murder, rape and child abuse.
“If you’re not finding indecent images of children on someone’s phone when you should be, that’s a miscarriage of justice as much as if someone was wrongly convicted of a crime,” Tully said.
The government abolished the Forensic Science Service in 2012, which was the primary provider to the police and courts, resulting in forensic work being transferred to in-house police laboratories and private providers. Conservative ministers wanted to create a market in which independent companies competed for business
I'm now old enough to recall that ministers used to resign for things like ruining the basis of modern criminal justice.
Still tallies wonderfully with the not fit for service privatised parole service. which have been doing such a sterling job of late.
Note how the blame in the article is swiftly punted to the police by the home office .
Schiff asked Simpson later whether he uncovered "any information regarding a connection between Trump or those around him and Wikileaks" — the self-described radical transparency organization founded by Julian Assange that published emails Russia had stolen from the Democratic National Committee.
"Roger Stone bragged about having his contact," Simpson replied, referring to Stone's public comments about having an intermediary with Assange. "We tried to figure out who the contact was."
We started going into who Stone was and who his relationships were with, and essentially the trail led to sort of international far right. And, you know, Brexit happened, and Nigel Farage became someone that we were very interested in, and I still think it's very interesting."
Farage is a British politican who headed the far-right UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006-2009 and again from 2010-2016. Farage spearheaded the Brexit movement.
"So I have formed my own opinions that went through - that there was a somewhat unacknowledged relationship between the Trump people and the UKIP people and that the path to Wikileaks ran through that," Simpson said. "And I still think that today."
Schiff then asked whether the data company Cambridge Analytica, whose parent company is based in the UK, was the link between the Trump campaign and the Brexit campaign.
Simpson replied that the billionaire Mercer family, which has been credited with paving the way to Trump's victory, were "signficant" — moreso than Cambridge Analytica, which he said may have been "selling snake oil."
Simpson also mentioned a "Bannon Stone associate" named Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, an American associated with UKIP who he believed was "a significant figure in this."
"Were you able to find any factual links between the Mercers and Assange or Wikileaks or Farage?" Schiff asked.
Simpson pointed to Farage's trips to New York, and said he had been told, but had not confirmed, that "Nigel Farage had additional trips to the Ecuadoran Embassy...and that he provided data to Julian Assange."
It's also pretty hard to improve standards whilst getting your budget stripped due to austerity. This is all the obvious consequences of cutting budgets, and a pretty good indication that austerity doesn't actually work (because everything seems to cost more when you cheap out).
We need to staff up in Europe because it's our biggest international engagement and is going to become a lot more difficult after Brexit so will need more staff.
Without recruiting and training a lot more people -- difficult in times of austerity -- we have to pull them out of other areas.
Which of course will decrease our engagement with these other areas.
Britain Is Cutting Diplomats In Asia, Africa And The Americas To Put More In The EU Ahead Of Brexit
Damn them! They're ruining my vision of Britain pivoting towards Asia!!
Shakes fist.
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Kilkrazy wrote: According to an updated report in today's The Guardian online, Boris's various vanity projects as Mayor of London have so far cost the taxpayer £970M.
However, if we build a bridge to France we can then recreate the future fantasy empire of the Hawkmoon series by Michael Moorcock.
Bloody good series that. Would recommend it to anybody.
reds8n wrote: La Manche is, IIRC, the or at least one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world right ?
Sure it'd be a piece of piss to whack a 20 odd mile concrete bridge over that.
One suggestion is to have a couple of artificial islands in the Channel, at the outer edges of the shipping lanes. Run bridges from the coasts to the islands, then a tunnel in between. Rather like the Oresund crossing between Denmark and Sweden. It has also been suggested that by the time any such crossing is built, advances in automation will mean that automated ships will be less likely to crash into it. In any case, I don't think the USN passes through the Channel that often, so we should be OK.
Ketara wrote: What the feth is it with Boris and bridges? Be it building them or burning them, it's all he ever does!
Perhaps he just wants to build them so he can burn them. Keeping things in a nice neat circle.
There's more evidence that from Macron's visit that if the UK wants to keep service trade deals then it is going to have to keep freedom of movement, ECJ and so on.
Mr Macron said access to the EU for the UK's financial services sector was "not feasible" if the UK did not accept the obligations of the single market.
But he insisted he did not want to "unplug" the City from the EU, adding: "It doesn't make sense, because it's part of the whole financing of our European Union."
He told Marr it was not too late for the UK to change its mind about remaining - describing the 2016 referendum as a "mistake".
"I do respect this vote, I do regret this vote, and I would love to welcome you again," he said.
"It's a mistake when you just ask 'yes' or 'no' when you don't ask people how to improve the situation and explain how to improve it."
So, pensions. Is it just me or is part of the answer blindingly simple; you are not allowed a government contract if you have a pension scheme in deficit? Any companies with existing contracts who have deficits have to put in place an action plan to resolve the issue in a reasonable time (say 3-5 years).
Those eejits are still coming at me with demands for money. Only problem (for them) is, I think they've both blinked and misled on their latest letter. On the last one they said that if I didn't pay up they'd recommend to their client that they take court action. Well, I still haven't paid up and they're still pushing that line. This is my last chance apparently...even though the last letter was also my last chance.
They also said that that if they go to court and they win, they can ask the court to make me pay the court costs and solicitors fees. It was my understanding that the court wouldn't do that. The fine and court costs only and nothing else, if even that.
My regret is ripping up the first letters they sent me. The ones that came directly from the parking company itself, with the photos of my car (were you couldn't see my face). I probably shouldn't have done that.
Steering this back to British politics, is it possible to change the law to knock this kind of nonsense on the head?
welshhoppo wrote: You shouldn't be doing any contracts if the pension is in deficit.
Heck. It should just be made illegal. Outright.
Do you mean pension deficits in general? Either way I agree.
There are legitimate reasons why a company's pension scheme can get into deficit. One way to address it might be actually to get a good government contract.
The problem with Carillion, and BHS before them, was that the directors were being paid massive salaries and bonuses, and handing out large dividends to shareholders, while the pensions funds went into deficit.
It is impossible to see this behaviour as anything else functionally than the managers and owners diverting money from the staff to themselves..
Future War Cultist wrote: Those eejits are still coming at me with demands for money. Only problem (for them) is, I think they've both blinked and misled on their latest letter. On the last one they said that if I didn't pay up they'd recommend to their client that they take court action. Well, I still haven't paid up and they're still pushing that line. This is my last chance apparently...even though the last letter was also my last chance.
They also said that that if they go to court and they win, they can ask the court to make me pay the court costs and solicitors fees. It was my understanding that the court wouldn't do that. The fine and court costs only and nothing else, if even that.
Thats because they literally can't do anything else. They can only bend the truth to scare you into paying; they don't get paid if it goes to court.
At small claims solicitors costs are capped at £50.
They'll give you a full copy of the letters if it does go to court but it's unlikely
It's not a bank fund, you shouldn't use other people's savings to fund yourself.
Especially as I doubt we'll have public pensions for that much longer, given the massive costs involved.
As for the car parking thing, did they actually send the notice to owner in the required window of time? Or did they miss it?
I completely agree. Remember what happened with BHS? It sickens me that pension funds are open to be gouged by the sociopath corporate raiders put in charge of companies these days.
And with the parking issue, all that happened was I received a letter from them about a week after the fact demanding money. I ignored it (and ripped up the letter). About a month latter I received a letter from 'Dept Recovery Plus' demanding money within 2 weeks or they'll advise their clients to take court action. And now here we are again, them demanding money by the 31st or they'll advise their clients to take court action.
It's not a bank fund, you shouldn't use other people's savings to fund yourself.
Especially as I doubt we'll have public pensions for that much longer, given the massive costs involved.
As for the car parking thing, did they actually send the notice to owner in the required window of time? Or did they miss it?
I completely agree. Remember what happened with BHS? It sickens me that pension funds are open to be gouged by the sociopath corporate raiders put in charge of companies these days.
And with the parking issue, all that happened was I received a letter from them about a week after the fact demanding money. I ignored it (and ripped up the letter). About a month latter I received a letter from 'Dept Recovery Plus' demanding money within 2 weeks or they'll advise their clients to take court action. And now here we are again, them demanding money by the 31st or they'll advise their clients to take court action.
I know exactly what happened with BHS because I worked there and was made redundant a few years prior to the collapse. I still had friends working there when the whole company went under, luckily my mother left the company a few months before.
Well, unless they have sent a 'notice to owner' then do nothing.
Actually, its best to call the British Parking Association first and ask them if the company thats nagging you are a member. If they aren't then they probably accessed your DVLA records illegally.
These pension issues are nothing new. Heck, they used to be far worse. I remember hearing about one case back in the late 80's where the pension funds were used to invest into another company owned by the directors which gambled on the stock market and lost the lot.
Pension issues are a big problem for a company, but they tend only to happen when management itself goes bad. A good company can take a quick dip into them to pay for something badly needed to keep the company afloat and then replenish them later with no-one the wiser or worse off when necessary. It's when you have a rotten management structure that takes and never gives that it all goes wrong.
