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...

@ListeningQuietly

BigChoc Veg plot is rather soggy at the moment but I've got leeks, kale, chard, spuds, collard greens, carrots, squash and shelly beans enough to last me till March

.... Do you have space for some hazelnut and walnut trees, for protein ? (chickens are too much work, also a bit smelly & noisy and I expect your local farmers would have plenty of eggs)

I know trees take a while to grow enough for nuts, but the post-Brexit mess could last that long

@BigChocFrenzy

I know trees take a while to grow enough for nuts, but the post-Brexit mess could last that long

I know most fruit trees are grafted (as are most grape vines). Because if you waited for a tree to fruit, you wait at least a Brexit (50 years according fo Rees-Mogg). And even then the fruit might be shite.

Yes, my DF has reverted to type and grows tomatoes, cherries and peaches....

@BigChocFrenzy

I wonder if that £4 million is just the profit taxed in the UK, with the rest taxed in the EU now ? Or maybe that split happens next tax year

According to the latest accounts available on the Companies House website (made up to December 2018), approx. 60% of the company's turnover was in the UK, the other 40% rest of world, so I presume all figures refer to its worldwide operations. Net profit before tax, again presumably worldwide, was £4,093,126 and it paid £812,109 in UK corporation tax.

It's under R.H. Smith & Sons (Wigmakers) Limited.

As to employee numbers, I would take the word of the company's own website against that of a B2B media company, whose writers may be using dated and inaccurate sources.

@BigChocFrenzy

🦆 Swans, ducks & geese have penises 🦆

I Googled this after one Rhine walk, being concerned I needed new specs

Idly remembers Greek myth and slightly risqué Renaissance paintings.

Well any Brexit boom ain't gonna be in cinema.

www.rt.com/business/502500-cineworld-closures-uk-us/

That's a lot of real estate to hit the market at once. Let's see how market forces drive down commercial and retail rents. Bearing in mind the Kingfisher shopping centre in Redditch has a Cineworld inside it ...

I have hazelnuts
I know where the walnut tree is
my neighbour keeps ducks and chickens
and I have several large bladed weapons hanging by the front door

"And as the director pointed out in the 2016 story, taxes on its EU trade now go through its EU office in Amsterdam and are lost to the UK Exchequer."

And they set up the head office in Amsterdam in 2015 before the referendum just in case?

"the Netherlands takes the highest position among European countries in the tax haven rating"

nomoretax.eu/netherlands-tax-haven/

[quote Clavinova]"And as the director pointed out in the 2016 story, taxes on its EU trade now go through its EU office in Amsterdam and are lost to the UK Exchequer."

And they set up the head office in Amsterdam in 2015 before the referendum just in case?

"the Netherlands takes the highest position among European countries in the tax haven rating"

nomoretax.eu/netherlands-tax-haven/[/quote]
...
Yes, some cautious companies really did plan for a possible Brexit back in 2015

Brexit will weed out those companies who still haven't prepped (and have EU imports / exports) and don't have the reserves to tide them over

However, moving abroad before at least May's Lancaster house speech in Jan 2017, which announced leaving the SM,
could mean Brexit was more of a deciding argument against keeping all their eggs in the Uk basket, rather than the only motive

[quote Clavinova]"And as the director pointed out in the 2016 story, taxes on its EU trade now go through its EU office in Amsterdam and are lost to the UK Exchequer."

And they set up the head office in Amsterdam in 2015 before the referendum just in case?

"the Netherlands takes the highest position among European countries in the tax haven rating"

nomoretax.eu/netherlands-tax-haven/[/quote]
snip "And they set up the head office in Amsterdam in 2015 before the referendum just in case?"

The UK, and previously EU, Head Office is in Lincolnshire. I'm sure they saw which way the wind was blowing (always a good thing in business planning).

Brexit will weed out those companies who still haven't prepped (and have EU imports / exports) and don't have the reserves to tide them over

How can you prep for a fantasy ?

As to employee numbers, I would take the word of the company's own website against that of a B2B media company, whose writers may be using dated and inaccurate sources.

Smiffys should put the record straight then - Smiffys retweeted Jul 29 2020;

"Did you know fancy dress makers SmiffysUK#Leeds ship 26 million items across world every year? benjohnson_Int created a wonderful, colourful new #workplace for them in CentralSqLeeds last year for 220 staff."

@DGRossetti

Brexit will weed out those companies who still haven't prepped (and have EU imports / exports) and don't have the reserves to tide them over

How can you prep for a fantasy ?

.....

How do you run a small business after Brexit ?

Start with a large business !!

@Clavinova

As to employee numbers, I would take the word of the company's own website against that of a B2B media company, whose writers may be using dated and inaccurate sources.

Smiffys should put the record straight then - Smiffys retweeted Jul 29 2020;

"Did you know fancy dress makers SmiffysUK#Leeds ship 26 million items across world every year? benjohnson_Int created a wonderful, colourful new #workplace for them in CentralSqLeeds last year for 220 staff."

An inaccuracy in a tweet? I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked.

Even the press release published at the time of the Leeds office's opening only mentioned "workstations for 100 staff". It didn't even claim 100 staff would be working there.

