Brexit: give me a positive effect... XII

[tonerei]

With every confiscated sandwich or refusal of entry into the EU of goods and people because of paperwork not being perfect, the EU looks more like the old soviet union. If they were awash with cash it would maybe be sustainable but many in the EU are broke and need all the trade in goods and tourism they can muster.

The ports must be piling up now with confiscated sandwiches. I remember reading a headline somewhere about that at the very beginning. One of the red top rags. Of course the sandwich crisis is much more important then what is happening in NI within your own borders. Poor auld EU have no cash and Brexit Britain is only loaded with it. Me thinks more fake facts and bluster. Carry on up the Brexit!

 

[TheDecameron]

The ports must be piling up now with confiscated sandwiches. I remember reading a headline somewhere about that at the very beginning. One of the red top rags. Of course the sandwich crisis is much more important then what is happening in NI within your own borders. Poor auld EU have no cash and Brexit Britain is only loaded with it. Me thinks more fake facts and bluster. Carry on up the Brexit!

We’ve had the vaccine sort, is this the first sign of sandwich nationalism?

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Brexit? Fecks it, more like.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

We’ve head the vaccine sort, is this the first sign of sandwich nationalism?

Curiously, Pfizer used to have a huge plant at Sandwich.

 

[TheDecameron]

Curiously, Pfizer used to have a huge plant at Sandwich.

Don’t! Now there’s too many of them German vaccines comin over here for my liking.

 

[Seeker_UK]

Wow - from that link
"The impact has already been dramatic. In January 2021, €6.5 billion in deals shifted immediately from the UK to the EU. Amsterdam surpassed London as Europe’s largest share trading center as it recorded a fourfold increase in average traded shares per day, rising to €9.2 billion, and London lost half of its daily average value of traded shares, down to €8.6 billion. Amsterdam has also picked up activity in swaps and sovereign debt markets that typically used to take place in London. Even before January 2021, EY estimated banks had shifted €1.6 trillion in assets and sovereign debt trading to cities such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Milan that would typically have taken place on venues in London. More than £4 billion, or $5.3 billion, of insurance premium income in 2019 that would typically be handled in London was written in new hubs such as Brussels."

Just to put that in perspective, the average daily trade is about £1Bn on the London Stock Exchange. £6Bn is about 2-3% of annual total business value.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/325326/uk-lse-average-daily-trades/

 

[PsB]

Any idea of the UK percentage? Is it anywhere near the 1/3 to 1/2 of the population that is quoted for France.

The French antivaxxer percentage is dropping steadily, as people realize the vaccines don't enslave people to Bill Gates or make them turn green and might actually save them from a particularly nasty virus.

Talking to people around here, these bizarre reactions mostly come from people who worry. They worry about the side effects of the vaccination (higher % affected by the AZ, as we can see on the thread here), they worry about whether the testing of all these vaccines was rushed, etc. These people are good at worrying. Others seem to think they are immortal (many health care professionals in this lot, the sort that smoke during their break from the oncology department).

You also have to remember the French have an extremely generous private health system where they can not only pick and choose their private GP, who carries out their operation and where, etc. This consumerist attitude (that i find narrow-minded and irritating, but it is what it is) certainly extends to vaccination. Some believe that something better is just around the corner and figure that as they are confined anyway, there is no big urgency. They point out that the AZ vaccine has not been authorized by the US or the Swiss and is suspended in most Nordic countries, including in Sweden where AZ is based, so there must be something wrong with it and they feel they are being given a second rate jab. Etc.

My reaction to all these concerns is the same as when people inform me that French wines are overrated and New World alternatives are better: excellent, it leaves more for us undiscriminating peasants to enjoy.

 

[Colin Barron]

Not sure the figures are robust (from the Mail which I will not link to, so you can google that) but even a briefest look other suggestions are all in the area of about 15% refused to attend, did not turn up. That's in the more enthusiastic age groups, those most at risk. One Telegraph article quotes up to 25% of Health Workers in London declined, which is obviously not great. I also suspect younger age groups will not be as willing or bothered as older groups have been, but we'll see.

What validation is there of those figures in France?

Take you pick Steve:
https://www.google.com/search?q=fre...i22i29i30.23896j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[kabayiri]

Yebbut we can pick our own fruit and veg now.
And wot about the child allowances sent back to Poland ? Glad we don't have those hardworking types here anymore.