Ketara wrote: These pension issues are nothing new. Heck, they used to be far worse. I remember hearing about one case back in the late 80's where the pension funds were used to invest into another company owned by the directors which gambled on the stock market and lost the lot.
Pension issues are a big problem for a company, but they tend only to happen when management itself goes bad. A good company can take a quick dip into them to pay for something badly needed to keep the company afloat and then replenish them later with no-one the wiser or worse off when necessary. It's when you have a rotten management structure that takes and never gives that it all goes wrong.
And that is the thinking that starts the issue. “We just need the money short term. We will pay it off soon when we get through the bad patch”. But the bad patch never ends. That’s what banks are for. Pensions should be untouchable. That’s not the company’s money, it’s the employees. Same as companies that use money from the VAT account or taking out a payday loan. All companies that take pension money and use it as working capital think they are going to be ok. If they didn’t then the directors are committing a criminal act, not in taking the pension money, but in running a company that is not solvent.
It's the truth that dare not speak its name: that the EU elite don't want other countries having referendums, because they know your average European will run the EU out of town.
In further good news, Remain supporter says global growth will help post-Brexit Britain.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: No. Global Growth would be good for us in or out of Europe. I think the word you're looking for is 'mitigate'.
Or do you just read as far as you need to still think Brexit is a great idea?
In other news, I see UKIP continue to consume themselves.
In the short term, it's welcome news, mitigation or not, but as you know, I've always said we need at least 10 years of hard data before we make a judgement on Brexit.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: At last - some truth from the EU elite. Macron admits that France would probably have voted to leave the EU had there been a referendum in France.
probably. He also said he'd campaign against it, that he's not willing to harm EU values in a Brexit deal, and if we want financial access we'll have to pay in, as we've already been told.
So now the heads of the 2 remaining powerhouses in the EU have told us the same thing.
Or are you just skimming for the points that aren't anti-brexit?
There was an article I read this morning about the head of a business organisation pressing May to get some urgency behind her about business relationships, as businesses can only hold off triggering "plan B" for another 6 months or so. I'm struggling to find it now (I may have read it on facebook about 4am).
Automatically Appended Next Post: Farage is also threatening to rejoin politics in a new pro-Brexit party, if UKIP voted no confidence in current leadership.
I'm hoping he does, and that it flops horribly, so that we're finally rid of the rat.
In the short term, it's welcome news, mitigation or not,
But it's irrelevant to Brexit - the growth would happen anyway.
but as you know, I've always said we need at least 10 years of hard data before we make a judgement on Brexit.
And not many people agree with you. You've never told us what your criteria for a successful Brexit is though - what will it take for you to admit it was a failure?
Or will you just pull the "It was done 10 years ago, get over it" line?
There are various points about the current status of world economic growth.
1. National economies -- depressed for nearly 10 years -- eventually start to correct themselves and return to growth. (In the even longer term, there will be another boom followed by another bust. This is called regression to the mean.)
2. Fortunately, the three major economies of the EU, the USA, and China, have all returned to growth simultaneously, a very virtuous circle.
3. This benefits the UK too, under the principle that a rising tide lifts all the boats. (In other words, as these other economies grow, they want to buy more UK goods and services.)
4. This effect is independent of Brexit, however. Brexit is expected to reduce the UK’s economy by 3% over the next 12 years. This means if the UK stayed within the EU and enjoyed say 20% economic growth in 12 years, instead it will enjoy 17%. (Figures made up to illustrate the principle.)
5. The UK’s national economy still is lagging behind everyone else’s. This is due to deep-seated problems of low investment in education, infrastructure and so on, which also are independent of Brexit.
6. For Brexit to be an economic success, the reduction in EU trade must be more than matched by growth in other trade.
This may be the final nose dive of the party. They will have lost 5 leaders in 18 months, they are deeply in debt, and they don't have any significant voter support in the post-referendum political landscape.
If Farage returns to politics, he should start a new party called Nukip.
If one of the EU's staunchest supporters is saying that his nation would probably vote to leave the EU, then you know that there's trouble in paradise.
It's been clear to me for a long time that politicians want the EU to go one way, and the average man on the street wants it to go another way entirely. Only one of these positions can win, because compromise will only take you so far. Sooner or later the EU will have to answer a very important question: do we want political union to match the fiscal union of the Euro?
@Kilkrazy. 2018 was always going to be the crunch year for Brexit talks, but if the UK economy is doing well, then it's easier for May to sell Brexit to the public, and harder for Remain supporters to preach doom and gloom about it.
The UK economy isn't doing well, it's just not doing as badly as expected, thanks to the rest of the EU doing better than expected (where 44% of our exports go, thanks to the single market, remember...)
There was another similar report last week, which said the stock market had gone up more than expected, after absorbing the news that a Hard Brexit now seemed less likely than a Soft Brexit.
These are not signs that Brexit is a good thing for the economy!
Automatically Appended Next Post: However, it doesn't matter. For most people, the whole Brexit issue is bound up with emotional issues, and they are not interested in the economy.
If one of the EU's staunchest supporters is saying that his nation would probably vote to leave the EU, then you know that there's trouble in paradise.
It's been clear to me for a long time that politicians want the EU to go one way, and the average man on the street wants it to go another way entirely. Only one of these positions can win, because compromise will only take you so far. Sooner or later the EU will have to answer a very important question: do we want political union to match the fiscal union of the Euro?
Put the 'average joe' (and increasing numbers) under financial hardship where they are getting poorer to the wealthiest and they tend to lash out at the institution of the day. Add on growing 'fear' of other people coming into 'their' (which to point it is not) country then more hard right, conservative tendencies come to the fore which can then be reinforced by demagogues like Farage. There are global troubles and this potentially is only the start as the major powers react to increasingly extreme views rather than moderate them. That makes countries increasingly insular and suspicious of each other.
@Kilkrazy. 2018 was always going to be the crunch year for Brexit talks, but if the UK economy is doing well, then it's easier for May to sell Brexit to the public, and harder for Remain supporters to preach doom and gloom about it.
Which is exactly why the 'average joe' shouldn't make decisions on such issues and leave it to the professionals because this sort of vision is short sighted. Effectively what it states is that we are hanging off the coat tails of other countries as they grow. By default that means out growth is lower as we are dragged along (evidenced by being worst performing G8 country, stagnating wages). In effect the wealthy are benefiting from the chaos, the poorest are suffering. However long term then our economy declines relatively and that makes recessions, when they hit, even worse. It results in steady decline overtime. Poorer people are easier to exploit and the cycle continues. The instant doom was always excessive as it takes time to turn a large ship and variations occur more gradually. There's already plenty of evidence that advanced tech businesses are starting to invest elsewhere, the impacts of these will take years to feed through though. We may be alright making cheese but that leaves us with a relatively poor agricultural economy.
There was another similar report last week, which said the stock market had gone up more than expected, after absorbing the news that a Hard Brexit now seemed less likely than a Soft Brexit.
That was largely tied into the "idiot who shall not be named" tax changes that benefited the rich and punished the poor. It's not a surprise that those markets were improved by such a move
Brexit or no Brexit, the UK still faces some serious questions about investment, education, social mobility, a fairer share of the benefits of globalisation, and so on.
I am worried that without addressing these issues, the country will be little better off by staying in than by getting out.
It's the truth that dare not speak its name: that the EU elite don't want other countries having referendums, because they know your average European will run the EU out of town.
Macron might believe it but the public sure isn't clear on it. From PEW research from 2017 only 22 percent of the French are clearly pro leaving, versus 76% in favor of staying. Overall the split in favorable versus unfavorable towards the EU is 56 to 44 percent.
From the same research Greece and Italy have the largest pro-leave groups at around 1/3rd of the population. So the average European doesn't seem to be in any hurry to "run the EU out of town".
If one of the EU's staunchest supporters is saying that his nation would probably vote to leave the EU, then you know that there's trouble in paradise.
I think he's talking more about populist than leaving the eu. Take an unhappy population, blame all the problems on them over there and offer thing a vague solution that'll fix all their problems somehow, and you get a lot of votes.
I doubt everyone who voted leave cares about leaving the eu; there's the protest votes, anti-establishment vote, money for NHS, less migrants and so on.
As pointed out; no other country is close to a majority leave opinion.
Herzlos wrote: ...As pointed out; no other country is close to a majority leave opinion.
But interestingly, about a third of these countries populations want to leave, which coincidentally is the same number that voted leave here. So its not impossible. All they need are some gobshites in the media, some tag lines and soundbites, and an overconfident, buffoon arrogant enough to ignore the real concerns of the people, try and use them as a political beatstick, feth it up, and then slink out the back door like the spineless, cowardly, over-privileged wretch that he is.
tneva82 wrote: Particularly as the brexit is showing all the signs of being catastrophe. It's good test bed and showing clear signs of failure.
Well UK voted, now UK is set on it's way so wrexit ahoy!
Official GW products might start to loose popularity outside UK in favour of recasts.
