1) A containerful of shoddy training shoes are produced in China, shipped to UK, sorted by lowly paid British zero hours workers and put on shelves of High Street sports shop.
2) While this is happening, sterling plunges 25%.
3) Coachload of Chinese tourists visit sports shop attracted by collapsed pound sterling. They exclaim “Wow Western trainers! And so cheap”. They buy them to take back to China as gifts for family members they don’t like that much.
4) Declare a Brexit sales boom!
The expert among you will have noted this economic model is not very sustainable.
I have little doubt that the Leave campaign was orchestrated by a combination of unscrupulous businesses wanting to buy up assets on the cheap and foreign governments jealous of Britain’s power and status.
Unfortunately, we have become so complacent as a nation that even some of our leading politicians appear to be merely putty in the hands of these people, while the gullible masses lap up the political propaganda they read amid the celebrity drivel.
Needless to say, four months after the referendum result, everyone has lost money except the rich.
Tom, my understanding was that an unholy alliance of almost all the political parties, almost all businesses, alll banks and all of the media were fanatically in favour of the United Kingdom staying in the hated European Union.
The politicians were wanting to stay so they could take their places next to Neil Kinnock and thrust their pig like features deep into the trough of public money,
perhaps I misunderstood?
… everyone has lost money except the rich.
Because they own the printing machines and thus believe they own everything else!
Hang onto your hat, there is more to come. Those “opining” are regurgitating “the mims they have thought all by themselves”; facts (there are plenty of these around) indicate otherwise.
Theresa May’s poll ratings are stratospheric compared to Jeremy Corbyn’s numbers. YouGov’s latest opinion poll has Corbyn on a net approval rating of -40. May is on +31. That means Corbyn is -71 behind the Prime Minister. Guido can’t recall a bigger margin this century.
Guido Fawkes
Downing Street briefs openly and privately that there will be no early election – despite an 18% lead with Ipsos Mori – yet the nagging doubt remains. What could be the catalyst for a change of attitude is losing the Brexit court case being pursued by die-hard Remainers. This constitutional conundrum could be solved by winning a mandate, possibly even a mandate to negotiate without publicly revealing the details of the government’s negotiating strategy. This may prove very tempting to Theresa May with the small majority she owes to Cameron.
According to the latest projection, based on the old boundaries, May would gain a 40-seat majority and unstoppable momentum for Brexit. It seems likely that if the Remainiacs win their court battle, they will lose the war…
Do you still believe polls/betting etc?
Wow.
Unfortunately, Craig, it is sustainable, just horrible. It would be nice – it would be magical – if horrible meant impossible, but it doesn’t. As I’m sure you know from your own diplomatic experiences.
“The UK imports just over 40% of its food requirements and about 60% of its energy requirements. Importing food and energy may be idiotic, wasteful and unsustainable, and it may indeed harm both consumers and producers alike – but what is the alternative?”
The obvious alternative is to produce more food in Britain. The reason that Britain is dependent and has been since the early C19th on imported food is that its rulers make that choice. There would be no problem in producing enough decent food for the population, but land nationalisation and farming on smallholdings-emphasising horticulture rather than agriculture-would probably be necessary
“Try to imagine what the UK would look like if 40% of its food supply and 60% of its energy requirements disappeared. It is not even clear that you could grow more food as modern agriculture is crucially dependent on oil. Indeed it is possible that the curtailment of energy supplies means that less food could be grown…”
Modern agriculture might be crucially dependent on oil-which appears to be a non renewable resource- but it shouldn’t be. It is because landowners don’t want to pay labour and find it easier to pour chemicals on the land than to farm sustainably. They know that this costs them yields but they don’t care all they are concerned about is the return on capital invested. So far as energy supplies are concerned, there are many alternatives to the current system which largely consists of importing oil and gas. And engaging in suicidal experiments with nuclear power.
As i said in my first post, earlier today, we are still using the language of Malthus, Smith and the early C19th. It is the language of an ideology of Empire, a Free Trade Empire in which British agriculture was so cheerfully traded off (together with the rural labourer) for cheap food from stolen land (Saskatchewan, for example) and raw materials to feed manufactures whose labour costs were minimised by…cheap food. The UK took a turn away from self sufficiency in food two centuries ago and part of the bargain made was that labourers would be left to starve to death, as happened in Ireland notoriously and throughout the UK, while food land was turned into game preserves for stockbrokers to hunt and shoot over.
