Westminstenders: The Tunnel or Bridge

[RedToothBrush]

Apparently negotiations are in the black hole of the EU tunnel or should that be on the back of the fantasy of the Boris Bridge?

Another week closer to complete meltdown.

I'm guessing that our world beating customs solution will be based on blackboard and chalk.

Boo

I'm guessing that our world beating customs solution will be based on blackboard and chalk.
Fingernails down a blackboard is actually a pretty good description of events since June 2016 !

On the previous thread, Emily asked: "Now those lighthouse labs though now struggling were full throughout the summer with Bioscience PhDs who are facing those data management challenges daily and are certainly trained in it to an even greater extent than they are in PCR reading, which is a basic skill. Could it possibly be that nobody asked a Bioscientist under 35?"

The scientists were not only not asked, they voluntarily gave their opinion that doing it with proper data science/management tools would be a good idea, and were shot down. See twitter.com/JoanaFFPViana/status/1313057989436338178. In one of Joana's other tweets she mentions being labelled "the difficult one" because of this.

Wait, where are you hearing that negotiations are in the tunnel? I haven't see this anywhere, surely it would be massive news.

I'm guessing that our world beating customs solution will be based on blackboard and chalk.

Don't be silly, that's tried and tested technology that has been shown to work. I'm thinking chalk on wet pavement, to wash away those inconvenient treaties once they've been signed.

MShip
^www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/06/uk-government-thwarting-independent-labs-efforts-to-step-up-covid-19-testing^
The Crick know what they are doing.
They have been doing it really well for months.
To exclude them from the system is tantamount to causing excess cases.

Maybe we should get our old Casio Fx31 calculators out to help PHE and then HMRC with their maths

pfff... arrived on the front page at last!
Thanks Red

I thought the UK request to enter "the tunnel" had been rejected by the EU ?

Anyway, cracking (and curiously unreported - except in the Express) news from the Lords ....

www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1344383/brexit-news-guy-verhofstadt-boris-johnson-immigration-law-free-movement-house-of-lords

Peers have now demanded a series of changes to the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill, including to ensure continued and additional help for unaccompanied child refugees. The legislation, which paves the way for a new points-based immigration system long praised by Home Secretary Priti Patel, suffered a series of damaging defeats in the upper house on Monday evening. The huge setbacks for the Government in the Lords raises the prospect of a legislative tussle with the elected House of Commons, which could take several weeks to conclude.

(contd)

PMK with my seat hogging cat.

The Crick know what they are doing.
They have been doing it really well for months.

Absolutely! Folks I know at the Crick are steaming about this - they have long lists of technicians, staff, and even students who have volunteered to work shifts in the testing lab on top of their normal work, but they don't have enough PCR machines or reagents to use all those bodies. They also have world class data scientists who are probably already providing clean files ready for direct upload into the PHE database rather than dicking about with an Excel intermediary.

.

A bit of Siamese serenity in these stressful times

BJ does indeed seem to obsessed with bridges. He's still wanting a bridge from Scotland to NI - despite this not being something that Scotland wants - and which would, if it went ahead, would divert devolved funding into something that wasn't actually a Scottish priority

Two potential routes: one over Beaufort's Dyke - a munitions dump - which, if it could even be done safely, would cost a fortune ; and the other, theoretically cheaper, would cost a fortune to upgrade the road through a rural and isolated area of natural beauty - and which, even once upgraded, would still take nearly as much time to get to the populated areas as the ferries it was supposed to replace

Added to which you would need to factor in customs/paperwork facilities at one or other (or both ) ends of the bridge in order to comply with the requirements of the NI protocol within the WA

Scotland-NI bridge considered in UK transport study https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54400541

Oh yes! The tunnel! Are we back in it again?

And to think that people laughed at my stash of canned goods and brandy.

uk.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-progress-exclusive/exclusive-big-progress-in-brexit-talks-leaves-eu-seeing-trade-deal-closer-sources-idUKKBN26R29N

That link from DGR says:

The 27 national leaders are due to meet in Brussels on Oct.15-16 to assess progress. If they decide a deal is in the making, they would authorise a final stretch of extremely secretive, make-or-break negotiations known as the “tunnel”.

So we're almost certainly going to be in at least the next thread by then!

MShip I knew it.

This does not make sense from a science / tech point of view but it does not make sense from a private sector business point of view either. You do not silence employees who raise genuine problems. In fact the whole strategic planning process should start with gathering information on your resources and the issues you face from the bottom up and an iterative process of continuing to feed that information into the planning process. Everything about this centralised testing project screams of not having put any of the normal organisational businesses strategies in place. No HR, hence running out of scientists, no tech competence, hence Excel, no alternative strategy for procuring the scarce reagents needed (the Crick back engineered the brew so they were not dependent on the limited private sector suppliers who have patented their recipes, alert: more familiar with cooking than science 😂)

The Crick have all that in place. Sir Paul Nurse and Charles Swanson May be Scientists but they know more about business than Fido Harding (and it isn’t molecular science ) . They also listen to their Bioscience PhD s even if they are under 35, women and immigrants

@JoanaFFPViana
You know when you say something and the big boys look at you like a problematic litte girl and you feel really stupid and start questioning your expertise and then 6 months later there is a national meltdown which proves you were right all along? Having one of those days...

That reminds me: I'm down to my last 17 rolls of loo roll

Must buy a new multi-pack

Just watched an excerpt of BJ's conference speech as much as I could thole

Who needs to subscribe to BritBox to get "Spitting Image"? He is more of a caricature than his own caricature - and because he is the leader of the UK

I have been watching: 'Designated Survivor' on Netflix with Ds,15, ASD, currently obsessed with US politics. It's great, but fast paced. Sometimes they squeeze too many storylines in one episode, so you might have an attempt on the VP's life AND a Tsunami AND FLotus Litigation all in one episode so it's a bit far fetched, but we're loving it.
Watching the 2nd series (filmed in 2017, so Ds informs me) and last night they dropped in a reference to Brexit. A small protectorate of the Great US of A was wanting independence. Then it got hit by the aforementioned Tsunami. Then it needed help, so changed it's mind.
But the line that got me was: US politico to protectorate politico: 'binning off a longstanding larger union that is beneficial to you is not always such a great idea - look at the UK and Brexit!' (I paraphrase but that was roughly it) Ds and I nearly fell off the sofa: so prescient!!

Thanks for the thread @RedToothBrush

www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN26R1M1?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social
How a Chilean raspberry scam dodged food safety controls from China to Canada

Food for thought...

How do we get rid of this wretched Government?

@Peregrina

How do we get rid of this wretched Government?

Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest ?

I had thought that too DGR.....

PMK thanks as ever Red & all contributors , pretty china from the charity shop bought to cheer myself up