Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Brexit

Westministers : Saving the Union

954 replies

RedToothBrush · 16/02/2021 23:26

Apparently we need a tunnel. Just like we needed the £53 million failed Garden Bridge.

Nice little earner for anyone involved.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
49
DGRossetti · 22/02/2021 13:04

"Dear Ladies and Gentlemen" ?

Is that a translated letter ?

Sorry that's a fucking dreadful business communication.

Just what is the point ?

LostToucan · 22/02/2021 13:16

It’s probably an internal communication.

Personally I was more interested in the substance rather than the style.

DGRossetti · 22/02/2021 13:20

@LostToucan

It’s probably an internal communication.

Personally I was more interested in the substance rather than the style.

At that level the two are inseparable.

Dear colleagues ...

Dear customers ...

Dear colleagues and customers ...

LostToucan · 22/02/2021 13:24

It’s obviously to employees, and as it’s referencing sending goods to Dartford it’s most likely originated on the continent.

I really don’t know why you’re so hooked up on the form of address - have you never worked for European companies that will start emails in this way?

LostToucan · 22/02/2021 13:28

And yes it’s an obvious translation. There’s several clues ...

ListeningQuietly · 22/02/2021 14:07

LeClerc emailed me about those Europa people.
I've worked out who they used to be at their Dartford office.

That email I'll bet originated in the Lille warehouse hubs that lots of UK companies use
(so French to English, at which point the grammar makes sense)

More interesting is why a freight company - one of the few industries to be unaffected by COVID - has taken out a £100,000 loan with a floating charge in the last three weeks.
They are clearly expecting the teething problems to last a while.

Peregrina · 22/02/2021 14:09

I used to do quite a lot of work with US companies. Quite a number started communications with

Gentlemen, (as opposed to Dear Sir or Madam)

ListeningQuietly · 22/02/2021 14:18

Mesdames et Messieurs,
Brexit est vraiment merde
Remerciement
Europea

LostToucan · 22/02/2021 14:27

German colleagues used to start emails with Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren.

As I said, it’s the content that’s interesting.

DGRossetti · 22/02/2021 17:20

As predicted ...the jobs those foreigners were doing simply will not be done by the English. Even if they're not out to sea fishing ....

www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/brexit-forces-worlds-largest-daffodil-5029137

The world’s largest daffodil grower, which is based in Cornwall, is having to let hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of flowers rot following Brexit.

Varfell Farms, at Long Rock, Penzance, produces 500 million stems a year and needs 700 workers to pick them.

However, since Covid and the end of free movement following Brexit, the business only has around 400 flower pickers as many of its workers have previously come from EU countries.

The business’ owner Alex Newey told Radio 4’s The World This Weekend that it has to let daffodils rot in the fields as a result.

“We can’t harvest them, we don’t have enough pickers to pick them. We’re losing hundreds of thousands of pounds,” he said.

Hopes that Cornish workers could step into the shoes of those who are now unable to travel from the European Union have been dashed.

“We have significant recruitment drives for local workers to come and harvest crops,” added Mr Newey. “It’s idealistic to think that because of Covid and the higher than usual unemployment rates that those people would come in and do that work.

“I would say that a daffodil harvester is to be highly respected because the work is very hard. You’re out in the cold weather, it’s in Cornwall, it blows pretty hard down there. It’s wet and you’re bending over picking daffodils for three months.

“Frankly, the people that we’ve had to come and do this work, the locals, may last a day or two days, but they certainly don’t last two or three months.”

A scheme to attract seasonal workers from other parts of the world does not currently include flower picking as part of its remit.

Clavinova · 22/02/2021 17:25

mathanxiety
Green finance hopefuls Leeds and London will have to gird their loins for already established competition from Luxemburg, Switzerland, Lagos, Astana, Singapore, Casablanca, Johannesburg, Hong Kong...
Green bond graph. Note absence of UK

The graph in your link shows the percentage of green bonds issued in 2019. Green bonds are probably one of the growth areas identified by Catherine McGuiness (political leader of the Square Mile’s ruling body) when she said; "we will make up business elsewhere.”