Yes what a good idea. Let’s uninvent the tractor. Let’s abolish herbicides and have 30 peasants in every field toiling away on their hands and knees. What’s more, let’s put Bevin in charge of this rural utopia and call him Pol Pot.
Bevin, you are clearly a well read person with much to say that is of interest. But…Do you not see that things are far complicated than you are willing to accept. Your latest thoughts serve to demonstrate the limitations of the Marxist theory you seem so slavishly devoted to.
What is it about Malthus that you find so objectionable? When he wrote his essay on the Principle of Population, global population stood at somewhere between 813 million and 1.125 billion. Today global population stands at 7.4 billion with a consensus estimate that it will rise to 11.2 billion by the end of the century.
It has only been possible to feed these people through the application of industrial techniques to agriculture. Look at a graph comparing energy consumption, food production, and population – you will find a remarkable correlation – and it is energy consumption that underpins the rises in food production and population growth.
Yes things could be organized differently so that the rich are rewarded less and the poor rewarded more – but this is all superficial. Such changes would not impact the fundamental dynamic at play which is the industrialization of agriculture. Any attempt to de-industrialize agriculture results in catastrophe. Obviously the present system is unsustainable – but so what? People know that death is inevitable, but that knowledge does not normally induce them to commit suicide. They are going to run with an unsustainable system for as long as possible.
Have the examples of Pol Pot,The Great Leap Forward and Soviet collectivization taught you nothing?
The real problem is not Marxism, Socialism, Capitalism, Fascism, Racism, Sexism or any other ism. It is a simple matter of the exponential function. Should you have interest this man explains
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
Presumably some producers already know with a good measure of accuracy how unsustainable, and if they don’t they’re not as smart or as good at business as they tell us they are. There’s no good medium or long term ending without a new approach and if we continue the path we’re on, Re. Russia, there is no sustainable short term either, no winners in that kind of mistake.
There is no lifeboat, we need to understand that we’re living on it.
Also add the fact that they claim the VAT back on said purchase and everyone’s a winner… Except the UK tax payer.
Coachload of Chinese tourists visit sports shop attracted by collapsed pound sterling. They exclaim “Wow Western trainers! And so cheap”. They buy them to take back to China as gifts for family members they don’t like that much.
This IS already happening here in Australia. We had a young fella from Hong Kong staying with us and that’s exactly what he was doing buying trainers to take back to China!
There is a certain type of individual – let’s call them Neoliberal Basketcases – who ‘believe’ that outsourcing manufacturing jobs to authoritarian regimes, who pay serf wages, is a good idea. They cite some obscure economist, then seek to ‘explain’ to us all that the jobs at home will be better and more skilled, so we can just leave the manufacturing part to the foreigners. When the – entirely planned – destruction of manufacturing in their home country does not result in better and more skilled jobs, whilst of course resulting in unemployment in once thriving sectors, these NB’s then spout even more bollocks about business cycles, and laffer curves, whilst indulging in some good old Tzarist poor-bashing to distract attention away from the massive fraud they’ve perpetrated on a hitherto unsuspecting populace. Because of course, many of the cleverer NB’s never actually believed a word of it; they merely saw an opportunity, and became absurdly rich in the process.
Now, the poor citizen has, for a few years now, become aware of the scam, and the poor-bashing is no longer effective. These NB’s – a significant proportion of which display most of the traits associated with psychopathy – know all too well their fate, if enough people understand the nature of their insidious scam, and will plan accordingly. And, what’s the best way to silence the people? To drag attention away to other matter? War. It’s brutally effective.
I have personally long considered WW1 as essentially crowd control: our leaders began worrying about revolution, and were happy for war to come along. And, now we are at war, with someone or other. I forget who, because I no longer understand our foreign policy; it’s something to do with oil, or saving barbarian head-choppers from what I used to assume was a well-deserved grisly fate. But, barbarian head-choppers apparently no longer deserve such a fate, and their baby-bayoneting, raping, and of course head-chopping is acceptable, indeed praise-worthy, because strategy.
This thinking is not technically insane, though it looks like it. Because psychopaths are not insane, and war is a useful tool, which the rational, evil mind understands all too well. And that is basically what Political Ponerology discusses, in more elegant and academic language. The screwing of the economy, and the warrior state are all linked; one must understand that the latter is the direct consequence of the former, and it’s in this light that we can view our current bunch of leadercrooks.
At some point, it will be dangerous to say so, of course, even for a mere BTL poster on a no-longer-obscure blog. Already is, in the USA.
