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    Mail journalist kicked out of Irish embassy for Brexit heckles. She had "enjoyed a good lunch" and was presumably "tired and emotional".

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics...embassy-brexit

    Comment


      Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
      Spoony, those senior officials are the sons and daughters of homocidal imperialists. One can argue that the trend is actually positive.

      As much as it pains me to disagree with Amor, I believe that there is a time and place for port.
      How else are you going to dilute your brandy?

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        Côtes du Rhône straight from the barrel is the only thing I drink now.

        Comment


          Brexit impacts - calibration and standards body BSI are now sending a portion of their work via the Netherlands. BSI, or the British Standards Institute...

          Comment


            Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
            As much as it pains me to disagree with Amor, I believe that there is a time and place for port.
            During a storm?

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              On a personnal level, decent news today, Switzerland and UK have signed off an agreement on our status post-Brexit which in the case of Swiss in the UK, we are being enrolled in the Settled Status scheme. I need to check if I can escape the charge, as I have an ILR visa from the good old days...

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                On a personal level I'm pleased for MS and family. However...

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                  Originally posted by Flynnie View Post
                  May’s rip-off immigration fees have done a lot to turn American migrants (I loathe the term expat) into Labour voters. Probably not enough of us to make a difference and we’re disproportionately in London, but whenever it’s brought up there’s a unanimous sense of resentment at being charged several times the going rate for equivalent visas from INS.
                  Yeah, we see anything like that as a tax we don't have to pay. Many of us still think we can pull this nonsense and attract exactly the immigrants we want. And anyway, if we can't we "train our people".

                  We have a rude awakening coming.

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                    Talking about Toblerone, they have put a "halal" label on their product (it has long been halal and kosher...) and it the far right numpties are in uproar about it....It reminds me of the Heinz baked beans saga....

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                      Marketing genius

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                        Originally posted by MoonlightShadow View Post
                        On a personnal level, decent news today, Switzerland and UK have signed off an agreement on our status post-Brexit which in the case of Swiss in the UK, we are being enrolled in the Settled Status scheme. I need to check if I can escape the charge, as I have an ILR visa from the good old days...
                        Well done! Delighted for you, you should save a couple of grand too. But that’s if they managed to get this Settled Status system to work, they’ve only been trying to get the app up and running for a year despite the Tories saying that it’ll be dead easy (yet another Liam Fox-type famous last words statement).

                        Rudd says online EU registration will be 'as easy as shopping at LK Bennett'... Home secretary compares application system for EU citizens to setting up account with luxury fashion retailer


                        Yet…

                        April 2018: 'Beyond belief': Brexit app for EU nationals won't work on iPhones. MEPs say problems with app is further proof of Home Office’s poor grasp of technology

                        June 2018: The Home Office's bungled Brexit app is already a total disaster

                        December 2018: EU nationals highlight multiple bugs in Home Office Brexit app.... Concerns raised over passport recognition, data sharing and ability to use it abroad. Home Office efforts to launch a phone app for EU nationals registering to stay in Britain have been dealt a blow after complaints that the passport recognition function does not work on all phones.

                        Comment


                          Originally posted by MoonlightShadow View Post
                          On a personnal level, decent news today, Switzerland and UK have signed off an agreement on our status post-Brexit which in the case of Swiss in the UK, we are being enrolled in the Settled Status scheme. I need to check if I can escape the charge, as I have an ILR visa from the good old days...
                          You were always going to be fine as a member of the international brotherhood of banking havens.

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                            TAB is right - given the rhetorical commitment to cake there was always going to be a Swiss role post-Brexit.

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                              Hooray!!!!

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                                Originally posted by anton pulisov View Post
                                Côtes du Rhône straight from the barrel is the only thing I drink now.
                                Ha ha ha, not only have you turned into the archetypal bad-tempered tourist-botherer Parigot but also into a straight-from-the-gros-rouge-qui-tache-barrel alcoholic too.

                                Been visiting the bar-cave I mentioned to you last year perchance? (Le Baron Rouge). I’m not mentioning any more of these places, I don’t want to be held responsible for your cirrhosis of the liver.





