Boris FFS!

(that's “for Foreign Secretary”, in case you thought I meant something else)

No, there'll be a separate Secretary for Brexit - David Davis.

To put the French supermarket law in context a bit..

My father in law volunteers for one of the charities that are authorised to collect and redistrbute food. He drives to the supermarkets on Mondays to make the collections and Ive helped him a couple of times. Its something charties have been doing in France for many many years.

The new law makes it a requirement for the retailers to do this, rather than voluntary. Only certain charities can redistribute the food.

To qualify to get the food handouts recipients need to register with a document from the Social Services showing entitlement, ie they are in poverty.

The charity my father in law works for, Secours Populaire only operates in the winter months, the rest of the year you are on you own.


All this to say that while the new law is a great initiative its real impact can only be minimal. The retailers still throw away vast amounts. The law states that they have ro give surplus food to the charities if the charities ask for it.

Nah, no mistake, a shrewd move, better in the tent pissing out, than the alternative. The mistake IMO is the new Home Secretary.

Posted By: owlmanNah, no mistake, a shrewd move, better in the tent pissing out, than the alternative.

And possibly an element (in this and other appointments) of, you got us into this, so you can [1]?

[1] Choose from a variety of possibilities according to taste. e.g.

a) stand at the front & take the flack.
b) sort it out.

Australia offers UK free trade deal..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36818055

"There has been a focus recently on how few trade negotiators we actually have got in the UK at the moment," he added.

"So a trade negotiator working on a deal with Australia would not then be available to work on a trade deal with China. It means decisions have be taken about which deals to really focus on, such as China."


Do we want a free trade deal with China? I suppose our car makers could use the cheaper steel.

I don't think it is fair to compare today's globalisation with the time of the East India Company (1600).

It is because of the mistakes made in the past that we now negotiate trade deals.

Posted By: bot de pailleLove the notion (fear-mongering) being advanced that the UK, instigator of the Industrial Revolution, Empire over a third of the globe

Well actually approaching a quarter of the globe's land area, rather than over a third (around 2% bigger than the Mongol Empire).

Posted By: bot de pailleThe UK didn't stop trade deals in 1600, thats when it began! Great Britain pretty much invented globalisation.

Not so - the first countries to adopt an early form of globalisation (if we leave out the Persians, Romans and the like) were the Portuguese and Spanish Empires, who kicked things off in a century before us in the 1500s. And the Spanish dollar, rather than Sterling, was the major international trading currency for much of the world well into the Industrial Revolution.

For around a century we didn't do much more than live off state-sanctioned piracy, attacking and plundering treasure from Portuguese and Spanish ships, before we got around to starting our own empire, funded by stolen Portuguese and Spanish gold. And rigged & maintained it in our favour by slavery, gunboat diplomacy, colonial war and repression, as well as numerous trade restrictions.

As for free trade, Great Britain didn't adopt that until the 1840s. Because by the 1840s the industrial revolution and the associated huge increase in UK productivity meant that we could easily undercut every other country - so free trade was very heavily loaded in our favour. And apart from slavery, etc., it can be argued that we could only afford to industrialise because of the gold we'd previously pinched from the Spanish.

Our first major 'free trade' deal was the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, where we forced the Chinese to open up their markets and give us Hong Kong, in return for nothing, after we defeated them in the Opium Wars.

As industrialisation took hold in the USA and Germany they soon caught us up, and the relative state of the economy started to decline in the 1870s. And after we used up all our vast foreign reserves fighting the 1st Word War (not to mention having to borrow from the USA too), we adopted protectionism - admittedly not the first country to do so - kicking off with the 1932 Import Duties Act.

Then came the 2nd World War, where, in exchange for American loans, we were forced to open up our markets post-war and make Sterling convertible via the Bretton Woods exchange rate system, with Sterling and other major currencies supposedly pegged to the US Dollar. That resulted in a Sterling crisis and the 1949 devaluation of the pound from $4.02 to $2.80.

