The Brexit Thread

[dpedin]

Of the big 6 power companies only 2 are UK based the rest are German, French or Spanish. EDF is essentially the French state owned power company. profit from power flows out of the UK and into Europe and in some cases subsidises their own local markets and prices. Many of the rail operators are European/HK/Japanese owned and again some are state owned/controlled who use profits to subside their own services. The idea this is a 'market' and free market forces will sort out current and future issues is just a nonsense. Our public services such as power, transport and probably healthcare now and in the future are basically just cash cows for overseas companies and/or governments.

And as we now learn the CO2 production is in the hands of US owners who more or less decided to turn it off in the UK and effectively now being bribed with taxpayer funding to turn it back on!

The government is to pay tens of millions of pounds to reopen a plant that makes commercial carbon dioxide (CO2) - to stop widespread disruption to food and drink production.

The plant - at Billingham on Teesside - is one of two US-owned sites in the UK which closed because of soaring wholesale gas prices.

Environment Secretary George Eustice told the BBC that the deal with CF Industries "will be not a loan, it will be a payment to underwrite some of their fixed costs".

Makes us a bit of a hostage to fortune now doesn't it? I can see a lot of other companies, probably owned from overseas, looking at their importance to the UK economy and deciding that they 'can't continue to operate' due to higher costs be it power, raw materials or labour, and looking for UK Gov financial support. We really have dug a pretty deep hole for ourselves.

[Hal Jordan]

"This isn't the Brexit I voted for!"

Well, it's the one I voted against.

[Rinkals]

I used to work in semiconductors; & the mess of dimensions was fucking baffling.

You have major equipment manufacturers in Japan, the US & the EU; & depending on where they got their parts from; you could end up with exclusively imperial; exclusively metric, or a mix. The, absolutely, positively last place you want someone to mix up a metric thread & an imperial fitting; is in a gas cabinet where you're running toxic, & / or pyrophoric gases

The fupping wafers were referred to as 8", or 12" in the US; althought we gradually go them to concede they were actually 200mm or 300mm

At least when it came down to the microscopic scale everyone agreed on microns, nanometers, & angstroms !

Yes.

Piping is another messy area.

A 100mm Nominal bore pipe is 114.3mm OD, but a 150mm Nominal Bore is either 165.1mm or 168.3mm on my charts.

This is presumably to cater for measurement in inches.

[tabascoboy]

The chances of an imminent UK-US free trade deal have been played down by President Biden, following talks with Boris Johnson at the White House.

Since Brexit, the UK has had the freedom to pursue its own trade deals.

So far, it has signed trade agreements with 69 countries and one with the EU. The majority are "rollover" deals - copying the terms of deals the UK already had when it was an EU member, rather than creating new benefits.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47213842

[salanya]

Not sure what they're all worrying about - Boris says that everything is fine, so it must be....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58654725

[fishfoodie]

Not sure what they're all worrying about - Boris says that everything is fine, so it must be....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58654725

It's a great opportunity for a traditional Christmas.

Go to the market & buy a live Turkey, & young pig (both given a temporary reprieve, for lack of CO2 & Butchers); then a week before the 25th pick your own sprouts; before they rot for lack of anyone to harvest them.

All you have to do is kill & pluck the bird; & butcher the pig !

And as they say; a pig isn't just for Christmas.... with a full one you could be good thru to Easter !!

[GogLais]

If the market can allocate drivers to transporting necessities instead of junk, both food and otherwise, we’ll be ok.

[fishfoodie]

If the market can allocate drivers to transporting necessities instead of junk, both food and otherwise, we’ll be ok.

That's already happening, & it didn't move the dial that much. It was why bottled water disappeared off the shelves; because the drivers were hauling more important loads.

The problem is that it's easy to say; "just transport the necessities"; but what actually are the "necessities", & who has the knowledge to pick out just those items from a load ?

Did you know last month that CO2 was bound so closely to Fertilizer production; & that by shutting down two Fertilizer plants; companies packaging salad would come within days of closure ?

Modern production logistics, & supply chains are nspace complex, & expecting pricks who can't see beyond the next election cycle to listen to experts telling them this, is apparently a waste of time.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

If the market can allocate drivers to transporting necessities instead of junk, both food and otherwise, we’ll be ok.