One positive is that GW products will probably get cheaper for those of you not in the UK, as we trash our economy and the pound sinks in to the deep water of the channel, with Farage on top singing rule Britannia and shouting about burgeoning exports to Papua New Guinea.
tneva82 wrote: Particularly as the brexit is showing all the signs of being catastrophe. It's good test bed and showing clear signs of failure.
Well UK voted, now UK is set on it's way so wrexit ahoy!
Official GW products might start to loose popularity outside UK in favour of recasts.
One positive is that GW products will probably get cheaper for those of you not in the UK, as we trash our economy and the pound sinks in to the deep water of the channel, with Farage on top singing rule Britannia and shouting about burgeoning exports to Papua New Guinea.
Spess mehreens are the perfect product that would benefit from the post Brexit economy.
It's a physical product but most of its value comes not from imports (, unlike cars or aircraft) but from a well-developed, indigenous IP. Cost peanuts to produce per unit and the logistics are easy.
I still think they'd rather bag the profits than make it cheaper to buy outside the pound-area, though.
Except the IP is as watertight as a sieve, and I assume most of the material is imported (albeit the material costs are insignificant). Through in some reductions in workplace regulations and they could become even cheaper.
Herzlos wrote: Except the IP is as watertight as a sieve, and I assume most of the material is imported (albeit the material costs are insignificant). Through in some reductions in workplace regulations and they could become even cheaper.
Plastic and the machinery making the plastic are probably imported. Just like all the books printed in China.
However the impact per unit sold is so tiny as to not matter much on final price. Since the main cost drivers are the Warhammer tax and mould amortisation (which I presume are made locally).
tneva82 wrote: Particularly as the brexit is showing all the signs of being catastrophe. It's good test bed and showing clear signs of failure.
Well UK voted, now UK is set on it's way so wrexit ahoy!
Official GW products might start to loose popularity outside UK in favour of recasts.
One positive is that GW products will probably get cheaper for those of you not in the UK, as we trash our economy and the pound sinks in to the deep water of the channel, with Farage on top singing rule Britannia and shouting about burgeoning exports to Papua New Guinea.
But 24% tax is going to be reflected in prices on local stores. And buying direct still hits the 24%. Pound needs to drop a lot for 24% import fees outside single markert area to NOT be price hike. There's reason why not many in Finland buy anything from america if there's option.
Jeremy Hunt has admitted that British patients may find it difficult to get EU cancer drugs if Brexit talks break down, describing the risk as “uniquely damaging”.
The Health Secretary was being pushed for details of his department’s preparations for the event of a “no deal” scenario, which could cause major disruption to the supply of life-saving medications and see more pharmaceuticals companies shift operations to the EU.
Drug giants have told of “significant disruption to the supply chain for medicines” and that customs delays would damage “time and temperature sensitive” materials, without a Brexit deal.
“It is uniquely damaging to both parties if we don’t come to an agreement,” Mr Hunt told an inquiry by the Commons Health Committee.
“It’s not just that want to continue to get cancer drugs that are manufactured in Europe. It’s Europeans who will not want any interruption to their supply chain for drugs that are manufactured in this country.”
Mr Hunt said it was the issue’s importance that gave him “a lot of confidence that we will be able to agree what we need to agree”.
The admission came as the Health Secretary threw doubt on Theresa May’s hopes of striking a transition deal to cushion the impact of EU withdrawal before April, warning it “may take a little bit longer”.
The stance will alarm business leaders, who have warned they will be forced to implement plans to shift part of their operations out of the UK without an agreement by the end of March.
This week, the Confederation of British Industry’s director general, Carolyn Fairbairn, pleaded with Theresa May to speed up the talks in order to deliver a transition deal within 70 days.
Companies badly needed clarity that the Brexit talks were not heading for the rocks, or they would begin to move jobs and investment offshore, she said.
Failing to secure a deal would be an act of “great economic self-harm”, imposing billions of pounds of costs on UK goods sold to and bought from the EU, Ms Fairbairn added.
At the Health Committee hearing, Conservative MP Andrew Selous warned against any delay, telling Mr Hunt: “Weeks are critical at the moment.”
Mr Hunt added that UK companies with concerns about licensing drugs in the EU should consider opening a European office, to make European Medicines Agency approval easier.
Last year, Britain’s biggest drugmaker said it would have to divert up to £70m from developing new cancer drugs in order to prepare for the possible harsh impact of Brexit.
GlaxoSmithKline estimated that 1,700 of its products would be directly affected by the need for new regulation processes and approval systems – leaving less money for clinical trials.
Because of the threat, the Government is believed to be considering an attempt to stay under EU regulation, as it is for the chemicals and aviation industries.
Such a move would be welcomed by the pharmaceutical industry, but would be a headache for Theresa May if it crosses her “red line” that the European Court of Justice must play no role in settling disputes.
Furthermore, Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, has warned Britain it cannot “cherrypick” parts of the EU single market it wishes to remain within.
Jeremy Hunt has admitted that British patients may find it difficult to get EU cancer drugs if Brexit talks break down, describing the risk as “uniquely damaging”.
The Health Secretary was being pushed for details of his department’s preparations for the event of a “no deal” scenario, which could cause major disruption to the supply of life-saving medications and see more pharmaceuticals companies shift operations to the EU.
Drug giants have told of “significant disruption to the supply chain for medicines” and that customs delays would damage “time and temperature sensitive” materials, without a Brexit deal.
“It is uniquely damaging to both parties if we don’t come to an agreement,” Mr Hunt told an inquiry by the Commons Health Committee.
“It’s not just that want to continue to get cancer drugs that are manufactured in Europe. It’s Europeans who will not want any interruption to their supply chain for drugs that are manufactured in this country.”
Mr Hunt said it was the issue’s importance that gave him “a lot of confidence that we will be able to agree what we need to agree”.
The admission came as the Health Secretary threw doubt on Theresa May’s hopes of striking a transition deal to cushion the impact of EU withdrawal before April, warning it “may take a little bit longer”.
The stance will alarm business leaders, who have warned they will be forced to implement plans to shift part of their operations out of the UK without an agreement by the end of March.
This week, the Confederation of British Industry’s director general, Carolyn Fairbairn, pleaded with Theresa May to speed up the talks in order to deliver a transition deal within 70 days.
Companies badly needed clarity that the Brexit talks were not heading for the rocks, or they would begin to move jobs and investment offshore, she said.
Failing to secure a deal would be an act of “great economic self-harm”, imposing billions of pounds of costs on UK goods sold to and bought from the EU, Ms Fairbairn added.
At the Health Committee hearing, Conservative MP Andrew Selous warned against any delay, telling Mr Hunt: “Weeks are critical at the moment.”
Mr Hunt added that UK companies with concerns about licensing drugs in the EU should consider opening a European office, to make European Medicines Agency approval easier.
Last year, Britain’s biggest drugmaker said it would have to divert up to £70m from developing new cancer drugs in order to prepare for the possible harsh impact of Brexit.
GlaxoSmithKline estimated that 1,700 of its products would be directly affected by the need for new regulation processes and approval systems – leaving less money for clinical trials.
Because of the threat, the Government is believed to be considering an attempt to stay under EU regulation, as it is for the chemicals and aviation industries.
Such a move would be welcomed by the pharmaceutical industry, but would be a headache for Theresa May if it crosses her “red line” that the European Court of Justice must play no role in settling disputes.
Furthermore, Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, has warned Britain it cannot “cherrypick” parts of the EU single market it wishes to remain within.
.. still ... BLUE PASSPORTS THOUGH EH ? !
how thick are these people ? !
It’s fine. Apparently companies will be fine complying with two sets of regulations!
Co'tor Shas wrote: No, you see the solution is to annex *all* of Ireland, not just a piece of it.
Something tells me that an attempt to annex Ireland would make people look back fondly on a time when Brexit was 'all' their problem, not just a piece of it.
I was away for a few days, and was going to reply to people who replied to my EU comments the other day, but something much more disturbing has come up...
Today, the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Star etc etc are running the story that Nicola Sturgeon has stopped the Union Jack being flown on the Queen's birthday on Scottish government buildings, the First Minister's official residence etc etc
Unsurprisingly, the story turned out to be weapons grade bollocks. In 2010, Alex Salmond, the then First Minister, with the Queen's permission (the only person who can legally grant this change) , changed the rules so that the Royal Standard, or the Lion Rampant, could be flown instead, as these are also official flags appropriate for the occasion. The Union jack was only flown on remembrance day and armed forces day.
Bear in mind that the UK is obviously a Union, and there are symbols and royal standards from Scotland that are carried over from the days pre-Union of the crowns, and these were absorbed and accepted into the monarchy we have today.
And then the story escalated. BBC Radio Scotland read out the story as part of their newspaper round up, and the gak hit the fan. Tory MPs jumped on the bandwagon (Rees-Mogg) a twitter storm broke out, and the BBC kept reporting it on the radio as though it were a given, despite the rebuttal from Nicola Sturgeon.
That the Mail is peddling this bollocks is no surprise, but to see the BBC lower itself to this level is surely another nail in the coffin of British journalism.