Fortunately we were able to rebuild the country by borrowing from the USA again via the Anglo-American Loan Agreement, which was finally paid off in 2006 - 6 years late. With that cash, and with the industrialisation of farming resulting in an enlarged industrial workforce, the economy did well for a while. But as post-war reconstruction petered out, the empire broke up, nationalised industries faltered, and we were faced with major competition from the industrialising economies of the Far East and a rebuilt Germany, the economy took a fresh downturn.

In 1960 we founded the European Free Trade Association in an attempt to reverse the decline, and when that didn't work we jumped ship and joined the EEC in 1973, after which it stabilised. To put that into numbers, in 1950 the UK’s per-capita GDP was almost a third larger than the EEC average. When we applied to join the EEC in 1969, UK per-capita GDP had dropped to 2% below the EEC average. By the time we joined in 1973, UK per-capita GDP had fallen to >7% below the EEC average. (http://voxeu.org/article/britain-s-eu-membership-new-insight-economic-history). UK per-capita GDP now ranks 9th in the EU (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/GDP_per_capita,_consumption_per_capita_and_price_level_indices)

Recent economic modelling, drawing on data from 181 countries, indicates that the UK’s trade with the other EU members is around 55% cent higher than would be expected in the absence of the EU Single Market, taking into account factors such as GDP, population and geographical proximity. And since the EU accounts for 54% our trade in goods, EU membership boosts our overall national trade in goods to around 30% above the expected level. (https://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/pdf/2014/pb_britishtrade_16jan14-8285.pdf).

In short, the UK's economic history is far from glorious. And economic expansion based on free-ish world trade and without the direct assistance of other market-rigging mechanisms has been limited to a few decades out of a few centuries. If we leave the EU's Single Market the economic challenges in maintaining our current GDP will be monumental, however many free trade deals we're able to agree elsewhere.

Posted By: bot de paillethe mistakes made in the past ..."
What does that mean ??

He means the British Empire - or perhaps the idea of extractive empire in general, which is still in full swing, hence puny attempts like 9/11 etc by 'the extracted' to fight back.

Posted By: Gotanewlife

Posted By: Mike1And economic expansion based on free-ish world trade and without the direct assistance of other market-rigging mechanisms has been limited to a few decades out of a few centuries. If we leave the EU's Single Market the economic challenges in maintaining our current GDP will be monumental, however many free trade deals we're able to agree elsewhere.

Scary huh?

Chimes with this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland

Note how the "bright spots" were associated with... the EEA and EU.

Posted By: CWattersAnyone know why Australia is so keen to do a free trade deal with the UK? Are they hoping to sell us load of cheap coal?

I would think they know that freer trade with the UK is of mutual benefit.

Just like .. er .. India, China, Canada, USA, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico, Switzerland, South Korea, and a slew of smaller and less developed economies.

Ferdinand

Posted By: CWatters

What I want to know is why I (and the rest of the UK population) wasn't told:...

I think we were. It's just some people choose not to listen...

https://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/pdf/2014/pb_britishtrade_16jan14-8285.pdf" rel="nofollow" >https://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/pdf/2014/pb_britishtrade_16jan14-8285.pdf

Page 4...

"54 per cent of Britain’s goods trade is currently conducted with the EU, UK membership of the Union boosts its goods trade overall by around 30 per cent."

Oh that's just experts talking. Don't listen to them!

Roll on Year Zero!

I go with the figure on FullFact.org of 44%, but even at 42.5% it's still a big chunk of trade isn't it? And it's on our doorstep. Unlike the other trade we'll be chasing. Even when you are exporting services, it's a hell of a lot easier to deal with countries that are closer to you than on the other side of the world!

Posted By: torrent99Mike1, can I share your post on The 48% site on Facebook please?

Sure, go ahead - just provide a link back to my post.