Westminstenders: The Mask is Slipping

[RedToothBrush]

This week has seen the department of the Chancellor who launched a 50p piece, the serious contemplation of a tin pot bridge, the rebirth of eugenics as a subject for cabinet, the announcement of the end of the BBC as we know it, the cabinet chanting after the PM in a way Orwell would be proud of, suppression of a report into trade deals which dares to mention the effect of distance and geography, worrying signs of an ever growing rift with Europe over negotiations for a deal, an appointment which starts to make our membership of the ECHR look very dodgy and there have been rather a lot of floods which so far seemed to have escaped the attention of those in London busy in their own swamp.

It's becoming apparent very quickly just how Trump like our new government are and how they want the UK to emulate the very worst aspects of America.

We are falling fast and its not looking like it will be pretty.

All we need is a major global issue to test our national resilience and the incompetence will truly be laid bare for us all to see... But not necessarily speak of. Such us the way it works.

Brexit Britain is not a nice looking prospect.

There was considerable opposition to letting in the Ugandan Asians, but Tory PM Ted Heath did the right thing and let in those who could not go elsewhere. He was praised by the left, centre & moderate right, but those on the racist right condemned him for it.

Labour Government in 1968 though;

"From the archive, 23 February 1968: Bill speeded to curb flow of immigrants."

"Originally published in the Guardian on 23 February 1968"

"The Government is to rush a bill through Parliament next week to restrict the inflow of Asians from East Africa and other holders of British passports in foreign countries. Mr Callaghan, the Home Secretary, told a subdued House of Commons yesterday that the measures were necessary "in fairness to the people of this country and in the interests of equitable treatment for the citizens of the Commonwealth as a whole." There will be a special allocation of 1,500 employment vouchers a year for those holding British passports who have no substantial connection with Britain as, for example, by birth or paternal parentage."

www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/feb/23/archive-immigration-bill-restricts-kenyan-asians-1968

Perhaps we could learn a few things from Nigeria:

qz.com/africa/1810161/coronavirus-how-nigeria-prepared-and-lessons-from-ebola/

My self declared claim to fame is that I can pronounce Eyjafjallajökull passably well.

I was doing a lot of work with various Icelandic companies and organisations at the time, so was able to confirm the pronunciation with them.

As an aside, Kevlavik Airport was one of the last to shut because of the direction of the wind and Iceland itself was never cut off as Akureyri Airport in the north never shut (but involved a 3 hour drive to get to Reykjavik).

Covid 19: It's an ill wind......

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51672753

No mask-slipping if you don't have a mask.

Well I am glad at last that you have managed to cut and paste something Clavinova which makes it clear that it's not easy for people from Commonwealth countries to come here.

.

Clavinova I posted upthread that it wasn't just Tory govts that removed rights from British passport holders and their families

Both parties have done it, because it's popular

"My self declared claim to fame is that I can pronounce Eyjafjallajökull passably well."

< impressed >

I'd better not try, because I'm sitting in my fav Rhine cafe and I don't want fellow diners to think my spluttering noises signify the plague

I can say the name of that famous railway station in Wales:

......Cardiff Central

Thanks for the laugh, Mockers, am quite despairing looking at Brexit and Trump's shenanigans here, there, and everywhere.

(btw, isn't it "back-pedalling ? Like some people can catch a spiders movement from across an ocean, I can spot errors in text well before I get to read them out ... quite fun when you point a misspelling out to a board director who says: "But I've shown that slide to 5 meetings now." ...)

Michael Dougan

@mdouganlpool

Professor of European Law, University of Liverpool;

Main text of my CMLRev article on Withdrawal Package now fully sketched out. Just 300-odd footnotes to complete... Here are the (draft) overall conclusions, in case they are of interest:

Chris Grey: Brexit is going feral

https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2020/02/brexit-is-going-feral.html

At the time of Rogers’ resignation, in January 2017, I wrote that a string of resignations and early retirements from the civil service was very likely,
and that the wholesale politicization of the civil service in favour of true believers in Brexit was a danger.
.....
strong ministers have usually been able to over-ride reluctant officials if they have coherent ideas.

What is happening with Brexit is something different.
As I, along with many others with much greater authority and larger audiences, have recorded on this blog,
most of the things that Brexiters want are simply impossible to deliver – possibly all of them, when taken in combination -
and are often based upon deliberate or accidental falsehoods.