2020 has been a memorable year for London Stock Exchange’s Sustainable Bond Market (SBM).

Already home to the first certified green bonds out of China, India, and the Middle East, and to the first sovereign green bonds from Asia Pacific and the Americas, SBM welcomed 39 bonds raising £13bn in 2020. London’s position as the go-to venue of choice for raising green bonds was further underscored by the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcement last November [2020], stating that the UK Government will issue its first Sovereign green bond in 2021, followed by a series of further issuances to meet growing investor demand for sustainable finance instruments...

The Chancellor also announced that the UK will become the first country in the world to make reporting aligned to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) fully mandatory by 2025...

www.londonstockexchange.com/discover/news-and-insights/2020-year-green-milestones-sustainable-bond-market?lang=en

ListeningQuietly
I bet Clav is gutted she did not post that map first
(Boris Johnson’s plan to build three tunnels under the Irish Sea connecting in an “underground roundabout.”)

I haven't read the article - it seems highly unlikely that Boris Johnson came up with the idea himself - probably one of the proposals submitted by a Scottish architect. Wink

Not to be outdone - the Scottish Greens;

Edinburgh News 14 Jan 2021 -
^A £6 billion Forth rail tunnel between Kirkcaldy and Leith is proposed by Greens - your views;"

www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/opinion/letters/ps6-billion-forth-rail-tunnel-between-kirkcaldy-and-leith-proposed-greens-your-views-3094438

pointythings · 22/02/2021 17:27

Not to be outdone - the Scottish Greens;

Edinburgh News 14 Jan 2021 -
^A £6 billion Forth rail tunnel between Kirkcaldy and Leith is proposed by Greens - your views;"

www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/opinion/letters/ps6-billion-forth-rail-tunnel-between-kirkcaldy-and-leith-proposed-greens-your-views-3094438

Because that's completely comparable to a tunnel between Scotland and NI. Obviously. No difference in scale, scope, distance or technical difficulty at all. No sirree.

Clavinova · 22/02/2021 18:29

Does this mean that Daniel Lambert was right all along?

Daniel Lambert (the wine wholesaler) says he has had over 20 million views on his Twitter account now - however, I still find some of his tweets contradictory:

Yesterday he retweeted Spanish Wines Direct, via Ultracomida - showing photos of their new warehouse quickly filling up with wine;
Stock rolling in despite the inadequacy of the 80's throwback CHIEF...

He told us that the price of wine would increase because of Brexit, and yet he defends the pricing of the company he retweeted as good value. He also told us that Brexit would reduce the choice of wines we would have in the UK - because wholesalers would no longer import wines from small producers based in the EU, and yet the company he retweeted claimed the opposite only a week ago;

Getting closer to the finishing line...Think bodega, think best Spanish wine selection, think wine warehouse, think direct sourcing, think small producers...

I find some of his other tweets very political as well.

Peregrina · 22/02/2021 19:28

Of course a business man or woman is only allowed to have political opinions if they support the BeLeave Brexit cause.

Clavinova · 22/02/2021 21:00

FatCatThinCat
The EU paid for their vaccines in full up front

Your link (Guy Verhofstadt) doesn't say that;

the EU has paid €336 million upfront to support production

  • €336 million would not be enough to pay for 300 million doses - half of the total cost perhaps.
HannibalHayes · 22/02/2021 21:43

TBH, the tunnel under the Irish sea with the roundabout at the Isle of Man sound very much like a Bojo idea. Starting with the complete and utter lack of understanding that the Isle of Man is an independent country and not subject to his whims...

Tanith · 22/02/2021 21:55

"“We have significant recruitment drives for local workers to come and harvest crops,” added Mr Newey. “It’s idealistic to think that because of Covid and the higher than usual unemployment rates that those people would come in and do that work."