So tell me, what job do you do exactly?
I thought it was widely understood that right-wing politicians use Orwell’s 1984 as an instruction manual.
So I take it you don’t like affordable products in shops?
To be classed as insane, one would need to have aberrant behaviors. Such human activity could currently be called ‘normal’. Your ‘basket cases’ could be Progressives, the rubber spear-tip of transformation. If ‘thinning the herd’ was the goal of WWI, it was a temporary solution. We need protection from that sort as much as any dicktator. Both think they know better than we what is best for all, but only Progressives promise the slow death of incrementalism, whereas dicktators act quickly and are easily recognized as Liberty thieves.
Excellent analysis. Strangely, several of these obscure economists became fairly common headliners in the Thatcher/Reagan/Pinochet years. What some consider the Neocon Mk.1 days-as in Mk.1 Cortina.
Steve Bell on Brexit and state of the union – cartoon
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2016/oct/24/steve-bell-brexit-state-union-cartoon
Thanks, Sharp Ears, was thinking of linking it earlier, but what does it mean, and what’s funny about it?
Is the Little ‘Iron Lady’, plunging to the ground with her parachute shredded, contrary to all the polls?
May is plunging to the ground without a parachute, while the devolved governments have all popped out and abandoned her.
Thanks Laguerre.
The ‘tall’ Iron Lady was looking rather tired when I caught sight of her sitting alongside Grayling** announcing Runway 4. How about her imposing a ban on ministers speaking about it unless they represent a constituency that is affected?
‘However the Prime Minister made clear that the “special derogation” will be subject to “a number of important caveats” in a warning to her ministers not to go too far.
She said that ministers will be banned from campaigning “actively” against the Government over the issue and publicly criticising the decision-making process.
Ministers will also be barred from speaking against the Government’s position in the Commons, and will only be able to voice their opposition for a limited period.’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/18/heathrow-theresa-may-allows-boris-johnson-and-other-cabinet-oppo/
She is proving to be more Thatcherite than Thatcher.
The UK is a fascist state.
** He picks up some nice freebies.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=10920
Why did I say Runway 4?!
I must have been listening to Boris who said that if Runway 3 is completed, there will Immediately be a push for a fourth runway.
Greenpeace UK chief John Sauven said a third runway at Heathrow would increase air pollution and “be a waste of time, money and lives”.
Andy Slaughter, Labour MP for Hammersmith, said opposition from predominantly Tory-controlled councils, communities and MPs meant “the chances of a toxic third runway being built are vanishingly small”.
BBC
A waste of Lives or wasted lives – does not read too well Frau May.
Ever more expansion of the U.K. Economy on a non-expanding footprint, how long can “growing” continue?
There could still be a benefit from Brexit though not through the current neoliberal ideology. The prerequisites are:
1. The breakdown or drastic modification of the EU as a neoliberal tool for globalisation and corporate dominance and anti-democtatic makeup.
2. Rediscovery of self sufficiency as an essential tool in long term viability not only of the UK but of the world, with more local products being locally produced and reduction of massive energy waste.
3. Self reliance on food and energy may be seen as costly to start with, but would be an investment in people. The hidden costs of globalisation include loss of local industries, and skills, increasing unemployment and social strife, increased pollution and costs of clearout. Note that the effects produce a social cost which is borne by governments out of taxpayers money whilst all the benefits go to corporations and the rich.
4. Global increase in self reliance would reduce the nescessity of aggressive wars producing a -swords into ploughshares effect. Current arms manufacture and sales benefit mostly corporations.
Sadly non of this will happen especially not under the current predominantly neoliberal system. That is why despite what is trumpeted out as a triumph for self determination and control of our borders by Brexiters will never happen unless the system is changed and that is highly unlikely to happen.
“The expert among you will have noted this economic model is not very sustainable.”
Why not? it is no different from buying raw materials from abroad and exporting the finished product, something that we used to do very successfully.
If the United Kingdom Pound continues to plummet against the almighty dollar and against the Euro,
at some point mining Tin/copper/Lead/Zinc/gold/silver will again be viable in the United Kingdom.
Northern Ireland has massive gold deposits.
‘NI has massive Gold reserves’….
according to whom and compared to what, South Africa’s, Ghana’s, Russia’s reserves?
And who do you think would benefit from these reserves? people in NI? or some Brexit cowboy paying his taxes In Jersey from London/US
“Deposits” not ‘reserves.’