This generates a faith-based politics - in which what matters is loyalty to the cause and purity of belief.

Possessed of such belief, the impossible becomes possible and inconvenient facts disappear.
....
In the face of this, the government – along with its many Brexit-supporting allies in the media – is rapidly moving to a position where
it wants the civil service, like itself, to be purged of non-believers
and, in this way, supposedly to ensure the delivery of Brexit

"the suspicion must be that he also wants them to pander to, rather than to challenge, his pre-existing beliefs.

It is consistent with the story that, when Foreign Secretary, he reacted to unwelcome advice from civil servants by sticking his fingers in his ears and humming Rule Britannia"

.... if that story is true, we are so FUCKED

"There’s a reason why this government seems like every bad boss you’ve ever had

and it’s that it has taken on, wholesale, the mix of bullying and hubris that has infected much of the corporate world.

Dominic Cummings may seem like a novelty in the political realm,
but he’s a version of just about every big-league MBA School graduate who has mistaken reading airport lounge books about Silicon Valley and quantum physics for wisdom."

DGR
Back-peddling sound like a v dodgy form of trade.

It should also be "even the worst of tragedies" rather than "even the worse." (Fellow error-spotter here.)

Interesting analysis, all the same.

It should also be "even the worst of tragedies" rather than "even the worse."

I'd have got it on the second pass. I have a general rule about how much time I devote to material once I find one error in it. A few cvs have hit the bin based on that.

It wasn't a criticism of your reading skills, more a sharing in error-spotting, which is not always an appreciated ability...

HMRC estimates of No Deal costs:

https://www.bifa.org/news/articles/2019/oct/uk-supply-chains-face-15bn-annual-freight-admin-cost-rise-from-no-deal-brexit

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-impact-assessment-for-the-movement-of-goods-if-the-uk-leaves-the-eu-without-a-deal

^HMRC therefore estimates that the
^ static total ongoing administrative burden on UK-EU trade is £15 billion
(updated to reflect 2017 data) a year."

A lot more than the UK's annual contribution to the EU
And that's just one cost of Brexit

UN Assessment of No Deal vs UK-EU FTA

https://unctad.org/en/pages/newsdetails.aspx?OriginalVersionID=2286

• The UK risks losing up to 14% of its exports to the EU in a “no-deal” Brexit

• Non-tariff measures would double losses from tariffs, estimated at 5%-7%

I'd assumed that 50,000 quote of new Customs Officers by Gove was really 5,000
since even the Netherlands only said it had recruited about an extra 1,000

However, it keeps being quoted, so maybe it really is 50,000 ?
Oh Gawd, all the new "paperwork" that implies for businesses 🤦🏻‍♀️

If HMRC really needs 50,000 new bods to handle the extra red tape after Brexit,
then the private sector will likely need many thousand also, to comply with that red tape.

That's presumably part of the extra 15 billion quid that HMRC estimated No Deal would cost UK firms

Many Brexiters claim they want to get rid of EU red tape
Maybe all the new UK red tape can be Blue Tape

Yep, really looks like 50,000 extra bods - more Brexit costs for the taxpayer too, not just businesses

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/28/extra-50000-border-staff-needed-for-post-brexit-trade-says-gove

A race to hire 50,000 people in the next six months to process Brexit paperwork is under way after the government confirmed they would be needed for border operations.

But experts have warned it will be a challenge to train enough people in time to be competent in the complexity of customs declarations
and the second layer of red tape involving entry and exit declaration forms that are mandatory for trading with the EU.

The 50,000 figure is from the Road Haulage Association, which says that UK firms will need to fill out 200 million extra customs declarations each year.

The work would have to be done by directly employed members of staff or independent customs agents and the RHA says 50,000 will be needed.

They would be in the private sector, so in addition to any extra staff employed by HMRC.

The 50,000 is clearance clerks - the people who prepare the paperwork that HMRC check

Customs Officers will be 10,000 ON TOP OF THAT

All of the spare folks with experience (who were working in the industry before the single market) are now in their late 50's or older ....

Cross post with Chers but we are both right

static total ongoing administrative burden on UK-EU trade is £15 billion (updated to reflect 2017 data) a year

A lot more than the UK's annual contribution to the EU

The £15 billion estimate is £7.5bn UK costs and £7.5bn EU costs.