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Post by oldie on Mar 25, 2024 17:52:17 GMT
Prof Brian Cox : The frustrating thing to me about the quote from this article is that the columnist knows, and the Conservatives know, and Labour knows, that Brexit was an awful economic and geopolitical error. This was obvious in my view in 2016 and it’s ten times more obvious now, for the reasons outlined in the article. The issue is that none of the above have yet summoned up the courage to explain to the electorate that we really have no option but to rejoin the single market and customs union as soon as possible. Europe has to strengthen and work together in an increasingly uncertain world, and the U.K. is a vital part of Europe. Everyone in any sort of position of responsibility or power knows it. Basically our political class is bullshitting the electorate. And as I’ve said before, you can convince people to vote to abolish gravity but they will be very annoyed when they hit the ground. Love that
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Post by yattongas on Mar 25, 2024 17:56:13 GMT
Prof Brian Cox : The frustrating thing to me about the quote from this article is that the columnist knows, and the Conservatives know, and Labour knows, that Brexit was an awful economic and geopolitical error. This was obvious in my view in 2016 and it’s ten times more obvious now, for the reasons outlined in the article. The issue is that none of the above have yet summoned up the courage to explain to the electorate that we really have no option but to rejoin the single market and customs union as soon as possible. Europe has to strengthen and work together in an increasingly uncertain world, and the U.K. is a vital part of Europe. Everyone in any sort of position of responsibility or power knows it. Basically our political class is bullshitting the electorate. And as I’ve said before, you can convince people to vote to abolish gravity but they will be very annoyed when they hit the ground. Love that But Super says , just give it 20 yrs 🙄😂
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Post by oldie on Mar 25, 2024 18:53:24 GMT
But Super says , just give it 20 yrs 🙄😂 Yeah I know. But, what are we going to do about inequality and the income distribution curve? We can mock and we should, but the underlying causal factors for voter frustration are very real.
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Post by yattongas on Mar 26, 2024 21:16:05 GMT
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Post by stuart1974 on Mar 27, 2024 13:32:20 GMT
Surely people know about this? "Holidaymakers are being warned not to get caught out by the "passport 10 year rule" which can ruin EU travel plans. UK travellers used to be able to carry up to nine months from an old passport over on to a new one. But post-Brexit, EU countries will not accept passports issued more than 10 years ago. Home Office data suggests 32 million people had applied for passports that if granted would be over 10 years old. Among them is Nathan Barnes who was refused boarding on a flight to France." www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68658209
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Post by stuart1974 on Mar 27, 2024 18:02:48 GMT
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Post by yattongas on Mar 28, 2024 15:03:40 GMT
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Post by yattongas on Mar 28, 2024 17:42:03 GMT
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Post by stuart1974 on Mar 28, 2024 18:43:26 GMT
Nothing to see here, he's just biased.
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Post by stuart1974 on Mar 28, 2024 18:43:59 GMT
Nothing to see here, he's just biased.
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Post by stuart1974 on Mar 29, 2024 16:12:29 GMT
Tariffs now coming into force. "From Monday, any cars the UK exports to Canada will face an additional 6% tariff, or tax. The change comes after a post-Brexit agreement to continue EU trading terms expired without a new deal. The new tariffs are determined by whether the UK products exported to Canada use EU parts and materials. Limits, which had been waived, will now apply, meaning that certain exports, including cars, will not qualify for zero-tariff trade. In 2023, 1.3% of British-built cars were exported to Canada, making it the UK's eighth largest market, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which represents the UK car industry. The car industry has expressed its concern, especially as there appears no timetable for a resumption of discussions. The tariff was "disappointing", said Mike Hawes from SMMT, adding that manufacturers "can only do so much" to mitigate the higher costs for consumers which will result from the tariff." www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68688486.amp?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17117204681025&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com
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Post by yattongas on Mar 31, 2024 17:07:22 GMT
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Post by stuart1974 on Mar 31, 2024 17:34:38 GMT
Bring agency staff in house?