The market can do that, but why would it? People want cheap crap, even if they have to pay a lot for it. The other morning I was going past a McDonalds drive thru probably at a time they were doing their breakfast menu still, and there was a queue of Just Eat delivery agents with their cycles waiting to go in and collect orders. Sums up some of the problems really, people are too lazy to even take a walk for a breakfast that promotes heart disease, cancer and diabetes and they pay extra to have it delivered.

A regulated market taking a strong interest in the area is what you'd need to establish necessity and waste, but there are problems in being quite so interventionist. Until then the market will try to derive profit, sort of, and in at times unruly and contradictory fashion

[Happyhooker]

If the market can allocate drivers to transporting necessities instead of junk, both food and otherwise, we’ll be ok.

what a stunningly facile statement

[Biffer]

If the market can allocate drivers to transporting necessities instead of junk, both food and otherwise, we’ll be ok.

Poor understanding of how markets work there.

[GogLais]

If the market can allocate drivers to transporting necessities instead of junk, both food and otherwise, we’ll be ok.

what a stunningly facile statement

I knew I should have put a in.

[Slick]

How worried should we be about the rising gas crisis, fuel not getting to petrol stations and food supply chains faltering because of the lack of HGV drivers? Is it just a bit of a cyclical blip or the start of a real crisis.

Nord Stream 2 looking more and more mental by the hour.

[Rinkals]

Hey.

At least the sky hasn't fallen in.

[tabascoboy]

As long as you're PM or a cabinet minister everything will be just fine and normal, nothing to be worried about.

[I like neeps]

How worried should we be about the rising gas crisis, fuel not getting to petrol stations and food supply chains faltering because of the lack of HGV drivers? Is it just a bit of a cyclical blip or the start of a real crisis.

Nord Stream 2 looking more and more mental by the hour.

Concerned about gas because it's a crises across Europe and in Asia. And Kwasi Kwarteng's response was hope it's a warm Autumn.

HGV and farm worker shortages will be tough resorting in higher prices for a while. Inflation will increase and they'll be a cost of living crises. But the BoE could just remove cost of food from CPI if they wanted to like they did house prices and it's all okay.

It would be interesting to see who the Tories and papers blamed if the HGV and lack of food chain staff did ruin Christmas though.

[tabascoboy]

Local petrol stations seem extra busy this morning with queues and traffic jams. As of now the situation doesn't seem that severe though, is it only this country where people seem to fly into a blind panic as soon as there is any hint of a shortage of some commodity?

As for the HGV driver shortage, the more you read about it the more this looks like it should have been a largely avoidable crisis. Not just government to blame but it really should have been foreseeable that an impending rush of retirements combined with the loss of drivers from the EU was an issue that need long term solutions in place much sooner then just waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

[fishfoodie]

Local petrol stations seem extra busy this morning with queues and traffic jams. As of now the situation doesn't seem that severe though, is it only this country where people seem to fly into a blind panic as soon as there is any hint of a shortage of some commodity?

As for the HGV driver shortage, the more you read about it the more this looks like it should have been a largely avoidable crisis. Not just government to blame but it really should have been foreseeable that an impending rush of retirements combined with the loss of drivers from the EU was an issue that need long term solutions in place much sooner then just waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

And the Minister responsible was on TV this morning, lying to the British public, telling them that Covid was the reason .... what a surprise

[JM2K6]

Local petrol stations seem extra busy this morning with queues and traffic jams. As of now the situation doesn't seem that severe though, is it only this country where people seem to fly into a blind panic as soon as there is any hint of a shortage of some commodity?

As for the HGV driver shortage, the more you read about it the more this looks like it should have been a largely avoidable crisis. Not just government to blame but it really should have been foreseeable that an impending rush of retirements combined with the loss of drivers from the EU was an issue that need long term solutions in place much sooner then just waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

And the Minister responsible was on TV this morning, lying to the British public, telling them that Covid was the reason .... what a surprise

Remarkably enough, you're underplaying it - he said Brexit was actually helping because it meant he could change the testing to get a licence...

[tabascoboy]

And a good few months before anyone knew COVID was going to be a thing

[tabascoboy]

"They don't come over here, they don't take our jobs..."

Boris Johnson orders rapid fix to UK’s truck driver shortage

Prime minister said to have lost patience with bad press about fuel issues and economic disruption

Boris Johnson has ordered a rapid fix to the UK’s acute shortage of lorry drivers, which has unleashed widespread supply chain disruption, including at petrol stations.

