Sunlit uplands. Are we there yet?

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Do you think having Billy Bragg and William Wragg in the same place would tear a hole in the time/space continuum?

[TheCat]

The world was such a better place while this thread was on hiatus for the past 2 weeks....

Let the pettiness return it seems....

[j.a.]

So?

You liked it when the thread went quiet?

?and somehow when a few posts were made you felt the need to point out how things are now worse?

?you know you could, just, kind of?ignore it?

Sometimes it?s best to let go tbh.

[TheCat]

j.a. Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

>

> Sometimes it?s best to let go tbh.

Exactly.

[Spartacus]

Dogkennelhillbilly Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Do you think having Billy Bragg and William Wragg

> in the same place would tear a hole in the

> time/space continuum?

Too late for a sonic screwdriver to stop it now 😱

[Seabag]

Well, there you go.

Brexit votes writ large. Winning votes that is.

[diable rouge]

Ooooh, those nasty Remainer types, writing nasty things about Brexit, how very dare they!

Never mind, here's something fluffy and adorable for the pussies among us to look at...

That's right Tiddles, roll over and have your tummy tickled while Daddy sticks his head in the sand

[TheCat]

As I said....let the pettiness return it seems....

[Sephiroth]

Pointing out the seriousness of the problems hasn?t worked with you.

And we have nothing but a petty useless government behind a petty useless project.

So it?s not amazingly surprising

I know the attempted lofty ?ugh. You people and your childishness? is meant to convey some gravitas. But it doesn?t work with likes of Rees mogg and it doesn?t work with you

If people bring up important subjects like Northern Ireland peace or 17 mile tailbacks, you could engage properly

[diable rouge]

''I know the attempted lofty ?ugh. You people and your childishness? is meant to convey some gravitas.''

Cat is aptly named, as any feline owner will tell you, cats love to sit up high and look down on those around them...

[Sephiroth]

More petty people here

I mean jeez. Just shut up already guys. Stop being so petty. Some of us are thinking about the bigger picture yeah? Like GDPR? Hello?

And here you are bleating about, oh I dunno. I tuned out after www.gr

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/23/brexit-leaves-furious-british-citizens-stranded-in-eu-countries?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[JohnL]

Don't worry Truss is negotiating with Maros Sefcovic intensely

She always looks like the world is passing her by.

[diable rouge]

A couple of snippets from law and policy commentator David Allen Green...

''The way this government is collapsing over Covid regulations chaos should have been how this government should have collapsed because of Brexit chaos

Only the hyper-partisanship of the Brexit issue saved it

The shambles is not new - only that it cannot be hidden behind Brexit''

This is so true, but it actually all started with the Owen Patterson scandal, similar to Partygate in that it couldn't be 'protected' by Brexit.

This Gov and PM have done far worse things under Brexit than anything Partygate has thrown up, but they were conveniently ignored or clapped and cheered through by Brexiters.

It will be interesting to see whether Johnson's reputation getting trashed even further over Partygate, will also eventually rub-off onto Brexit itself. Johnson was very much the face and lies of Brexit.

''The irony of the cakeist Prime Minister being brought down by a cake.

He wanted to impose the rules on the rest of us but not on himself.''

Irony indeed, after all it was Johnson who said during Brexit negotiations ''We can have our cake and eat it too'', obviously a mantra his privileged life has allowed him to follow. Until now...

[Sephiroth]

Cat has an article published in telegraph today.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/26/conservatives-face-1997-style-annihilation-dont-stop-drift/

[JohnL]

He said "Total Rhubarb" today.

[Sephiroth]

You would think, almost 6 years after the referendum, better plans would be in place for things like this wouldn't you?

I would suggest that if the country can't get it's shit together for something like this in 6 years, the prospect of it doing anything better after 10, 20 or even 50 years isn't great

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/27/british-farmers-call-for-summit-on-worsening-pig-cull-crisis

[TheCat]

Sephiroth Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Cat has an article published in telegraph today.

>

>

> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/26/conser

> vatives-face-1997-style-annihilation-dont-stop-dri

> ft/

You are accurate. I agree with this article

Let's not rehash and try and pick apart the detail of why....it's been done.

But an accurate comment from your good self....

[j.a.]

While I appreciate the lack of nuance in this post, all I can say is?

?nice, real f*?+ing nice?

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/levelling-up-in-doubt-as-ps1bn-a-year-cut-from-post-brexit-regional-funding-mps-warn-rishi-sunak-3543409

Once again they?re going to f? over the North.

They?ve learned *NOTHING*.

ETA - I can swallow Brexit, I can learn to live with it, if it delivers on those promises to enhance the lives of people on those regions that were decimated by the (checks notes), ah yes, the various Tory governments of the past forty years (again lack of nuance acknowledged but I?m not far off).

But that seems??in doubt.

[Sephiroth]

"You are accurate. I agree with this article "

It's a free country. But it doesn't speak well of you or the author

[TheCat]

Sephiroth Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> "You are accurate. I agree with this article "

>

> It's a free country. But it doesn't speak well of

> you or the author

and thats exaclty why this thread is toxic......you have to judge a mans chracter becuase of a view he holds.

totally unnessary.