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Post by yattongas on Apr 1, 2024 19:36:24 GMT
x.com/fascinatorfun/status/1774876049131581754?s=61&t=40THHNNCsOVl4Ddwb35AKATo call it a farce does not even come close. The Brexit saga has tipped into the realms of national tragedy. For some reason, it is taboo for Leavers such as myself to admit that the project has been a calamity. When it comes to “The B Word”, British politics has become gripped by a kind of “violence of silence” – with politicians and voters alike reluctant to confront the fallout from the country’s mangled, halfway situation. But after a trip to the Devon fishing town of Brixham, I am more compelled than ever to be blunt. On the one hand, Brixham represents our country at its best. It exudes an understated dynamism and a keen sense of national identity. In the morning, trawlermen watch their catch being auctioned at Brixham’s world-leading, state-of-the-art fish market. In the evening they pour into the Sprat and Mackerel where the landlord has been known to pour pints in his slippers and Wi-Fi is banned. (“We Talk to Each Other” read the signs.) In the restaurants visitors feast on the hake, gurnard and cuttlefish prolific in Channel waters (as opposed to mass-imported cod that has, in some twist of insanity, become our national dish). Sadly, Brixham also captures everything that is wrong with this country. Tory Brexiteers promised that leaving the EU would allow Britain to “take back control” of its waters, and enable our fishermen to feast on a “sea of opportunity”. Instead, the fishermen of Brixham told me that they are at the mercy on a daily basis “to whatever side of the bed French customs get up on” and are “drowning in red tape”. They are in despair, as Defra – with a zeal reminiscent of Brussels bureaucrats – slaps questionable quotas on fish, from cuttlefish to pollack. As one skipper, Tom, who voted Leave, told me: “To be honest it ain’t much better, because we’ve still got the same people in government who were there before, who have still got the EU ideology.” It is not just the fishing industry that is reeling from the botched Brexit. In recent weeks, Britain’s trade talks with Canada have gone over the cliff, and the wine industry has warned that the new Brexit alcohol duty regime is “unworkable”. Tory efforts to introduce border checks for goods of animal and plant origin are becoming a fiasco. As Brexit trade chaos worsens, the deregulatory dreams of Tory Leavers fade. In January 2023, we were once again promised a bonfire of red tape. Within a few months, the pledge to scrap 4,000 EU laws had been completely watered down. The question is why Brexit has spectacularly failed. Of course, the conventional Remainer wisdom is that it was doomed from the start. But this neglects the elephant in the room: as it turns out, Britain is terrified of freedom. Much of this fear is harboured by the elites. Whitehall is terrified of allowing our fishing industry to thrive, lest trawlers decimate the ecosystem. Defra officials – working within a bureaucracy that incentivises error avoidance over public service – are afraid to use their common sense on fishing quotas. Britain is equally terrified of free trade, lest it plunges us into a libertarian dystopia awash with cancerous meat and alcoholism. Canadian negotiators have walked away because the UK Government, beholden to this country’s protectionist farming lobby, refuses to allow Canadian farmers to sell hormone-treated beef here. Some 10kg of steroid-implanted cow has about as much extra oestrogen as a boiled egg. It is the chlorinated chicken hysteria all over again. The new Brexit alcohol duty regime that links rates to specific alcohol strength outdoes Brussels in its convoluted paternalism. Most striking of all is that we are petrified of seizing on the biggest opportunity presented by Brexit and becoming an AI superpower. Parliament is growing sceptical that Britain can pursue a lighter regulatory approach to AI without degenerating into an America-style “Wild Wild West”. Hollywood fears that AI will exterminate humanity are starting to intermingle toxically with our Christian-socialist suspicion of “tax dodging” big tech egos. When it comes to leading the world on AI healthcare, privacy concerns are turning policymakers and voters queasy about leveraging our trump card – which is the NHS’s possession of the world’s single biggest and most detailed collection of health records At some point we need to be honest with ourselves. If, as a nation, we are unwilling to maximally benefit from Brexit by leveraging our freedom, then we should decisively minimise our losses and re-enter the security of the EU fold. If we’re not going to improve on the EU fishing quota system, then we might as well go back in, so that fishermen can at least smoothly export their fish across the Continent. If we don’t actually want to strike free trade deals, then we should rejoin the EU protectionist racket, and let Brussels use its market heft to prop up our unproductive sectors. If we are unwilling to become a world leader in AI innovation, then we should throw our lot in with the EU as it aims to become the global leader in AI regulation. If the ruling class is out of its depth using tax breaks and moonshot projects to seduce multinationals into building the super processors needed to train large AI models on UK soil, then we had better fall in with the EU’s vaguely forming plan to build one giant pooled data bank, for machine learning firms to feast on. Similarly, if we are not going to fight for freedom on the global stage by forging a new model for liberty in the 21st century, then we should at least do our bit for Western security by reclaiming our disproportionate sway over EU foreign policy – not least given its shifting stance towards Russia. What we categorically should not do is go on pretending that the country can afford to live with a halfway Brexit. The soft-Remainer view that Keir Starmer might be able to negotiate a superior, closer deal with the EU, while remaining outside the single market, is deluded. Having outwitted British negotiators into signing an agreement almost entirely on Brussels’ terms, the EU has little incentive to reopen talks. Equally, the view that the symbolic or theoretical regaining of British liberty makes it all worthwhile is based on a flawed idea of freedom. True liberty is not simply a principle of non interference, or “freedom from”. It is also the “freedom to” – the liberty to act, to build, to progress. Without the latter dimension, Brexit “freedom” is meaningless. And in this high stakes era, as we teeter on the brink of both an AI revolution and a geopolitical dark age, it is dangerous.
