CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Times reporting that farmers in England will be offered five years' CAP payments up front to exit the business. (£)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/payoffs-for-farmers-to-attract-new-blood-v7mpsp5jq
The Norman Conquest is going to look like a thé dansant when this lot are done in a couple of years.
“
Entrepreneurs with new ideas for more productive and sustainable farming will be helped to join the industry under changes to agricultural policy in England, the government has promised.
“
Well yes but.
To date, ‘more productive’ has generally gone with ‘less sustainable’ - eg more inputs (fertiliser etc) and fewer hedges etc.
This is due to Gov policies which came with the subsidies. Whether this was all just the passing on of EU/CAP requirements or mostly UK rules I don’t know.
The idea now (apparently) is to pay farmers to look after the land/undo some of the damage of past decades.
This ‘pay farmers to retire’ scheme may cost a lot and have few noticeable benefits.
Additionally there are two questions -
Why is this only just happening so close to the end of ‘transition’ and ‘what’s happening in Scotland’?
Why is this only just happening so close to the end of ‘transition’
Flash-bang smoke grenade. The assault troops are about to come through the upstairs windows.
If you move house between Northern Ireland and England, Wales or Scotland after the New Year you'll need a manifest of the van contents and a customs agent.
Damn the SNP for tearing Britain apart.
HMRC first estimate is eleven million customs declarations annually for the Great Britain/Northern Ireland border the Conservative and Unionist party are installing across their own country.
Even ten years ago this would have counted as pushing satire too far.
Cutting red tape and taking back control...
"UK vaccine approval: Did Brexit speed up the process?" No, it didn't, and Tories were wrong to say it did. BBC report
It's mad how the Big Lie of Brexit has now caused lying to be endemic in the London regime. There are good reasons for being outside of the EU but they needed to be honest about the fact that Northern Ireland isn't really allowed to leave as long as Ireland is a member.
And they never even mentioned any of the actual advantages like being outside the odious CAP. But being outside the single market is punitive and they just can't face that fact.
“
The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has claimed the UK was the first country in the world to clinically approve a coronavirus vaccine because the country has “much better” scientists than France, Belgium or the US.
Williamson said he was not surprised the UK was the first to roll out the immunisation because “we’re a much better country than every single one of them”.
Asked whether Brexit was to credit for the world-first, Williamson told LBC radio station on Thursday: “Well I just reckon we’ve got the very best people in this country and we’ve obviously got the best medical regulators.
“
Williamson will be getting a phone call off David Frost that will make him wish he was getting an iceaxe between the eyes instead.
The Brits just announced that they think they're better then the people they're negotiating a massive trade deal with.
"we’ve got the very best people in this country"
Even if this brag were true, it's most likely that those "very best" people actually came here from other EU nations (or indeed the world) and were attracted here for whatever reason...
It seems odd that for once we seem to get things right, be ahead of the curve and not trailing the rest of the world, but yet are still somehow able to shoot ourselves in the foot with it.
Maybe he was playing to the viewpoint of the audience, I don't know, but what a silly thing to say.
That said when we do get things right - and apparantly we have here - they are still going to get ribbed, so there is no winning (even if you have shot your foot).
Mind you, there is still lots of screwing up to be done! So long as the politicians north and south of the border leave the getting on with it to our NHS and military, and don't start meddling we'll be alright.
But Brexit, set to take full effect on January 1st, now requires the urgent invention of another word to capture the simple reality that the self-harm inflicted on the British people, across so many areas of their lives, is the direct effect of Brexit itself and of the hard version of it pursued by the Johnson government. Many people, of course, understand this well both in Britain and around Europe. But if this elementary reality has to be explained every time that British tabloids express astonishment at the latest materialisation of the bleeding obvious, we may lose the will to live.[quote]
@paddyirish According to BBC article yesterday (of course I can't find the link now, I'll look again), the MHRA has had early access to all of the data, which is what has allowed the early approval, so it wasn't a decision made in 10 days as suggested by the article.
Apparantly the data has been in the community for a while. Scientists at my Uni have been studying it for a good while, and according to our Senior management team at end of September, they thought the data was good then. That's why they have all been on the tellybox saying how +ve this is. Including those scientists who have been very critical of Govt.
Of course, only time will tell...
How long can the Belgian phizer vax wait at UK customers before becoming untenable?
It won't be subject to UK of GB&(NI) customs because there won't be any. Export clearance from the EU who knows?
Channel 4 News just claimed ‘chance of deal receding - EU wanting more’.
'Prospect of breakthrough receding' in UK-EU talks
Brexit talks falter as UK claims EU is hardening negotiating stance
Progress stalls as robust lobbying from France alleged and tussle ensues over UK subsidies regulator
Seems to me the Downing Street "sources" are trying to get the blame apportioned ahead of No Deal. "It wisnae us, a big boy dunnit and ran away".
OTOH maybe it's still all shadow boxing.
"The wobble in the talks could tee-up a long-expected arbitration meeting between Boris Johnson, and the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. It has long been thought that the choreography of a deal would require a stormy moment before agreement was finally signed at a political level."
They think they can do a last-minute thing because they're used to doing what they think of as last minute deals with the EU.
What they were actually doing was last minute deals with their fellow EU members. Internal things in the EU go to the wire.
External deals the EU shrugs and suggests they try again in a year or two. They are rich and powerful, the Brits are weak and friendless.
There will be some grim humour in seeing the USA yank their chain very hard if they mess with Ireland. "Do as you're told or no more Trident rockets" is not something they can ignore. The EU can just shrug and put us on a herring, kale and potatoes diet until London gives in.
@IWRATS - what! Now we have a nationwide breakdown of the sewerage system to look forward to as well!
Professional persons trying to help politicos plan for the coming months should certainly raise the possibility of sewers backing up. Also the dead rising from their graves etc.
"herring, kale and potatoes diet"
If nothing else, at least a healthy balanced meal. Could get a bit monotonous after the first few days mind you.
It did us well enough between 1740 and 1955. Strong, martial Britons nourished with good, simple food conquered three quarters of the world.
Add in a few oatcakes, porridge, peas pudding and some ship's biscuit for the authentic Imperial diet of the commoner...
If I remember rightly there is vats of claret too.
"vats of claret" - maybe for the officer class and a few merchants. Not for the likes of us. Some ale to drink maybe, the water's likely to make you ill. Or if en route to a far flung imperial territory, there's grog.
I hereby propose that HM Imperial Navy bring back the daily rum ration - half a pint exactly. Should keep the ratings contented. After all it was only abolished in 1970 (1990 in New Zealand!):
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