Westministenders: Brevid

[RedToothBrush]

The government have FINALLY started to treat no deal brexit and covid as one entity in terms of fucking the economy.

On the one hand you have one camp who think they can sneak No Deal through as a consequence of Covid. On the other you have people who realise that it might be quite a good idea not to doubly screw your entire economy and to continue to be able to import medical supplies freely.

We now no that No Deal Brexit will involve passports to get into Kent and 7 mile queues of trucks because this has passed the lips of Gove. Y'know one of those who has been denying this for the past 4 years and presenting it as 'scaremongering'.

We are now firmly into the end game where businesses have to make plans based on the government plans and technology. Y'know the ones that aren't complete yet despite it only being 2 months to go.

Johnson has today done an interview about covid restrictions in the NE in which he got all the detail wrong. Its almost as if he forgot the lines he was instructed to recite and have no fundamental understanding of what rules he's putting into place to control the lives of the population.

As we lurch into October, there is speculation of full local lockdowns being brought in to try and deal with the spiralling number of cases which have to be the result, in no small part, of a dire lack of local testing facilities in the North of England. Meanwhile we've got The App finally. The one that doesn't work and the police and many health care staff are being advised not to use cos its so bobbins and will lead to them constantly isolating needlessly. Thats just something the rest of us have to contend with.

The feeling is that Cummings is up for No Deal. Johnson has been brainwashed into it, which lets face it, isn't too hard given how hard of thinking he is. However there is a growing sense that Johnson may now bottle it and declare victory in the jaws of defeat. That might be a premature hope.

We await the answer and the all important question of whether Christmas is indeed cancelled - that is for everyone who hasn't already cancelled it due to financial hardship...

Hmmmm

There are plenty of ways today that Uncle Sam can raid your retirement...
1. Tax retirement account balances that are more than a certain level.
2. Require that a certain portion of retirement assets be invested in government bonds.
3. Print more and more (and more) dollars in serialized quantitative easing programs.

americanconsequences.com/legendary-investors-drawn-to-one-little-known-area-of-the-stock-market-is-your-retirement-in-govt-crosshairs-1-in-3-believe-violence-justified-if-other-side-wins/

Where have you all gone?

We are here
but all digesting the news

My informant in New York is delighted with the Trump news because Pence cannot pull in the vote

My informant in Dover is pissing himself laughing to be of much use

My informants in Ashford are practicing wheel spins

My informants in Westminster are too drunk to speak

Thanks for the signs of life LQ! I was getting worried!

Ireland

Looks like thousands of non-Irish EU citizens living in the RoI will have to complete an Electronic Travel Authorisation every time they cross the border to NI
(unless they also have settled status in the UK - which they would have trouble obtaining if they live in the RoI)

e.g. anyone who sometimes works, supplies services or goods in NI but lives in the RoI

http://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2020/10/01/news/stephen-farry-says-draconian-british-immigration-laws-will-affect-thousands-of-eu-nationals-travelling-across-the-border-2083302/

UK haulage frustration grows as Brexit minister Gove ducks the issues again

Link on the same page;

"Ireland faces devastating blow after its failure on ferry services to Europe."

"Being a hostage to fortune is never a good place to be, and unfortunately that looks like the short-term future for Ireland’s exporters to Europe, dependent on the British landbridge"...
"Some 150,000 Irish trucks transit the UK a year to Europe, carrying around €18bn in exports. Expectations of huge queues of trucks leading to Dover is a dangerous threat to the integrity of these supply chains. However, this article in the Irish Times argues that the failure to prepare for post-Brexit supply chain congestion also lies with the Irish, especially given the absence of sufficient Ireland-continental Europe shipping capacity." ...

Irish Times -
"Since the Brexit vote over four years ago, the political system has displayed nimble political footwork in positioning this country on the high moral ground in the various tussles between the EU and UK in relation to the Border."

"However, nothing like the same energy or commitment seems to have been applied to the practical reality of preparing for the inevitable consequences of Brexit.The most obvious impact is that the UK landbridge across which over 80 per cent of our exports to the continent are transported every day will be disrupted irrevocably."