Migrant labour at the lowest levels was always going to be transient.
First sign of hard times here, or better incomes back home, and many will be off. We have already seen this.
Maybe we should have a grown up conversation about sustainable labour and the prices needed at the supermarket.
That 49p super special veg in the local supermarket is probably being subsidised.

 

[wacko]

Migrant labour at the lowest levels was always going to be transient.
First sign of hard times here, or better incomes back home, and many will be off. We have already seen this.
Maybe we should have a grown up conversation about sustainable labour and the prices needed at the supermarket.
That 49p super special veg in the local supermarket is probably being subsidised.

It was being subsidised ... by migrant labour from the EU. Glad to know you are happy to recruit replacements on a points based system for a small fee.
99p for super special veg seems OK to me.

 

[eternumviti]

Can we do that?

I doubt it, it would probably be held up in Calais or Dover due to insane EU bureaucracy, and would go off.

 

[TheDecameron]

I doubt it, it would probably be held up in Calais or Dover due to insane EU bureaucracy, and would go off.

The quality of irony is not strained.

 

[SteveS1]

It was being subsidised ... by migrant labour from the EU. Glad to know you are happy to recruit replacements on a points based system for a small fee.

Ah yes the famous "points based" system. One that doesn't face the reality of the type of workers most needed - large numbers of mainly unskilled workers, where nobody local can be arsed or the numbers of candidates just don't exist. But offers some highly skilled or technical jobs that local people would like, to immigrants. That'll work.

 

[eternumviti]

The quality of irony is not strained.

I agree with you there.

 

[Colin Barron]

Can we do that?

Cut out the transport and middle men and ask them to throw the vaccine straight in the bin.

 

[Kirk]

Amazing that fell under the carpet very quickly. Of course mistakenly speaking the truth was a slip by Bojo.

There's research that correlates Leave Voters with Narcissism. Judging by some of the posts here and the current Cabinet, I don't doubt it.

 

[Colin L]

ET,

"The Halix plant which is 'strongly suspected' to have sent 'non-trivial' amounts of the AZ vaccine to the UK was apparently set up with £24bn of UK taxpayers' money, and was contracted early by the UK government to supply...the UK"

You've still not proved this assertion. I sounds like public schoolboy confidently-stated bollox like much of what you post. Delighted to be proved wrong.

 

[kendo]

There's research that correlates Leave Voters with Narcissism. Judging by some of the posts here and the current Cabinet, I don't doubt it.

Narcissus is us...

 

[Nero]

Take you pick Steve:
https://www.google.com/search?q=fre...i22i29i30.23896j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Oh dear, didn't you 'Feel Lucky?'

 

[Seeker_UK]

https://nltimes.nl/2021/03/30/netherlands-blew-chance-invest-astrazeneca-vaccine-report

When the University of Oxford asked the Netherlands for a ten-million euro investment at the Halix vaccine plant in Leiden, it opened the door for the country, and likely the entire European Union, to gain access to millions more Covid-19 vaccine doses compared to what AstraZeneca delivered to the EU in the first quarter of 2021. The university's scientists were days away from securing the backing of the pharmaceutical firm for its AZD 1222 vaccine in late April when they approached the Netherlands with the request, anonymous sources told broadcaster NOS.

The Halix facility was already under contract to produce the Oxford vaccine even as clinical trials intensified. "There will probably be a huge demand for vaccines if they successfully pass the tests. Most likely, the quantities of available vaccines will be limited for several months," a letter from the university, received by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, stated. "To avoid major delays, production capacity must be increased now."

[...]

The broadcaster viewed key elements of the letter, which said that the investment would be used to reduce bottlenecks at the Halix facility. By that point, the British government had already committed to a 25-million euro investment at the Halix plant in Leiden, making it possible to produce 200-liter barrels of a vaccine.


https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/03/dutch-had-chance-to-invest-in-leiden-vaccine-maker-halix-nos/

The University of Oxford asked the Netherlands to invest in boosting production capacity at the Halix pharmaceuticals plant in Leiden in April last year, broadcaster NOS said on Tuesday. But although there were some preliminary talks, the deal disappeared from the negotiating table after AstraZeneca signed its deal with Oxford, NOS said. The broadcaster bases its claims on ‘background talks’ and a letter to prime minister Mark Rutte. It says that Oxford asked the Dutch government to invest €10m in Halix, around the same time as the British government put in €25m.




So, by Apr 20, the UK had invested 25M Euro into the plant and had a contract in place.