Fogbow

Over the next year, however, I will hear the term used again and again when my son plays football at the local park. He turns 11 and is off to secondary school. There, too, the phrase seems to have become a “thing”. One evening, as he recounts the details of how he got a painful-looking graze on his shin, he quotes the attacking player’s prelude to clattering into him: “Brexit means Brexit!” I ask, finally, why people are saying this. Nonchalantly, as he practises “skills” with the same softball, he explains that the Brexit tackle “is a tackle that doesn’t get the ball, only takes out the player”. Urban Dictionary concurs, stating it is, among other things, “when somebody hits a massive slide tackle and usually sends them flying and it hurts them servely [sic]”.

At first, I assumed this was a north London phenomenon until a quick Google proved otherwise. TikTok, now “the most favourable single source of news” for teenagers, was where my research flourished. In one TikTok post, football content creator Kalan Lisbie, with tongue firmly in cheek, walks viewers through “how to do the Brexit tackle”. He informs us that “the first thing you need to do is pretend like you’re going to boot the ball away and not tackle. Second thing is that you want to rotate those hips and as soon as you rotate, you want to take absolutely everything … and then just clean him”. A commenter on another video notes that school football is now more like WWE.

So where did the “Brexit tackle” come from? The phrase “Brexit means Brexit” became a joke right from its inception because it was so obviously meaningless – as even a Tory minister admitted at the time. In the face of great complexity, we were given what Fintan O’Toole called “ludicrous tautology”. That young people now repeat the political slogan during aggressive play should tell us that the phrase has become symbolic of a kind of empty-headed belligerence. If we keep in mind that the tackler is willing to hurt themselves – either by getting sent off the pitch or injuring themselves physically – then it can also be read as a pugnacious attempt to make things worse for yourself, just to make a point.

There’s a healthy dose of irreverence in there too – you have to admit, there’s something very funny about one child barking “Brexit means Brexit!” to another in a muddy park. You get the sense they’re having fun at older generations’ expense. Ask any parent of a tweenager or older: no one is better able to comprehensively make fun of, or call attention to, adult flaws and hypocrisy.

By adopting “Brexit means Brexit” and transforming it into a symbol of almost dangerously rough play, you get the sense that children are holding up a mirror to the adult world. They’re using it as a joke, to be sure, but it’s a timely reminder that politicians’ words and political stances extend far beyond the immediate context, seeping into the fabric of our children’s lives. Their playful satire draws on the overt aggression of our Punch and Judy politics, which started at Westminster and has now made it on to the school football pitch. Wouldn’t it be nice to have politicians whose shallowness and hypocrisy aren’t so easily mocked by 10-year-olds?

Defra officials buried analysis showing dire financial prospects for hill farmers
Exclusive: FoI request reveals fears many would sell up if they saw assessment of post-Brexit farming payments scheme

Helena Horton Environment reporter
Tue 20 Feb 2024 00.00 EST

Government officials have buried an analysis of the financial prospects for some of the most vulnerable farmers in the UK after realising it was almost entirely bad news, the Guardian can reveal.

The analysis was to have been part of an optimistic look at the financial situation for upland farmers, some of the poorest in the country, but minutes from meetings about the plans obtained through a freedom of information request have revealed concerns were raised about the negative findings.

Farming groups said it was “irresponsible” not to make the analysis public after FoI documents showed officials refused to publish it as ministers would not like it.

According to the minutes:

• One official commented: “Could end up with no pathways to success at the end. We only want to publish if we have something which is positive to tell people.”
  Government officials admitted that upland farmers were falling into financial crisis and might go out of business.
  Officials feared that when upland farmers saw the data showing how much money they would make they would sell up.
  Officials believed upland farmers were dismissive of the environment.

Many upland farmers only remain financially viable because of the EU-derived basic payment scheme (BPS), a system that will be completely phased out by 2027.

Post-Brexit farming payments schemes will be given to farmers who restore nature, but they are easier to access for those who own their land. Many upland farmers are commoners or tenants, and many of the most lucrative options under the BPS replacement, such as creating wildflower meadows, improving soil heath and reducing pesticide use, are geared towards lowland arable farms. This means upland farmers have feared losing BPS and being unable to make enough money under the new scheme to make ends meet.



https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... nts-scheme

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 20, 2024 9:14 am pm. Defra = Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Defra officials buried analysis showing dire financial prospects for hill farmers
Exclusive: FoI request reveals fears many would sell up if they saw assessment of post-Brexit farming payments scheme

Helena Horton Environment reporter
Tue 20 Feb 2024 00.00 EST

Brexit has cost UK food companies exporting to EU an extra £170m
Exclusive: Data shows costs have contributed to value of meat exports falling by 17% since 2019

Jack Simpson
Wed 21 Feb 2024 00.00 EST

Food businesses sending products to the EU have had to fork out an extra £170m in export costs because of Brexit red tape, with the changes described as being “catastrophic” for some exporters.

Data shared with the Guardian shows that in the three years since leaving the single market, exporters of foods of animal origin have had to pay the sums to secure sign-offs by vets before they can send their shipments.

In the past 12 months alone, exporters have paid more than £58m. The extra costs have resulted in a sharp fall in exports, particularly among smaller producers, with the value of meat products sent to the EU down by 17% since 2019.

After the UK officially left the single market in January 2021, the EU made it a requirement for exporters of foods of animal origin to have vets check consignments and sign export health certificates (EHCs) before they could be sent. The UK brought in reciprocal measures last month, raising fears that some EU exporters might abandon exporting to the UK owing to the extra costs and bureaucracy.

Since December 2020, the month before the UK left the single market, more than 852,000 certificates have been requested by exporters, according to analysis by the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Certification Working Group, which brings together trade bodies such as the Fresh Produce Consortium, Dairy UK and the Road Haulage Association.

