Westminstenders: Disaster Capitalism.

[RedToothBrush]

An 'interesting' week. To say the least.

It has highlighted the purpose, point and weaknesses of the EU. It has revealled that the Irish Border is an ongoing issue which can not be ignored. Not only is it causing shortages in NI but it also reminds us that a zero covid strategy for the UK can not be managed unilaterally; we are not New Zealand.

It shows up the changing geo-politics of leaving. We have applied to join the Asia-Pacific free trade pact just a day after Macron told us to chose out allies and reminded us that geography and history have always tied our fate to France.

The epic fuck up of the EU has lead a rallying cry of support for leaving... but covid is currently hiding much of the reality of the implications of Brexit which will yet come out in the wash.

Brexit and Covid are tied together as conjoined twins of economic disaster though. Once restrictions start to lift, the shit will start to hit the fan. The efforts on where to aportion blame will start but it won't be on Brexit. We've known this for some time. Brexit no longer is relevant. Except of course it is. But who is writing the winner's narrative? Things are as they have always been. There is no squirrel. The squirrel is thinking that Brexit and Covid are separate things when those in charge don't.

In terms of the vaccine suggest, I think its worth reflecting on why it was successful. Johnson played the vaccine procurement like a gambler, who bet on all the horses in order to ensure we got a winner. Throwing the kitchen sink at a problem which shut the entire economy down was always the safe option. Especially when it was also a pretty certain bet that there would be unequal rollout and a shortage when one was found. If you think about it in those terms, it easier to see how this has been a success for the government: if only one vaccine was successful, we'd be grateful we'd invested in so many options. If all the vaccines came in good we'd end up in a good place. It was a win:win strategy, and one that was not that hard to do. We now find that whilst we were cutting the International Aid Budget we were also working on soft power that excess vaccine stocks and production capability bring... I note here its actually much harder to pull off successfully if you are considerably larger like the EU because of the sheer numbers involved - the dynamics always favoured the UK and I think this probably was something the UK was aware of and was worked into strategic planning. Other things will be much harder to get such easy political wins on - not least because they still involve the economics of geography and that being smaller is typically a weakness not a strength in trading - vaccines and supply shortages are the ultimate exception not the rule. The rule is proven by the EU's politicking and the threat of a vaccine trade war.

Thus the Tory Party have seen Brexit and Covid as being intrinsically linked for some time. I don't think everyone else has quite managed to wrap their head around the fact that its near impossible at this stage to disentangle to two because of this mentality.

This current batch of Tories are disaster capitalists after all, and the twin of Brexit and Covid is a gift to their ambition.

I'll just remind you what the goal really is here. Remember Johnson's speech at the Tory Party Conference in October:
www.conservatives.com/news/boris-johnson-read-the-prime-ministers-keynote-speech-in-full

We have been through too much frustration and hardship just to settle for the status quo ante – to think that life can go on as it was before the plague; and it will not. Because history teaches us that events of this magnitude – wars, famines, plagues; events that affect the vast bulk of humanity, as this virus has – they do not just come and go.

They are more often than not the trigger for an acceleration of social and economic change, because we human beings will not simply content ourselves with a repair job.

He is fully signed up to the Cummings/Gove school of thought of burn it down and rebuild afresh.

The idea that he cares about sorting out and repairing the problems Brexit brings, miss the ultimate point: He doesn't want to.

@ICouldHaveCheckedFirst

"Squabbling over whether to use red or blue ink on post-Brexit customs forms is among the problems plaguing exporters who are facing a “whack-a-mole” situation, a Scottish trade body has warned."

Good article, but it should come with a trigger warning for those with a phobia of seeing N. Farage.

Eh ?

I didn't see nasty Niges fizzogg on my page. Maybe my browser filters have started learning ?

I look forward to forms with "foreign sevens" on them being rejected too

I think these were forbidden in Maths teaching at one point, though I might be imagining it. I ignored anyway.

I cross my 7 and my Z

Have done since we joined the Common Market

I learned that from my DF before I started school.

Plus metric ...

I cross my 7 and Z as well. I have no idea why!

Is the trickle becoming a stream ?

www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/04/cancer-drugs-binned-because-of-brexit-red-tape-mps-hear

I cross my 7s, but then I am legitimately foreign.

Squabbling over whether to use red or blue ink on post-Brexit customs forms is among the problems plaguing exporters who are facing a “whack-a-mole” situation, a Scottish trade body has warned.
Sorry but that is JUST
Brits being Twats
C88 and T2 MUST be filled out in black ink (as did C16 before them)
They were always rejected if not filled out correctly
(because they were regularly forwarded by Fax)

This is just English Exceptionalism bullshit
The rules have always been there
but British companies got bloody lazy during the Single Market
and after nearly 5 years of not listening to experts
have been bitten on the bum

Ha Ferkin Ha

PS,
I drove up the M3 today
Hardly any European lorries
a few European trailers - but the tractor units were UK

Boy oh Boy is a problem brewing when the warehouses empty in the coming weeks

I had my first job in germany and we had to use blue ink for forms to distinguish the filled in bits from the form bits.

Is the trickle becoming a stream ?

Over on other threads no. More Remainers are becoming Leavers, it seems because of the vaccine roll out. Which is about the one decent thing the Johnson Government had done, and it's been put in the hands of the NHS and GPs' surgeries, and not SERCO, Capita or Dido Harding. So good old fashioned socialist medical services.

