Westminstenders: Waiting for Sanity

[RedToothBrush]

We could be waiting a long time, but that's what we have to wait for as that's what the EU is waiting for.

The EU has requested we expand on our plans for 'alternative arrangements' with regard to the backstop.

We need to do so before the next HoC vote on 14th Feb. The EU see no point in shifting their position before than. And the UK will struggle to provide the info the EU want before then. So there is now some doubt as to whether the vote will go ahead as planned.

About a third of the Cabinet now believe that Brexit will have to be delayed due to legislation not being ready for exit date. However we don't have power over this and we might still exit without it.

There is no Brexit related business next week in the HoC to prevent pesky amendments. The recess has been cancelled but MPs have been told its OK to go on their ski holidays so it's just a PR stunt.

Meanwhile No Deal is in full effect as businesses trigger their exit strategy in the absence of certainty. No Deal is reality for many even if we do have a last minute deal...

We are all about to get poorer. As that's what we voted for.

What do you actually want to happen Maryjoyce, at this point?

Nissan says it is partly due to Brexit:

Chairman Gianluca de Ficchy said in a statement Sunday. “While we have taken this decision for business reasons, the continued uncertainty around the U.K.’s future relationship with the EU is not helping companies like ours to plan for the future.”

Put it in bold for you Mary.

Mary thinks no deal is best, chickens. She doesn't think No Deal will have a significant effect on daily life.

Perhaps she's gone to bed Ballyhoo? The tumble weed does seem to be blowing.

In that case, Maryjoyce, I'll tell you what I want. I want for politicians to be held to account when they lie. I want for my vote to count in elections, not for it to have been a wasted vote under the FPTP system every single time I've voted. I want properly funded public services. I want to live in an open society that welcomes people of all nationalities for the contribution they can make to our society. I want less sensationalised, 'personality politics' news, and more informative, sensible debate. I want an education system that prioritises imagination more than rote learning for tests. I want us to listen to experts. I want job security for my extended family - not to see them facing Brexit related redundancies. I want us to have the time and space to focus on the environmental issues we are all ignoring at our peril. I want to be able to live my life again and hope for the future, not spend time every day simultaneously worrying I've gone insane to have filled the space under my bed with non-perishable food, at the same time worrying that I have only got a fraction of what we would need as a family to survive the shit-storm of no-deal. I want to know that my mum will be able to finish her chemotherapy treatment in April. I want every single homeless person that has been out on the streets this winter to know they could have a roof over their heads if they wanted one. I want my children to have a less stressed mother. I want to stop arguing with my husband about when the right time to leave this country will be. I want to be able to go back to having conversations with people without thinking, "Which way would you have voted?" I want all this to fuck off to the far end of fuckety fuck, so I can get on with living my life again, and quite frankly, I want some acknowledgement from you that it is shit that some people are feeling this way even if you aren't.

Chickens

Some folk only seem to understand something is because of Brexit if its announced specifically so
Otherwise, you need to know sufficient facts about Brexit, international trade etc

e.g. Barclays Bank the other day moving a whole chunk of their financial business and 190 billion to Dublin because of the risk they would lose financial passporting

You need the knowledge that the UK has financial passporting while in the EU, but lose it after Brexit,
to understand this is soley because of Brexit, no other reason in this case.

(also need the knowledge that Dublin is not in the UK)

There's another one to add to the list BigChoc - I want a decently informed and educated population :)

Japanese companies often avoid saying unpleasant things bluntly
However, other car firms in the UK have started speaking out bluntly enough even for maryJoyce:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/24/ford-says-no-deal-brexit-would-mean-costs-of-800m-dollars--in-2019-alone

Ford^^
has predicted that a no-deal Brexitit^will result in costs of $800m (£612m) during 2019 alone,*
in the latest in a series of stark warnings over potential disruption to British manufacturing.

If the UK leaves the EU on 29 March without a deal the US carmaker said it could face
trade delays at the border, a weaker economic outlook and tariffs on trade between the UK and EU, as well as a hit from the likely sharp fall in sterling.

