Westminstenders: Operation Shock and Awe

[RedToothBrush]

The government is launching its get ready for the end of transition campaign which has been dubbed a 'shock and awe' campaign.

In this campaign we will learn all about what Brexit means and what amazing opportunities lie for having increased customs and borders, beaucracy and increased costs. Bet you are all really excited and looking forward to this.

We will also get a 'Farage Garage' in Kent to cope with these wonderful opportunities in traffic jams. This will be something that businesses throughout the country will be super excited to plan for in their socially distanced Zoom meetings or across warehouses with their face masks on. And banks will be delighted to see an uptick in applications in CCJs and debt reconstruction plans.

It will be a super fun time for the under 30s who have zero hours contracts, worked in retail or hospitality. Or should I say 'worked'.

Meanwhile the right to a jury trial has been binned due to 'long covid delays' which are shorter than they were several years ago. The NHS isn't getting the funding it expected, and waiting lists are longer than ever with no way to clear them. The plan to build more hospitals seems to have disappeared with the Nightingales. Many councils are about to go into insolvency and be taken over by accountancy firms. The civil service is being dismantled and conservative loyalists with no experience being put in charge of important functions of state. Communications with the press are being 'streamlined' to make them incredible of holding power to account and only able to repeat government public announcements.

Anyone looking forward to Christmas? When you write a letter to Santa remember to add 'visa application form', 'a sleeping bag for use at Dover', 'tinned tomatoes' and 'packets of seeds to grow your own' to the list.

I've just been actual shopping...
Had to get ds2s feet measured and kit him out for secondary school.
Now...I've been doing this shop.of the damned for well over a decade and the price of school shoes and trainers has gone up so much!!
A taste of things to come, I fear.
I'm off to remortage the house to pay for them...😬

Well at least it's not Corbyn eh

Had to get ds2s feet measured

If he's gone out of children's sizes (so 7 and up) then you'll be clobbered for VAT.

The curse of big footed children.

PMK thanks as ever Red & all other contributors, even more despairing than ever at the moment, that summary for the new thread is 😢

If he's gone out of children's sizes (so 7 and up) then you'll be clobbered for VAT.

Strikes me as potentially discriminatory against people who identify as children ?

Yeah...
11 years old and size 8 feet
Bloody big foot 😳
Tbh I shouldn't complain...I buy kids shoes all the time a I'm a size 4

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/13/uk-new-fast-track-immigration-system-to-exclude-care-workers-salary-thresholds

Obviously we'll never be able to trust any numbers the government will use in future, but I can't see many people wanting to flock to the UK under this regime.

How long before the Tim Martins of this world start bleating they need special treatment, as they can't get cheaper workers all of a sudden ?

Just seen the ad....

Fuck me

Downing Street confirmed this was the case. “We want employers to invest more in training and development for care workers in this country,” Boris Johnson’s spokesman said.

Who, like me, thinks that a majority of care home owners won't bother with this, and yet again it will be predominantly women taking on those duties? It's really time that conditions like dementia where classified as medical rather than social needs - it takes skill to look after dementia patients well.

I also wonder just how many Filipinos, who often make up the backbone of care home staff, will want to come?

A where-is-the-cement-wall-I-need-to-put-myself-out-of-misery pmk...

Shove up DrBlackbird I fear only option is joining you, can’t see a way out of this clusterfuck anymore I really can’t, I always secretly held onto that sense would somehow prevail, think that ship has now long sailed.

At some point, we'll have to see Boris and the boys telling people like Longworth how wrong they are and how brilliantly Brexit is going.

It will remain to be seen (and I sense a sweepstakes here) whether the good Mr. Longworth continues to insist that he is right, and that Brexit is Being Buggered up. Or if he can be persuaded to STFU to prevent a possible focus for the Brexit Backlash ?

I have no cat pics to PMK with.
Here, instead, is the last photo I took.
A teeny tiny, very dead, scorpion, its tail still poised to sting, in a vast for it) swimming pool.

Suitably gloomy symbolism.

Thanks to all, as ever.

Brackets fail.
Sheesh.

