FlyTheNest

Morning all.

Morning

So the BBC have finally talked to the head of the CBI about Brexit this morning. I honestly don't remember seeing an interview with him before. Very scathing about the government communication "check, change, go". Check what? Change what? Go where?

(the "all" was implied, but I'm not gifted socially)

(so I'm told)

(by people who presumably are ...)

Willow904 wrote:So the BBC have finally talked to the head of the CBI about Brexit this morning. I honestly don't remember seeing an interview with him before. Very scathing about the government communication "check, change, go". Check what? Change what? Go where?

I've been very scathing about business' failure to speak up, since before the ref.
Now when I hear them, I think, where were you?

So conditioned by the tories 'party of business' line over the years, they didn't believe this could happen.

Can't help but be reminded of how the FT so bullishly backed a Tory win in 2015, either. Stability versus chaos, they actually said.

Afternoon all. I watched the Orient game and wished I had hadn't bothered. Utter bilge.

Anyway...

Robert Jenrick controversy was factor in ethics adviser’s resignation

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... esignation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Boris Johnson’s failure to authorise an inquiry into the controversial approval of a £1bn homes project by his housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, also played a role in the recent resignation of the prime minister’s ethics adviser.

Alex Allan quit his position last month after the prime minister overruled his advice and cleared the home secretary, Priti Patel, of bullying allegations.

Legal and Whitehall sources have revealed, however, that Allan was already concerned that the prime minister had not requested an inquiry to examine the controversy around Jenrick’s backing for a housing development by billionaire Richard Desmond that would help the Tory party donor avoid tax of £45m.

I know this is obvious but it really can't be up to the PM to decide whether to refer one of his own Ministers to the ethics adviser. There needs to be someone appointed by Parliament to do this and decided independently whether to refer or not.

This apparently was John Cauldwell...talk about brass neck.

Cllr John Ferrett
@John_Ferrett
Tory donor on #bbcaq just said "I feel sorry for the government having inherited Brexit". The revisionism is astonishing - Johnson and his cabal created this nightmare.
1:31 PM · Dec 5, 2020·Twitter Web App

They've genuinely airbrushed Call Me Dave out of history, then?

This from Vanity Fair on Melissa Carone is a fabulous read.

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/1 ... ee-hearing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A depressing reality, but a fabulous read nethertheless

British journalism though. It's mostly lazy and ghoulish.

I remember when Coronation Street was ace "I wouldn't have your body Chalky Whitely if it came wi' a nest of tables" (Phyllis) or Hilda Ogden singing "I'm only a bird in a guilded cage". It was about characters, dialogue and Annie Walker needing the odd "quick lie down in a darkened room". I haven't watched it for years, but it's all evil plots, murder and general unpleasantness. It's an allegory of what's happened to British culture - including journalism - as a whole.

tinyclanger2 wrote:A depressing reality, but a fabulous read nethertheless

There is a lot wrong with US journalism, as with the country more generally.

But who can doubt they are at least doing a better job of holding this totally arrant bull***t to account than our oh so HIGHLY RESPECTED hacks would??

And here is Roseanne Roseannadanna in her original incarnation

[youtube]9hYGtXIqDa0[/youtube]

From last night...

citizenJA wrote:haggling over 85p for over 10 minutes
"I'll give you all my coinage - over 2 quid - on the condition you'll leave immediately"

I worked for family law departments in law firms for about six or seven years in the 90s and on one occasion spent a long day in court negotiating before a hearing to sort out finances on divorce, and it was a big complicated one with a house that actually had some equity, and pensions and policies and what have you, and after three hours through the morning everything was agreed apart from - and I am honestly not making this up - the sparse contents of the garden shed. 'Our' barrister said 'Right!' and went to the lovely ironmongers in the city centre at lunchtime and bought a spade, a fork and a hoe for our client and said 'Okay, now will you agree this deal'.

tinyclanger2 wrote:British journalism though. It's mostly lazy and ghoulish.

I remember when Coronation Street was ace "I wouldn't have your body Chalky Whitely if it came wi' a nest of tables" (Phyllis) or Hilda Ogden singing "I'm only a bird in a guilded cage". It was about characters, dialogue and Annie Walker needing the odd "quick lie down in a darkened room". I haven't watched it for years, but it's all evil plots, murder and general unpleasantness. It's an allegory of what's happened to British culture - including journalism - as a whole.

I don't know if was a genuine change, a co-incidence or one of those things you only see when you're looking, but I stopped watching the soaps wholesale after our first daughter was born when it seemed to me that killing or injuring a child was their standard dramatic device to move things on.

Bit of an admission here

“When we’ve discussed this with the fishing industry, the main species we export, unlike agriculture actually, the levels of tariffs on fish are manageable” - not sure Eustice meant to phrase it like that re No deal tariffs for farmers...

From Faisal Islam

From Lisa O’Carroll

Cabinet office doc seen by Guardian on no deal scene:"The likelihood of a systemic economic crisis has increased and will have major impacts on disposable incomes, unemployment, business activity, international trade/commerce, market stability, and security decisions/capability"

Oh and Good Morning!

Nice to see you PfY!
I trust all is well.

Brexit thread, says it all.