These include certificates for fish and fish products, livestock, and meat and dairy products.

The group calculated that these certificates – which cost about £200 to complete – have heaped more than £170m in added costs for exporters over the past three years.



https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... t-red-tape

And coincidentally, professor Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, the principal of the Royal Academy of Music, says Brexit has brought no benefits and instead may cause “terminal damage” to the UK’s music industry. He told the European Movement that the proportion of European students at the London academy had fallen by half since 2016 and warned that Brexit has stopped the flow of talent coming in:

“It has been a complete no-win situation, not just for higher education but actually for music higher education, and particularly an institution like this that was founded over 200 years ago by Europeans.”

How the Brexit dream of Singapore-on-Thames was lost
Westminster is lurching from one shock to the next and now has precious few options left

JEREMY WARNER
28 February 2024 • 12:00pm

The dream was Singapore-on-Thames, a low tax, small state, lightly regulated economy that, freed from the shackles of European instruction, could thrive anew on the world stage.

Nearly eight years after the 2016 referendum, the reality is of a still deeply divided nation heading, according to new analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, not towards some kind of low tax, super competitive, economic nirvana, but the highest tax burden since the Second World War, with the state some 3 to 4 percentage points bigger as a share of national income than it was before the vote for Brexit.

What is more, the IFS says, there is almost nothing that the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, can do to avoid these outcomes. Britain’s already burgeoning debt has Hunt, and any Labour successor, stitched up like a kipper with no way out.

Wherever you look, there is a deep sense of malaise; it is indeed hard to recall a time when people were more pessimistic about the future than they are now. The two things may not be entirely connected, but being out on our own has failed to improve the mood.

Nothing seems to work, there are long waiting lists for almost every public service, there’s not enough housing to go around, and at a loss for solutions, our public discourse has degenerated into the demeaning bile of culture wars irrelevance.

What on earth happened? Why has the spirit of national renewal that Brexit was meant to give rise to fallen so woefully short?

According to Liz Truss, the former prime minister, it’s all down to the “deep state”, a suffocating conspiracy of bureaucrats and quangos that is determined to thwart the noble ambitions of elected politicians such as herself. Truss, by the way, campaigned for Remain, but then there is no zealot quite like the convert.

There may be some element of truth in what she says about Whitehall obstinacy and the shortcomings of non elected technocrats, but her take on events is essentially just a lot of paranoid nonsense straight out of the populist playbook, where an imaginary “enemy within” is created as a hate plank to channel the discontents of voters.

It was up to Brexit’s political cheerleaders to make something out of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, whatever the obstacles, but they failed. They over promised and under delivered, and the presiding government is now about to reap the whirlwind.

This was not because the bureaucrats betrayed them, or even the rather more credible excuse of the pandemic; it was because the vision of Singapore-on-Thames was always a fantasy that would never be capable of uniting the nation behind it.



(possible paywall) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... -together/

According to Liz Truss, the former prime minister, it’s all down to the “deep state”, a suffocating conspiracy of bureaucrats and quangos that is determined to thwart the noble ambitions of elected politicians such as herself. Truss, by the way, campaigned for Remain, but then there is no zealot quite like the convert.

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 03, 2024 7:11 pm

It was up to Brexit’s political cheerleaders to make something out of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, whatever the obstacles, but they failed. They over promised and under delivered, and the presiding government is now about to reap the whirlwind.

This was not because the bureaucrats betrayed them, or even the rather more credible excuse of the pandemic; it was because the vision of Singapore-on-Thames was always a fantasy that would never be capable of uniting the nation behind it.

Not a sausage: how latest post-Brexit checks have hit UK delis
One company selling German products has not had a single delivery of wurst since January

Jack Simpson
Sat 9 Mar 2024 08.00 CET

German Deli in east London is known for its wide variety of traditional sausages, but the post-Brexit border changes brought in last month means stocks are running worryingly low.

Offering 22 types of fresh sausage, from the classic Bavarian leberwurst to the Oktoberfest currywurst, the online retailer has become popular with expats and lovers of German cuisine since it launched in 2004.

But the company’s accounts manager, Susann Schmieder, says: “We only have stuff left over from before the new border changes came in, and those are approaching their best before dates.”

It has not received a delivery of sausages at its warehouse in Walthamstow since 31 January, when the government brought in the first stage of its border target operating model (BTOM), which requires a vet to sign off all meat and dairy imports before they can be shipped.

“The issue is our supplier is still waiting for feedback from their local food and veterinary office on which papers and checks they need,” Schmieder said.

German Deli is far from alone. Other UK delis are struggling to stock some of their staple goods as their European suppliers wrestle with new the post-Brexit import rules. One in London that stocks products from across the continent expects a dozen of its providers to stop exporting to the UK because of the new red tape.

Another, ScandiKitchen, also in London, has stopped stocking 20 items, largely sausages and pates, because of confusion about what was required Its managing director, Jonas Aurell, who has run the business since 2006, said: “Our main suppliers are struggling to get all the paperwork together and getting their head around it. We’re looking for other suppliers to fill the gap.”

Another key supplier had abandoned the UK completely because it did not have the resources to cope with the paperwork, instead focusing on its domestic market, he said.



https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... t-uk-delis

pipistrelle wrote: ↑Sat Mar 09, 2024 10:21 pm If Norway and Sweden are both NATO members now, and go to war, what happens?

pipistrelle wrote: ↑Sat Mar 09, 2024 10:21 pm If Norway and Sweden are both NATO members now, and go to war, what happens?

Sam the Centipede wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2024 12:00 pm The two other kings don't notice the poison dripped onto their meals, because lutefisk is a vile abomination to the palate (it is essentially cod soaked in bleach, avoid it).