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Post by alancalverd on Jan 29, 2019 12:47:00 GMT 1
In keeping with my East End upbringing, I shall continue to play the piano as the bombs fall.
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Post by jonjel on Jan 29, 2019 13:10:25 GMT 1
In keeping with my East End upbringing, I shall continue to play the piano as the bombs fall. A true story. A friend told me that during an air raid on Swansea his neighbour was ferreting around and not running for the shelter like the rest of the street. His wife asked what he was doing 'I am looking for my teeth woman' 'Good god Dai get your arse out of there, they are dropping bombs not bloody sandwiches!'
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 29, 2019 13:50:08 GMT 1
Here's the deal May, or whoever replaces her, should offer Brussels;
1) We grant, unilaterally (though expect this to be reciprocal), EU citizens currently resident in the UK full citizen rights.
2) We'll pay the agreed divorce bill, provided the already agreed transition arrangement and negotiations for a trade deal start forthwith.
3) We will, unilaterally (though expect this to be reciprocal), operate a Free Trade area between Ireland and the UK for goods of Irish and UK origin (and, in N.Ireland, of EU origin.)
That's all the conditions of the Withdrawal Agreement fully satisfied. It would pass Parliament unopposed, except perhaps for really diehard Remoaners, (and the SNP probably, moaning about N'Ireland's special treatment.)
There's no reason it shouldn't pass Brussels, if all they've said so far has been in good faith.
So - we proceed immediately to negotiations for a trade deal. Under WTO rules, no tariffs need to be applied while these negotiations are ongoing, for up to ten years.
Nothing changes, therefore.
This is why Brussels would be reluctant to accept this, I suggest. We haven't suffered, and be seen to suffer.
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Post by alancalverd on Jan 29, 2019 18:35:34 GMT 1
Seems remarkably generous. The general principle is OK but I think UK citizenship should be offered only to those who were here on the day of the referendum.
No conditions on the divorce bill - simply pay whatever we have agreed to in the past, on delivery of whatever it was we agreed to buy. Ongoing commitments like pensions can be rolled up into a present capital sum by any competent actuary, then paid off over, say, 5 years. Not that £39bn is all that much: spread over 5 years it works out at around £5 per taxpayer per week, around one fifth of the money we are currently losing in net trade with the EU, and it will all be over by 2025.
Free trade? For the time being, goods to EU standard are entirely acceptable in the UK. We can simply adopt tit-for-tat tariffs wherever and whenever the EU imposes import duties on UK goods. We will gradually revert to or adopt higher standards of safety that make sense for, say, electrical equipment and safety at work, and possibly ban food products that do not meet UK standards of animal welfare. How the UK trades with non-EU countries , or what standards we apply to non-export products, is nobody else's business.
Bleating about workers' rights will be dealt with by simply requiring the Labour Party to get on with the job it was set up to do instead of delaying the implementation of a referendum result and pretending that Big Brother Brussels cares a damn about employees. Select candidates with integrity and trade union backgrounds instead of oily professional politicians, and make your point in Parliament.
The Irish border question is still a bit of a mystery. The Republic is not a Schengen signatory, so entry by air or sea requires a passport check and, since there is at present no check at the land border, we must assume that all visa requirements, no-fly lists etc are shared between the UK and the Republic. Thus no requirement for any personal checks in future. But there are significant differences in VAT, fuel, tobacco, alcohol and other duties, different currencies, and different rates of personal and corporate taxation, so whatever border trade arrangements are in place now, will suffice until the EU decides to change them. None of our business, and I very much doubt that the Irish government will be keen to implement any changes.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 29, 2019 22:58:24 GMT 1
Seems remarkably generous. Hmmm...perhaps. I see no reason not to be generous, especially if it doesn't cost us anything. Wellll...yes. I really meant those who had been here for five years - that's the rule most of the EU operates. Yes, I agree, but I think to raise this issue again will only guarantee bitterness and opposition. If they don't agree with these perfectly reasonable and mutually beneficial terms, then by all means, there's no reason to be emollient, and we can quite justly refuse to pay anything more than we legally owe. Officially, they're worried about us being used as a springboard into their market. Silly really - the rules on country of origin are clear enough, though labyrinthine, and the market is awash with paperwork requirements: no one could get away with trying to circumvent their regs for long, and their fines for those they catch are notoriously swingeing. I don;t think anyone reallybelieves that baloney about workers' rights, environmental protections, and the like. It's the only reason they can think of for not supporting May's deal. The beauty of my proposal, other than its obvious simple logic, is that it throws the ball back into their court. The EU will be ordering Eire to impose their own border controls, when we've dispensed with them, with no reason for them other than to satisfy Brussels' anal demand for a unified set of rules across the EU. But they've already acknowledged the island of Ireland is a special case, requiring special treatment, hence this backstop demand, so this doesn't wash. I don't believe the Irish would go along with it. 80% of their trade is with us. If Brussels insisted, the demands for their own in-out referendum would be irresistible. At the moment, Ireland likes the EU - don't ask me why, after the way they were treated in the banking crisis (widespread ignorance, I think) - but that won't last if they're ordered to impose a hard border, for no reason at all.