I can guess why so many locals won't pick his flowers for him: they probably can't afford to work for him on the wages he's prepared to pay. They have families here in this country to support and feed.
From the worker's point of view, the farmer is expecting him or her to risk losing access to the benefits they rely on (they won't be available for other work) so they can carry out a casual, poorly paid, physically hard job for a few weeks that will bring profits in for the farmer.

FrankieStein402 · 23/02/2021 06:41

www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/23/thousands-uk-language-students-limbo-brexit-hits-travel-plans

No provision was made for language students' year abroad.

AuldAlliance · 23/02/2021 08:39

I signed up about 18mths ago for the UK gvmt's daily online Brexit email.

Thought you'd like to know what today's little gem is:

Daily update from GOV.UK for:
Brexit
How to export wild caught marine fishery products to the EU from 01 January 2021

Page summary:
Fishing and seafood businesses need to prepare for 1 January 2021, the end of the transition period when there will be some new processes for exporting fish and seafood into the EU.

TartrazineCustard · 23/02/2021 09:20

@FrankieStein402

Of course not. All the headbangers cared about was shedding ALL ties with our nearest neighbours. Making a new system that actually works for Britons was always off their radar.
DGRossetti · 23/02/2021 09:28

@FrankieStein402

Why should it have been ? Languages - and indeed foreign travel - are the preserve of the well heeled and posh. Having 43 years of riff raff being able to do was only ever going to be an anomaly.
Peregrina · 23/02/2021 09:35

Assuming that the daffodil grower has been in business for many years, I wondered how his firm managed to get pickers before we were in the Common Market. Then I remembered that crop picking generally tended to be done by roving gangs of people e.g. Irish travellers, East Enders coming from London for hop picking. People they could get away with treating poorly, shall we say. Well that way of life has now gone.

So this might just be a bonus of Brexit - cheap flights enabled E Europeans to come here and be exploited - there aren't the same cheap flights from Asia, Africa and S America so the Employer may have to pay for the flights or start paying better wages to UK residents. Nice middle class people get incensed about Asian garment factories using cheap labour, perhaps it's time we thought about cheap labour nearer to home. It means a more expensive product - but we should accept that some things are priced according to how much they take to grow and harvest.

Or maybe, (shock horror), since the Rees-Mogg's of the world want to turn the clock back a century, have a scheme of directed Labour. Maybe let young people work a stint on the land in commutation of University fees. Maybe that's too Socialist for him?

Or maybe the flower grower just has to accept that this is what Market forces are like. Since Cornwall voted Leave and elected a full slate of Tory MPs, he can't really say what was coming was completely unforeseen.

Peregrina · 23/02/2021 09:37

Erasmus wasn't just for language students. But it did allow the plebs to widen their horizons.

ListeningQuietly · 23/02/2021 10:08

My child did, and LOVED their Erasmus year.
All of the friends they made and are still in touch with across the UK, Europe and the world are Science folks.
Its NOT just about rich kids learning Italian.
Its about learning to share and respect the lives of others.

No wonder the Gammons hate it.

DGRossetti · 23/02/2021 10:10

@Peregrina

Erasmus wasn't just for language students. But it did allow the plebs to widen their horizons.
Well that's been squished. It's a start.

Home owning obvious has to be fixed - far too many people owning their homes and depriving honest Tory landlords of their independent income.

Medical care is underway. Luckily Covid came at just the right time to promote a narrative that the NHS needs protecting from the ill.

Up next will be cemetery leases of 10, 15 and 25 years - make it as expensive to bury granny as it would be to house her so you can continue leeching off her savings in her grave. Also suggests a growth industry of grave bailiffs, so that's a two way winner.

And we're already familiar with the notion of putting a boy down for Eton at birth, so for the lower orders we could devise a similar scheme were you put your unborn sprog down for Starbucks or Amazon at birth. So they have a choice of where to spend their indentured life.

Swipe left for the next trending thread