Ford’s European president, Steven Armstrong, this month said a no-deal Brexit could result in further job losses in the UK,^^
and did not rule out the closure of British plantss^ if there were no agreement
.....
Jaguar Land Roverr_, the UK’s largest carmaker,
informed employees on Thursday that it will shut down its four main factories for an extra week at the start of April on top of a previously planned maintenance pause because of “potential Brexit disruption”.

Watched the Japanese Ambassador to the EU on either Sky or BBC news try as hard as he could to be diplomatic as is the Japanese way when talking about the new EU-Japan trade deal that the UK will only benefit from for between 56 days to 21 months at most

When asked how long it would take the UK to negotiate its one standalone trade deal, he did admit that it would not take as long as the 5-9 years it had taken the EU and Japan (depending on when you count it from: the start of the informal discussions or the formal negotiations).....

..... because they would just take the terms that the EU has already agreed and use them

So it might just take another couple of years

Remind me again why we are doing this?

And no, the UK can't get better terms as there are MFN clauses, so anything extra the UK "gets", the EU automatically gets too

EU-Japan trade: Five things about the world's biggest deal
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47086737

I think that some of the fresh produce will not be sent out until things are organised

MaryJoyce

What does 'organised' mean in your sentence?

Does it mean phytosanitary checks?
Does it have anything to do with tariffs?

How do the above two things 'get organised'?

I might disagree with the pp upthread who suggested learning one language but thoroughly. I would have agreed until I moved to where we live now, where most people speak at least three languages fluently and it's not uncommon for English to be someone's fifth or sixth language (and more if you count patois / pidgin forms of languages). They learn multiple languages at school and use them throughout daily life. There seems to be something about learning a second language that teaches the brain to work in a different way and then it becomes easier and easier to learn subsequent languages.

I'm incredibly jealous of our DC learning two MFL at school (primary and secondary)

My DCs' high school in the US offers Spanish, Spanish for Spanish speakers, French, German, Italian, Latin, Japanese and Chinese. My DCs did Spanish from age 5 to 13/14 but then the DDs sqitched to French and DS did a year of German then switched to Latin. Once in university DD1 tested out of French but did Persian, DD2 did a year of French to satisfy the requirement of fluency in her particular school at her university, DD3 tested out of French but took up Swedish and DD4 may end up with a degree in French (still in HS). DS did German again (taking up where he left off in HS) to satisfy the requirement of fluency in a MFL even though he has a STEM degree. US universities have general education requirements that I am all in favour of.

As a student in Ireland I took Irish from age 5 to the end of secondary, and then in university too (my choice), French at junior school level beginning at around age 10, and I took French all through secondary school. I was fortunate enough to be able to take two years of a non-exam German course with a great teacher.

Wrt emigration - I think a very significant figure is the percentage of each country's population that lives abroad. This stat can reveal much about exposure to other cultures. Currently, about 17% of those born in Ireland live elsewhere - Ireland leads the tables in terms of percentage of its population living abroad, and all social classes and levels of education are represented.

Additionally, there are hundreds of thousands of Irish people living in Ireland who were born there but spent part of their working lives abroad - many engineers, doctors, nurses, teachers, bricklayers, carpenters, joiners, fitters, mechanics, etc. I would hazard a guess that there is not a single Irish family living in Ireland that does not have at least one member living abroad, or formerly living abroad.

Strangely enough the press never seems to feature those of us pensioners abroad who do speak the language and are part of our local communities. I guess prople just love a stereotype.
I teach English to the U3A here in France and whilst most of my students have not used it very much since school, there are some who worked in the UK and have reasonable fluency. My DH worked in Holland and France from the 80s and and was always hugely impressed by the fluency of the Dutch. Television was subtitled even then. I always encourage my students to watch with subtitles where they can.
I am surprised more people have not commented on the new MFL GCSE. There are quite a few elements that I certainly didn't tackle until A level. The problem as I said before is a teacher shortage which is inevitably now getting worse.