The figure would be the PR bod at Ben Johnson using an inaccurate figure and the social media bod at Smiffy's / RH Smith picking up on the @SmiffysUK and retweeting without correcting or probably even checking.

I wonder how those 50,000 new customs agents are coming along ?

I'm betting it'll turn out that - like the "new" hospitals - it will emerge that actually it was 50,000 poor sods who suddenly found they had "customs agent" added to their job description.

Since we are being inundated with tiny squirrelly minutiae, here is another:

🐿 "Deep-sea bone-eating worms such as Osedax mucofloris ('bone-eating snot flower') live on whale carcasses on the sea floor; the females are several centimetres long but the males are microscopic and are kept as ‘harems’ inside the females. Therefore, Brexit is simultaneously the deepest heartfelt Willy of the People and something which is entirely inconsequential!" 🐿

@DGRossetti

Well any Brexit boom ain't gonna be in cinema.

www.rt.com/business/502500-cineworld-closures-uk-us/

That's a lot of real estate to hit the market at once. Let's see how market forces drive down commercial and retail rents. Bearing in mind the Kingfisher shopping centre in Redditch has a Cineworld inside it ...

I’m getting adverts right and left centre about offices etc... at the moment. It will will worse in the next few months with big businesses and smaller ones closing down. Just in my high street we have many boarded shops. I’ve never seen as many of them sitting empty in the 20 years I’ve lived there. Not even during the 2008 recession.

Out of town shopping centres can be repurposed as click and collect hubs
but anything based around cinemas / nightclubs / casual dining is nadgered

in City centres, retail and hospitality that catered to the masses thronging in and out of offices by public transport is nadgered

anywhere that built its retail around the day trips of cruise passengers embarking and disembarking is nadgered

basically a LOT of stuff is nadgered

and then we add in the increased costs and limits to choice that the end of transition will bring

I’m getting adverts right and left centre about offices etc... at the moment. It will will worse in the next few months with big businesses and smaller ones closing down. Just in my high street we have many boarded shops. I’ve never seen as many of them sitting empty in the 20 years I’ve lived there. Not even during the 2008 recession.

It's a perfect storm, with Covid amplifying the demise of the traditional High Street, and politics (as usual) about 2 generations behind the curve.

Anyone watching the recent excellent "Britains Biggest Dig" (I rarely need an excuse to catch Professor Alice Roberts ) will have noted the themes of viewing the changes of revolution through the prism of archaeology and how craftsmen often worked from their own homes. A theme that was amply reinforced if (as I did) you then immediately catch the second part of "A Secret History of Writing" which talked about the shop/houses in Rome of Roman booksellers.

Once again, to highlight what the fall of the Roman empire meant ... there were 29 public libraries in Rome at it's zenith, each holding tens of thousands of books.

Fast forward to 1470s, when the entire output of Bruges - Europes biggest book producer - was about 1,000 books a year.

(And why did I have to wait for the first part, last week, to discover that all alphabets have the same root ?)

@ListeningQuietly

Out of town shopping centres can be repurposed as click and collect hubs but anything based around cinemas / nightclubs / casual dining is nadgered

in City centres, retail and hospitality that catered to the masses thronging in and out of offices by public transport is nadgered

anywhere that built its retail around the day trips of cruise passengers embarking and disembarking is nadgered

basically a LOT of stuff is nadgered

and then we add in the increased costs and limits to choice that the end of transition will bring

We're back to that VW ad again ...

Just as the government relaxes planning regs, a glut of land starts becoming available.

I look forward to the creative contortions required to ensure no new houses get built, keeping up the traditions of the past 30 years.

Chersfrozenface
Do you think they ever read their own publicity?

August - "The family-owned business employs more than 200 staff across its head office in Gainsborough and creative team in Leeds, where the costumes are designed."

^“We are delighted to have re-banked with Natwest as they are a bank that truly understood, and were able to facilitate, our UK and international growth aspirations,” Elliott Peckett, director at Smiffys, told PartyWorldwide.net."

partyworldwide.net/smiffys-secures-20m-for-global-expansion/

Stunning stat about the books, DG

The Romans seem ruthless bastards to us, but that was normal for their time and they were a genuine force for good then: arts, science, roads, administration, justice, sewage ! etc

• their fall led to what I would call not just the Dark Ages, but the Dark Millenium, (1,000 after their fall, not the 1st Millenium) because it took about that long to regain much of what had been lost

Indeed, the religious wars of the Middle Ages and into the 18th century, the pogroms etc probably meant life for the ordinary pleb was worse than in Roman times, until the 19th century.

Just getting the Telly warmed up to watch tonights episode

but yes, Rome was a very cosmopolitan place the like of which did not appear in Northern Europe for a long time afterwards

I thought that they had begun to re-evaluate the Dark Ages? After all, many of Europe's ancient universities were founded in the 12th Century.

@Peregrina

I thought that they had begun to re-evaluate the Dark Ages? After all, many of Europe's ancient universities were founded in the 12th Century.

.... Only accessible to a tiny handful and "science" seemed to have forgotten some of what the Romans & Greeks had discovered