                                Allez, just a few for the road then:

                                Le Barav, angle of Rue Charles-François Dupuis & Rue de la Corderie in the Marais (the latter is a lovely quiet street, away from the busy touristic part of the Marais), worth a visit if you’re in the "Haut Marais" area as they call it now (the superb Picasso Museum is a few minutes away on foot, just saying, if you need an excuse to go to that untouristic Upper Marais area, I recommend the rooftop café at the Picasso museum, Le Café sur le toit).

                                The informal La Quincave, Rue Bréa at the bottom of Saint-Germain/north of Montparnasse, pretty good, possibly your best cave-bar in that (very posh) area since the historic and iconic Chez Georges a few streets away has gone a bit funny. The problem of Chez Georges is that it’s located in what's now officially a fucking "Rue de la Soif" area (Rue des Canettes, Rue Guisarde, Rue Princesse), invasion of faux Irish/British pubs and big-screen themed bars over there, ghastly, it’s killed off the area in terms of authenticity.

                                There are a few fine cave-bars in the Belleville area, Rue de Bagnolet area for instance (just south of the Père Lachaise). I like the Piston Pélican at the beginning of the Rue de Bagnolet, it’s a bit of a "ça paye pas de mine"sort of place (unassuming) on first appearance but authentic and very informal. It’s not a typical "bar-cave" liek Le Baron but a cracking place nonetheless (good beer, and cheap: €4.50 a pint – it’s actually cheaper than I used to pay for a pint in central Paris… 30 years ago! Wine is much dearer though). And few tourists there, so you should love it. They don’t "do" English or menus in English there, so you’ll have to speak French or just point and grunt. Although with the Père Lachaise nearby they do get a trickle of tourists, sorry. (the Piston Pélican is located close to both Jim Morrison’s grave & the cemetery south exit and to the Alexandre Dumas metro station so that explains it, but it’s a place for locals first and foremost). There are a few good ones on that street, 300 yds from Piston Pélican, there’s Quartier Rouge and another one next door, can't remember its name. There’s defo a decent bar-cave crawl to do in that area.
                                Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 20-12-2018, 16:45.

                                Comment


                                  Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                                  I’m guessing a lot of low level Processing grunts just keep their heads down and follow orders but I wouldn’t be surprised if their hiring policy leans toward sadists. And of course the outsourced evil doers like Serco and Capital.
                                  Yep, like most things in the UK now it’s been privatised through the back door, with bits contracted out, semi-privatised etc. you get the picture. So you’ve got many people processing those applications who were probalby working for Pets at Home or Argos 2 months before, and may well return there. I’m sure they do their best but quite apart from the fact that it’s a technical job that requires a modicum of humanity (to maybe err on the side of caution more often than not) that they may not all have, or not be allowed to develop, they’re on target and incentivised, not ideal given the nature of their job. You can’t talk to anyone, emails go unanswered, even MPs acting for their constituents have got a hell of a job getting in touch with actual Home Office people etc. that sort of thing.

                                  And M&S vouchers Spoony, everybody loves an M&S voucher…

                                  Home Office staff rewarded with gift vouchers for fighting off asylum cases. Incentives for officials who hit target of winning 70% of tribunal cases include vouchers, cash bonuses and extra holidays

                                  Home Office offered bonuses to Windrush firm, documents reveal. Incentivised contract gave Capita 2.5% extra payment if target for removals exceeded

                                  Home Office makes thousands in profit on some visa applications. Size of margins raises concerns department has incentive to reject applicants on technicalities, forcing them to reapply. The Home Office is making profits of up to 800% on immigration applications from families, many of whom are eligible to live in the UK but are turned down on technicalities and forced to reapply – and pay again.

                                  Comment


                                    Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
                                    You were always going to be fine as a member of the international brotherhood of banking havens.
                                    And doubtless there's somebody in the government who thinks they're playing grandmaster chess. " That'll show Ireland/Merkel/Juncker/Barnier/Verhofstadt".