Northern Ireland has no Gold reserves.
As to deposits it can claim as much as it likes, find a bent geologist, float a company..etc
Either way, who cares? Gold is not magic, and there’s only so much of the stuff you can use to wallpaper Donald Trump’s buildings every year.
O/T but there is a connection to this website.
An appeal from the writer Neil Clark for funding to fight the malicious Oliver Kamm in court.
http://neilclark66.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/a-sign-of-times-vicious-vendettas-of.html?m=0
An alias, Philip Cross, has written derogatory comments against Clark. I think I am right that a person using the name ‘Philip Cross’ was found editing the Wikipedia entry for Craig. The detail is here including screen shots.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/03/the-astonishing-case-of-the-doppelganger/
Frau Nicola Sturgeon has warned Frau Theresa May she is not “BLUFFING” over her promise to hold an independence referendum if Scotland’s vote against Brexit is “not respected”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37747995
This seems like so much guff to me.
She knows Frau May does not respect Frau Sturgeon.
So go for Independence now Nicola
and wind in your neck.
In other words put up or shut up.
Michael they’re just trying to manage your expectations before they kill off Brexit.
What, you don’t like it when other people take back control too?
Unaccountable officials at the European Court of Justice may be called in to rule on the nature of Britain’s divorce talks with Brussels in a dynamite development.
Legal experts say European judges will likely have to pass verdict on whether Article 50, which begins the UK’s formal exit negotiations, can be revoked after activation.
If they were to rule that the notification could be withdrawn it would significantly strengthen the hand of europhiles like Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband who are calling for a parliamentary vote or even a second referendum on the deal Theresa May secures with Brussels.
The Daily Express
The sooner we completely leave from this pile of shit
the better.
Unaccountable officials at the European Court of Justice
Or, as we usually call them, judges.
If they were to rule that the notification could be withdrawn it would significantly strengthen the hand of europhiles like Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband who are calling for a parliamentary vote or even a second referendum on the deal Theresa May secures with Brussels.
On the contrary, if notification can be withdrawn, the Government will almost certainly win.
I remember the BBC newscaster John Cole’s story: he asked Mrs Thatcher for an example of how her much-heralded ‘service’ or ‘post-industrial economy’ would work, and she cited an ‘entrepreneur’ she’d met who proposed to take over Battersea power station and turn it into a theme park. Shortly afterwards Cole found himself at dinner seated next to the US Economic Attaché, who exclaimed “gee, John, you can’t all make a living taking in each other’s washing”.
Decades later, it’s now being turned into a mini town. There is a mixed reception to it.
Apple are also setting up their HQ there.
Battersea Power Station: desperate times or still desirable?http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/battersea-power-station-desperate-times-or-still-desirable/
‘Once completed, the site will deliver 4,353 new homes and, of those launched, 85pc have now been sold. Of phase one, or Circus West, which runs to the west of the power station, 75pc of the 865 homes were sold in the first week of the 2013 launch. There are 353 units in the power station itself, phase two, and again only “a few are left” – although exact numbers are not forthcoming.
Efforts are now being concentrated on selling the first half of phase three: Battersea Roof Gardens, designed by Norman Foster, of Gherkin fame, and Prospect Place. Of the 500 units on offer, two-thirds have been sold.’
A similar point was made by a Labour MP (which, I forget – could have been Dennis Skinner -) when Thatcher was extolling the ‘service economy’ in Parliament. “We can’t just sell each other hamburgers and shoelaces,” was the gist of it. He’d reckoned without subprime bonds and a housing bubble, hadn’t he?
Why not? Hamburgers and shoelaces are great. Without them, we’d starve and/or trip.
alternative footwear restraining devices are available, some even more comfortable than shoe laces
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/af/79/67/af79678094a4d702be1e27491ed239ce.jpg
Jobs for the little peop[e…catering gigs, dog-sitting and cleaning the 15 bathroom estate.
(consolation prize)
What would the Elites do without them?
Not be elites.
Whilst trawling the insanity, I came across the name Rutherford – and thought – I know him – “The Rutherford Institute was named after Samuel Rutherford, a 17th-century theologian who wrote a book”…but this is the Rutherford I know..”Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM, FRS[1] (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics.[2] Encyclopædia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday (1791–1867).[2]
In early work, Rutherford discovered the concept of radioactive half-life, proved that radioactivity involved the nuclear transmutation of one chemical element to another, and also differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation.[3] This work was done at McGill University in Canada. It is the basis for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he was awarded in 1908 “for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances”,[4] for which he is the first Canadian and Oceanian Nobel laureate, and remains the only laureate born in the South Island.