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Post by alancalverd on Jan 30, 2019 0:33:10 GMT 1
Officially, they're worried about us being used as a springboard into their market. And there's the nub and the truth. There's no way the EU is going to prevent or inhibit anyone exporting anything to the UK any more than they discourage exports to Switzerland. Not a lot of lettuce, oranges, or medical radionuiclides - today's Remoaner scare story - are produced in Switzerland, nor do I see queues of lorries at the border with this rogue foreign state at the heart of the EU. The radionuclide scare is utter garbage. Right now, the UK exports all sorts of radionuclides all over the world (not much to the EU), not by truck and ferry, but by air. It's a major part of one of my businesses, designing storage and handling facilities at airports to get the stuff to the Middle East, Malaysia, Pakistan.....whilst it's still hot enough to be useful. Today's Channel 4 Dire Warning was that radioactive cargo coming from Belgium would have to come by air post-Brexit - about bloody time too! The aggravations in this business are mostly caused by road traffic holdups and frankly, road transport in a small van is the most dangerous and least secure part of the entire exercise because it is dependent on the goodwill and expertise of the million morons who share the road, not the half dozen trained operators who move it at twenty times the speed, way above the weather, between secure locations inside airport fences. We've been shifting this stuff through every cargo airport in the UK for years. Not news.
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Post by alancalverd on Jan 30, 2019 0:43:26 GMT 1
At the moment, Ireland likes the EU - don't ask me why, after the way they were treated in the banking crisis (widespread ignorance, I think) - but that won't last if they're ordered to impose a hard border, for no reason at all. Something to do with the wonderful, empty motorways and state-owned railways paid for by the British taxpayer, perhaps. And interesting to note, re state ownership, that half the garages in the Republic are run by Statoil - 67% owned by (and profits returned to) the Norwegian taxpayer, in defiance of EU regulations.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 31, 2019 0:28:54 GMT 1
Officially, they're worried about us being used as a springboard into their market. And there's the nub and the truth. There's no way the EU is going to prevent or inhibit anyone exporting anything to the UK any more than they discourage exports to Switzerland. Not a lot of lettuce, oranges, or medical radionuiclides - today's Remoaner scare story - are produced in Switzerland, nor do I see queues of lorries at the border with this rogue foreign state at the heart of the EU. The radionuclide scare is utter garbage. Right now, the UK exports all sorts of radionuclides all over the world (not much to the EU), not by truck and ferry, but by air. It's a major part of one of my businesses, designing storage and handling facilities at airports to get the stuff to the Middle East, Malaysia, Pakistan.....whilst it's still hot enough to be useful. Today's Channel 4 Dire Warning was that radioactive cargo coming from Belgium would have to come by air post-Brexit - about bloody time too! The aggravations in this business are mostly caused by road traffic holdups and frankly, road transport in a small van is the most dangerous and least secure part of the entire exercise because it is dependent on the goodwill and expertise of the million morons who share the road, not the half dozen trained operators who move it at twenty times the speed, way above the weather, between secure locations inside airport fences. We've been shifting this stuff through every cargo airport in the UK for years. Not news. That's a bit alarming! What sort of quantities are we talking about? Dangerous, if there's an accident? I know there are officially three nuclear warheads still unrecovered, sitting on the seabed - one off Spain, two off the East Coast of the States - one reportedly in a river estuary in South Carolina or somewhere near there, slowly corroding away. Air travel might be safer, statistically, but... A bigger question - no, a wider one, perhaps - why if we export all sorts, are we importing any at all? Wider in the sense of: the same goes for almost anything else. I;m not saying I want Britain to be an island...a siege economy...but what happened to us? Buy a foreign car in France and the chances are it'll be keyed within a week. Maybe something to do with being invaded and occupied...they understand something, fundamental, we forgot somewhere along the way.
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Post by alancalverd on Jan 31, 2019 1:48:13 GMT 1
If a radionuclide is intended to be injected into patients, it can't be all that dangerous! Anyway there are various forms of approved packaging from twerp-proof to bomb-proof, depending on the contents, and unlike nuclear warheads, they aren't explosive.
There is a two-way trade because some radionuclides are neutron-rich and generally made in reactors, and others are neutron-deficient, generally made in accelerators. The capital kit is hugely expensive and very different, so factories tend to specialise on one or other type.