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                                      You know how Brexiters like to blame the civil service? Remainer Andrew Adonis wants a bit of that.

                                      https://twitter.com/Andrew_Adonis/status/1075296182254100480

                                      Jill Rutter, of the very good Institute for Government, hands him his arse.

                                      Comment


                                        For reasons I've never determined, even quite good Côtes du Rhône give me bad headaches.

                                        I can only imagine what it would do straight from the barrel.

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                                          Diane Abbott herself, I am absolutely sure, has no problem with Freedom of Movement. And I'm sure she gets better than anybody that most Brexiters don't want Poles replaced by Pakistanis.

                                          So why was she going here in Parliament yesterday?

                                          I support a single immigration system for all nationalities. To my certain knowledge, nothing drove pro-leave sentiment among voters of Commonwealth origin more than the sense that they were disadvantaged in relation to immigration compared with EU nationals. So, if Brexit produces nothing else, it ought to produce a system that moves away from that unfairness. We should be a country that treats the doctor from Poland in the same way as a doctor from Pakistan.
                                          And no, it's not true that Brexit "ought" to lead to the end of Freedom of Movement. It's perfectly possible to Brexit without ending it, and if that's what we do, we'll all be better off than it looks like we'll be at the moment.

                                          Comment


                                            By the way, the Ashcroft data didn't at all bear out the impression given there of Asian/Black voters as being particularly Brexity.

                                            https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a7101676.html

                                            Sikhs were the only group in favour of Brexit (though less than white Britons). Asian voters overall and black voters were much, much less Brexity. Nor can we infer that these were driven by what Abbot says- I expect many are much like white Brexiters. Perhaps some (shock) are fairly conservative Tories.

                                            And more recently, I think it was the big Channel 4 poll that found swings away from Brexit in a number of constituencies with high non-white populations.

                                            Comment


                                              Thanks Pérou Flaquettes and Wouter D for pointing to the correct facts, I need to pay a bit more attention to details here (this from a MA student)

                                              I completely agree that right-wing populism is not new to the UK, its central to the way Cameron and especially May seek to please their masters' voice. The Windrush scandal was a vivid indicator of how the innocent could be fucked over to please the illiberal elements of the press and unfortunately a significant sector of the population. UKIPs support is a maybe a touch misleading, the first past-the-post systems allows then to fulfil the role of a pressure valve in allowing xenophobes to vent there collective spleens with no real danger of gaining meaningful power. I assume the came could be true of the FN? There real influence is how they have encouraged the Tory party to move further to the right in the hope of picking up more seats. Indeed this shift in 2015, allowed them to kick-off the feather-lite restraints of the Lib Dems and replace them with votes who have never seen much beyond there own noses. This makes the their populism seem more mainstream and legitimate. Things are getting worse and post-Brexit large parts of this country are going to feel very unwelcoming to anyone who cannot trace their English ancestry back to the nineteenth century. I can see the definition of the 'other' being widened further.


                                              If there is a God I hope she condemns May to fucking roasting hot eternity of walking the seven circles of hell.

                                              Comment


                                                Perhaps some (shock) are fairly conservative Tories.

                                                Like Sajid Javid and priti Patel?

                                                Comment


                                                  Funnily enough, Priti Patel was one prominently pushing the "unfairness" of Freedom of Movement. Gisela Stuart too, presumably with the sly insinuation that "people like me" benefit unfairly.

                                                  Stuart cleared off in 2017. Patel hasn't been too conspicuous in trying to right the wrong she identified.

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                                                    Something that needs to be borne in mind is that though migrants may have to start off pretty low down the ladder of the society they move to, they're generally pretty well off before they move. and can be massively conservative and supportive of "pro-entrepreneur" policies. It generally requires a lot of capital to emigrate by the standards of the country that they are leaving, unless you are prepared to walk all the way and hide in trucks. Patel's family were Ugandan Indians who were planted in uganda as a loyal merchant class by the english, as part of the traditional divide and rule model, and later expelled by Idi Amin, in a move that didn't do much for uganda. Though it would seem that the community has substantially recovered

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