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 Ketara wrote:

Luckily, Johnson has nothing to do with it, they've literally split the staff in foreign office down the middle, with Johnson being given the rest of the world and Davis the Brexit negotiations. Whilst he might make the occasional visit over the channel, he'll have nothing to do with the process, so rest your mind there.

So we leave Johnson responsible for trying to get the rest-of-world trade we desperately need, despite the fact he's already annoyed most of the rest-of-world in some capacity?

Herzlos wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

Luckily, Johnson has nothing to do with it, they've literally split the staff in foreign office down the middle, with Johnson being given the rest of the world and Davis the Brexit negotiations. Whilst he might make the occasional visit over the channel, he'll have nothing to do with the process, so rest your mind there.

So we leave Johnson responsible for trying to get the rest-of-world trade we desperately need, despite the fact he's already annoyed most of the rest-of-world in some capacity?

He'll schmooze and make the right noises whilst civil servants prior to and post meetings and photo ops hammer out details. So long as he can act diplomatically now his previous faux pas do not matter that much.

Johnson is capable of being charming and very personable.

Furthermore, diplomatic protocol and also pragmatism will help to smooth his path so long as he doesn't pull any massive bloopers like slagging off the king of Thailand or making rude comments about the sacred cattle wandering around New Delhi and so on.

Besides, Johnson is the admiral of the ship of state, not its captain and crew. The real work will be done by a number of hopefully capable and enthusiastic civil servants and of course the professional diplomatic corps. Part of Johnson's job will be to inspire these people and keep them on side.

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2016/07/28/people-sharing-sky-news-clip-utter-disbelief-asking-chris-morris-spoof/

Here’s a transcript:

The morning service began about 20 minutes ago and there’s no obvious signs of any security.

In fact this sign at the door says “everybody is welcome”

[Reporter walks into church]

[Reporter walks out of church]

There are about a dozen worshipers in there and one priest.

If I was a terrorist I could have killed them all.

Herzlos wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

Luckily, Johnson has nothing to do with it, they've literally split the staff in foreign office down the middle, with Johnson being given the rest of the world and Davis the Brexit negotiations. Whilst he might make the occasional visit over the channel, he'll have nothing to do with the process, so rest your mind there.

So we leave Johnson responsible for trying to get the rest-of-world trade we desperately need, despite the fact he's already annoyed most of the rest-of-world in some capacity?

Eh. He just needs to keep his mouth shut, make soothing, reassuring noises, and wave. A bit like the Queen. If he actually handled the detail of negotiations, I'd be more worried.

That said, I don't even necessarily have faith he's capable of that much, but hopefully he can pull it off. I would have buried him in the Home Office, Health, or the Education portfolio to watch his political career wither personally, but I don't think May wanted him messing with the department she's so lovingly built up over the years and regards the others as too important. He had to be given something though, and since he'd look an absolute tit in Defence, Justice, or the Treasury, she settled on giving him the foreign office, but splitting it in two.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Johnson is capable of being charming and very personable.

Furthermore, diplomatic protocol and also pragmatism will help to smooth his path so long as he doesn't pull any massive bloopers like slagging off the king of Thailand or making rude comments about the sacred cattle wandering around New Delhi and so on.

Besides, Johnson is the admiral of the ship of state, not its captain and crew. The real work will be done by a number of hopefully capable and enthusiastic civil servants and of course the professional diplomatic corps. Part of Johnson's job will be to inspire these people and keep them on side.

Bojo's silver tongue may work on sycophantic newspaper columnists, mates in the media, and sections of the British public, but in the world of diplomacy, when you're dealing with hard-nosed diplomats who've seen it all, I suspect that Bojo's approach will go down like the Titanic.

There are capable people at the FO, I don't doubt that, but during his London years, Johnson had a habit of taking the credit for other people's hard work. The FO does have a reputation for leaking poison to the media, so again, Bojo's approach may prove to be unpopular.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
You are forgetting that its David Davis and his Brexit Dept sitting in on negotiations.

He is quite a capable chap.

Davis is one of the very few Tory politicians I like, and although he's had good working relationships with Fox and Bojo in the past, tension and rivalry (they are sharing the same building) could put a spanner in things.

I suspect though that if May has to choose between Davis and Bojo, it will be Bojo who gets his marching orders.

 reds8n wrote:
http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2016/07/28/people-sharing-sky-news-clip-utter-disbelief-asking-chris-morris-spoof/

Here’s a transcript:

The morning service began about 20 minutes ago and there’s no obvious signs of any security.

In fact this sign at the door says “everybody is welcome”

[Reporter walks into church]

[Reporter walks out of church]

There are about a dozen worshipers in there and one priest.