"Until recent weeks there appeared to be a naive expectation that Irish lorries would be able to skip the queues at Dover and other British ports on the basis that the correct documentation would allow them to move from one EU state to another without undue delay. The notion that British lorry drivers would be happy to see their Irish counterparts waved to the top of the queue was never realistic" ...

theloadstar.com/ireland-faces-devastating-blow-after-its-failure-on-ferry-services-to-europe/
www.irishtimes.com/news/world/brexit/ireland-faces-devastating-blow-due-to-our-failure-to-develop-ferry-services-to-europe-1.4363802

@ListeningQuietly

We are here but all digesting the news

My informant in New York is delighted with the Trump news because Pence cannot pull in the vote

My informant in Dover is pissing himself laughing to be of much use

My informants in Ashford are practicing wheel spins

My informants in Westminster are too drunk to speak

... Are you sure about Pence ? He is the placeman for the large group of religious voters who mostly care about stopping abortion and hence stacking the SCOTUS I'm not sure he has to have charisma or do anything but be their puppet

Also, I wonder if being infected, even if real, is just a handy excuse for Trump to avoid another dreadful debate that repels any wavering voters
Unless he is actually ill, he'll continue to use the platform of being President online
It offers him some degree of protection, makes people look bad to attack a sick POTUS

I worry he'll win the electoral college - because some Republican areas will cheat, or go to their local courts, all stacked with republicans

and then the Supreme Court will rubberstamp anything, especially if Trump's new nominee gets in

Biden would have to win by a landslide to actually, um, win

The largest ferries in the world have recently been put onto the route between Ireland and the continent
The infrastructure has been built up too

Moving that 80% of the goods traffic from land to sea was always a tall order

However, look at who the vast majority of the Irish public blame for this mess:
the British government

Brexit was not caused by Ireland

They are merely collateral damage left by Brexiters who don't even care about the bit of ireland they still occupy, let alone the bit that escaped them

I see that ROI have their own exams mess;

^"30 Sep - Taoiseach told Varadkar and Ryan about Leaving Cert error six days after it was discovered."

"Education Minister Norma Foley said that about 7,200 Leaving Cert grades have been affected by the errors in the Leaving Cert calculated grades system."

"Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on education, Donnacha O’Laoghaire told TheJournal.ie that he does not think it is “credible or right that the Taoiseach sat on this so long, that he kept his coalition partners in the dark for six days, or most of all the Leaving Cert students of 2020 in the dark”.

www.thejournal.ie/leaving-cert-taoiseach-eamon-ryan-leo-varadkar-5219133-Sep2020/

If the troubles flare up again, then the British government will get the blame from Ireland, USA and just about the entire world

IRA bombs in the City forced the UK to agree to terms, because the big City firms were threatening to leave
A return to that, while struggling with the aftermath of Brexit would be disastrous for the City

Chaos and disaster - but it seems that's what Cummings wants

Wow, 7,200 grades affected

Did the number in the UK exams fiasco run into millions of grades ?

BigChocFrenzy
The article was from your link - written 29 September.

Ooooh, a whole 7,200 grades! Well, that means the fiasco with millions of grades in the UK was just fiiiiine... doesn't it?

@ElementsOfMedical we need you!

BigChoc
My informant(s) are very reliable
at this stage in the game, only those who can hit rah rah rah can win
and cancelling the Pence / Harris will backfire

sadly those at the top of the heap
Ferrier exemlar
are despicable

I'm sure somewhere an EU member will suffer from floods soon, or an earthquake

So we can expect a copy & paste of that too, to desperately try to claim the EU has problems too

The EU has always said that Brexit is a lose-lose situation

It's just that the UK will lose far more
because it is the one that has damaged relations with the trading partner taking nearly half its exports
that has lost the FTAs with 60-70 non-EU countries
a dn the 800 other trade arrangements & standards recognitions with countries around the world

The UK starts from Year Zero
There's a huge lot of rebuilding to do after the disaster that Tory governments have wrought since 2016

@Clavinova

BigChocFrenzy The article was from your link - written 29 September.

... and ?