The rest are just teething troubles, they tell us. I do wonder if they are whistling in the dark. I wonder if their jobs have gone down the pan yet.

When I worked for what was then the Inland Revenue most forms had to be filled in in black. Some had to be filled in in red and some were filled in in green. Blue pens were a total no-no.

Then they computerised it all and much of the colour coding disappeared. I don't know if it got re-introduced as printers got better.

Credit has to go to crony Kate Bingham for her part in the the vaccine procurement + NHS.

Wasn’t much to do with either BJ or Handcock.

@Peregrina

Is the trickle becoming a stream ?

Over on other threads no. More Remainers are becoming Leavers, it seems because of the vaccine roll out. Which is about the one decent thing the Johnson Government had done, and it's been put in the hands of the NHS and GPs' surgeries, and not SERCO, Capita or Dido Harding. So good old fashioned socialist medical services.

The rest are just teething troubles, they tell us. I do wonder if they are whistling in the dark. I wonder if their jobs have gone down the pan yet.

Give it time.

Well lucky you, *DGR. I got treated to 2 of him. I scrolled quickly by.

I used to ensure things were signed or stamped in blue, to be able to distinguish originals from photocopies.

Red pens are for errors
Green pens are for auditors
Blue pens re for wimps
Black pens are for reality

and yellow highlighter is for comments about clients that will not photocopy

I deal with a LOT of forms that still require a "wet" signature
(the back of the sheet of paper is checked)

I remember using the wrong colour pen on anything to do with an MoD project would bring down the wrath of the project manager.

I remember using the wrong colour pen on anything to do with an MoD project would bring down the wrath of the project manager.

Tell me about it.

But really, yes, this talk of which colour pen to use is just a teething problem, which will get sorted. Having to fill in customs declarations, rules of origin and all the other things which go with it, are NOT teething problems and weren't necessary for the better part of 30 years. Gove thinks the extra time and money involved is getting Match Fit; he's a bigger fool than he looks and he looks a bit stupid anyway.

I heard of someone today who bought 8 horses in the UK - got turned around at Calais because 1 of the horses paperwork wasn't in order - even though transporter and purchaser had put days and days of research in to try and make sure they had it all sorted.
Not good for the horse industry..... why would they bother

@mrslaughan

I heard of someone today who bought 8 horses in the UK - got turned around at Calais because 1 of the horses paperwork wasn't in order - even though transporter and purchaser had put days and days of research in to try and make sure they had it all sorted. Not good for the horse industry..... why would they bother

Sounds fertile territory for insurance scams cover ...

MrsL
Its the way it is.
150 part groupage of urgent Valentines day flowers for Covent Garden Market
149 are fine
1 gets turnout and tally and problems
whole truck is held up

The rules have ALWAYS been there
NOTHING has changed
its just that the UK lost its exemption

She added if the Irish and British governments, and the European Union, "believe the way forward is to ignore the majority of people in Northern Ireland then they need to say that".

Someone should remind Arlene that the majority in NI voted to Remain.

(And the DUP are very happy to be ignored by Westminster when that suits their purposes).

This is important:
The UK and EU signed a partnership agreement on 17 December in which London agreed to grant the EU access to HMRC's data system.

In return, the EU agreed to facilitate a trusted trader scheme that simplified customs formalities. However, EU sources say access has not yet been facilitated.

Officials also say that the UK has yet to make use of other flexibilities, such as data generated when goods are shipped by ferry from Northern Ireland to Great Britain.

Such data was envisaged as providing equivalent information as so-called exit summary declarations, which are normally required when goods leave the EU's customs union...

...Mr Sefcovic, who will travel to London next week to discuss the problems, said: "I really think that if all that flexibility that we put on the table, and into that protocol, would be used to the maximum - that all of the issues which we are discussing today would be really resolved.

"So I think that we should really study how the things would look like if the UK would really use and put into practice the flexibility which we agreed upon on the 17th of December."

He added that "the United Kingdom should deliver on what they committed to do, that we would have proper implementation of the protocol. For us this is absolutely key for avoiding a hard border, for maintaining the peace, for really delivering on what we promised to the people in the Northern Ireland and Ireland.

"And therefore I think we should really focus on proper implementation, with the use of all that flexibility I mentioned, then again to start the harder renegotiation of what was agreed just six weeks ago."

After today's meeting, DUP leader and First Minister Arlene Foster said permanent solutions rather than temporary fixes were required.

In an article in tomorrow's Daily Telegraph, Mrs Foster said that the protocol "cannot work" and must be replaced.
From the RTE link: www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2021/0203/1194705-brexit/
It seems to me that Someone has thrown a spanner in the works in order to discredit the Protocol.
Someone - maybe someone else - has coincidentally ordered the graffiti, harassment, etc. in Larne.

The dishonesty and shameless bad faith of the DUP are gobsmacking. Ditto Gove's.

Never sure of the etiquette of linking to other MN threads but if you haven’t seen this, it’s hilarious and horrible in equal amounts and I think relevant to our topic here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4156623-Are-your-Zoom-meetings-ever-like-this-Parish-Council-meeting-descends-into-chaos

I had a street row with men like this (canvassing for the Brexit Party) when I challenged them to explain the difference between the Single Market and Customs Union. They couldn’t, and got quite nasty when I could.

So there is no obligation or duty for civil servants to speak out when they know the government is lying to the people ?

Duly noted.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/people-misled-on-irish-sea-border-says-ex-law-chief-3qjqwjxs7