Saturday 27 February 2016

My head hurts


I don't really want to add to the ongoing misery of the debate about Britain's membership of the European Union, but I find myself in the extremely unusual position of having absolutely no idea what to think about it because there are so many things to think, and so little time left to think them.

Also, talking about it can help to clear the head, as well as possibly producing some enlightening comments from you lot. I take absolutely no notice of whatever any politician has to say about it, because - for them - it is just another power-struggle, and for MEPs it is a matter of keeping their well-payed jobs.

On the one hand, you hear farmers saying that without the subsidies many of them would lose their farms and we would all starve to death, and the French appetite for British lamb would suddenly dry up. On the other hand, half of British farmers say that the market for everything would magically open up and we wouldn't have to be punished by EU welfare regulations when competing with Denmark in the supply of pork.

The Managing Director of Tate and Lyle sugar has explained that British produced cane sugar is heavily financially penalised by the countries which produce sugar from beet, France being the most punitive, having the most belligerent agricultural lobby. I don't know who controls the East Anglian beet, but there is a traditional hostility toward cane sugar because of the slave trade, so they don't get much sympathy from EU supporters in any case.

Half of all the banks and businesses say that the City of London would become impotent after all the offices move to Frankfurt, and yet HSBC has committed themselves to London for their global headquarters for years to come - way beyond the referendum day. Someone suggested that this move just before the referendum was actually to show confidence in the EU, so I still don't know what to think, especially when the other half say that Britain would thrive without EU regulations.

Then there is the EU inspired Human Rights laws - not always a good thing when people like Abu Hamsa uses them to avoid deportation on the grounds that he would be parted from his cat, and his cat would suffer psychological trauma as a result.

The minimum or living wage has to be a good thing, doesn't it? Well, it is of no real consequence to global giants like Starbucks, but to small, independent British businesses, another £20,000 a year on their running costs - on top of city centre rents and rates - can mean the difference between surviving and bankruptcy.

The banks want interest rates to be set higher right now, but they would, wouldn't they? Repossession means little to them so long as they can pay dividends. Ironically, exports would become more profitable for the country if interest rates were to rise, but on the streets life would become even harder for people who are are already struggling on 40 hours per week.

Dyson vacuum cleaners have been ecologically downgraded by Brussels after Bosch pointed out that they seemed to use more power than they admitted to on the box, but the tests to establish how efficient the Bosch ones were were done using a brand new bag which was not clogged with dust, and not with a half-full bag. There is now talk about banning all vacuum cleaners in the EU which do not meet the exacting standards set by Bosch and Hoover during the first 30 seconds of use. Bosch and Hoover are German and American companies. Smell a rat?

Well, 'Dyson gets what he deserves for moving the production out of England to Malaysia', is how his jealous enemies talk, but don't forget that he was forced to by Malmesbury Borough Council, who refused to allow the expansion of the facility on the existing brown field site. No wonder Dyson is dead set against EU membership.

The only thing that I know for certain is that all businesses and financial markets are run on the most pragmatic principles possible, and nobody is going to cut their own nose off to spite their face. Britain will not be punished by anyone just for the sake of it no matter what the outcome - the ordinary French gourmets are not going to suddenly lose their taste for good, British lamb just because Brussels decrees they should, but they might if the farmers get uppity.

The last British super-car manufacturer - Aston Martin - has just announced that they are siting their new production facility in Wales, having scoured the world to find the right place. Most of these cars will be for export, being almost £200,000 each, but export to where?

29 comments:

  1. And 14 brands of German beer now discovered to contain small amounts of glyphosate, a pesticide. But you can still get smoke blown in your face in an Austrian bar or restaurant. Where will it all end? My head hurts too.

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    1. I am one of those who blows smoke in your face in Germany. Well, that is not exactly true. Smokers are allotted the best parts of German restaurants and bars, whilst the non-smokers get the dark little corners. The blanket ban on smoking anywhere in public here is an exclusively British law, made by EU supporters. Thanks for making me remember this little fact.

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    2. Also, many German beers have been taken over by Dutch brewers, who are not required to follow the exacting purity standards that German beers have been brewed to for hundreds of years. Another example of the free market economy. Becks is now Dutch, but still brewed near Bremen. H.P. Sauce is also now Dutch, and made in Holland. Disgraceful.