Ministers and officials were due to meet on Friday to examine a package of measures to address the crisis, including the option of issuing temporary visas to foreign lorry drivers. 

According to officials, one option includes an expansion to the UK seasonal agricultural workers scheme, which would open it up for “a few thousand HGV drivers and few thousand food processing workers”, with a particular focus on the poultry industry.

One person close to the situation said the prime minister had issued instructions to fix the problem. “Boris wants this solved,” he added. Meanwhile, an ally of Johnson said: “Boris is completely fed up with bad headlines on this and wants it sorted and doesn’t care about visa limits any more.”

full story at https://www.ft.com/content/8335166f-901 ... 554c3b40b2

[Rhubarb & Custard]

The government have a point there is a general shortage of HGV drivers, consistently there are issues of pay, facilities, work-life balance and thus drivers ageing out not being replaced by new/younger drivers at a suitable rate, and such shortage applies to the EU and not just us. And you'll hear our government confirm Germany has basically the same shortage we do, which is sort of true bar they don't have the same size of shortage, and they've been able to outsource work to the east where suddenly for some reason there's been a boost in available driver numbers

This also means along with no (ongoing) freedom of movement and the drivers picking up work in Germany it's not going to be straightforward now to get drivers back. We could offer permanent visas and it might prove problematic. Why we waited until the problem got this bad isn't clear, there aren't better answers than headlines in the Mail and Express, but that's a shit answer so you'd like to think there's something

[Rhubarb & Custard]

Remarkably enough, you're underplaying it - he said Brexit was actually helping because it meant he could change the testing to get a licence...

Reduced safety standards on the road, dumping raw sewage direct into the water supply, reducing husbandry standards, not maintaining EU funding to the regions, these are the sort of positives we're told people voted for

[Hal Jordan]

The government have a point there is a general shortage of HGV drivers, consistently there are issues of pay, facilities, work-life balance and thus drivers ageing out not being replaced by new/younger drivers at a suitable rate, and such shortage applies to the EU and not just us. And you'll hear our government confirm Germany has basically the same shortage we do, which is sort of true bar they don't have the same size of shortage, and they've been able to outsource work to the east where suddenly for some reason there's been a boost in available driver numbers

This also means along with no (ongoing) freedom of movement and the drivers picking up work in Germany it's not going to be straightforward now to get drivers back. We could offer permanent visas and it might prove problematic. Why we waited until the problem got this bad isn't clear, there aren't better answers than headlines in the Mail and Express, but that's a shit answer so you'd like to think there's something

Er, have you been paying attention at the back of the class, or have you been passing notes to your mate sitting next to you?

And I hope you brought enough gum for everybody.

[Uncle fester]

Quarter inch pipe is usually what, 6mm? Etc

Try and weld the two together and you'll see the problem.

[Biffer]

Quarter inch pipe is usually what, 6mm? Etc

Try and weld the two together and you'll see the problem.

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I’m saying that what’s described as quarter inch is often 6mm, not quarter inch - people use the imperial measure as a colloquial or shorthand description.

[GogLais]

I thought we were going to have a points-based immigration system to deal with this sort of issue.

[Uncle fester]

Quarter inch pipe is usually what, 6mm? Etc

Try and weld the two together and you'll see the problem.

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I’m saying that what’s described as quarter inch is often 6mm, not quarter inch - people use the imperial measure as a colloquial or shorthand description.

Ah I get you. Metric piping isn't all that common in my experience. Germans use it a good bit which can make life interesting when they ship a dairy plant elsewhere. You end up with a sleek looking stainless steel plant but ugly adaptors between the Imperial and metric.

[Hal Jordan]

I think that the real question that needs to be answered about all this piping is the vital one. If one were to bring it down smartly onto Dr Black's head, would it do the job?

[Paddington Bear]

I thought we were going to have a points-based immigration system to deal with this sort of issue.