Rutherford moved in 1907 to the Victoria University of Manchester (today University of Manchester) in the UK, where he and Thomas Royds proved that alpha radiation is helium nuclei.[5][6] Rutherford performed his most famous work after he became a Nobel laureate.”
This is from the American Rutherford Institute
https://www.sott.net/article/332033-The-US-is-on-a-path-to-total-dictatorship
“The US is on a path to total dictatorship”
“Unaffected by elections. Unaltered by populist movements. Beyond the reach of the law.
Say hello to America’s shadow government.
A corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country, this shadow government represents the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry.
No matter which candidate wins the presidential election, this shadow government is here to stay. Indeed, as recent documents by the FBI reveal, this shadow government—also referred to as “The 7th Floor Group”—may well have played a part in who will win the White House this year.
To be precise, however, the future president will actually inherit not one but two shadow governments.
The first shadow government, referred to as COG or Continuity of Government, is made up of unelected individuals who have been appointed to run the government in the event of a “catastrophe.” COG is a phantom menace waiting for the right circumstances—a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, an economic meltdown—to bring it out of the shadows, where it operates even now. When and if COG takes over, the police state will transition to martial law.
Yet it is the second shadow government—also referred to as the Deep State—that poses the greater threat to freedom right now. Comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes, this government within a government is the real reason “we the people” have no real control over our government.
© A Government of Wolves
The Deep State, which “operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power,” makes a mockery of elections and the entire concept of a representative government.”
Check out Ex Canadian Ambassador Peter Dale Scott re much more information about Dick Cheney’s Continuity of Government (COG).
Tony
I had not heard of COG, but was wondering if the tone exempts other States. Is the ‘Great Satan’ the only possessor?
Gladio aka Stay Behind was (and probably still is, since I doubt if it has ceased to exist) the equivalent in other states of COG in the U.S.
Sorry, Tony, but one doesn’t find anything about Dick Cheney’s Continuity of Government in P D. Scott’s Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. In fact, scum bag former Vice President Cheney isn’t even mentioned in it, and in Scott and Jonathan Marshall’s Cocaine Politics, Cheney is only mentioned as the overt leader on the war on drugs.
Why the smoke screen for what covert operators, especially Dick Helms, Harvey, G.H.W. Bush et al., were really doing?
Italy’s banks holds around £270billion of so-called non-performing loans – a third of the eurozone’s total.
But MPS has frequently been highlighted as the biggest worry.
The lender has has a market value of less than £1billion – but has around £40bn of soured loans on its books.
MPS was found to be one of the weakest banks in Europe by stress tests in July.
It was hoped that a new chief executive Marco Morelli, who took to the helm of the bank last month, would be able to restore confidence in the bank but that has not convinced anyone.
They’ll soon be going down like ninepins.
I am not sure the Euro will last another year, it is a busted flush.
I no longer think we need to worry about BREXIT
soon there will be nothing to leave from, it will have tumbled into the Mediterranean
Banks poised to relocate out of UK over Brexit, BBA warns
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37743700
Perhaps the banks currently domiciled in the United Kingdom could relocate to Italy -Ireland-Spain-Portugal-Greece-France-Hungary-Ukraine-Moldova?
Last I saw MPS was down 39% from its peak, after rising 30% yesterday and in early trading this morning. In those circumstances, trading would normally be halted for the day. We’ll have to see tomorrow how bad that really is.
(MPS isn’t that big, but there might be a knock-on effect.)
Just more nonsense as there is nothing about the bank suspension elsewhere, only on Bloomberg all banks being most interested in investing in the Saudi oil bonds.
Start reading more reliable sources.
Will the oil/money run out before these poor people’s lives are further blighted?
‘The construction of a third runway at Heathrow Airport will lead to one village being completely flattened and others partly demolished. Now that the favoured plan for the airport expansion has finally been announced, how are the people living in the area coping?
The people of Harmondsworth are tired, they say. Worn out. Exhausted. Drained. They have been in limbo, not knowing whether their homes are to be demolished. Or whether they will be living on the edge of a runway.
At least they now know what to expect. They can prepare. If they have the energy.’
Of course, it’s not over yet. There will be legal challenges and a public inquiry. But not many residents seem to have the stomach for it.