We all know that Brexit screwed Ireland
and the Irish people blame the British government

• so does the powerful Irish American lobby and dman near the whole world

The most brilliant Irish government actions working flat out since 2016 can't compensate for the mess that Brexit will cause in Ireland, maybe even the return of the Troubles

Ireland has had some compensation, but it doesn't outweigh the harm atm

• maybe it will in 10 years or so

City firms move £1.2tn and 7,500 jobs out of London - EY

It's the money, the liquidity, that matters more than the jobs, even though they tend to be very well paid

www.irishtimes.com/news/world/brexit

Dublin still among big winners from Brexit exodus by financial services groups

Financial services firms operating in Britain have shifted about 7,500 employees and more than £1.2 trillion (€1.3 trillion) of assets to the European Union ahead of Brexit
– with more likely to follow in coming weeks, according to EY.

About 400 relocations were announced in the past month alone, the consulting firm said in a report on Thursday that tracks 222 of the largest financial firms with significant operations in the UK.

Wow, 7,200 grades affected

Fewer students in Ireland of course - over 10% of students received a grade lower than they should have - that's not insignificant.

"The mistakes were revealed on Wednesday by the Republic's Education Minister Norma Foley TD."

"It became clear that approximately 6,500 students had received a grade lower than they ought to have received,"

"While we do not yet have the final figures, our checks to date indicate that the error has affected approximately 7,200 grades."

"Therefore around 700 students will have received higher grades than they should have, but Ms Foley said that those grades would not be lowered."

"Around 60,000 students received their Leaving Cert results on 7 September, and many will have used them to go into further or higher education."

"Ms Foley said that a mistake in the coding process for awarding students their grades had first been brought to her attention on Wednesday 23 September."

"It had been spotted by a Canadian company which had developed statistical software for students' results."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54359128

Most of Boris Johnson's promised 40 new hospitals will not be totally new

Gosh, I am shocked

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/oct/02/johnsons-37bn-for-40-new-hospitals-in-england

After election pledge, bulk of £3.7bn scheme’s projects involve rebuilding or consolidation

Financial services firms operating in Britain have shifted about 7,500 employees and more than £1.2 trillion (€1.3 trillion) of assets to the European Union ahead of Brexit

June 2019 "Brexit: £1 trillion of assets and 7,000 banking jobs moved from UK to EU so far, research finds."

I would be more worried if there had been a big jump between June 2019 and now.

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-city-london-jobs-financial-services-banking-impact-a8975711.html

It was a mistake in the coding process, which was quickly acknowedged as soon as it was found

Very different from the longdrawn out drama of an algorithm that Gav insisted had to be kept
Until he U-turned, first to allow mocks
then another U-turn to allow teacher assessed grades

Clav Are you going to trawl through the minutiae of every EU member state, looking for mistakes ?
They have all made normal kinds of mistakes

BJ's government goes from one dramatic fuckup to another.
It never ends

No country has fucked up Covid, or exams to the same extent as the UK
Noone else has appointed incompetent party hacks to key public service jobs

And no other country decided to turn back its clock to year Zero with Brexit

£1.2 trillion in assets - that's a lot of lost tax every year
To put in perspective, UK annual GDP is only about 2 trillion

If there is No Deal, as looks likely, the City will be hit
iirc, passporting has been extended for 12 months at least - but that was before BJ reneged on the WA, so I don't know if that will truncate passporting

Many firms are hanging on until the last moment, hoping for a deal in financial services, before moving a lot of business away

Over the next 10+ years, we'll see how BJ has managed to hamstring the Golden goose that currently provides 11-12% of Uk tax revenue and services exports

This government showing their usual respect for local government:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/02/councils-given-five-minutes-notice-of-local-lockdown-confirmation

Council leaders in England were given five minutes’ notice of local lockdown rules being confirmed in their areas,

It was a mistake in the coding process, which was quickly acknowledged as soon as it was found

No it wasn't - they kept it secret for 6 days!

Two errors in fact;
"it was revealed by Taoiseach Micheál Martin earlier today [Weds] that two errors were identified in the system, one identified by private company Polymetrica and the second by Department of Education officials."