Westministenders: No Australia Don't Have A Deal

[RedToothBrush]

Since Friday, far from letting things calm down, Johnson has doubled down stating that if we can't have a Canada Deal (which the EU says wouldn't be equal because we are much closer than Canada geographically) we will go for an Australia Deal.

This is the latest rehash of a managed no deal package up as something else which the EU have already repeatedly said no to.

So we are on track for no deal.

At the same time Johnson has got very excited about American food and how its great. Almost as if he wants no deal wit the EU to force a shitty bad deal with the us through.

Johnson and his chronies have also been trying to undermine journalistic transparency by blocking access to the lobby to some media outlets in a move that makes us look like a tinpot dictatorship. Fortunately there was a mass walk out of journalists but it remains to be seen how long that can be maintained.

Far from being a clean slate to move forward from its already proving that nothing has changed and old divisions are as deep as ever, if not worse...

But some journalists are utterly credulous - either through laziness, bias or sheer incompetence. How many times have you shouted FFS at the radio / newspaper / internet?

Continuity
The Lobby system has a lot to answer for.
The journalist who calls out bullshit the whole time gets no more scoops.
Its all about back scratching
folks like Peston and Adler and Kuensberg do no investigating at all
they regurgitate what they are fed.

And while the Guardian paid the boarding school fees for Polly Toynbee's kids
it cut the budget for investigative backroom crew

But it doesn’t take an “investigative crew” for political journalists to have the basic knowledge to call out the bullshit when it’s sitting gently steaming in front of you.

Is it really wrong that I've kind of given up on Brexshit and am far more focussed on Megxhit, coronavirus et al?

I mean, I want the govt held to account over every single move they make, but at the moment they don't seem to actually be making very many.

Mainstream journalists have always regurgitated relatively uncritically - i don't expect them to understand everything they report - but in that case I expect them to reference their sources. 'Shell press release stated polar bears like pipelines etc."
A long time ago I remember being asked for my opinion on the Guardian's science section - I inadvertently upset Mr Schofield by describing it as a poor man's new scientist - which I actually meant as a compliment for a national paper.

Everything except the specialist press is basically water cooler chat and we shouldn't expect better?

Mostly there for ad clicks
plus those with billionaire proprieters have to push whatever policies the owner wants

proprietors

Whether journalists are credulous or not becomes beside the point if they print the shit that's fed to them surely?

Meanwhile ...

2016 No checks
2017 No checks
2018 Absolutely no checks
2019 No checks under any circumstances
2020 We always said there would be checks. That's what you voted for.

Frictionless trade with the EU will end in 2020

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51453189

Wanted, thousands of new Customs Officers. Must be prepared to work in Portakabins.

Wanted, thousands of new Customs Officers.

So firms are going to have to either:

a) hire staff to deal with the overheads imposed by customs checks. - reducing profit

or

b) use existing staff to deal with overheads imposed by customs checks reducing company efficiency. And profit.

Poor, poor shareholders.

Oh, those new employees ? Well, why do you think the immigration requirements have just been lowered ?

Now I think that having to hire more staff to deal with customs might well be a benefit, in human terms, providing decent quality clerical work.

But it's not what people voted for.

We don't hear much now about the wonderful Trade deals with India, do we?

or c

Outsource to customs clearing agents, creating a whole new overhead.

Outsource to customs clearing agents, creating a whole new overhead.

That's ultimately the same outcome as (a) or (b). Extra expenditure to maintain existing operations. So reduced profits.

Now I think that having to hire more staff to deal with customs might well be a benefit, in human terms, providing decent quality clerical work.

The money for those staff has to come from somewhere.

I'm already sensing where the hard of thinking will deploy their troops on this one. By claiming that having to hire extra staff is a "brexit bonus" whilst quietly never mentioning that these extra staff are needed to carry on as before.

You know those 10 years we've just had where a lot of people haven't seen a pay rise. Doesn't look like the next 10 will be much different if companies are having to spread the same wage budget over more employees.

As always, I welcome my working(s) being checked. I may have missed something ...

Meanwhile, and on topic, the topic of creeping automation is popping up again ...

www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/11/french_robot_study/

Obviously of no interest in post Brexit Britain, I know.

One of my facebook feeds has just served up a post about a farmer who voted Leave and now finds that his Bulgarian and Romanian fruit pickers aren't interested in coming here any more. He will have to import workers from Russia and Ukraine, he whines.

I am not quite playing devil's advocate here DGR, but more secure work should mean more people paying taxes and should in turn benefit the economy.

I was thinking here of MIL and the war years, which I have talked about before, it brought her interesting well paid work, and her father, who had a trade, but had been in and out of work in the 1930s, was fully employed and never out of work post war. However, beneficial although that was, wouldn't it have been better if the 'hungry thirties' hadn't happened and the same effort could have been put into finding work for people before the war?

So there might be a Brexit bonus, but we could have had an EU bonus if the lazy toffs like Cameron and Johnson had bothered.

According to this Twitter account, Angela Rayner is running away with local party nominations for Dep Leader. (289 to Dawn Butler’s 68.) So far.

And Keir Starmer is comfortably ahead of RLB for the Leader. (294 to 136.)

Let’s see how the actual voting pans out, but it does suggest a groundbase of support.

mobile.twitter.com/CLPNominations

So this is either a massive leap into the dark, or Govey's trying to bluff the house with a hand of two spades, three UNO cards and Mr Bun The Baker.

I am not quite playing devil's advocate here DGR, but more secure work should mean more people paying taxes and should in turn benefit the economy.

But where is the money to pay those extra wages coming from ? It's not from increased productivity, since productivity is being decreased (and I've not followed that through yet to note the bleeding obvious, which is that some companies will go under).

Or are you flag waving for trickle-down economics ?

There is also a rather naive assumption that companies which currently export to the EU will still be exporting to the EU with increased overheads, rather than exporting significantly less than to the EU. With those increased overheads.

I'm not yet convinced that the masterplan is still to end up with No Deal, and that all we are seeing now is the preparation for a narrative where it's UK Business that ends up calling for No Deal. Since (as the BBC so "helpfully" noted) the preparations for no deal were actually better than for the end of the transition period.

I am certainly not flag waving for trickle down economics - it's just that some events have unexpected consequences.

I personally think that Johnson does want No Deal - whether he pulls back in a panic at the last moment, remains to be seen.

and a stagnant economy isn't going to find any money for new jobs either ...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51459257

The UK economy saw no growth in the final three months of 2019, as manufacturing contracted for the third quarter in a row and the service sector slowed around the time of the election.

(contd)

TL;DR - manufacturing shrinking and service sector slowing.

Bit of a challenge for "The Saj"s successor if nothing else.

At a tangent, I just wonder who exactly will build HS2?
The days when Brunel could employ vast teams of navvies to convert his broad gauge to standard gauge over a weekend, are long long gone.

At a tangent, I just wonder who exactly will build HS2?

Well my neighbour is clearing his diary ... just as soon as he's done Mrs Smiths wall.

At a tangent, I just wonder who exactly will build HS2?

Carillion

Johnson is now on the point of promising £5 bn for bus services. Well and good, but I can foresee a problem. In traditional southern England 'pig with a blue rosette' territory, it's not a question of congestion, it's that buses don't exist. I can't see his voters being all that happy.