After an enforced break of two years caused by the plague, the French are getting round to punishing us for Brexit anyway they can, as anyone with any sense said they would.
For the last two days they have been sending four border control officers to the British side of the Channel Tunnel to man fourteen lanes, causing chaos and tailbacks and turning our motorways into lorry parks with 10 hour delays. Why would they not? On the other side in France, the roads are nice and clear. A French minister admitted that Brexit had a lot to do with it yesterday, but today they have been back-tracking.
We have just struck a deal with Australia which allows for thousands of extra tons of their inferior beef to be imported here. Australia is literally as far away from the British Isles as you can get, but that's how desperate we have become thanks to Brexit and the understandable hostility from our nearest neighbours.
Let me know when you think us remoaners should stop moaning, but be realistic.
Well I was glad yesterday when you had a leg of lamb to eat, at least we are eating some of the enormous number of sheep that roam our moors and hills and not live exporting them...
ReplyDeleteI didn't buy any lamb yesterday - or today.
DeleteBrits spend their money when in France and one would think this would be welcomed. Politics and egos are sometimes more burden than good. Great quality meat is hard to come by. It is not readily available in many grocery stores. Go to the specialty butcher and anything can be had. Cro's birthday steak looked fantastic!
ReplyDeleteThe French don't need any excuse to dislike us, nor we them. It's been that way for a few hundred years now.
DeleteMy daughter and family have just travelled back from a holiday in Normandy, via a jam at Calais....caused by the problems on the English side. Nothing like the seven hour jams in England though!
ReplyDeleteThe extra staff sent by the French authorities were being seriously delayed...but things are clearing fast now they have arrived, apparently.
It is all politics anyway, ....Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving!!
Our authorities are on the French side, and vice versa. Today they have admitted - again - that it is all to do with Brexit.
DeleteI voted remain - I see myself as a European - what is wrong with that? Answers on a postcard.
ReplyDelete51 percent of us were supposed to have renounced our European identities. We are now paying for their idiocy, and we will continue to pay for many years to come. There could have been a dignified exit, but there wasn't.
DeleteNothing wrong at all Weaver. I also see myself as a European. Yet to hear one good thing to come out of the Brexit fiasco. Janx
ReplyDeleteI used to think that I would miss the freedom of travel the most, but it is - of course - much more complicated than that. I cannot believe how angry I still am after about four or five years of this slow-motion car-crash.
DeleteYour beef comes from Australia, our apples from New Zealand. And we live in prime orchard country. My house used to be surrounded by apple orchards, not houses.
ReplyDeleteYour comment was put into spam, Joanne. Google is doing that a lot these days. I know what you mean about old fields.
DeleteBoris has gone but the culture of telling big, fat, obvious lies continues. A Conservative minister was telling everyone this morning that the problems at the ports have nothing to do with Brexit. They are still treating us like little children.
ReplyDeleteBoris will be back as PM within a year.
ReplyDeleteI hope I will visit the UK within a year, preferably this year. It has been far too long. More than 3 years.
In 1968 I promised myself to come back at least once a year. I feel sorry that I did not keep my promises.
I am only wondering how long it will take me to come through customs and start asking me if I have got enough money with me. They asked me in 1968. The hostel was 1 lb a night.
At that time my housing rent was £2.50 a week - including electricity.
DeleteI blame French bloody-mindedness and not myself. I am perfectly intelligent in brain and knowing my EU laws and directives and economics which were not wholly fair. It was no reason for me not daring to vote leave the EU because the French wouldn't like it. We should fight back and ban French imports. We should support each other, not still be fighting as leavers and remainers. It would be better by now to be united.
ReplyDeleteRight on. A united front is strategic. Internal skirmishes gets nothing. Rachel you are spot on: ban French imports. Makes perfect logic and sense.
DeleteIt's a bit late for all that rhetoric. You should have thought about unity a few years ago. Very brave of you to vote leave if you knew the EU laws so well you could have predicted all this. How do you suggest we support each other? What possible good would it do the UK to ban French imports? All the shit you have spouted over the years and now you spout this ridiculous shit. You have all the answers? Good. Tell us.
Delete(As you see, I still lose my temper over all this. Believe it or not, I hate saying 'I told you so' as much as you hate hearing it.)
DeleteDon't you think, sometimes you have to fight fire with fire? The ban of French imports would do this. You state, the French want to punish the English. That said, the English need to give them some of the same back. Remember, "all is fair in love and war." This is not war but as you point out...it is certainly not love.
DeleteThe problem with that is that we - the UK - are in such a weak position now after all that has happened that we cannot afford to fight back using the same tactics. We would just harm ourselves even more than we already have. We have no cards left in the game. We have lost most of the respect that we inherited after WW2 and everyone knows it, especially Russia. 'All is fair in love and war' is working against us now. We depend on the goodwill of nations outside the EU, and they are going to stuff us well and truly for the sake of their own economies. We are, quite simply, fucked for the foreseeable future.
DeleteIs anyone truly fucked if they can appreciate that wonderful piece of glass you put up on Insta . Please tell us more about it .
DeleteI did a post about it here once. I can't remember what he paid for it, but about £50,000 rings a bell.
DeleteWhich is £20,000 more than this government invested in border control after brexit.
DeleteI was not talking about the price . I wondered who was likely to have made it and for who and so on .
DeleteI wasn't talking about the glass here either. You should ask me these questions on Instagram, where they would be relevant to the moment.
DeleteI do not value your opinions on glass ( or anything else ) enough to bother .
DeleteYou weren't asking my for my opinions.