Half of Harmondsworth will disappear. The other half – including a 600-year-old, Grade I-listed barn and the 11th Century St Mary’s Church – will be metres from the hot roar of planes leaving the tarmac.’
The villagers living under Heathrow’s death sentence
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-37667371
The M25 is a car park most of the time. A death trap at other times.
As Justine Bailey, who has lived there for 25 years, says: “It’ll be a plane-spotter’s paradise. But the thing is, I’m not a plane-spotter.”
Heathrow Airport (owned by S estimate the cost @ £1.5bn
A gross unders estimate according to TFL. Some are saying more like £15bn
The M25 is a car park most of the time. A death trap at other times.
It also serves Gatwick. Still, as global warming accelerates, there will be an interval in which Brits no longer have to go to Miami for a subtropical break, preceding the era when they “have” to fly to the now-temperate North Pole for a break from the desert conditions. There is our window of opportunity, perhaps.
I meant to add this.
The ownership of Heathrow Airport.
‘Heathrow Airport Holdings Limited, formerly BAA,[1] is the United Kingdom-based operator of London Heathrow Airport. The company was formed by the privatisation of the British Airports Authority as BAA plc, and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The company also operated Gatwick and Stansted airports, and several other UK airports.
BAA plc was bought in 2006 by a consortium led by Ferrovial, a Spanish firm specialising in the design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance of transport, urban and services infrastructure. In March 2009 the company was required to sell Gatwick and Stansted airports, and over the following years sold all its airports other than Heathrow. The company was renamed Heathrow Airport Holdings in 2012 to reflect its main business.’
Mr Bowman is the sole Brit on the Board.
http://www.ferrovial.com/en/ir-shareholders/corporate-governance/board-of-directors/
How the B I G money sloshes around.
Heathrow boosts profits at Ferrovial
Heathrow’s majority shareholder Ferrovial has reported a 2pc increase in profits for the first nine months of the year, helped by a £160m payment from the British airport. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/10410323/Heathrow-boosts-profits-at-Ferrovial.html
And why is that bad? If a bunch of Spanish people want to own a British company that is tightly regulated, let them.
Quite right.
What kind of killjoy would ever want to inquire as to where and how Ferrovial obtained the requisite investment funding. Oh look they obtained it through corruption in the Spanish public procurement process.
http://www.crcb.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Gamir_Corruption-in-Spanish-PP_v2_2015Feb.pdf
Why would the Spanish public procurement process be so open to corruption? Oh my word it is the EU who shoveled money into Spanish infrastructure projects from 1986 onward, and remained completely blind to the fact that institutional Spain remained deeply scarred by the Franco era and was incapable of performing the oversight roles of more established systems such as those found in northern Europe/
Oh how amusing it must have been to the EU when they advanced funding to Spain to build a high speed rail connection connection between Madrid and Barcelona and Felipe Gonzalez became so confused he accidentally authorized the construction of the line to Sevilla – which just coincidentally happened to be his home town.
Wait, so Zac Goldsmith and Boris Johnson objecting to Heathrow expansion because their constituencies are in West London is “politics”, but Felipe Gonzalez building a high speed railway to his constituency is “corruption”? You can’t have it both ways…
And yes, corruption in Spain and in other countries is a problem. That’s why they’re having a big trial about it at the moment. But it’s not the problem that Sharp Ears whas banging on about. I’m fine with people move the goal posts, I do it myself whenever I’m bored with the original topic of conversation, but let’s please be honest about it.
Frau May’s constituency is Maidenhead, her constituents do not want it, that is why Maidenhead council has put up
fifty grand to fight it.
Zac Goldsmith quits as MP over Heathrow decision
If it is so tightly regulated Martinned, will the air pollution get no worse after a third runway is installed and air movements increase by 50%?
It may or may not be. Either way, that’ll be up to the UK government, not the owners of Heathrow.
When were are being told e need to be more proactive with our health, would it be in our health interests to have higher blood pressure, higher levels of anxiety/dpression, higher levels of asthma, deteriorating hearing,
shorter lives?
If you’re interested in having a discussion about whether the Heathrow expansion discussion was wise, you may need to find a post on some other blog that invites discussion on that topic, because this one isn’t it.
Also, you should probably have that discussion with someone other than me, because I know very little about this issue, nor do I particularly care.
The British government has announced plans to expand Europe’s busiest airport – Heathrow, just west of London.