One BBC journalist on twitter seems to think that it's ok to publish fake news as long as the target gets to issue a denial.
Is it just me, but would it not be better to check facts first before running the story? Or is that too old school?
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Britain we live in today. Our media and our journalists have gone to the dogs...
Men Only: Inside the charity fundraiser where hostesses are put on show
At 10pm last Thursday night, Jonny Gould took to the stage in the ballroom at London’s Dorchester Hotel. “Welcome to the most un-PC event of the year,” he roared.
Mr Gould — who presented Channel 5’s Major League Baseball show — was there to host a charity auction, the centrepiece of a secretive annual event, the Presidents Club Charity Dinner.
The gathering’s official purpose is to raise money for worthy causes such as Great Ormond Street Hospital, the world-renowned children’s hospital in London’s Bloomsbury district.
Auction items included lunch with Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, and afternoon tea with Bank of England governor Mark Carney.
But this is a charity fundraiser like no other.
It is for men only. A black tie evening, Thursday’s event was attended by 360 figures from British business, politics and finance and the entertainment included 130 specially hired hostesses.
All of the women were told to wear skimpy black outfits with matching underwear and high heels. At an after-party many hostesses — some of them students earning extra cash — were groped, sexually harassed and propositioned.
The event has been a mainstay of London’s social calendar for 33 years, yet the activities have remained largely unreported — unusual, perhaps, for a fundraiser of its scale.
The questions raised about the event have been thrown into sharp relief by the current business climate, when bastions of sexual harassment and the institutionalised objectification of women are being torn down.
The Financial Times last week sent two people undercover to work as hostesses on the night. Reporters also gained access to the dining hall and surrounding bars.
Over the course of six hours, many of the hostesses were subjected to groping, lewd comments and repeated requests to join diners in bedrooms elsewhere in the Dorchester....
Hostesses reported men repeatedly putting hands up their skirts; one said an attendee had exposed his penis to her during the evening.
Spoiler:
WPP, the FTSE 100 advertising conglomerate, sponsored a table at the event as it has in previous years. Martin Sorrell, chief executive, was not present this year — though he has attended in the past.
Andrew Scott, its chief operating officer for Europe, hosted the table in his absence. Other table sponsors included CMC Markets, the UK-listed spread betting company, and Frogmore, the London-based real estate investment business.
A seating plan for last week’s event seen by the FT listed those due to attend as including well-known British business figures such as Philip Green of Arcadia Group, Dragons’ Den star Peter Jones, and Ocado boss Tim Steiner.
Financiers on the seating plan included Henry Gabay, founder of hedge fund Duet Group, and Makram Azar, the head of Barclays’ investment bank’s Middle East business. From the world of politics were Nadhim Zahawi, newly appointed undersecretary of state for children and families, and Jonathan Mendelsohn, a Labour peer and party fundraiser. It is not clear whether those listed all turned up on the night.
The comedian David Walliams was the host for the evening. Previous attendees have included Michael Sherwood, a former vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs, and Poju Zabludowicz, a Finnish real estate billionaire and Conservative party donor.
Current and past supporters provide a roll call of British wealth and business influence: patrons include high-end developer Nick Candy; former Formula 1 magnate Bernie Ecclestone; and TV presenter Vernon Kay. CMC Markets founder Peter Cruddas is also a regular attendee.
The event has a laudable fundraising aim with prestigious prizes offered for auction. During the three decades The Presidents Club has been running, it has raised more than £20m for charity. Thursday’s event alone raised more than £2m.
The organisation’s charitable trust has two joint chairmen: Bruce Ritchie, a Mayfair property developer who founded Residential Land, and David Meller, from the luxury good specialist Meller Group, who also sits on the board of the Department for Education and the Mayor’s Fund for London.
But the auction offers a hint of the evening’s seedier side. Lots included a night at Soho’s Windmill strip club and a course of plastic surgery with the invitation to: “Add spice to your wife.”
The accompanying brochure included a full-page warning that no attendees or staff should be sexually harassed. The glossy auction catalogue distributed to attendees during the evening included multiple images of Marilyn Monroe dressed in revealing, tight dresses.
The nature of the occasion was hinted at when the hostesses were hired. The task of finding women for the dinner is entrusted to Caroline Dandridge, founder of Artista, an agency specialising in hosts and hostesses for what it claims to be some of the “UK’s most prestigious occasions”.
At their initial interviews, women were warned by Ms Dandridge that the men in attendance might be “annoying” or try to get the hostesses “pissed”. One hostess was advised to lie to her boyfriend about the fact it was a male-only event. “Tell him it’s a charity dinner,” she was told.
“It’s a Marmite job. Some girls love it, and for other girls it’s the worst job of their life and they will never do it again . . . You just have to put up with the annoying men and if you can do that it’s fine,” Ms Dandridge told the hostess.
Two days before the event, Ms Dandridge told prospective hostesses by email that their phones would be “safely locked away” for the evening and that boyfriends and girlfriends were not welcome at the venue.
The uniform requirements also became more detailed: all hostesses should bring “BLACK sexy shoes”, black underwear, and do their hair and make-up as they would to go to a “smart sexy place”. Dresses and belts would be supplied on the day.
For those who met the three specific selection criteria (“tall, thin and pretty”) a job paying £150, plus £25 for a taxi home, began at 4pm.
The backgrounds of the dozen or more hostesses met by reporters were varied: many were students, hoping to launch careers as lawyers or marketing executives; others juggled part-time jobs as actresses, dancers or models and did occasional hostessing work to make ends meet.
Upon arrival at the Dorchester, the first task given to the hostesses was to sign a five-page non-disclosure agreement about the event. Hostesses were not given a chance to read its contents, or take a copy with them after signing.
At first, hostesses were assembled in the Dorchester’s Orchard Room, where a team of hair and make-up artists prepped women for the evening ahead. During the pre-event preparations, some of the women new to hostess work sought advice from those with more experience. The feedback was mixed.
A number of the hostesses seemed excited about the evening ahead. It was a fun night, they said, especially as — unlike most hostessing assignments — you could drink on the job.
One experienced hostess acknowledged that a portion of the men were likely to be “arseholes”, but said others were “hilarious”. “It really depends on the luck of the draw,” she added.
Others were more apprehensive. One woman who had last worked at the event five years ago sighed to herself: “I can’t believe I’m here again.”
Towards 7pm, during a staff buffet dinner, Ms Dandridge entered wearing a smart black suit and gave a briefing; she said if any of the men became “too annoying”, the hostesses should contact her.
Hostess uniforms were distributed — short tight black dresses, black high heels and a thick black belt resembling a corset. Once dressed, the hostesses were offered a glass of white wine during the final countdown to their entrance into the ballroom.
As the 8pm start time approached, all of the hostesses were told to form two lines in height order, tallest women first, ready to parade across the stage as music began to boom across the venue: “Power”, by British girl band Little Mix.
Entering in twos from opposite sides on to a stage positioned at the front of the ballroom, hostesses presented themselves to the men before walking towards their allocated tables alongside dinner guests. This continued until all 130 women were spread across the room.
With the dinner properly under way, the hostess brief was simple: keep this mix of British and foreign businessmen, the odd lord, politicians, oligarchs, property tycoons, film producers, financiers, and chief executives happy — and fetch drinks when required.
A number of men stood with the hostesses while waiting for smoked salmon starters to arrive. Others remained seated and yet insisted on holding the hands of their hostesses.
It was unclear why men, seated at their tables with hostesses standing close by, felt the need to hold the hands of the women, but numerous hostesses discussed instances of it through the night. For some, this was a prelude to pulling the women into their laps. Meanwhile champagne, whisky and vodka were served.
On stage, entertainers came and went. It was soon after a troupe of burlesque dancers — dressed like furry-hatted Coldstream Guards, but with star-shaped stickers hiding nipples — that one 19-year-old hostess, recounted a conversation with a guest nearing his seventies: who had asked her, directly, whether she was a prostitute. She was not. “I’ve never done this before, and I’m never doing it again,” she said later. “It’s f***ing scary.”
According to the accounts of multiple women working that night, groping and similar abuse was seen across many of the tables in the room.
Another woman, 28, with experience of hostess work, observing the braying men around her said this was significantly different to previous black tie jobs. At other events, men occasionally would try to flirt with her, she said, but she had never felt uncomfortable or, indeed, frightened.
She reported being repeatedly fondled on her bottom, hips, stomach and legs. One guest lunged at her to kiss her. Another invited her upstairs to his room.
Meanwhile, Artista had an enforcement team, made up of suited women and men, who would tour the ballroom, prodding less active hostesses to interact with dinner guests.
Outside the women’s toilets a monitoring system was in place: women who spent too long were called out and led back to the ballroom. A security guard at the door was on hand, keeping time.
At 10pm, the main money-raising portion of the evening got under way: the charity auction, where the lots on offer ranged from a supercharged Land Rover to the right to name a character in Mr Walliams’ next children's book.
Richard Caring, who made his fortune in the retail sourcing business before scooping up a long list of London’s most fashionable restaurants, including The Ivy and Scott’s, rounded off the money-raising portion of the evening with a successful £400,000 bid to place his name on a new High Dependency Unit at the Evelina London children’s hospital for sick children.
