Westminstenders: Just another DEADline

[RedToothBrush]

Today is the last scheduled day for talks with the EU.

We have til 30th June to ask for a transition extension. We won't.

That leaves us starring down the barrel of a no deal exit, when we still could be in a covid-19 crisis and the US may be in turmoil given recent events and the coming election...

It's not a pretty picture.

The Queen had no role in the dismissal of Gough Whitlam by the Australian Governor-General in 1975. Whitlam then lost the resulting election.

Patel in her stride lying about the Guardian who did not call her "a fat cow with a ring through her nose" but printed a political cartoon that was undoubtedly in bad taste, but was very much in a three hundred year old tradition in the British Press. Have a look at what Gerald Scarfe did to Harold Wilson back in the day.

The Queen had no role in the dismissal of Gough Whitlam by the Australian Governor-General in 1975. Whitlam then lost the resulting election.

We'll find out soon, when the official papers are finally unsealed. Or will we

The published material is clear enough. Kerr hinted at his intetions to a visiting Prince Charles who spoke with Martin Charteris. The Queen was made aware of the matter, and let it be known that she would not interfere.

The criticism amounts to saying that she interfered by not interfering, and should have sent in the Beefeaters to dispose of Kerr.

@TheElementsOfMedical I’m so very sorry for your loss, sincere condolences 💐

So the search begins for someone worthy of a statue in Bristol:
Banksy obviously and commission him to do it.

Re police reporting to crown - the home office and the 40 odd forces don't think much of each other - the 'government' can't directly tell them what to do - without passing appropriate legislation

• some while back I did a chunk of work that cut across the english/welsh courts and all the forces - was pleasantly surprised at just how much independance they do have. (even though it made my job much harder)

@TheElementsOfMedical sincere condolances

All in it together ...

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-news-live-update-uk-cases-deaths-today-vaccine-symptoms-a9553686.html

BP has told staff it plans to cut 10,000 jobs from its global workforce due to coronavirus
just weeks after increasing the dividend it pays to shareholders.

@Peregrina

I am glad you are back Louise because I asked you a question the other day. Friday evening if you would like to refer back, about a potential deal with the US and how that is better than being in the EU.

Perigrina I’ve gone looking for the question you asked and I couldn’t find the post, sorry. A potential new deal with the US is something I would welcome, as I would welcome one with the EU.

@Peregrina

OK well, let's pick up Louise's last statement:

Point is, overall I view any potential future arrangements we might strike from here as more likely to be more positive than staying the EU would have been.

At the moment, it very much looks as though No Deal is the only thing on the table. We also have Liz Truss desperately trying to do Trade Deals with the USA. The Tory Government, with one honourable exception, refused to vote for an amendment which would have protected our farming standards. There is the expectation that food standards will be worse, and a real danger that our farming industry will be destroyed, in a country which is already unable to feed itself.

Please tell us Louise how you think that will be better than staying in the EU was.

I will helpfully remind you Louise.

Now I don't think that the Government is necessarily thinking, " how can we destroy food standards and British farming." I do think they are desperate for any deal going, and if food and farming are collateral damage, so be it.

So please tell me why you believe this is better.

A deal with the US would bring only an extra 0.16% to UK GDP

www.ft.com/content/3aef20b0-5c8f-11ea-8033-fa40a0d65a98

certainly nowhere near what the UK would lose from the half of its trade that is with the EU,
plus the 20% from the EU's FTAs with other countries

re the slaver statue:

Campaigners had previously suggested a plaque on the statue summarising his involvement in slavery, crimes against humanity

iirc the Bristol Evening Post reported that the debt & interest incurred by the government to pay reparations to slave owners (for the law that released their slaves) was only finally paid off in 2015.

So taxpayers - including descendent of slaves - had been paying back that compensation to slave owners.

Campaigners had previously suggested a plaque on the statue summarising his involvement in slavery, crimes against humanity

And the Merchant Venturers tinkered with it before the plaque got cast.

I read that Tory councillors squashed the idea !

UK coronavirus victims have lain undetected at home for two weeks

Grim, but expected during lockdown when some elderly live alone and have no close family.

(tbh, one minor reason I moved to a serviced flat is so that my eventual corpse won't lie undiscovered until neighbours complain about the smell)

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/07/uk-coronavirus-victims-have-lain-undetected-at-home-for-two-weeks

My recollection is that the information that the debt was paid off was released more or less by accident.

So Colston was a philanthropist. He made money from an evil trade and then did good works with it, but his heirs were compensated. We can all be philanthropic with someone else's money!

BCF the Merchant Venturers tinkered with the wording and the Mayor deemed that unacceptable.

A new plaque was commissioned and made after debate. Bristol historian Francis Greenacre, on behalf of the Merchant Venturers, the organisation Colston belonged to, made changes to it before it was sent to be cast.