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David Henig
@DavidHenigUK
Replying to
@DavidHenigUK
No-deal is serious. Not some PM joke. Or remain campaign point. The US and EU are serious that the UK government is threatening the Good Friday Agreement. The Scots are serious no-deal means greater support for independence. Nissan are serious about leaving.

Tory ministers are scared of the ERG and their constituency party members.

Labour still seem to think that wrong is right if a big enough chunk of your voters say it is. Surely they have to move on sometime? The voters will move on without them if they don't. IMO.

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:Bit of an admission here

“When we’ve discussed this with the fishing industry, the main species we export, unlike agriculture actually, the levels of tariffs on fish are manageable” - not sure Eustice meant to phrase it like that re No deal tariffs for farmers...

From Faisal Islam

Any level of tariffs on fish are manageable, because it's utterly insignificant in the big picture.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ente ... 64640.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I wonder if he’d ever imagined seeing the world, but most of all America, brought so low in the past five years. “To be honest, no,” Byrne replies. “We’ve all had our dystopian fantasies of what could go wrong, and there’s plenty of books and TV shows that represent that. But then to see this happen… Trump was not a surprise. He is what he is. What is surprising is how many people still support him [even after the election]. When you see the coronavirus exploding across the United States, and how many dead there are, and how many people just don’t care about that or think it’s a conspiracy, you just go, ‘Wow, the country I’m living in isn’t the country I thought it was.’”

I empathise (albeit wrt a different country)

@gilsey Quite! Folk pointing out more people work for Debenhams than fish.

@tc Yes I’m fine thanks. Just very tired....

Good to see you PfY.

And you and everyone AK

Hoping for a somewhat quieter period, so more time to pop in here.

gilsey wrote:
Labour still seem to think that wrong is right if a big enough chunk of your voters say it is. Surely they have to move on sometime? The voters will move on without them if they don't. IMO.

Don't see how they can say much until we finally know if there is going to be an agreement or not?

As so often, the best strategy may be to try and ensure the Tories own whatever mess results.

Ha

Some good fish puns in this thread
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Anyone else think the EU will concede a bit on fish? So Boris can claim a great victory while caving in on the substantive issues.

Yes

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... eal-closer" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Breakthrough on fishing rights as Brexit talks hang in the balance

Meanwhile Giuliani apparently has corona

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... nald-trump" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

AnatolyKasparov wrote:

gilsey wrote:
Labour still seem to think that wrong is right if a big enough chunk of your voters say it is. Surely they have to move on sometime? The voters will move on without them if they don't. IMO.

Don't see how they can say much until we finally know if there is going to be an agreement or not?

As so often, the best strategy may be to try and ensure the Tories own whatever mess results.

Duncan Buchanan
@RHADuncanB
Only 1 thing to say today re Brexit. With a Free Trade Agreement January will be between a shambles and catastrophe for supply chains. Without agreement it won't be that good.

“A deal does not remove the need for customs declarations, import and exports procedures or regulatory barriers to trade,”

But sure, let's wait and see.

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:Anyone else think the EU will concede a bit on fish? So Boris can claim a great victory while caving in on the substantive issues.

I'm quite sure they would concede quite a lot on fish, Macron notwithstanding, if there was any sign at all of Johnson caving on LPF.
Or accepting the Lords' changes to the IMB.

It's hard to see any short-term political advantage for Johnson in agreeing a deal, given everyone will hate it?
Does he understand anything other than short-term political advantage?

This is a quite heroic effort to round up all the possible ways things can go wrong in the next few months.


Fears that UK will not cope with Brexit and Covid vaccine rollout
Staff shortages in the NHS and civil service and disruption at ports will only compound difficulties of delivery

gilsey wrote:

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:Anyone else think the EU will concede a bit on fish? So Boris can claim a great victory while caving in on the substantive issues.

I'm quite sure they would concede quite a lot on fish, Macron notwithstanding, if there was any sign at all of Johnson caving on LPF.
Or accepting the Lords' changes to the IMB.

It's hard to see any short-term political advantage for Johnson in agreeing a deal, given everyone will hate it?
Does he understand anything other than short-term political advantage?

No, but even he might understand that no deal at all now could finish him off.

Leeds very cold but not sparkly.

Went for a drink with my friend but got us both a scotch egg so it was fine.

We didn't eat them as we'd both already had our tea.

My friend has to go for an endoscopy this week. In Bradford. They told him he needed a Covid test first which is fair enough so he asked if he could have one in Leeds where he lives and they said no. So he has to catch two buses into Bradford which has a much higher Covid infection rate to have a test, then get another two buses home, before later in the week getting another two buses back into Bradford for his endoscopy.

What the fuck is going on?

[youtube]9Bul0dJVfFQ[/youtube]

The original is always best.

George Lucas fucking about with Star Wars, New Order abusing Blue Monday.

The Nineties were a dark time for those of us with taste.

[youtube]hTWKbfoikeg[/youtube]

Some of us had to deal with this shit.

[youtube]dcf19K5QFqQ[/youtube]

Some of us retreated into someone else's past. It's rather like being a "Brexiter" only much less damaging for everybody.

but
[youtube]cHLbaOLWjpc[/youtube]

That only works so many times.