It was a moment of respite for the women, most of whom had been allowed to return to the Orchard Room. Some were excited to have been offered jobs by men in the room. Others had been offered large tips, which they had been obliged to decline. One woman struggled to re-apply her eyeliner. “I’m so drunk,” she said apologetically, blaming tequila shots at her table.
The women filed back into the ballroom at 11pm for the final hour of the main event, which would be followed by an “after-party” elsewhere in the hotel.
Most hostesses had been told they would be required to stay until 2am. One was told that this final leg of the evening offered a chance to drink what she wanted and seek out those men she found “most attractive”.
The after-party was held in a smaller room off the main lobby at the Dorchester, packed tight with guests and women.
According to the 28-year-old hostess, while men danced and drank with a set of women on one side of the room, a line of younger women were left seated on a banquette at the back of the room, seemingly dazed. “They looked shocked and frightened, exhausted by what had happened,” she said.
Meanwhile, in the centre of the room, Jimmy Lahoud, 67, a Lebanese businessman and restaurateur, danced enthusiastically with three young women wearing bright red dresses.
By midnight, one society figure who the FT has not yet been able to contact was confronting at least one hostess directly.
“You look far too sober,” he told her. Filling her glass with champagne, he grabbed her by the waist, pulled her in against his stomach and declared: “I want you to down that glass, rip off your knickers and dance on that table.”
In a statement the Dorchester said it had a zero-tolerance policy regarding harassment of guests or employees. “We are unaware of any allegations and should we be contacted we will work with the relevant authorities as necessary,” it said.
The Presidents Club said: “The Presidents Club recently hosted its annual dinner, raising several million pounds for disadvantaged children. The organisers are appalled by the allegations of bad behaviour at the event asserted by the Financial Times reporters. Such behaviour is totally unacceptable. The allegations will be investigated fully and promptly and appropriate action taken.”
Ms Dandridge of Artista stated: “This is a really important charity fundraising event that has been running for 33 years and raises huge amounts of money for disadvantaged and underprivileged children’s charities. There is a code of conduct that we follow, I am not aware of any reports of sexual harassment and with the calibre of guest, I would be astonished.”
None of the trustees of the charity provided a comment for publication.
Harvey Goldsmith, a former trustee, said he was “gobsmacked” by the accounts of sexual harassment taking place at the event. “I’m totally shocked to be quite frank,” he said.
The BoE said: “The Bank of England did not approve any prize for auction on the occasion described nor would it have for that organisation under its guidelines for charitable giving.”
Mr Walliams declined to comment. Mr Caring said he “was not aware of any of the alleged incidents”.
Barry Townsley, a well-known stockbroker and lifetime president of The Presidents Club who helped to set up the charity, said he had not attended the dinner for a decade. He added that it was previously “very nice and civilised” and a “mild-mannered charity”. “What goes on now is not my business,” he said.
Its quite long, but the unspoilered part gives you the right impression of what follows I would say. Its really fething awful. BBC has a sort of follow up: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42801178
Clearly the wealthy elite in the UK is now made up of immigrants, because as we all know Europeans in general have a gene that means they can't possibly commit these kinds of crimes.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I was away for a few days, and was going to reply to people who replied to my EU comments the other day, but something much more disturbing has come up...
Today, the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Star etc etc are running the story that Nicola Sturgeon has stopped the Union Jack being flown on the Queen's birthday on Scottish government buildings, the First Minister's official residence etc etc
Unsurprisingly, the story turned out to be weapons grade bollocks. In 2010, Alex Salmond, the then First Minister, with the Queen's permission (the only person who can legally grant this change) , changed the rules so that the Royal Standard, or the Lion Rampant, could be flown instead, as these are also official flags appropriate for the occasion. The Union jack was only flown on remembrance day and armed forces day.
Bear in mind that the UK is obviously a Union, and there are symbols and royal standards from Scotland that are carried over from the days pre-Union of the crowns, and these were absorbed and accepted into the monarchy we have today.
And then the story escalated. BBC Radio Scotland read out the story as part of their newspaper round up, and the gak hit the fan. Tory MPs jumped on the bandwagon (Rees-Mogg) a twitter storm broke out, and the BBC kept reporting it on the radio as though it were a given, despite the rebuttal from Nicola Sturgeon.
That the Mail is peddling this bollocks is no surprise, but to see the BBC lower itself to this level is surely another nail in the coffin of British journalism.
One BBC journalist on twitter seems to think that it's ok to publish fake news as long as the target gets to issue a denial.
Is it just me, but would it not be better to check facts first before running the story? Or is that too old school?
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Britain we live in today. Our media and our journalists have gone to the dogs...
The BBC reporting on the Express, Mail, Telegraph and Sun's BS? It's clear that the Beeb is reporting only what the headlines are, and leads directly to a fact check proving the BS.
I mean, the sheer amount of effort it must have taken to make something that sexist is astounding.
I know; when I read “male only event with paid escorts”, how could anyone think that wouldn’t lead to trouble? Even without the actual groping, etc. how can you approach an event saying “leave your wives/girlfriends at home and pay a pretty young woman to stand next to you” and think that’s ok?!
For sure, the BBC have issued a fact check, but IMO, it has only come as a result of criticism from Sturgeon and Salmond.
The radio coverage yesterday was pretty dire. You would think that a credible news agency would do the fact check first, then mention it along side the newspaper article, rather than belatedly shuffle it out later...
But the BBC does have form for this: Nick Robinson trying to stitch up Salmond in 2014, French-gate*, and the George Square disturbances the day after the 2014 indy ref. For those that don't know what happened, hardcore Unionists went on the rampage against Yes supporters in George Square Glasgow. The BBC reported both sides were involved, but live feeds and pictures from twitter clearly showed only the Unionists were causing trouble...
The BBC's coverage of the Catalonia troubles was also dire, but this is no surprise, as BBC news has been going downhill since the run up to the Iraq invasion...
Whatever my fellow dakka may think of Brexit, Remain, the EU, politics, etc etc
the state of British media, be it print or the national broadcaster, is on life support.
And we're all the worse off for it...
*The BBC didn't even do the basic journalism 101, which in this case was asking Sturgeon or the French ambassador if the claim was true or not. They ran the Telegraph story as though it were fact, without first testing the claims
I mean, the sheer amount of effort it must have taken to make something that sexist is astounding.
I know; when I read “male only event with paid escorts”, how could anyone think that wouldn’t lead to trouble? Even without the actual groping, etc. how can you approach an event saying “leave your wives/girlfriends at home and pay a pretty young woman to stand next to you” and think that’s ok?!
Where did you read escorts? They're hostesses, not escorts. This is just tricking young (attractive) women with an 'easy' day of work not at all mentioning the potential for sexual harassment.
As a side note I would assume escorts would charge at least 140 pound an hour or something? Certainly not 140 pounds for 10 hours. The payment really reflects an inadequate compensation for what they also should have been prepared for.
Britain is seeking a special “good faith” provision in its Brexit transition deal, fearing the EU may otherwise exploit its position to impose deliberately harmful rules on the UK.
The request for a binding EU promise to treat Britain fairly highlights the nervousness in London over its vulnerability during any transition, where it would adopt new EU laws even though it would no longer have membership voting rights.
British officials said they had no specific threat in mind, but there are concerns the EU could rush through financial services legislation or regulatory decisions that could damage the City of London, or require reforms in an areas such as trusts that the UK has long resisted.
Talks are expected to begin next month on a standstill transition of “around two years”, which Britain wants agreed by March so business and government have time to adjust to post-Brexit relations.
While accepting the need to follow EU law, the UK is seeking safeguards and certain freedoms to mitigate the political downsides of a situation some Brexiters compare to becoming a “vassal state”.
.....
Finding a solution is complicated by the fact that Britain also wants to exclude itself from “good faith” provisions that already exist in the EU treaties so it can pursue a more independent trade policy.
Antoinette Sandbach - Does the minister accept the recommendations of various committees that we should seek to rejoin Euratom as that would align us with a nuclear safeguard regime that is worldwide?
I mean, the sheer amount of effort it must have taken to make something that sexist is astounding.
I know; when I read “male only event with paid escorts”, how could anyone think that wouldn’t lead to trouble? Even without the actual groping, etc. how can you approach an event saying “leave your wives/girlfriends at home and pay a pretty young woman to stand next to you” and think that’s ok?!
Where did you read escorts? They're hostesses, not escorts. This is just tricking young (attractive) women with an 'easy' day of work not at all mentioning the potential for sexual harassment.
As a side note I would assume escorts would charge at least 140 pound an hour or something? Certainly not 140 pounds for 10 hours. The payment really reflects an inadequate compensation for what they also should have been prepared for.
I think that's my main concern with the thing; why not just hire escorts at appropriate rates, instead of coercing/harassing waitresses?
I'm sure the crowd would be happy enough either way.
I mean, the sheer amount of effort it must have taken to make something that sexist is astounding.