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    3. The criminals who killed hundreds of babies in China by adding melamine to milk powder to increase the protein read-out were executed. Right or wrong?

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  2. Brtish Sugar is owned by Associated British Foods, an extremely well run family business. They also own Primark from which they make most of their profits. British Sugar has not been very profitable for them for years and nor so for East Anglian farmers. The EU have just reduced its grip on the sugar market and we can go out to world markets again. I do not buy Tate and Lyle sugar.

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    1. Thanks. I thought you might be able to answer that question. I wouldn't buy Tate and Lyle if I lived in Norfolk or Cambridgeshire either, but I would miss brown cane, despite the current war against all sugar. You cannot make decent marmalade without it or oranges, and neither grow well on the fens.

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    2. You cannot make clothes as cheap as Primark's without foreign labour either. Another dilemma right there. It's a minefield.

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    3. At the other end of the scale they own Fortnum & Mason via the family firm. Primark still probably makes the most profits for them.

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    4. BTW when I said about the EU controlling the sugar market I, of course meant, European sugar. Brussels have been controlling quotas and markets for the last 10 years.

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    5. Harrods is owned by Saudis now, I think. They have had to allow haggling.

      Re the sugar, yes, that is exactly what Tate and Lyle were complaining about - the protection of the beet market by imposing duties and tariffs on cane within the EU.

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  3. It is all a global conspiracy, but whom the conspirators are I cannot answer. The world has gone mad and once again I'll quote Candide and stay home and tend my garden.

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    1. A few years ago, the euro was a wonderful mechanism to fight the global influence of the mighty U.S. dollar, but then it all went tits-up and we are now fighting each other instead.

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    2. I'm pretty sure it's a global conspiracy of the large multinational corporations, and no one can beat them at their own game, whether it's in dollars, euros, or pounds sterling.

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    3. I thought that was our starting point for this discussion.

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  4. You are suddenly writ large Tom - it is most disconcerting.
    I feel much as you do about the European Union and having read both sides of the argument as it stands at present I have made my decision. That doesn't mean I shall feel the same come the day.
    All I can say is that today we had potatoes at lunch time - they tasted disusting - they were imported from France. Why I ask? We have potatoes everywhere in this country - I love Lincolnshire potatoes - I love potatoes from up on the North York Moors - so why do I eat French ones?

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    1. Why indeed, Weave? Don't you live with the Farmer? When you say I am writ large, has the typeface changed?

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  5. As for who'll buy the cars; I'll have one for a start, as long as RBS will lend me the dosh.

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    1. You better get your muddy, pot-holed road sorted out then. The new model goes into production in 2020.

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  6. The UK wether it is in the EU or not will still need to sell its products and services to foreign and EU customers. If it leaves then good old British Standards Office will need to be rekindled however, when selling to EU customers they will have to conform to their standards if different - might force up cost of products.
    We who remain in the EU will still want to trade with the UK because you are a still valued client.
    To the ordinary person it will not make much of a difference, other than instead of blaming the EU for perceived errors you will have to blame your government.

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  7. I ran hash marks of your arguments for leaving the EU and staying. Leaving lost, even when I counted ambivalence as one for each column.
    If the EU simply implodes, Britain will not have left and emerge one of the survivors who try it again. Like the League of Nations or the World Bank or the Wobblies. We are a work in process.

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  8. I just cant be arsed thinking about it.....

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    1. You, me and about 48 million others just want to be allowed to get on with our lives in a civilised manner, don't we? Where's the harm in that?

      As of a couple of years ago, I have been supporting Anglican Christians in their simple values. Someone has to, and I don't trust anyone other than Anglicans to be defenders of the faith as far as this country goes. I'm not even fucking religious.

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  9. Do you mean your very own Anglicans or the ones in Africa who are now the majority in the Anglican Communion? Very different values.

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    1. No, I mean English vicars who are too timid to call gays faggots, if they are not faggots themselves - you know, the ones which attend W.I. meetings to judge cakes, as opposed to the Catholics who spend most of their time tellings boys that masturbation will send them to hell whilst jerking them off.

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  10. This post has a good title for a Sunday morning after a Saturday night.

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    1. Today, I am virtually hang-over free. I tend to get them during the week so that they disrupt my work-schedule.

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