[Sephiroth]

"judge a mans chracter becuase of a view he holds"

without being toxic, we, all of us, judge people's character because of views they hold

To take one example - You and I probably share the same judgement of Jeremy Corbyn, precisely because of the views he holds. And we are correct

[malumbu]

A Judas Priest song played backwards always works for me, or from the 'Shining' red rum, red rum, RED RUM, RED RUM

When we were young some kids were into motorbikes and would try to make the sound of them (more like flatulence)

[Sephiroth]

Speaking of people with views completely out of touch with the real world - we have Frosty in today's Sun saying

""If we are making things more expensive or peoples lives more complicated, then we are getting it wrong""

without any sense of irony or self-awareness

That is LITERALLY what his deal that he created and urged the country to vote for did, does and will continue to do

[diable rouge]

Frosty has become Gaslighter-in-Chief, while simultaneously being held up as some sort of Brexit intellectual by Leavers. Well, quite.

Guess who's going to have to pick up the tab for the incompetence.

From a cityam* report earlier in the week...

The political choice of Brexit has cost UK businesses as much as the unforeseeable Covid pandemic.

British companies have lost over ?250bn to Covid and an equal amount to Brexit by the end of 2021, but the Brexit tally is now rising faster,

The Centre for Economics and Business Research found that Covid-19 lockdowns had cost UK businesses ?251bn by March of last year.

It revealed the value of the goods and services produced by the economy was more than ?250bn lower than it would otherwise have been.

It calculated the Gross value added (GVA), which measures the value of the goods and services produced by the economy, minus the costs of inputs and raw materials needed to deliver them.

Covid-19 cost small businesses alone an estimated ?126.6bn, according to the business insurer Simply Business, while a November 2021 Government report revealed the UK lost almost ?365 billion in GDP from Covid overall.

Commenting on the figures, David Jinks, who is head of consumer research at delivery firm ParcelHero, said: ?British businesses have had a torrid few years.?

?Brexit or Covid, which has been the heavier burden for them to bear? The shocking answer is that the entirely avoidable Brexit crisis has had as much of an impact on UK businesses as the unforeseeable Covid-19 tragedy, and its costs are still rising,? he added.

?No one could have foreseen the arrival of the pandemic and there was little that could have been done to shield UK businesses in advance. However, this is certainly not the case for the impact of Brexit on UK businesses,? Jinks said.

The confrontational handling of trade negotiations with the European Union made ?a bad situation worse,? he stated.

Before Brexit had even happened, a 2020 report by Bloomberg Economics revealed that, by the end of that year, the economic cost of Brexit already exceeded ?200bn in lost revenues to UK companies. It calculated the British economy was 3 per cent smaller than it otherwise would have been.

Since Brexit actually happened, on 1 January, 2021, the UK Trade Policy Observatory reveals that the reduction in trade has lost UK businesses a further ?44bn.

?That breaks down to ?32.5bn lost in potential imports to the UK and ?11bn in exports to the EU,? Jinks pointed out.

The UK Government splashed a further ?8.1bn on preparing for Brexit and the end of the transition period, according to the Institute for Government.

?In our view, that was money that should have been spent on promoting UK trade across the EU and beyond, not battening down the hatches,? noted Jinks.

The figures mean that the combined costs of Brexit and of the pandemic both equal around ?250bn.

However, in the long term, Brexit could end up costing even more than Covid-19.

Thomas Sampson, Associate Professor at the London School of Economics, said: ?When measured in terms of their impact on the present value of UK GDP, the Brexit shock is forecast to be two to three times greater than the impact of Covid-19.

Moreover, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) told the BBC last October that leaving the EU would ?reduce our long run GDP by around 4 per cent.?

It is believed the effect of the pandemic will reduce GDP output by only a further 2 per cent.

With the end of lockdown and travel restrictions, the impact of Covid measures is now receding but the Brexit bill continues to mount.

The most recent Government Business Insights report has revealed that, last month, 66 per cent of UK businesses experienced challenges with exporting and 79 per cent with importing.

?This has had a knock-on effect on transport and logistics companies. A staggering 36.7 per cent of transport and logistics companies either closed, paused trading entirely or continued trading only partially in December,? Jinks shared.

This is only how much the loss of physical goods sales has cost.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies say exports of professional services to the EU slumped from 44 per cent of the UK?s entire international services trade in 2016, before Brexit negotiations got underway, to just 30 per cent in 2021. It forecast a net drop in overall UK services exports.

*The cityam editor is (was?) pro-Brexit

[Sephiroth]

I know - but I still think this is simpler

"""If we are making things more expensive or peoples lives more complicated, then we are getting it wrong"" "

you can publish all of the critiques you like - but if senior brexit people are saying they didn't expect leaving SM and CU to make things more expensive for people, or make their lives more complicated - well... what can you say? They know nothing