I know; when I read “male only event with paid escorts”, how could anyone think that wouldn’t lead to trouble? Even without the actual groping, etc. how can you approach an event saying “leave your wives/girlfriends at home and pay a pretty young woman to stand next to you” and think that’s ok?!
Where did you read escorts? They're hostesses, not escorts. This is just tricking young (attractive) women with an 'easy' day of work not at all mentioning the potential for sexual harassment.
As a side note I would assume escorts would charge at least 140 pound an hour or something? Certainly not 140 pounds for 10 hours. The payment really reflects an inadequate compensation for what they also should have been prepared for.
I think that's my main concern with the thing; why not just hire escorts at appropriate rates, instead of coercing/harassing waitresses?
I'm sure the crowd would be happy enough either way.
I assume its down to appearance of the agency in charge of supplying the female staff and the fact that this 'trick' only costs a fraction for the money it would cost to hire professionals.
Plus there are always the negative connotations around professionals and the potential for an even bigger scandal. I imagine most hostesses would reject any advances, but with escorts it basically turns into the most elitist pimping opportunity.
I mean, the sheer amount of effort it must have taken to make something that sexist is astounding.
I know; when I read “male only event with paid escorts”, how could anyone think that wouldn’t lead to trouble? Even without the actual groping, etc. how can you approach an event saying “leave your wives/girlfriends at home and pay a pretty young woman to stand next to you” and think that’s ok?!
Where did you read escorts? They're hostesses, not escorts. This is just tricking young (attractive) women with an 'easy' day of work not at all mentioning the potential for sexual harassment.
As a side note I would assume escorts would charge at least 140 pound an hour or something? Certainly not 140 pounds for 10 hours. The payment really reflects an inadequate compensation for what they also should have been prepared for.
In my brother's line of work he has previously been involved in corporate events for large banks etc. He has told repeated stories of how people attending these events completely assume the female staff are prostitutes, and will just openly ask them 'OK how much for the night then?' etc. Are really quite taken aback when they are turned down.
I mean, the sheer amount of effort it must have taken to make something that sexist is astounding.
I know; when I read “male only event with paid escorts”, how could anyone think that wouldn’t lead to trouble? Even without the actual groping, etc. how can you approach an event saying “leave your wives/girlfriends at home and pay a pretty young woman to stand next to you” and think that’s ok?!
Where did you read escorts? They're hostesses, not escorts. This is just tricking young (attractive) women with an 'easy' day of work not at all mentioning the potential for sexual harassment.
As a side note I would assume escorts would charge at least 140 pound an hour or something? Certainly not 140 pounds for 10 hours. The payment really reflects an inadequate compensation for what they also should have been prepared for.
In my brother's line of work he has previously been involved in corporate events for large banks etc. He has told repeated stories of how people attending these events completely assume the female staff are prostitutes, and will just openly ask them 'OK how much for the night then?' etc. Are really quite taken aback when they are turned down.
Its pretty mind boggling that people would just ask this of women at a public event. It just shows such a disconnect from 'normal' human interaction, on top of the likely fact that some at least are married.
I mean, the sheer amount of effort it must have taken to make something that sexist is astounding.
I know; when I read “male only event with paid escorts”, how could anyone think that wouldn’t lead to trouble? Even without the actual groping, etc. how can you approach an event saying “leave your wives/girlfriends at home and pay a pretty young woman to stand next to you” and think that’s ok?!
Where did you read escorts? They're hostesses, not escorts. This is just tricking young (attractive) women with an 'easy' day of work not at all mentioning the potential for sexual harassment.
As a side note I would assume escorts would charge at least 140 pound an hour or something? Certainly not 140 pounds for 10 hours. The payment really reflects an inadequate compensation for what they also should have been prepared for.
In my brother's line of work he has previously been involved in corporate events for large banks etc. He has told repeated stories of how people attending these events completely assume the female staff are prostitutes, and will just openly ask them 'OK how much for the night then?' etc. Are really quite taken aback when they are turned down.
Its pretty mind boggling that people would just ask this of women at a public event. It just shows such a disconnect from 'normal' human interaction, on top of the likely fact that some at least are married.
Having thought about this for a while, it still makes very little sense.
They would have been far better off telling this women when they signed up "oh by the way, you'll be share a room with 300 rich but morally ambiguous men."
I mean I'm one of those weird people that thinks that if women want to get involved in situations like this, then let them do it.
At least have the decency to tell them before hand. But to be honest the whole "tall, skinny and pretty with matching black lingerie" kind of gives it away that this was not a morally decent event.
On second thought, not having the event at all would have been the best thing.
What I don't understand is why these bankers and city traders are still stinking the place up?
I thought they departed the country en masse on June 24th 2016, for Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Timbuktu, or wherever the hell they stash their ill gotten gains.
These spivs, these parasites, these boils on the rear of humanity, were supposed to have left by now.
My offer still stands to drive these fethers to the nearest airport.
To be fair, matching lingerie like Malus said doesn't necessarily have to be shady. Certain types of cocktail or hostess dresses might require matching color underwear so as not to shine through and such. While I don't have much experience personally I have heard stories from female friends to that extent to match up. In this case it turned out it was needed because of really short skirts. Its still not great to hear of course, but it doesn't have to immediately be negative in every case. Unless of course we go into the need for women to wear dresses as obligatory to these events which is another discussion.
I think anyone who thinks that this is a problem specifically with rich or entitled men is fooling themselves. You should have seen how some of the builders who stayed at the hotel I used to work at used to treat the female staff.
The thing that stands out here is how the staff were expected by management to acquiesce in such revolting behaviours. Whichever company was responsible ought to have the book thrown at them.
Ketara wrote: I think anyone who thinks that this is a problem specifically with rich or entitled men is fooling themselves. You should have seen how some of the builders who stayed at the hotel I used to work at used to treat the female staff.
The thing that stands out here is how the staff were expected by management to acquiesce in such revolting behaviours. Whichever company was responsible ought to have the book thrown at them.
Fair point, as a former student I have some pretty grim tales on how male students acted towards women. There was another article I could post too, but as its in Dutch it has little value. The short of it, a student fraternity here was going to have a #MeToo styled party with a gross twist. The invitation said "De wil van een vrouw doet er #NieToo". Translated it roughly means "what a woman wants doesn't matter" and "doesn't matter" was represented/translated in that sentence by #NieToo. Further disgusting detail was that #NieToo was in the form of a sticker covering a woman's mouth. So the men on the board of this fraternity actually thought this would be funny and acceptable..
On the company thing, I assume the NDA is used as a club to keep former employees quiet. I wonder if it all was on the up and up if someone tried to report it.
Oh no, I agree that wearing lingerie is no excuse.
It's like Ketera said, it looks like this event was designed to have women be sexualised in mind. If the report is accurate of course, but the whole short skirt and corset makes it sound shady from the off.
It would be interesting to get a hold of the contract they signed. But the NDA is definitely to keep things under wraps.
Honestly, it sounds like a "tall skinny and pretty" reporter managed to make her way in by the sounds of it. Investigative journalism at its finest.
welshhoppo wrote: Oh no, I agree that wearing lingerie is no excuse.
It's like Ketera said, it looks like this event was designed to have women be sexualised in mind. If the report is accurate of course, but the whole short skirt and corset makes it sound shady from the off.
When my mother was younger, her and a friend used to hang out with a rich Arabic businessman who used to come over to Britain to do business and stay for a few weeks every year. He was lonely, didn't know anyone, and wanted to be surrounded by attractive women. So he used to take them out, buy them jewellery, dresses, big dinners, and accompany it all with the odd saucy remark and wink. But that was the full extent of the arrangement. He got the pleasure of their company, they got treated to nice days out. Everyone was happy. She still recalls him fondly now.
See, I don't think that there's necessarily anything inherently wrong paying for to be around attractive people; so long as it's very clearly laid out what's going on. It's the very principle strip clubs, many dance acts, and even some burlesque shows run on. If a job is widely advertised as, 'We are hiring attractive women so that men can leer at them' then any woman who signs up for them should expect to be leered at. It's part of the package. Leering, whilst distasteful (both to observe and to have done to you, I should think), hurts nobody.
The key thing here however, is that what happens in all of the above examples is by the book and very strict rules are supposed to observed. Most such venues usually have a large man on hand to deal with any ...overly enthusiastic attention, and the staff are not required to indulge it or encourage it by the management (unless they want to, and then in their own hours). That's the difference between a woman being empowered and being sexually harassed.
If the management team were throwing girls into this with no warning or expectation that this was how it was expected to turn out, then that's negligent at best and downright encouragement of sexual harassment at worst. The girls were unable to make an informed decision beforehand whether this was something they wanted to participate in.
DAVOS, Switzerland — In the year and a half since Britain’s shocking decision to sever itself from the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May has labored to portray her country’s future as one of glorious progress. She has described a bold new era in which Britain would look beyond the confines of Europe, striking trade deals and reclaiming its place as a global power.
All the while, an uncomfortable reality has been sinking in. Britain’s stature on the world stage has diminished, and its economy has sagged. The former colonial empire has been reduced to a lesser actor, a reality that hit home on Thursday as Mrs. May delivered a sparsely attended speech before the World Economic Forum.