Poor old Johnson had no choice other than to sign the WA huh. That's a huge leap. After all Farage et al was calling for a no deal at the time so that was an option. Tough if Johnson didn't read what he was signing. He doesn't do detail unfortunately whereas the EU.

From the 206 page UK Government border model document
'As part of plans to help hauliers and HGV drivers understand if they are carrying the right documentation, the UK Government is developing new technology, known as the Smart Freight Service (SFS), for the Roll on Roll off (RORO) Freight Industry.
For the end of the Transition Period the service would be introduced for RoRo freight travelling from the UK to the EU and would help ensure that only vehicles carrying the correct documentation for Member State border controls travel to ports.
We anticipate that the SFS would include a web-based portal that provides support to the wider Border Industry, by signposting information related to exporting goods from the GB to the EU. The web portal would require that details of the HGV being used to transport goods to a particular port are submitted in advance of the journey commencing.
These details would be individually submitted for every HGV leaving Great Britain, and could include the Vehicle Registration Number (VRN) as well as the destination and time/date of travel details for the consignment(s), and a declaration that the appropriate documentation required at the ports are in place and carried with the vehicle.
We anticipate that haulage firms could submit these details, or alternatively staff within the haulage company or the trader could use the web-portal on their behalf.'

Oh dear, it's a govt IT project

If anyone can be bothered to read it all:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/899991/2007133BPDG--BorderOperatinggModelFINALL1320_edit.pdf

But there are other countries not in customs unions and single markets. - Don't they have IT systems already to deal with the formalities?

Mind you, I have been on the Hurtigruten ships, and was quite surprised to see when they were loading and unloading cargoes, that pieces of paper, which I assume were bills of lading, were changing hands. I would be very surprised now, if these weren't prepared on a computer and printed off.

Made me chuckle https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/new-app-launches-help-drinkers-22334327
Neverspoons

PMK

Feeling depressed about it all.

Brexit on its own was crap. Brexit + Covid will be a nightmare.

@Peregrina

But there are other countries not in customs unions and single markets. - Don't they have IT systems already to deal with the formalities?

Mind you, I have been on the Hurtigruten ships, and was quite surprised to see when they were loading and unloading cargoes, that pieces of paper, which I assume were bills of lading, were changing hands. I would be very surprised now, if these weren't prepared on a computer and printed off.

Yes but those countries have a idea of what sort of customs they wa2nted. My understanding is that not only we don’t have the IT but HMRC doesnt know yet how things will work.

Thanks, red 💐

The soothing, peaceful view from my window (much earlier in the day):

Domnishambles 🤦🏻‍♀️

Most of us feared Brexit would bugger things up, but afaik, none of us had considered that the govt would be this inept about Brexit,

or of course that they would be simultaneously having to handle a far worse crisis.
However, when you're in govt there is always the possibility of having to cope with external disaster, whether war, plague or climate

Hence why a country that votes in delusional fools may sometimes suffer for it

"The government is launching its get ready for the end of transition campaign which has been dubbed a 'shock and awe' campaign."

red I hope it wasn't the EU that is supposed to be "shocked & awed"

.... 'cos if so, it'll be the most damp squib ever
(and would have been so even without COVID)

Copying slogans from the USA's Wars For Ego don't make the UK a superpower

Maybe a war slogan against its own people ?
Or Part 2 of "Fuck Business"

Re the Ashford lorry Park - an Interesting comment against John crace column:
"A sizeable proportion of freight entering Dover will be frozen and/or chilled produce. That requires a refrigeration trailer, the fridge runs of a diesel belly tank on the trailer. There is no other way. When the trailer is stationery they are (a) drinking diesel as the trailer skin heats up and (b) bloody noisy. When “reefers” park up for the night they need to either plug the fridge into a 45 amp, seven pin electrical system, or they will have their fridge turned for them by other drivers trying to sleep, once the fridge is either turned off, or runs out of diesel, the load will very quickly be unsuitable."

The lead story on the Business page of the BBC News website is headlined "Brexit: Get ready because this time it's for real".

The last sentence is "What's also clear from the two 200 pages of detailed instructions is that any hope there would be less paperwork and red tape after leaving the EU seems misplaced."

This is Simon Jack, this is the BBC. Pennies dropping.