Huzzah!!!! Yet another Brexit freedom: We can now buy pint bottles of champagne!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Incidently - they're keeping quiet about distance (and speed?): Presumably over 99% of the respondents didn't have an issue with metric measurements? Remember: Imperial measurements haven't been taught in this country for over half a century.
Well they’re surely keeping quiet about distance and speed because it’s hardly likely we would have ended up with more metric. So, never on the table.
So more people wanted to get rid of imperial completely? Hilarious. I'd go metric for everything but pints of beer.
I remember being in France when Johnson made his claim that winemakers were falling over themselves for the opportunity to sell wine in pint bottles to Britain. A few days later I happened to be at a wine producer who exported a lot of wine to Britain and I asked the woman there what percentage chance there was they'd make pint bottles of their wines for the UK market. Her answer: 0 per cent.
Daniel Lambert (a wine importer who was forced to relocate his business to France) has challenged Hollinrake to debate with him on James O'Brien show on 2 Jan. O'Brien has said ok and Hollinrake has accepted.
This is cringeworthy stuff. Champagne stopped being sold by the pint around 1960. Alcohol was restricted from being sold to under 18s in 1923. That means that to ever have legally purchased a pint of champagne in the UK, you would need to be a minimum age of approximately 81 years old. I suspect few 18 year old were buying pints of champagne, so you can probably revise that figure upwards. It would be funny if it wasn't so desperately pathetic.
What's the point? Lambert – who knows his industry inside-out – will state facts and Hollinrake will ignore them and counter with (false) confidence, wishy-washy ideas, exceptionalism and boosterism. And not a single mind will be changed. Hollinrake will trot off imagining that the wine industry is celebrating the idea of being able to sell wine in pints – just 68ml bigger than the next biggest size. I mean, it's so laughable it's the perfect analogy for Brexit. These people are all the same. They don't know half as much as they think they do and when confronted with inconvenient facts they just gloss over them with their trademark simpleism. Brexit has made Britain less competitive and less nimble in many, many ways, both large and small. These things are all dismissed as unimportant but they're not. In my own industry, the cost of sales made in euros is higher than it was – and continues to rise. Data roaming costs are back. (That one will be countered by people saying "can't you go two weeks without watching Netflix?" because they lack the skills, knowledge or imagination to realise that when working abroad data communication isn't about being able to watch Netflix, it's about all sorts of things that a few years ago we were able to do without paying an additional fortune. They fail to grasp that selling stuff to Europe, or making money OUTSIDE the UK, benefits the UK. And if you make it harder for businesses to do that it affects all of us. In my industry, it's now easier to employ an American or Australian to work in Europe than a British person. Or an EU citizen who is already there and can work in any of the countries as if they were in their own. (The golden ticket is a British person with an EU passport. I am very fortunate to be in this position and it saves me a fortune as well as gives a heck of a lot of peace of mind). The boosters and simpleists will say: "British people worked in Europe before Brexit?" And they'll say that with all the confidence of someone who knows nothing about what was required then, or what the benefits of EU membership were because they don't care. It doesn't immediately affect them so they just gloss over it. Brexit Cultism in a nutshell. It's not impossible but it is harder because there's now layers of additional bureaucracy (ie cost), and greater risk. Five years ago, a British person could work in Europe safe in the knowledge that if they got ill or injured, they'd be treated without having to pay an arm and a leg. And when you're employing someone, you weigh up the risk and the cost. Easy option or difficult option? Easy one wins every time. "Oh just get medical insurance, it's easy," say the boosters and exceptionalists who think that a bit of travel cover from Thomas Cook will do the job because that's what they'd do when going on holiday. Except work-related insurance is expensive – often costing more than it costs to employ someone in the first place. "Why is it easier for Americans and Australians then?" ask the boosters and exceptionalists, because they don't know and they don't care about the subject. Well, because there are systems and processes in place for Americans and Australians that have been painfully slow being developed for British workers abroad.
Pushed for by Kemi Badenoch it appears. Not surprising really as Brexit hasn’t gone well for Tim and this keeps him on the team.
Tbf, even though he's a ****wit and absolutely ignorant on the subject of macro economics and international trade, his creation of a business that employs 40k plus workers is much more deserving of a knighthood than most other "sirs" and "ladies" that are knocking around.
When I worked for a wine merchant I was told that at the lower end of the market - maximum bang for buck at that time was about £15 - with inflation that would be around £20 today:
Yes, out of respect for the victims of the Post Office scandal, let's go back on our word and dodge a tricky debate. These people are absolute jellyfish!
I think you'll find the Post Office victims aren't bothered about the impact of Brexit on wine imports. It's the right thing to do. We need our gallant minister at the coalface sorting out this issue that's been sat in his (and his predecessors') in-tray for the past 15 years, and trying to get some clips on the news of him looking ministerial and important and some photos of him at the despatch box just in time for those re-election leaflets due to be printed imminently.
Port Talbot steel works is closing. Not sure the mainstream media is reporting the true reason why. https://x.com/BylineTV/status/1749457138924024289?s=20
Sorry, I may come across as callous but what am I supposed to think of those voters in industries who were highly dependent on being in the single market and also in localities that voted for Brexit? I mean, I've just had my first boat trip of the year. Normally I'm used to skippers (they make cab drivers seem like sandal-wearing Guardianistas) and can tune out their dialogue/bilge. But I had 6 hours of how he can't make out as a commercial fisherman as there's no local/national market for his catch and he's unable to fish in EU waters and the price he gets from wholesalers.... On and on for 6 f**King hours. This was in 61% Leave Weymouth. F**k 'em. They made their decision now they should own it.
Did you ask him how he voted? I had a sobering conversation in a Scottish fishing town last year with someone who voted Leave and who admitted it'd gone badly for his industry and that he was struggling. I asked why he'd voted Leave in the first place. Part of the reason was immigration. "Are there many immigrants here?" I asked. "Well, not here," he said.
If I was up against some nationalist fruit basket still complaining about how Remainers look down on Leave voters and don’t respect their choice, I’d argue the other way, that they are adults and made their choice. The problem is, amongst ourselves, we know centrist politics wasn’t good enough, left poorer people too precarious and eventually shat the bed in most directions. The Centrist deal with the wealth creators and Murdoch media led to a huge shift in power, broke any remaining consensus to resist markets and directly led to the madness of the last decade. Unlimited markets. Unlimited wealth in private hands. Connections to the working class frayed. Feeble politics and we should own that too. That’s why I’d rather come together than point fingers.