If I was a terrorist I could have killed them all.

Oh good grief! Its real. First part of the video. The reporting on the rest is pretty poor sensationalist grot too.

Just saw this...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/07/28/imf-admits-disastrous-love-affair-with-euro-apologises-for-the-i/

The International Monetary Fund’s top staff misled their own board, made a series of calamitous misjudgments in Greece, became euphoric cheerleaders for the euro project, ignored warning signs of impending crisis, and collectively failed to grasp an elemental concept of currency theory.
This is the lacerating verdict of the IMF’s top watchdog on the Fund’s tangled political role in the eurozone debt crisis, the most damaging episode in the history of the Bretton Woods institutions.
It describes a “culture of complacency”, prone to “superficial and mechanistic” analysis, and traces a shocking break-down in the governance of the IMF, leaving it unclear who is ultimately in charge of this extremely powerful organisation.

The report by the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) goes above the head of the managing director, Christine Lagarde. It answers solely to the board of executive directors, and those from Asia and Latin America are clearly incensed at the way EU insiders used the Fund to rescue their own rich currency union and banking system.

Spoiler:

The three main bail-outs for Greece, Portugal, and Ireland were unprecedented in scale and character. The trio were each allowed to borrow over 2,000 percent of their allocated quota – more than three times the normal limit – and accounted for 80pc of all lending by the Fund between 2011 and 2014.

In an astonishing admission, the report said its own investigators were unable to obtain key records or penetrate the activities of secretive "ad-hoc task forces".
Mrs Lagarde herself is not accused of obstruction.
“Many documents were prepared outside the regular established channels; written documentation on some sensitive matters could not be located. The IEO in some instances has not been able to determine who made certain decisions or what information was available, nor has it been able to assess the relative roles of management and staff," it said.

The report said the whole approach to the eurozone was characterised by “groupthink” and intellectual capture.

Called it.

The EU will be desperate to keep the funds and resources flowing to try and deal with this gak storm - i recon that gives us an edge in the future brexit negotiations despite the economic problems/issues we have.

 SirDonlad wrote:


The EU will be desperate to keep the funds and resources flowing to try and deal with this gak storm - i recon that gives us an edge in the future brexit negotiations despite the economic problems/issues we have.

What has this got to do with the EU?

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 SirDonlad wrote:


The EU will be desperate to keep the funds and resources flowing to try and deal with this gak storm - i recon that gives us an edge in the future brexit negotiations despite the economic problems/issues we have.

What has this got to do with the EU?

The fact that the IMF is propping up the Euro and by extension the EU?

Indeed the financially bankrupt nations being support by morally bankrupt bankers is not good news.

I'll defer to others on this when it comes to the technical aspects, but what the feth is happening at Hinkley point? What a shambles!!

The costs involved, the taxpayer picking up the tab for like, 50 years, and the involvement of the Chinese in a sensitive area of national interest/security...

And now they may pull the plug...

Words fail me...

Energy policy has been so badly botched in this country for the past 40 years, as to be almost bordering on treasonous activities...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/29/hinkley-point-bad-business-theresa-may-david-cameron

Guardian columnist calls it the worst deal in the history of British procurement, and it's not hard to agree with him.

I think they should pull the plug, and the accession of the new PM is a great opportunity to do so.

I've never understood why granting ownership of huge bits of vital national infrastructure to the Chinese and French was a good idea, especially when it also involves further reduction of the UK nuclear engineering industry which once led the world.

All to be paid for by the UK energy consumer being forced to pay a levy on our bills for 30 years.

For all the above we buy an untried new reactor design that the French still haven't got to work in the other two plants currently under assembly, which are years behind schedule and massively over budget.

The only plus point of the deal is that if it took say 15 years instead of 10 to build, and cost double the estimate, the French would have to bear the cost, and might go bankrupt. But the UK needs reliable energy within a proper spectrum of supply and demand, not a long term risky bet. The energy market has changed since the Hinkley B project was first thought up, and will continue to change in ways that invalidate the concept of this kind of massive project.

Considering the amount of opposition with EDF to this whole project, a lot of them would thank us in secret for releasing the company from the risks.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I'll defer to others on this when it comes to the technical aspects, but what the feth is happening at Hinkley point? What a shambles!!

The costs involved, the taxpayer picking up the tab for like, 50 years, and the involvement of the Chinese in a sensitive area of national interest/security...

And now they may pull the plug...

Words fail me...

Energy policy has been so badly botched in this country for the past 40 years, as to be almost bordering on treasonous activities...
.