Helps on the margins but doesn’t change the fact that British firms are addicted to treating Eastern Europeans like shit without realising the incomes of their nations have risen significantly

[robmatic]

The government have a point there is a general shortage of HGV drivers, consistently there are issues of pay, facilities, work-life balance and thus drivers ageing out not being replaced by new/younger drivers at a suitable rate, and such shortage applies to the EU and not just us. And you'll hear our government confirm Germany has basically the same shortage we do, which is sort of true bar they don't have the same size of shortage, and they've been able to outsource work to the east where suddenly for some reason there's been a boost in available driver numbers

This also means along with no (ongoing) freedom of movement and the drivers picking up work in Germany it's not going to be straightforward now to get drivers back. We could offer permanent visas and it might prove problematic. Why we waited until the problem got this bad isn't clear, there aren't better answers than headlines in the Mail and Express, but that's a shit answer so you'd like to think there's something

20210926_104408.jpg (208.24 KiB) Viewed 1385 times

[I like neeps]

It's interesting but I tend to agree the driver shortages vindicate brexiteers rather than the remainers.

[tc27]

I mean being outside the single market means less labour mobility so when a shortage happens in a particular there's less slack to meet demand. Its not as salient at the moment as HGV labour is tight everywhere but the point in general holds.

[Paddington Bear]

Proves the point of both sides really - we're very reliant on cheap foreign labour.

[ASMO]

What comforts me most is that Bimbo is likely reading this thread frothing at the mouth due to his inability to log on and try to debunk everything.

[fishfoodie]

Intel CEO says ‘big, honkin’ fab’ planned for Europe will be world’s most advanced


A $95 billion mega-fab

Breaking ground on the 10-year–plus chip manufacturing project, which could ultimately cost a mind-boggling €80 billion ($95 billion) to complete, could begin in 2022, according to the self-confessed “semiconductor geek,” with the first wafers running off the line as early as the middle of the decade.

In the final stage of its expansion, when all eight manufacturing facilities (or “modules”) are finished, Gelsinger told Fortune the site would be akin to a small city. By then, he expects it to employ in excess of 10,000 people directly and potentially support another 90,000 jobs across the area, including jobs at suppliers as well as restaurant workers and schoolteachers.

...

U.K. ruled out

The new Intel chip center is exactly the kind of prestigious project U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson aims to bring to his country as part of his drive to make it a global tech hub, and the U.K. is already a semiconductor innovator in its own right thanks to cutting-edge chip designer ARM. Yet the Intel boss ruled out situating the mega-fab there, given that an individual country on its own would not have the financial firepower to help Intel realize its plans without the added backing of a supranational body like the European Union.

“We’re only considering the EU,” he clarified, pausing on each of the two letters to ensure there could be no confusion. “To have the capital at this level, it has to be an EU-level project. The market has to be an EU-level market.”

The location, which he hopes to pick from a short list of more than 10 candidates before the year is out, won’t just be gargantuan in scope, however.

https://fortune.com/2021/09/10/intel-ce ... -advanced/

[tc27]

Looks like all the NI unionist parties have withdrawn support for the NI protocol so I expect art 16 to be invoked fairly soon.



This will lead to much frothing I am sure but the UK government can make a fairly sound argument protecting the EU single market is less important than threatening the NI peace process.

[tabascoboy]

How symbolic...

Imports from EU to fill gap after labour shortages force UK farmers to cut production

The FT Weekend reports that turkeys will be imported from Poland and France ahead of Christmas after UK farmers cut production over labour shortage concerns.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

How symbolic...

Imports from EU to fill gap after labour shortages force UK farmers to cut production

The FT Weekend reports that turkeys will be imported from Poland and France ahead of Christmas after UK farmers cut production over labour shortage concerns.

It wasn't exactly that UK farmers cut production, earlier this summer the major names in Turkeys placed much smaller orders with UK farmers for the birds because oddly they thought there'd be a problem. Which nicely shows the subject gives rise to problems and that the problems are often easy to predict, both of which HMG are in denial about making things worse again

[fishfoodie]

How symbolic...

Imports from EU to fill gap after labour shortages force UK farmers to cut production

The FT Weekend reports that turkeys will be imported from Poland and France ahead of Christmas after UK farmers cut production over labour shortage concerns.

It wasn't exactly that UK farmers cut production, earlier this summer the major names in Turkeys placed much smaller orders with UK farmers for the birds because oddly they thought there'd be a problem. Which nicely shows the subject gives rise to problems and that the problems are often easy to predict, both of which HMG are in denial about making things worse again

No one to slaughter the birds.
No one to pluck & pack them.
Freezers full, because the trucks to move them to the warehouses aren't arriving when they're supposed to.
& no-one exactly sure if you'll have gas to cook them on the day

Perfect Storm