..
The day before, President Emmanuel Macron of France had received rock star-style treatment from a packed crowd that waited nearly an hour for a chance just to get into the room where he was to speak. People who arrived a moment before Mrs. May’s speech found empty seats within a few rows of the stage.
..
Above all, she cast Britain as a country that is not in retreat.
“The United Kingdom has a proud history of stepping up and seizing the opportunities of our time,” she said. “We stand ready to do so again.”
By that point, several people attending the speech were standing and walking toward the exits.
TBF even my most pro-brexit/may supporting friends wouldn't want to sit through one of her speeches.
reds8n wrote: TBF even my most pro-brexit/may supporting friends wouldn't want to sit through one of her speeches.
All of these speeches are dry and painful to sit through, but most are better attended because people feel they need to be there to hear the message. May's speeches are so badly attended that I'm sure there's some deliberate orchestration at play, rather than people just having something better to do. I could be wrong though; she's a week politician, a poor speaker, and changes her mind so often that her statements are largely worthless, but you'd still expect more people to turn up to play politics. Or at least heckle.
I should have thought that everyone hopes May is going to finally announce the UK government's aims and wishes for Brexit negotiations.
But the outbreak from Chancellor Hammond, which May slapped down despite it being official government policy, shows that May is still at the mercy of the different wings of the Tory Party and can't have anything substantive to say.
No doubt a lot of other world leaders are just fed up with all the vacillation by now, so why bother to waste your time if the pubs are open?
Mr. Burning wrote: Does anyone have a definitive answer as to what a Transition period Vs an Implementation period is. With regards to the time after Brexit.
Hearing David Davies I am none the wiser.
I don't think they know either....However from a basic English language stand point you could say that transition would imply a slow divergence over time and implementation would imply no divergence and just getting the homework ready (so effectively the excuse of the dog ate my homework and I can't hand it in); alternative ideas:-
The implementation of getting rid of Theresa May and replacement with Rees-Mogg?
The implementation of rejoining the EU?
The implementation of DD's retirement to somewhere on the other side of the world (well away from any fallout)
The implementation of the dismantling of the NHS.
The implementation of a scratching heads and asses whilst wondering what they are going to do and what they are going to call the next transition period.
MPs and peers were meant to vote on the refurbishment in autumn 2016, shortly after Mrs May became prime minister. However, she sanctioned repeated delays to the Commons vote.
An analysis by The Times found that Mrs May’s decision to delay it has already cost £230 million. Rising costs have increased the bill by £150 million, and the need for more temporary fixes will cost at least £70 million.
..well what's another £230M of taxpayers money eh ?
What @SamCoatesTimes doesn't say is that the expensive new chamber in Richmond House would not be temporary. It will be permanent, but only used temporarily (for a few years). Waste of taxpayers money thought up by useless "expert" management consultants.
Downing Street say Boris Johnson wasn't speaking for the government this week and neither was Philip Hammond, but Jeremy Hunt was this morning and David Davis will be this afternoon.
Except, apparently, Johnson was speaking politically but not in his role as Foreign Sec.
and people say our political establishment is confusing !?
The substantive issue of a customs union really matters to exporters.
In particular, to those companies operating pan-European integrated supply chains; firms purchasing thousands of parts from all across Europe for the production of car or aeroplane components, or those manufacturing pharmaceuticals.
Such manufacturers have communicated very clearly to the top of Government that they need to know, right now, if they will be required to change their systems to apply "rules of origin".
In a free trade agreement, even a comprehensive one, goods being exported from Britain will have to comply with a significant "rules of origin" threshold before being classed as UK content - e.g. 55% for cars.
This is to prevent, for example, an Asian manufacturer from setting up shop in the UK and rebranding their exports as British with only cosmetic UK production.
These are the "rules of origin"; but they are not required within a customs union.
Indeed, a Government deadly serious about leaving the customs union would right now be warning our biggest manufacturers they will have to comply with the subsequent reams of "rules of origin" paperwork.
It was precisely for this reason that Brexit Secretary David Davis wrote five years ago that he was in favour of staying in a customs union - to avoid "rules of origin" requirements.
Mr Davis was confronted with his own past writing on the subject by Labour MP Emma Reynolds during a meeting of the Brexit select committee this week.
This issue is the focus of how, for example, US President Donald Trump is attempting to bring back manufacturing to America.
As a vital part of trade negotiations, "rules of origin" are a potentially potent barrier to trade.
Government engagement with manufacturers on these types of issues has not been wholly successful.
Some report having to explain "rules of origin" to Cabinet ministers who should really have understood them.
At one meeting attended by a Cabinet minister, manufacturers machine-gunned one of the innovative options for post-Brexit customs arrangements floated in a Government white paper.
"It was killed in five minutes," said the representative of one of the world's biggest manufacturers.
They are still wondering what changes to their systems will be required once the UK leaves the EU.
On the ground preparations for new customs arrangements are also rather sparse too.
Motorways leading to and from the port of Dover, where the bulk of cross-Channel traffic moves through, have already been plagued by bouts of near-standstill traffic, and the chaos of Kent Police's Operation Stack.
The Government has looked for permanent solutions to the problems, such as constructing a £250m lorry park in Kent.
But, late last year, the Government withdrew its plans amid legal problems and will not even apply for planning for a new permanent solution until 2019.
An interim plan is due at some point "early this year" and could include physically separating off one lane of the M20 to serve as an effective lorry park.
Local Police and Crime Commissioner, Matthew Scott, told Sky News action on creating new lorry parks - and strengthening the hard shoulder of Kent's motorways - was required "now".
In other cross-Channel ports the planning required for extra space that increased customs checks would entail has not happened.
In many cases, for example in Portsmouth, such space simply does not exist by the harbour.
In theory, inland checking facilities could be created. But, again, there is little sign of such facilities being planned for, or purchased, or let alone actually constructed.
There seems zero chance of having infrastructure in place by 2019 to deal with the customs checks that would be required in the event of a "no deal" Brexit.
The same concern at the prospect of post-Brexit queues at ports also applies across the Channel.
Although, Rotterdam, Zeebrugge and French ports have recently announced recruitment of dozens more customs officers.
So, what exactly is going on?
The issue of customs arrangements have until now been seen mainly through the lens of the restriction on Britain's ability to forge new free trade policies.
Certainly, applying a common external tariff would restrict the UK's negotiating potential with non-EU countries.
It is not quite right, however, to say it would make free trade deals impossible.
Turkey, which is part of the EU's customs union for goods trade, has done deals with Malaysia and Georgia.
The country has also built up its car industry and forms an intrinsic part of the pan-European integrated automotive supply chain.
By contrast, Norway, Switzerland and other nations outside the customs union do not.
.......
The Government may try to fast-track a deal with Australia and New Zealand covering three or four chapters of trade, rather than the normal 30, but the big prizes will take longer.
Many of the biggest fish are waiting not just for the UK to leave the EU, or for their own deals with the EU, but for the UK to settle what its post-Brexit trading arrangements will be with Europe.
The former trade minister Lord Price told Sky News that new deals were, in fact, fifth priority at the Department for International Trade; behind regularising the UK's World Trade Organisation presence and rolling over the free trade deals the UK currently enjoys as a member of the EU.
So, if the great upside of leaving the customs union fully is the signing of new free trade deals - but they will be sparse, and highly unlikely to be implemented in a manner to fully outweigh the likely extra friction in the relationship with the EU - it appears clear why some in Government see a role for a customs union for a couple of years.
...err... hooray ?!
I live in Kent and when operation Stack goes into action it, basically, feths everything and almost all non local area travel grinds to a halt.
I live in Kent and when operation Stack goes into action it, basically, feths everything and almost all non local area travel grinds to a halt.
I think this is the new type of Tory policy. If there is a problem then make that problem the solution and they can ignore it.
If the NHS can't cope due to winter pressures and has to cancel 'routine' operations then the solution is to....cancel routine operations during high pressure periods to reduce this (and it still can't cope).
If they can't work out how to manage border checks causing huge motorway queues then the solution is to....turn the motorways into huge lorry queues to reduce the pressure on the border controls (which still can't cope).
In other news the Bank of England have stated that the Wrexit is holding back UK GDP by about 2% by the end of the year. That equates to £700m per week less growth than we should have expected...
I've given the Guardian link as it has a lot more detail in charts than the other reports I have seen.
The interesting thing to me is the apparently strong correlation between greater age and greater tendency to favour Brexit. There are other correlations too.
In my brother's line of work he has previously been involved in corporate events for large banks etc. He has told repeated stories of how people attending these events completely assume the female staff are prostitutes, and will just openly ask them 'OK how much for the night then?' etc. Are really quite taken aback when they are turned down.
Its pretty mind boggling that people would just ask this of women at a public event. It just shows such a disconnect from 'normal' human interaction, on top of the likely fact that some at least are married.