That last sentence is essentially the issue. Energy policy has been kicked into the long grass in the country for such a long period of time, it's become a rolling disaster. But because the lights still switch on, very few people who aren't involved in it are aware of the magnitude of the problem.

As things stand, we've been slowly closing down obsolete power plants that run off nasty, but efficient materials such as coal for quite a long time now, but the political will to open new ones has always been completely hamstrung by environmental concerns, and a desire to avoid the capital expenditure involved. Meanwhile, renewables (whilst not doing too badly from a general view of things) have consumed vast amounts of subsidies and resources whilst not replacing the reliable energy generation capacity from decommissioned plants. Our nuclear plants , which have always produced a tremendous amount of power for relatively cheap raw material input, and small space, have been slowly going out of use, most of them quite recently. Hinkley Point.Dungeness/Sizewell A, Oldbury, Wylfa, and so on have all closed in the last fifteen or so years.

This has left us in an awkward position where the National Grid actually doesn't always generate enough power for our consumption 24/7 (accounting for peaks), and we've been forced to import power from foreign grids through interconnectors more and more often as those older plants are subsequently closed. So many have closed now, in fact, that we're in full scale crisis mode behind the scenes. We need more power generating capacity, and we need it asap. The more years go by, the more plants which close, and the more the grid generation capacity is diminished.

Whilst we remained with the EU, opening a tonne more coal/gas plants breached EU enviromental legislation/targets. That left us with nuclear. So that's what the government has been chasing. Sadly, when EDF's competitors pulled their offers out, we were left effectively with one bidder, which means that EDF could charge whatever they like. As EDF actually doesn't have the financial resources to undertake a serious bid (they're having to borrow heavily from the French government), the only way in which they're prepared to undertake the project is if we guarantee them a ridiculous repayment level and underwrite every risk and cost.

Our government though, has few other options. They can:

a) turn them down, keep buying power abroad, and kick the problem into the long grass for another ten years whilst it gets worse.
b) do as EDF wants by signing a horribly one sided agreement, breach a dozen odd laws regarding public sector contracting, and then start on more in a decade built on a similar model of nuclear plant at less disadvantageous contract terms to the state.
c) open up a bunch of old school coal, oil, and gas plants and ignore all prior commitments to the environment.
d) kick it into the long grass temporarily whilst passing a law seizing the use of all nuclear plant patents for the crown, and start up a state owned nuclear industry again to undertake the project (flying in the face of all previous privatisation in this field and tory ideology).

Those are our options, lads. Naturally, May and her predecessors all plump for number 2, as it causes the least publicity and cost whilst still doing something about it.

Ketara, Kilkrazy, I have no idea what has happened to the governance of this nation. If May has any sense, she'll pull the plug on HS2 as well.

Hinckley point, PFI hospitals and schools...damn them all!!!

Up here in Scotland, we at the least, have wind and tidal schemes we can tap into (the potential is huge) so at least we won't be saddled with white elephants like this.

Don't forget the demand side of the system.

Reduction of consumption in the UK due to the loss of heavy industry and the increase of green technology such as low energy light bulbs means that UK demand is now lower than in the mid 1960s, despite the increase in population and non-heavy-industrial use.

The many billions of £ proposed to be put into building and running Hinkley could instead be put into a variety of other generation schemes such as geo-thermal and tidal power, small scale nuclear reactors, and of course the encouragement of use of green technology in businesses and homes.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Don't forget the demand side of the system.

Reduction of consumption in the UK due to the loss of heavy industry and the increase of green technology such as low energy light bulbs means that UK demand is now lower than in the mid 1960s, despite the increase in population and non-heavy-industrial use.

The many billions of £ proposed to be put into building and running Hinkley could instead be put into a variety of other generation schemes such as geo-thermal and tidal power, small scale nuclear reactors, and of course the encouragement of use of green technology in businesses and homes.

Far too sensible for the government of the day, and knowing the Tories, if their mates in the City aren't benefitting, it'll be kicked into the long grass.

Remember when I called for a bold vision for Britain in the 21st century a few pages back? |Well, energy policy is one of those areas I had in mind. The status quo won't cut it in the 21st century, especially with BREXIT.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Don't forget the demand side of the system.

Reduction of consumption in the UK due to the loss of heavy industry and the increase of green technology such as low energy light bulbs means that UK demand is now lower than in the mid 1960s, despite the increase in population and non-heavy-industrial use.

The many billions of £ proposed to be put into building and running Hinkley could instead be put into a variety of other generation schemes such as geo-thermal and tidal power, small scale nuclear reactors, and of course the encouragement of use of green technology in businesses and homes.

Oh, certainly. It's why we're still able to actually keep the lights on! If our consumption was still what it was, we'd be suffering power outages these days.

