In light of the Afghan migrant crisis, Italian PM Mario Draghi is now questioning whether the EU is even fit for purpose, claiming “nobody has a clear strategy” on handling the influx of refugees, and criticising the bloc’s inability “to manage such crises”. You know the solution Mario…
Lamenting the fact both Austria and Hungary are refusing to accept more refugees, Draghi said:
“Europe, united by many principles, is unable to tackle the problem and this is a thorn in the very existence of the bloc… Nobody can claim to have a clear strategy at this stage. Nobody has a road map.”
Still, maybe an EU army will solve all their problems…
Last night, Channel 4 News aired a report on labour shortages in Scottish fish processing plants. Unsurprisingly, it explained at length how a supposed Brexit horror show has made it more difficult for large firms to rely on cheap foreign labour. Sombre voiceovers and (unattributed) quotes from business chiefs animated over footage of empty boats conveyed the scale of the crisis: “The outlook is grim”, says one anonymous leader; “We have no applications coming in“, says another. They do at least interview one named factory manager on-camera, who laments how “the free movement has been taken away“, and blames his labour shortage “predominantly on Brexit“. There was just one thing missing from the report: any interviews with actual workers…
As Guido is repeatedly pointing out these days, managers and CEOs bemoaning their inability to undercut staff pay by importing cheap foreign labour isn’t likely to push the dial for most Brexit voters. Offer competitive wages, the applications will come in. Poorly-paid leave voters won’t lose much sleep over this report – their votes inevitably leading to better pay is exactly what the Leave campaign argued would happen, and what Leave voters bargained for. This genre of pro-low wage Brexit bashing may massage the egos of FBPE-ers, for many others it means thicker wallets…
DCMS Secretary Oliver Dowden tells The Telegraph this morning that he plans to do away with “endless” cookie banners, the pop-up notices that plague our online browsing to tell us what is patently obvious, that websites store personal information about you. Some nerds will wet the bed at this news. Guido set this as a test of whether divergence from the over-regulation of the EU was real. We have long campaigned to get rid of the stupid box-ticking that is required countless times a day…
Iain Duncan-Smith’s Taskforce for Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform – the group investigating how the UK can capitalise on its new regulatory freedoms post-Brexit – explained why the ‘Accept Cookies’ request is a waste of time:
“Both behavioural science and common sense tell you that putting a ‘tick to accept’ box in front of someone at the point they want to access a website or service does not generate genuine informed consent, it just means people are likely to tick ‘accept’ without thinking…a good measure of whether reform is successful will be the end of pointless cookie banners.“
Before data privacy fetishists get all angsty, here are some suggestions as to how transparency and privacy can be monitored less intrusively:
Here at Guido, because we want to provide a free-to-air service funded by advertising, we drop advertisers’ cookies. Consequently, we take a militant line against people who want to loot our content without being exposed to the advertising that pays the salaries and expenses that go into producing that content. That is the bargain we make with readers.
Think of the productivity boost from not wasting time every day you are online clicking on irritating cookie banner pop-ups. This alone will make Brexit worthwhile…
The British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) has claimed that a staff shortage as a result of the UK’s post-Brexit immigration laws is hampering food production, leading to an “inevitable” delay in the delivery of gammon roasts and pigs in blankets this winter. BMPA chief executive Nick Allen insists that a “12-13%” reduction in the number of European lorry drivers has meant that “some of the pig processors are having to cut down on how many pigs they are processing a week”, which will have knock-on effects for winter supplies because “it’s more difficult to time the supply of pigs in the same way that you can for Christmas turkeys”. Blaming a lack of gammon on Brexit will no doubt put the usual FPBE crowd in hysterics…
The solution is straight-forward: attract more Brits to drive lorries by offering them more attractive wages. Large retailers have already figured this out; they’re paying their drivers sign-on bonuses of up to £5,000 and having little trouble hogging supply. This isn’t a bug of Brexit, it’s a feature. While meat-headed industry bosses would rather wallow over the loss of cheap foreign labour than pay domestic workers more, soon they’ll have to accept that their ability to underpay staff is over. Too stub-boar-n to open the piggy bank…
Guido spotted an interesting quote today from European Council President Charles Michel, who took the opportunity to reflect on the 30 years since Ukraine declared independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union:
“I will go straight to the point: independence means sovereignty, and it means territorial integrity within internationally recognised borders.”
Maybe Michel’s finally seen the light after his previous warning that independence has ‘consequences‘. In any case, Guido’s always pleased to find points of agreement with our European neighbours…
Yesterday EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told the Irish, who represent less than 0.01% of the planet’s population, that “only by reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050 can we limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C”. Ireland, in an effort to reduce emissions, has banned the millennia-old tradition of cutting peat to use as heating fuel…
She went on to demand that the Irish, whom with over 6 million cattle have more cows than people,
“… cut emissions in its livestock sector, and not just by reducing the number of animals… I am confident that Ireland – and its farmers – can lead the way on this.”
Asking the Irish to cut the number of cattle they farm is like asking the Germans to cut the number of cars they manufacture. Not something Ursula has advocated.
Her transport needs are met mostly by diesel-fuelled Mercedes Benz, however a public tender document containing the budget for ‘air-taxi’ flights, also known as private jets, for senior EU commissioners shows an increase in budget from €7.14 million to €10.71 million. That is a 50% increase in the budget in the past five years. Another case of the elite’s “do as we say, not as we do” attitude…