It intends to spend the equivalent of up to 20 billion euros to build a third runway almost doubling the passenger capacity and increasing the number of flights to more than 700,000 a year by 2030.
http://www.euronews.com/2016/10/25/britain-plans-expansion-of-london-s-heathrow-airport
i suppose if they are to almost double the number of passengers they also must be almost doubling the pollution?
” almost doubling the passenger capacity ”
Which means they’ll need to almost double the capacity of the road and rail links. Is that included in the price?
https://www.basf.com/de/en/company/about-us/sites/ludwigshafen.html
BASF two explosions at different near-by plants, within a couple of hours
– not terror – nothing to worry about
If a discussion about Heathrow runway 3 took place from 4pm onwards and continued, why does Michael Norton put up a link at 6.38pm announcing the decision to build the third runway? It’s a mystery.
Germans still gassing people
Gas leak prompts brief alert in German town
An alert was issued in the south-western German town of Ludwigshafen for a short time after ammoniac was released into the atmosphere as a result of an incident during maintenance work at a local open air ice stadium. Local authorities strongly urged people to stay at home with doors and windows closed to avoid gas poisoning. The area surrounding the stadium was cordoned off and some nearby sports facilities were evacuated. The alert was cancelled about two hours later.
Ludwigshafen was being gassed last week as well, are they sure it is not being done on purpose?
Hang on, let me get this straight. We joined the glorious EEC (later to become the still more glorious EU) in 1973. That’s 43 years ago. And we have left the EU since… no, hang on – sorry, we’re still in the EU… But nevertheless, everything bad currently happening to Britain’s economy is due to a referendum that happened a mere three months ago which opens up the potential of a Brexit at some unstated future date but at least two years hence.
Like the man said: animal spirits.
Many politicians trail in to Goldman Sachs to deliver speeches – and make contacts presumably.
The latest to do so that we hear about is Theresa May pre referendum when she was Home Secretary.
Exclusive: leaked recording shows what Theresa May really thinks about Brexit
Secret audio of Goldman Sachs talk in May shows she feared businesses would leave and wanted the UK to take a lead in Europehttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/25/exclusive-leaked-recording-shows-what-theresa-may-really-thinks-about-brexit
May was not paid for her talk to the London staff unlike Hillary who picked up £554k for three appearances at the bank in NY.
You don’t think giving speeches to business-types is part of a cabinet minister’s job? (Which she was therefore already paid for.)
There are business types and business types!
It was Goldman Sachs I was talking about and I am sure you know all about them.
And Goldman Sachs is somehow uniquely evil? I know that things got pretty hysterical when they hired José Manuel Barroso, but I thought sanity had returned by now.
Today “they” are claiming they can’t afford to sink the M25 in a massive tunnel, so Runway Three will have to be constructed on stilts above the M25 ringroad, with a sloping runway.
So if it is built up in the air, will that not increase the air pollution?
That’s just weird. One of the five (!) runways at Schiphol airport Amsterdam also crosses a motorway using a massive tunnel.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Schipholtunnel,+1118+Schiphol,+Netherlands/@52.3151569,4.7568363,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x47c5e12cd31bfaa7:0xff8bd448e350e2bd!8m2!3d52.3158849!4d4.7526842
Well, it probably indicates that the project has not been thought through?
Nissan has confirmed it will build both the new Qashqai and the X-Trail SUV at its Sunderland plant in the first major development for the car industry since HARD BREXIT MEANS HARD BREXIT
The Japanese company’s commitment to Britain’s biggest car plant had been in doubt following the referendum.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37787890
United Kingdom Economy not doing too bad, despite the warnings of terror that came from Dave Cameron and Boy George.
“Not very sustainable” and wholly ridiculous as an example. I am the logistics manager for an import / export company dealing in frozen seafood. Our exports (of UK caught and processed seafood) are up substantially and our margin is better as we sell mostly in USD.
Thank you Brexit.
Nissans decision today looks as if Brexit is just a word to wring more money out of us.
It will not happen as some envisage or expect it to happen, commerce and trans national neo liberal thinking will press on with its aim to make money, whether its by direct linkage/feeding on the tax stream such as Serco, PWC, Centrica and many others, persuading us that academies are really OK, for management that is, and the unsustainable financial systems that have supported these rapacious companies.
Growth can’t be limitless, it has dire consequences, living it up versus surviving by turning every penny is now the agenda, the rift is growing.
Brexit is just a way of making you pay more and for adjusting an overvalued pound to the rest of the other declining economies.