DeleteMy boy is a cattle farmer in Australia but even I couldn't support those kind of food miles.
ReplyDeleteHere we receive conflicting messages. One lot tell us that we should eat less red meat, but they know that British farmers cannot compete on price with countries which have less welfare control than us, and to hell with air miles just so long as they get voted back in in two years time. We have got what we deserve.
DeleteI read that some time ago the French offered to man more passport booths at Dover but the government didn't see the need for providing them. Maybe they had been briefed by Dominic Raab who didn't realise how much passenger traffic as well as freight passes through the port!
ReplyDeleteFrance is obliged to carry out all the checks at British ports because they are the gateway to the rest of Europe. It's called the end of freedom of movement, what some leave voters wanted the most. Except that they didn't realise it would also apply to them.
There were no queues when we travelled earlier in the year, even though the same checks were in place. The problem is caused by the volume of traffic at the end of the school holidays. The fourteen lanes of queuing cars at Dover is served by only five French passport booths.
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/the-british-government-rejected-a-33m-proposal-to-double-passport-booths-at-dover-in-2020-330342/
Yesterday I heard that the French port authorities asked the British government for a £30 million investment at this side of the border controls, but received £30,000 instead. Boris Johnson's school report apparently said that he thought he should be exempt from all the rules which applied to everyone else, and this is how he has been behaving ever since. They want us to believe that it is nothing but the French being typically stroppy and the chaos has nothing to do with brexit, so they continue to lie and treat us like children even with Boris almost gone. Before he goes he wants to inject 90 new Conservative peers in the House of Lords. Christ, you couldn't have made this stuff up a few years ago.
DeleteThe Liberal Party is hugely over represented in the House of Lords in comparison to its support on the ground.
DeleteI don't think so. Conservative peers: 252. Crossbench: 185. Labour: 166. Liberal Democrats: 83. There are too many Conservatives up there already without Boris creating another 90.
DeleteOn a ratio of peers to elected MPs the Tories should have well over 3000 peers.
Deletethen.
DeleteThat is not how it works, even if the House could hold 3000 members. Are you advocating proportional representation?
DeleteI know that is not how it works, I was merely making a down to earth man on the Clapham Omnibus comment without your in depth knowledge of everything. I speak only shit and rhetoric.
DeleteI think you will find that the Lib Dems will gain a lot more power and influence over the next couple of years, thanks to the shit and rhetoric coming from both Labour and the Conservatives.
DeleteFrance has a price cap of 4% on electricity costs extended until the end of 2022. It thinks that it can do without Russian gas at a push. Britain only gets 15% of its gas from Russia. France effectively owns most of Britain's electricity supply. Britain's electricity companies will pay out dividends to shareholders this year. It is now being predicted that the average monthly British electricity bill will be £500 this Winter. No matter if you never even turn on a lightbulb in your house, it will cost you almost the same just to stay connected. While the Conservatives run around trying to whip up enthusiasm for a party that has lost the will to govern, nothing is being done to mitigate this impending crisis.
ReplyDeleteI have used £21 worth of electricity this month doing very little. It seems that this quarter bill will be low. You are stirring up shit and fear mongering as usual. I can save now for the winter bill.
DeleteLiving in the East as you do, you are - as I understand - protected against a lot of price increases that we in the West and North are subject to. Something to do with supply routes I hear. Our monthly electricity debit has gone from £40 a month to £82, and by October it will be a lot more than that. We are fortunate. This is a lot less than some other people in the area. Have you heard Martin Lewis talking about what is going to happen to poor households this Winter? I presume you have at least heard of Martin Lewis. Over the years you have accused me of shit-stirring by regurgitating bits of news heard on the networks. You didn't believe me about Brexit. You didn't believe me about covid. When the truth came out you seemed to think you would stay unaffected by all this in Norfolk, but you weren't. It just took longer to catch you up, and when it does catch you up you are in the fortunate position of being able to deal with it with very little hardship compared to some of your less wealthy citizens.
DeleteI never asked you about anything about the l Rederendum and the only thing I remember about your writing at the time is you were weighing up your decision like everybody else. I have never considered this blog to be a place I would look to for advice on Brexit or anything else. My views on Covid haven't changed. I was aware of daily death rate stats well before Covid and looking after Covid they spoke volumes about how the epidemic affected our overall death rates over time. There are many who follow Martin Lewis and I have recently discovered him but don't see him on tv. Or listen to him. I work stuff out for myself. I pay a quarterly bill by BACS and EDF have always offered good viable rates. I keep a notebook.and pen in the meter cupboard to see what I am using. My shit and rhetoric may be that to you but to me it is fact.
DeleteMy direct debit has increased to 166£ a month . For my cottage. I am in credit with my bills so far but Scottish power won’t change it
ReplyDeleteOur bills are low because we live an almost 3rd world existence as far as consumption goes. No central heating, no gas etc. They make the bills almost impossible to actually work out what is going on. They always have. H.I. once took one to the accountant because she could not understand it. Neither could the accountant. the £500 a month is worst case, but they will still rise horribly in January. 75% more than now, apparently. We will soon be out of credit.
DeleteMine is higher because I used the immersion heater before the bathroom was done but £166? God help us
DeleteWould a solar panel install with the battery for storage meet your needs for electric? There has to be some alternative; your rates are outrageous. My electric rates have increased some but not like your rates. I've researched outright purchase and leasing solar for my home and will eventually take that step. The outright purchase would be my choice.
DeleteThere were government grants for doing this, but not any more. You would expect to pay about £15,000 for a simple system and it would take quite a long time to begin to pay for itself.
Delete