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Post by yattongas on Apr 2, 2024 14:17:15 GMT
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Post by stuart1974 on Apr 3, 2024 20:19:30 GMT
"The government has revealed how much companies will have to pay to import foods from the EU due to Brexit. Small imports of products such as fish, salami, sausage, cheese and yoghurt will be subject to fees of up to £145 from 30 April, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The Cold Chain Federation said the new charges would hit food prices. The government said the fees would pay for "world-class border facilities". The fee, known as the "common user charge", will apply to animal products, plants and plant products entering the UK from the EU through the Port of Dover and the Eurotunnel at Folkestone. It will be charged per type of good imported - the "commodity line" - and capped at £145 for mixed consignments. Individual products will face charges of up to £29. It will apply to goods deemed low, medium and high risk." www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68726852
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Post by yattongas on Apr 8, 2024 22:20:23 GMT
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Post by stuart1974 on Apr 10, 2024 19:12:39 GMT
"A British man with Parkinson’s disease and his wife living in France say they have been left stranded on the continent because of “insulting” post-Brexit immigration rules. They worked and paid taxes for decades in the UK but say they have had the “door slammed in our faces” and have been told they must pay £11,000 if they want to return. Stephen Kaye, 60, an IT specialist, spent his entire working career paying tax in the UK, and his French wife, Carmen Delaunay, 64, made substantial contributions working as an analyst and client retention specialist for multinationals, most recently Deloitte, over 25 years in Britain. They decided to move to France to look after Delaunay’s elderly father in 2015, and all of her tax years in the UK were wiped away with new immigration rules that came in after 2021. The new rules prohibited EU citizens from entering freely into the UK unless they had an unbroken five-year residency in Britain before the divorce from the EU." www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/10/briton-and-french-wife-face-brexit-visa-bill-to-return-home-to-uk
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Post by stuart1974 on Apr 11, 2024 12:55:25 GMT
"Italy mourns 'end of Italian waiters in London' as visa rule brought in Rishi Sunak's post-Brexit rules for foreign workers are getting tough press in Italy this week - with claims they could mark the end of Italian waiters in London. April saw the minimum salary requirement for a skilled worker visa increase from £26,200 to £38,700 - a near 50% rise as the government tries to reduce immigration. Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica published an article on its site headlined "Italians in London, the long goodbye" after the new rule was brought in this month. There were an estimated 342,000 Italians living in the UK in 2021, according to the latest Office for National Statistics census data. La Repubblica said the new rule change would lead to the "end of the story" of Italy's "ancient roots" in the capital, which was founded by the Romans in 43 AD. Separately, Italian journalist Antonio Polito wrote in the Corriere della Sera newspaper that the new salary for skilled workers was "an amount that no young novice can realistically earn". "Thus London gives up one of its great assets, the fact of being an offshore and cosmopolitan city," he said. Mr Sunak's post-Brexit rule change has worried hospitality bosses who are still struggling to get to grips with a post-COVID reality and rising costs. Conor Sheridan, founder of Nory and Mad Egg restaurant chain, previously told the Money blog that roughly 14% of his 15,000 UK employee base were on working visas that could be affected." news.sky.com/story/money-latest-pensions-mortgage-rates-inflation-sky-news-blog-13040934?postid=7513511#liveblog-body
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Post by yattongas on Apr 11, 2024 13:44:37 GMT
"Italy mourns 'end of Italian waiters in London' as visa rule brought in Rishi Sunak's post-Brexit rules for foreign workers are getting tough press in Italy this week - with claims they could mark the end of Italian waiters in London. April saw the minimum salary requirement for a skilled worker visa increase from £26,200 to £38,700 - a near 50% rise as the government tries to reduce immigration. Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica published an article on its site headlined "Italians in London, the long goodbye" after the new rule was brought in this month. There were an estimated 342,000 Italians living in the UK in 2021, according to the latest Office for National Statistics census data. La Repubblica said the new rule change would lead to the "end of the story" of Italy's "ancient roots" in the capital, which was founded by the Romans in 43 AD. Separately, Italian journalist Antonio Polito wrote in the Corriere della Sera newspaper that the new salary for skilled workers was "an amount that no young novice can realistically earn". "Thus London gives up one of its great assets, the fact of being an offshore and cosmopolitan city," he said. Mr Sunak's post-Brexit rule change has worried hospitality bosses who are still struggling to get to grips with a post-COVID reality and rising costs. Conor Sheridan, founder of Nory and Mad Egg restaurant chain, previously told the Money blog that roughly 14% of his 15,000 UK employee base were on working visas that could be affected." news.sky.com/story/money-latest-pensions-mortgage-rates-inflation-sky-news-blog-13040934?postid=7513511#liveblog-bodyAnti-pasti 🇮🇹
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