To think that we have any control or gumption to take any action is wishful thinking, but it will keep us busy chatting about it.
nevermind, i watched Question time on Thursday, n audience participent pointed out that more than fifty percent of the voting public voted for BREXIT
BUT more that eighty percent of the members of parliament voted to stay.
So we are lions lead by treacherous donkeys.
if we do not get HARD BREXIT,
there will no longer be any trust in our system.
Just look at that awful money grubbing, lying, slimeball Tony Blair.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/28/tony-blair-remain-voters-to-mobilise-against-brexit
Tony Blair has received a predictably dismissive government response to his call for remain voters to organise their opposition to Brexit, with No 10 saying there would be no second referendum.
Brexit has been ‘good for business’ in Blackpool, United Kingdom.
The falling pound has attracted record numbers of foreign tourists as well as Britons taking staycations, local businesses say.
http://news.sky.com/story/brexit-has-been-good-for-business-in-blackpool-10638253
The attractions are packed with tourists. John Child, the managing director of the Sandcastle Water Park on the South Pier, says he has not seen a year like it.
“This year so far is heading up to be the best year we’ve ever had in 30 years of operation,” he told Sky News.
Like many working in the tourism industry here, he attributes the boost in visitor numbers to Brexit. They believe the falling pound has made so-called staycations more attractive as the cost of foreign holidays has gone up.
“I honestly think it will be good for business in Blackpool,” he said. “We’re seeing that and talking to our guests we’re hearing that as well.”
I hear that Mark Carney is going to jump ship as he made such a silly fool of himself doing Chicken Boy George’s bidding
talking down our economy.
Craig, I’ll guess that up in Scotland the nearest you see to e.european migrants is the accordian and trumpet bands playing on the street corner for their supper.
Down here in the metropolitan bubble, I daily see eurovagrants going through the rubbish bins and black sacks looking for sustenance. From what little conversation they’re able to conduct in English, they’re here because they can’t maintain themselves in their own countries. They prefer to take their chances living rough in London.
From somewhere, they’ve got the idea that there is work here, which there isn’t.
This end of the metrop has been flooded with them for a year.
I’ve spoken to bindivers from Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy and Spain.
It’s obvious that the EU is not providing an economy that can sustain the people of many of its member states. From the unemployment situation here and the number of people using foodbanks (frankly, just the existance of foodbanks !!) the UK is one of them.
More on eurovagrancy, with pictures, at tubbytowntales.co.uk
WHY?
Starting 2017 north East England, United Kingdom Brexit means Brexit
The proposed project would be one of Britain’s biggest mines, producing polyhalite, a form of potash that can be used as a fertiliser.
A 23-mile underground tunnel would be bored to take the polyhalite from the mine via a conveyor belt for processing on Teesside.
Sirius also confirmed it was planning a move to a main market listing.
Analysts at Investec said the fundraising was a “very positive move for the company and for its ambitions to build a new mine in North Yorkshire”.
Brexit does not mean Brexit?
May cannot trigger Brexit: Government loses High Court case
http://news.sky.com/story/may-cannot-trigger-brexit-government-loses-high-court-case-10642756
So a court case can trump the democratic will of the people?
Let’s all go home then and on passing doff our caps to the European Union.
How
Jack Straw, Tony Blair, Neil Kinnock, EdStone Milliband and Killary Clinton must be laughing,
no democracy for either the United Kingdom, the European Union or the United States of America.
Long live democracy, the global elite have won
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread472961/pg1
Frau Theresa May humiliated by the system – democracy on its knees
Theresa May is humiliated by High Court ruling that says MPs MUST be given a vote on Brexit
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3898716/D-Day-Brexit-Britain-s-exit-EU-DELAYED-landmark-court-case-rules-Theresa-start-EU-talks-without-MPs-vote.html#ixzz4OwRWpQHb
The Government suffered a major defeat over Brexit today as High Court judges ruled that MPs must be given a vote before Theresa May starts the EU exit process.
The Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas delivered a damning verdict against the Government and sided with Remain campaigners who argued that Parliament must have a vote before Article 50 is triggered, which starts a two-year formal process for leaving the EU.
Prime Minister Theresa May had argued the public has delivered its verdict on the June 23 referendum and there should be no second vote by MPs which could frustrate the process.
The High Court ruling could trigger a major constitutional crisis, while MPs reacted in shock.
So are the courts above the democratic will of the people?