Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,921
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 41% (+2)
LAB: 31% (-)
LDEM: 9% (-)
GRN: 8% (-1)
REFUK: 4%: (-)
via @YouGov, 12 - 13 Oct
Chgs. w/ 06 Oct
And yet!
"Shall we go, you and I, while we can? Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds"
How I Wrote Elastic Man- Registered: 5 Dec 2020
- Posts: 105
#5512
Not in the least bit surprised
It tells me
1/ The country has no effective opposition
2/ Some of the electorate are happy to believe anything they are told, even if it's a lie, as long as it fits their agenda (this applies across the spectrum)
3/ The UK political system isn't fit for purpose
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
How I Wrote Elastic Man wrote:#5512
Not in the least bit surprised
It tells me
1/ The country has no effective opposition
2/ Some of the electorate are happy to believe anything they are told, even if it's a lie, as long as it fits their agenda (this applies across the spectrum)
3/ The UK political system isn't fit for purpose
Can't help but agree on all 3 accounts. And this morning we learn that cabotage rules are being relaxed for EU drivers and an extra 800 meat processing workers will be granted visas. Oh but the problems we are currently experiencing have nothing to do with Brexit. That's just sour grapes.
Button
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,027
I guess Felixstowe's not such a happy place at the mo'!
Of course FXT's woes, over and above the Covid-related spike in container numbers, are linked to Brexit: we deliberately increased the demand for lorry drivers in the UK (cabotage) at the same time as we decreased the supply (foreign drivers). All very laudable. The snag is, we've not yet grasped the opportunity created. Guess it's one of those bumps in the road that I think IDS once coughed to.
Needless to say, the RHA sounds pretty sour at the prospect of EU hauliers undercutting UK ones all over again: "Many British hauliers will be frustrated with the likelihood their work could be going to EU firms at a time when promoting the job to a new generation of Britons was apparently the government's priority and they don't want uncontrolled immigration - which this is at least for six months".
(Not my real name.)
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
Here I am keeping this awful thread going again and no doubt incurring the wrath of the 'just get over it' brigade of those in denial.
Can you imagine a more selective piece of blame ducking mendacity that this?
https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/brexit/david-davis-gets-confused-about-why-he-resigned-from-cabinet/?fbclid=IwAR0JXGKZnk1yOwYwMoiIohPskhI8RAck8bsbQqeUFr5h9j9zlBcEfOpixa4Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,921
70 container ships stuck off California (in spite of Brexit).
"Shall we go, you and I, while we can? Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds"
Paul Watkins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 9 Nov 2011
- Posts: 2,225
A lot of French fishermen going to get stuck off Calais soon Bob. Wonder how they are
getting their boats up to Coquelles?
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
by canal paul. lol
Paul Watkins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 9 Nov 2011
- Posts: 2,225
Thanks Brian but not near enough within perimeter or outskirts to be effective. Plainly they will need different methods. The French are likely to stop those activities as on previous occasions.
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
It was a French fisherman who fired a marine flare into a UK bound freight shuttle in November 1996 which caused huge damage, had a near crippling financial effect and genuinely endangered lives. His identity was known but he was never prosecuted for the act.
Since then the UK government has spent millions on increasing security at Coquelles, mainly aimed at preventing asylum seekers from boarding shuttles. However, if you think that will prevent the Nord-Pas-de-Calais mafia from wreaking havoc if they choose to do so, then you clearly don't know how extensive their network is. It's sad but true. I worked amongst these people for 15 years and I've never known the bitterness as entrenched as it is now.
Unless they regain what they believe to be their fishing rights, then the situation will only get worse. And that's to say nothing of the asylum seeker aspect of things.
Captain Haddock likes this
Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,027
Yeah. But "They’re now British fish and they’re better and happier fish for it.”
(Not my real name.)
Paul Watkins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 9 Nov 2011
- Posts: 2,225
Flags stamped on fins.
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
Button wrote:Yeah. But "They’re now British fish and they’re better and happier fish for it.”
How should you react to a man who happily embraces stupidity to further his own ends? Davis appears genuinely thick like IDS.
Rees-Mogg is in a different league altogether.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
what, do you mean he is evan thicker than the 2 you mentiond ray
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
Brian Dixon wrote:what, do you mean he is evan thicker than the 2 you mentiond ray
Nah. Didn't mean that, Brian. Duncan-Smith was even dubbed by his own party as 'is definitely stupid'. It's quite a CV to have been blocked from further advancement in the army and kicked out of the top job by your own party.
Davis has a track record of clearly being unable to understand any issues of real complexity placed before him.
Rees-Mogg is not an aspirational politician, in my view, His motivation is money beyond all else. Check out his first BBC appearance and you'll get my drift. He's one of the many major Brexit protagonists whose motivation is purely their own advancement. Compare and contrast with John Major, David Gauke, Dominic Grieive et al who were prepared to stand on principle. The current Tory government is effectively a group of lick-spittles.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-43922740Brian Dixon likes this
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
What a surprise! Not the news itself, of course. In the long term that was always going to be the case. The surprise is the sudden spurt of honesty from the BBC on the subject. And was it mentioned in the budget speech? Nah, of course not.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59070020Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,027
Excerpt from an article on the front page of today's Sunday Telegraph concerning potential disruption by the French:
"A Whitehall source said that one idea under discussion was to offer firms "incentives" to use routes other than the "short straits" between England and France. The plan, which is at an early stage, would involve spending vast sums of money boosting infrastructure in lesser-used ports to create sufficient capacity to draw trade away from the most popular routes, including from Dover and Folkestone to Calais".
If true, that makes me more angry than I've been in quite a while - to think that my money could be wasted on such a stupid and impossible idea. I had hoped we'd heard the last of it; even the brief press description above is twaddle - the capacity you'd have to boost elsewhere is first and foremost ferry uplift and that means conjuring-up more ferries and which fit the berths at either end of the non-French routes.
I do hope this is a civil servant's whizzo wheeze because we can promptly sack him/her. If, however, it comes from a politician then that would really be cause for concern.
ray hutstone likes this
(Not my real name.)
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
The time to get angry was 5 years ago.
Brian Dixon likes this
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,921
Spooked by supply-chain disruptions, the Office for National Statistics has started to monitor supermarket and grocery shops. A survey of 288 stores suggests only patchy problems. Just 5% of sites looked low on fresh vegetables, and 6% on toilet roll. But 12% lacked chocolate selection boxes, 17% sparkling water and 18% frozen turkey.
When lorry-drivers are scarce, heavy, low-margin products like bottled water are not a priority. For other products, Christmas stockpiling could be a factor. Sales of frozen poultry in October were up 27% compared with a year ago, according to Kantar, a data firm, and those of Christmas puddings were up by a third. Scattered shortages of paracetamol are probably also related to the season: sales of cough medicine have doubled.
Economist 13 Nov
"Shall we go, you and I, while we can? Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds"
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,921
The EU's worst nightmare is a member state leaving their clutches and out-performing them. Understand this and everything becomes a lot clearer.
"Shall we go, you and I, while we can? Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds"