That said, the problems with renewables remain as they have always been. Many of them (wind and solar) don't generate reliable levels of energy, require massive financial investment for comparably little energy created (tidal), and there are still problems with storing the power generated from them, making it difficult to match the energy generated to the appropriate peaks/spikes in usage. We've made some massive steps in renewable energy, and it's really something to proud of, but the fact that we still need a backbone of reliable, controllable power generation sadly still remains.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Ketara, Kilkrazy, I have no idea what has happened to the governance of this nation. If May has any sense, she'll pull the plug on HS2 as well.

Hinckley point, PFI hospitals and schools...damn them all!!!

Up here in Scotland, we at the least, have wind and tidal schemes we can tap into (the potential is huge) so at least we won't be saddled with white elephants like this.

The problem itself is down to a lack of coherent long term vision by successive governments, as you say. Hinkley is essentially the government throwing money at the problem to make it go away.

It may well actually work if subsequent stations can utilise the experience gained in building this one to generate power cheaply in the future. If the idea is to build another five identical plants fifteen years down the line, we won't have to put up with the disadvantageous contract terms, because all the operational parameters and teething issues will have been worked out. In a situation like that, EDF would find itself competing against other firms, which the State can take advantage of as a monopsonist.

Alas, to get that outcome, we have to prepare for a good 'seeing to' by EDF over the course of building this one.

Don't forget the whole "Carbon Capture and Storage! That's a brilliant idea! Lets do that, become pioneers in the technology and sell our expertise around the world to people who can't or won't get rid of their coal power stations! Or we could, y'know, cancel everything at the last minute" debacle.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

The fact that the IMF is propping up the Euro and by extension the EU?

Keep your to yourself.

The big IMF bailouts are in the past and its not likely that the IMF would be involved in anymore. What does this have to do with the EU?

The payments were to EU nations, presumably at the behest of the EU........

 notprop wrote:
The payments were to EU nations, presumably at the behest of the EU........

Yes but they are now historical payments. Short of another global financial implosion or a complete collapse of the Greek economy I fail to see how this will have any noticeable impact on Brexit negotiations.

If the debt has not been paid then they are current.

 notprop wrote:
If the debt has not been paid then they are current.

Indeed but that particular article was all bout irregularities in setting up and authorising the bailouts. It will have little to no real world impact on current loans, only on potential future ones.

May has been making very interesting noises so far, now we're a couple of weeks into her tenure as Prime Minister. To recap:-

-Her speech upon accepting the position was about social equality/communities (as opposed to Dave's "we're all in it together").
-She's spent virtually the entire last two weeks jetting about the place. Her priority visits were to the other parts of the UK, the capitals of France, Italy & Germany, and Eastern Europe.
-Her stated policy priorities so far have been cracking down on executive pay, pushing for worker representation in big firms, and prosecuting modern slavery to the full extent of the law.
-She's explicitly tied the right and conditions of EU foreigners to stay here to that which our own expats receive after brexit.
-She's called an immediate review of Hinkley.
-The commitment to eliminating the budget deficit has removed.
-She booted out the old Etonians for the most part from Cabinet, and replaced them with more female and middle class background MP's.
-She's backed Trident.
-The grammar schools have been mooted as making a comeback.

This is all very interesting. It's certainly a very different government to that which Cameron was running, and it clearly has very different priorities. I know we're still in the honeymoon period, but I'm starting to feel cautiously optimistic. I'm starting to wonder if she might well end up being the first effective Prime Minister since Thatcher. 'Cause sure as beans is beans, Major and Cameron were placeholders, Blair an act, and Brown a disaster.

My uncle and cousins attended Jeremy Corbyn's rally in York this week. My cousin had her photo taken with the man himself.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
My uncle and cousins attended Jeremy Corbyn's rally in York this week. My cousin had her photo taken with the man himself.

Was it a gentler, kinder type of photo?

Well, they were both smiling...does that count?

 Ketara wrote:
May has been making very interesting noises so far, now we're a couple of weeks into her tenure as Prime Minister. To recap:-

Lets just hope that she isn't as bad as Thatcher....

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
May has been making very interesting noises so far, now we're a couple of weeks into her tenure as Prime Minister. To recap:-

Lets just hope that she isn't as bad as Thatcher....

Thatcher caused a lot of pain in this country, it's why she was utterly demonised to the extent that fully grown men thought it appropriate to rejoice at her death.

That said, from a wider perspective, much of that pain was necessary, the country was barely functioning any more. That's not to say I agree with everything she did, I think she focused on the mid-term far too much over the short or long term. After five short-term vision only PM's though, I'd celebrate any Cabinet capable of planning more than a year in advance.