Strangely enough the press never seems to feature those of us pensioners abroad who do speak the language and are part of our local communities.

Because you're the tiny minority (of older immigrants) and I'm not sure how the press would find people like you. I live in an area which is moderately popular with the British without being overrun. Most don't speak French fluently and many not at all. The older they are the less likely they are to speak any French.

Language teaching here is a mix of excellent and all right, depending on where you are. All kids in the main academic stream have to do two MFL until they leave school (English plus one other) and many HE courses make a language compulsory. In addition to English, our local high school offers Spanish including a Spanish Bachillerato stream (which my DD did - three subjects taught entirely in Spanish + a double diploma at the end), German, Chinese and Occitan. Students can also do Latin.

I too did O levels (inc Latin) and could read and write French well (my teacher said “almost as good as Daudet”, which was a compliment) but only learned to speak it in a comprehensible way in Morocco, where they spoke a version I could understand better than French French - one of the advantages of being a bit of a hippy in the 70s.
My version of spoken Spanish is a few words and phrases supplemented by French, however I was easily able to read and consequently sign the half page of terms and conditions for last year’s rental in Spain, partly because it was legalese which is much the same the world over, but partly because it’s a Latin derived language.

PIL buggered off to live in Spain when DH was 16, they died over there having spent best part of 30 years there for MIL and we’ll over for PIL. They absolutely would have voted to Leave. Their Spanish never really progressed beyond the very basic which meant coping with ill health hard.

PIn Spain the family are expected to do the nursing in hospital which was ok when they were both alive but very difficult after MIL died and it was just PIL. Google translate was hugely helpful and got us through a radiology report after FIL fell and hit his head.

*The press never seems to feature...

Basically our approach to the press needs to change. If you think of a newspaper as you would a differently laid out paperback short story book then there's less of an exception of non fiction content.

I had a weekend off from MN due to visitors etc but I did notice over the weekend more reporting of:
• Businesses at breaking point ( well fuck business)

•Manufacturers doing more stockpiling -tying up capital that could otherwise be used for research, training or investment.

•More food retailers warning of food shortages and price rises. ( Fuck food specialists - politicians know more about the food business.)

• More on the Institute of Directors reporting that a third of businesses are preparing to move some or all of their work to the EU. ( Fuck trade specialists what do they know.)

•Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders saying investment in the automotive sector has slumped by 47%, while car production is at its lowest for five years. ( Fuck motor specialists Boris Johnson knows more than them .)

On the subject of BoJo did we see he dropped some notes/ draft speeches on the economy, govt strategy in the bin at a petrol Station?!

I guess so Mistigri but I meet quite a few pensioner migrants like me who do speak the language and are involved in local community things like the U3A. I guess nobody knows the proportions and I am sure it does depend on where you live. You definitely wouldn't come here for the sunshine.
I think the offering of languages is good in schools, but some of the teenagers I have coached have definitely not had good quality of teaching. Apart from anything else the source material has been aimed at a different demographic.

Yes I saw the Bojo story lonelyplanetmum. Unbelievable except it isn't. I also think the press is increasing the number of stories about businesses, stockpiling etc. About time too.
I think I get too easily annoyed by the stories about pensioners abroad who can't speak the language because it all has more than a whiff of ageism about it. I don't doubt that they exist, just that they don't tell the whole story. I hate lazy journalism and lazy thinking.

If I threw any of my work stuff in the bin in a petrol station it would mean instant dismissal.

“On the subject of BoJo did we see he dropped some notes/ draft speeches on the economy, govt strategy in the bin at a petrol Station?!”

Perhaps it was a drop, performed in his usual gung-ho style 😊
That isn’t meant to be taken seriously btw: I know the unthinkable can be all too believable these days.

I was interested to read that Nissan may lose that £60 million sweetener from the Government.

Perhaps, looking at the Government record of broken promises and reneged deals , they decided it probably didn’t exist...

Morning.

Sunderland blames remainers.

Yep.

The deal with Nissan was stuck with a guy who is no longer there because he's allegedly a crook.

Stuck = struck