Mayor Marvin Rees deemed this "unacceptable", and his office said in a statement: "It was extremely naive of the Merchant Venturers to believe they should have the final say on the words for a new plaque for the statue of Edward Colston without reference to the communities of descendants of those Africans who were enslaved and treated as commodities by merchants like Colston.”

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/25/plaque-acknowledging-slave-owning-history-edward-colston-scrapped/

Thanks Perigrina
www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/21/farmers-urge-government-protect-food-standards-trade-bill

I guess this is what is being referred to. Ammendments to “protect food standards” or as the Guardian puts it

“As the bill moves to the Lords for a second reading, the NFU and environmental and consumer groups say they want the government to ensure that any future trade policy ensures that goods imported under a free trade agreement are produced to as high or higher standards of animal welfare, environmental protection, food hygiene and plant health, as are currently applied under UK law.”

Loads I could say on this. I don’t want standards lowered (provided they are British standards not hangover ones from EU membership) However:

1. I will usually favour more consumer choice, and more choice at more price points from more producers need not be a bad thing IMO.
2. to British farmers, stop moaning and and learn to compete. If you can’t produce a more attractive product domestically than what farmers in the USA produce there and ship across the atlantic, then the most likely problem is you aren’t getting enough support from government.
3. IMO the biggest problem aren’t potential imports, but that British consumers have a very poor idea of what their food actually costs to produce and what it should cost to buy in the shops.

Do you favour more consumer choice of safety standards in cars, household electrical goods , toys etc ?

Do you favour banning country of origin marking - because the USA regards country of origin as hindering trade
i.e. preventing people from avoiding lower quality US goods

The mass produced US chicken beef, pork is industrialisation of animals, with herds of 100,000s, produced to lower welfare standards

It's cheaper to have lower standards and e.g. wash chicken in Chlorine

• also has health risks for the workers who do this, btw

Modern US studies on low carb diets find they bring worse health outcomes; European studies don't and much older US studies don't

The main reason suggested for this discrepancy is that mass-produced US meat & poultry has become unhealthy over recent decades,
due to the conditions in which animals are kept nd raised, the drugs they are given

Guru Robert Atkins, like all US low carbers, kept writing that people should eat "grass-fed" beef,
which is still the norm in Europe, but not in the USA

Louise:

3. I agree with - we don't know what our food costs. Possibly one benefit of the lockdown has been people using local suppliers, and not allowing the supermarkets to dictate.

4. I doubt whether we could compete on the same scale as the USA unless we adopt their industrial farming methods, which from what I have read involves poor animal husbandry. Do you regard that as acceptable?

As for your British standards - you will trace back to see whether EU standard happened to be ones proposed by the UK? Will they be acceptable or is it EU bad, British good? Or dare I say it USA good, British - if we have to sacrifice them - well so be it.
What support have you seen the British Government give to farming?

You are hoping the Lords will bale out those Tory MPs who were elected on a ticket for protecting food standards, but have now happily reneged on that.

Have the guts of your Brexiter convictions - if you think nothing the EU does and anything that the USA does is fine by you, then say so.

Guru Robert Atkins, like all US low carbers, kept writing that people should eat "grass-fed" beef,

Which we don't need to specify - we take it as read.
Still, if we have to boycott beef and chicken and start eating much more lamb, assuming that the hill farmers won't be out of business, it won't be a problem for me.

to British farmers, stop moaning and and learn to compete. If you can’t produce a more attractive product domestically than what farmers in the USA produce there and ship across the atlantic, then the most likely problem is you aren’t getting enough support from government

I don’t want factory produced chicken with such low welfare standards that it has to be decontaminated to be made ready for human consumption, or beef that has to be grown so rapidly to be sold on cheaply enough that it’s pumped full of growth hormones.

What support from the UK government do you think is needed for British farmers to compete?

Other than keeping to its word that they wouldn’t allow the much lower levels of US animal husbandry and the resultant cheap meat undercut them?

stop moaning and and learn to compete. If you can’t produce a more attractive product domestically than what farmers in the USA produce there and ship across the atlantic, then the most likely problem is you aren’t getting enough support from government.

I don't understand this, TBH.
How can farmers learn to compete if the solution lies with the government?
If the attraction of US produce is that it's cheap, irrespective of quality, then isn't "support" just another way of saying "lowering standards"?

I don’t want standards lowered (provided they are British standards not hangover ones from EU membership)

How silly.

What's the difference, in your opinion, Louise?

The cost of food isn't entirely a reflection of costs of production. Grass fed beef costs as much as consumers are willing to pay in the US. As a 'premium' product it appeals to people with a lot of disposable income.

Beware of the side effects for societal cohesion of food of lower quality for the less well off and food produced under a better regime for those who can afford it. Right now, any consumer can buy good quality meats in British supermarkets. Once US imports arrive, the words 'organic' and 'grass fed' are going to appear on packets of mince that are not the result of quick fattening up and finishing on a feed lot, and those 'premium' products are going to command a price many won't be able to afford.