I think this is more of a rich privilege than a male privilege thing. There’s something about these corporate type events where powerful wealthy people think they can do whatever they like. Ordinary people wouldn’t do that, or at least not a whole room of them doing it without comment, it’s something rich powerful men do because they think their power gives them the right to everything, especially the less well off. The women are product for them to sample. Sickening.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I think this is more of a rich privilege than a male privilege thing. There’s something about these corporate type events where powerful wealthy people think they can do whatever they like. Ordinary people wouldn’t do that, or at least not a whole room of them doing it without comment, it’s something rich powerful men do because they think their power gives them the right to everything, especially the less well off. The women are product for them to sample. Sickening.
It's a power thing but as we have statistically many more men in power than women it usually looks like a thing men do and not women because, in these cases, they are more often the victims of that type of behaviour.
In my brother's line of work he has previously been involved in corporate events for large banks etc. He has told repeated stories of how people attending these events completely assume the female staff are prostitutes, and will just openly ask them 'OK how much for the night then?' etc. Are really quite taken aback when they are turned down.
Its pretty mind boggling that people would just ask this of women at a public event. It just shows such a disconnect from 'normal' human interaction, on top of the likely fact that some at least are married.
I think this is more of a rich privilege than a male privilege thing. There’s something about these corporate type events where powerful wealthy people think they can do whatever they like. Ordinary people wouldn’t do that, or at least not a whole room of them doing it without comment, it’s something rich powerful men do because they think their power gives them the right to everything, especially the less well off. The women are product for them to sample. Sickening.
Funny. I could SWEAR students generally aren't rich but still have plenty of such behaviour. Guess I was worse financially as a student than I thought then.
'Rogue' parking companies face government crackdown
"Rogue" parking companies will be banned from accessing driver data and issuing fines as part of plans to stop "unscrupulous operators".
The government has confirmed it will support new legislation aimed at raising standards among parking firms.
Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, said the legislation will provide "fair, clear and consistent" regulation of the parking industry.
It comes as firms issue almost 13 times more tickets than a decade ago.
Drivers' growing disquiet about the rules on parking are underlined by figures showing nearly 10,000 people approached the Citizens Advice Bureau for guidance on parking tickets last year.
There are complaints of inconsistent practices, substandard signage, confusing appeals processes and intimidating payment letters, said the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Conservative MP Sir Greg Knight's Parking (Code of Practice) Bill to tackle rogue parking operators is due for its second reading in the House of Commons on Friday, effectively guaranteeing its passage into law.
Firms which don't obey the rules will be blocked from accessing drivers' DVLA records.
This will prevent the firms from issuing fines, effectively forcing them out of the industry.
Mr Javid said drivers have suffered for too long "at the hands of dodgy parking firms".
He said: "That is why government is putting the brakes on these rogue operators and backing new laws that will put a stop to aggressive behaviour and provide a simpler way for drivers to appeal fines."
The department hopes motoring groups and other experts will help the Communities Secretary to develop the code of practice.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said the move would bring "some much-needed regulatory rigour to the world of private parking".
He added: "Drivers don't want a parking free-for-all, but they do want a system that is fair to all parties and that's what a code of practice set by government - rather than the industry itself - should bring about."
.. clearly this thread is more influential than we thought !
In my brother's line of work he has previously been involved in corporate events for large banks etc. He has told repeated stories of how people attending these events completely assume the female staff are prostitutes, and will just openly ask them 'OK how much for the night then?' etc. Are really quite taken aback when they are turned down.
Its pretty mind boggling that people would just ask this of women at a public event. It just shows such a disconnect from 'normal' human interaction, on top of the likely fact that some at least are married.
I think this is more of a rich privilege than a male privilege thing. There’s something about these corporate type events where powerful wealthy people think they can do whatever they like. Ordinary people wouldn’t do that, or at least not a whole room of them doing it without comment, it’s something rich powerful men do because they think their power gives them the right to everything, especially the less well off. The women are product for them to sample. Sickening.
Funny. I could SWEAR students generally aren't rich but still have plenty of such behaviour. Guess I was worse financially as a student than I thought then.
I’ve never been to any event where the students attendees thought all the serving staff were prostitutes they could pay to take home. Sounds like no university of college I’ve experience of.
There’s a difference between chatting up the girl behind the bar, which is what students probably do, and assuming that female staff at an event have only been employed for you to sample before buying to take home. Which is what arrogant wealthy people tend to do, their money gives them the expectation that everything is for sale, and they have the right to have it.
I’ve never been to any event where the students attendees thought all the serving staff were prostitutes they could pay to take home. Sounds like no university of college I’ve experience of.
There’s a difference between chatting up the girl behind the bar, which is what students probably do, and assuming that female staff at an event have only been employed for you to sample before buying to take home. Which is what arrogant wealthy people tend to do, their money gives them the expectation that everything is for sale, and they have the right to have it.
I think we should avoid casting aspersions about a group of people simply based on broad status. It's not particularly better than stating things about people from religions/race/country etc etc. It's individuals actions that are important; this could be example of a small proportion of the wealthy that felt it was appropriate but had the funds to partake in their fantasies. It is likely that the people there fell into the following broad groups. Those that were horrified (probably the minority otherwise it wouldn't have happened) and that were there either under orders or left very early; those that simply didn't see what was going on (until pointed out); and those that were actively challenging each other into how many young women they could get 'in to' (likely a largish fraction given reports).
I don't also think that this is a wealthy only thing. Any closed group of a single gender is likely liable to this sort of behaviour. It is unlikely it starts this way but slowly degrades over time until it becomes for most purposes a private personal fantasy session. I think it is more a human evolved trait where they can exercise a base desire to reproduce as much as possible. I don't think it is limited to any one class of people - the difference is that if you are wealthy you have the means to satisfy your whims much more easily (compared to a student for example). However give a group of male students that much wealth and a proportion are likely to act in the same way (and perhaps a larger proportion would do as they have a more active 'hormonal' system). What is more worrying out of this is that there was a passive acknowledgement that this is what happened. The women were deliberately 'set up' to facilitate this (encourage drinking, forced clothing) whilst doing the minimum to try and discourage actions by those at the event. More worryingly looking at the reports it appears some of the women actually courted this behaviour because they felt it was only way of getting on in the world and getting that job which can lead to abuse and rape.
Because May is in charge and out of all the Wrexit government supporters he is likely the one more barely able to put three decent words together without insulting someone. Put a remain supporter in that position and she loses any support from the far right nut bags in her government. Putting Boris the clown in control likely wouldn't go well.
At this point we should remember that May has only one goal. To try and keep the Tory party from tearing itself apart. She doesn't given a damn about the country, how much of a laughing stock she is making of us all relative to this overriding goal of not killing off the Tory party for a generation.
I also see that we are back to people 'betraying' the country again this time in the Telegraph. This time it is civil servants that are betraying the country...
Regular posters on here know that I'm always bemoaning the state of British society, as I often wonder what happened to the nation's moral compass.
Today, on the BBC, I witnessed something that again has me questioning our nation's direction:
militant vegans are setting up picket lines outside farms and sending farmers death threats!
Militant vegans? Picket lines? What kind of society are we building in this country? Watching the report made me want to go out and buy a ton of Aberdeen Angus just to annoy them.
Key members of the cabinet will be shown the government impact assessments in one-to-one meetings with officials this week, before a cabinet sub-committee discussion expected the following Wednesday.
The analysis, drawn up using contributions from across Whitehall, is likely to cause a dispute since cabinet ministers expect it to show that hard Brexit options will stall the economy for years to come. “The impact analysis will put the cat among the pigeons, assuming you believe in experts,” one government source said.
At the end of each of the meetings, which Oliver Robbins, the prime minister’s…
The government has not carried out any impact assessments of leaving the EU on the UK economy, Brexit Secretary David Davis has told MPs.
Mr Davis said the usefulness of such assessments would be "near zero" because of the scale of change Brexit is likely to cause
...
Opposition MPs have been on the trail of the "Brexit impact assessments" for months. And when David Davis told them they didn't exist, they were quick to highlight some similar-sounding studies he had referred to in the past:
October 2016, asked what assessment the government had made of the impact of Brexit on the economy: "We currently have in place an assessment of 51 sectors of the economy. We are looking at those one by one, but the aim at the end is that this will inform the negotiating approach so that no one gets hurt."
December 2016, to the Brexit Committee: "We are in the midst of carrying out about 57 sets of analyses, each of which has implications for individual parts of 85% of the economy… everything except sectors that are not affected by international trade."
February 2017, in a statement to MPs: "We continue to analyse the impact of our exit across the breadth of the UK economy, covering more than 50 sectors - I think it was 58 at the last count - to shape our negotiating position."
June 2017, on the Andrew Marr Show:"That data's being gathered, we've got 50, nearly 60 sector analyses already done, we've got planning work going on in the customs, we've got planning work going on 22 other issues which are critical, 127 all told."
Another thing would EU stand for it. All that "we are going to leave, no we stay, no out, in" costs money. There's reason the time limit for negotiations was set to limited period extendable only if all EU members agree. The longer negotiations lag the longer it costs.
Not to mention if UK says "oh we stay" how anybody can really believe that...