The sad thing is that the once-proud state-owned major UK production facility was privatised, eventually ending up in American hands, and is being gradually shut down in favor of a newer factory in Germany - just one of the many "benefits" of EU membership, apparently.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 31, 2019 11:14:37 GMT 1
If a radionuclide is intended to be injected into patients, it can't be all that dangerous! I'm not a doctor, doctor, but I imagine the danger probably depends on the dosage? The missing ones weren't armed - the USAF flew around the States around the clock with thousands of them on board, but there's a difference between mad and insane. If I was living in Charleston or Charlotte or Richmond or wherever else is downriver from a lump of plutonium sitting in the mud for over fifty years, I don;t think I'd be putting much faith in the approval of any sort of packaging manufacturer. "Globalisation", not "privatisation", is the appropriate villain, then, I would suggest. The reason any sort of tariff regime exists anywhere, including in the EU. The answer to a faltering economy is not for the State to come in and own and run everything, but for the State to establish and maintain the conditions that enable and promote competitive activity. A crazy idea, but I just throw it out there.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 31, 2019 11:51:55 GMT 1
At the moment, Ireland likes the EU - don't ask me why, after the way they were treated in the banking crisis (widespread ignorance, I think) - but that won't last if they're ordered to impose a hard border, for no reason at all. Something to do with the wonderful, empty motorways and state-owned railways paid for by the British taxpayer, perhaps. And interesting to note, re state ownership, that half the garages in the Republic are run by Statoil - 67% owned by (and profits returned to) the Norwegian taxpayer, in defiance of EU regulations. EU regulations turn out to be very flexible - the French have just broken the Stability Pact, presumably to save Macron's patrician neck, and will end up having Merkel's finger wagged at them a bit, somewhere down the line. Unlike the Club Med or their East European counterparts, who have either had their governments summarily dismissed for such impertinence, or had their entire populations signed up to debt servitude to German banks for the next thirty years. Talking of which, I'll have to look up in The Big Short the figure every Irish citizen ended up in debt for the EU to deign to bale out their (privately owned) banks, who were going under because they owed over a hundred billion to (privately owned) German banks - somewhere north of ten grand apiece, man woman and child, if I recall correctly. Talking of Norway, I was listening to the Nigel Farage show on LBC last night, to hear his take on the latest machinations, seeing as he has a ringside seat. According to him, he's been given various nods and winks and whispers from the EU side that they're preparing the ground - with the cooperation of the British negotiating side - for the "Norway option". Rudd's preemptive move would thus make sense, if he's passing on genuine intel.
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Post by jonjel on Jan 31, 2019 13:10:14 GMT 1
The dose would probably be less than if you lived in parts of Cornwall and were subjected to the natural radiation from the rocks beneath your feet.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 31, 2019 14:06:34 GMT 1
The dose would probably be less than if you lived in parts of Cornwall and were subjected to the natural radiation from the rocks beneath your feet. That's the sort of thing the US used to tell the Marshall Islanders, as they cued up at the overflowing DoD supplied cancer and birth defect clinics.
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Post by jonjel on Jan 31, 2019 16:03:04 GMT 1
The dose would probably be less than if you lived in parts of Cornwall and were subjected to the natural radiation from the rocks beneath your feet. That's the sort of thing the US used to tell the Marshall Islanders, as they cued up at the overflowing DoD supplied cancer and birth defect clinics. That my friend is a totally different matter. The radiation on the Marshall Islands was the result of deliberate nuclear explosions/tests, not accidental or incidental release. I am working back through my memory but I think I am right in saying it is the particles of plutonium which are lethal, and they are contained. The radiation occurs after it has been forced into a critical mass by the surrounding high explosive in the bomb. The radiation from igneous rock is different, mainly radon gas which in itself is active. But far more knowledgeable people on here will explain it much better.
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Post by alancalverd on Jan 31, 2019 22:05:54 GMT 1
"Globalisation", not "privatisation", is the appropriate villain, then, I would suggest. The reason any sort of tariff regime exists anywhere, including in the EU. The answer to a faltering economy is not for the State to come in and own and run everything, but for the State to establish and maintain the conditions that enable and promote competitive activity. A crazy idea, but I just throw it out there. In the case of the nuclear products industry, it was originally owned by the state as a spinoff from weapons and power generation, then privatised under EU/Thatcher dogma, and the majority shareholding was eventually bought by GE (the American General Electric, not GEC which had been broken up and bankrupted by Weinstock). From GE's point of view it's better to build a new factory anywhere (i.e. Germany, where money is cheaper) than to decommission an old nuclear plant whilst you try to build a new one on the same site, so the UK loses a key industry whilst US and German shareholders make a profit.
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