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Err, yes, yes

The Northern Ireland protocol is said to be a blight on regional economy. That’s just not true
After an initial shock to businesses, manufacturing jobs are growing four times faster here than the UK average

That jobs are being created is that evidence of the blight. The aim of economic advance being to destroy jobs, of course.

16 thoughts on “Err, yes, yes”

  1. Jobs are a cost. But as a society you do hope that destroyed jobs get replaced by new and more productive ones. Societies with 30% unemployment rates don’t tend to be very nice ones to live in, even if you’re in work.

  2. Interestingly, organisations that say they represent “business”, i.e. the conspiracy of merchants against the publick, seem quite keen on the whole NornIron-EU regulatory fandango.

    Boris Johnson says:

    “It was designed in the absence of a trade and cooperation agreement and when it was unclear one would be agreed. It has not been adapted to reflect the realities of the TCA.

    “It was designed before a global pandemic and a European war which has created a cost of living crisis on a scale not seen for half a century.”

    All of this is uncharacteristically true, though as always with Tory politicians, there’s no apparent plan to fix the problems he mentioned – seems unlikely that tweaking the Northern Ireland protocol is going to achieve noticeably lower costs of living, and we’re still doubling down on the sort of things that made the cost of living rise.

    Despite (or because of?) receiving tens of billions of dollars, pounds and Euros in aid, our Greatest Ally in Kiev is now throttling gas deliveries to Western Europe. Seems only a matter of time before some combination of Russia, Ukraine, the EU, the US and Britain contrive to shut down the German economy, the results of which will be immediate and exciting. China is also wreaking merry havoc with its rolling lockdowns, which are causing so much pain and confusion the accredited conspiracy theory is they’re deliberately fucking with the West. There may, or may not, still be a war by Christmas, but it’s looking a bit 1970’s and grim in any case.

    Still, like the government’s feeble and half-hearted counter-virtue-signalling on “woke” and the Home Secretary’s perennial promise to Do Something about illegal migration, annoying the Guardian might be the intended result.

  3. OT: there’s an article in the Telegraph, headline “Crucial gas supplies turned away from UK ports”. “The Grid” is limiting imports, Ofgem said this is to “protect the interests of consumers”. Could do with some translation by Tim!

  4. Steve,

    “Still, like the government’s feeble and half-hearted counter-virtue-signalling on “woke” and the Home Secretary’s perennial promise to Do Something about illegal migration, annoying the Guardian might be the intended result.”

    The goal of a Conservative government should be to destroy the Guardian. Not directly, but that you destroy the institutions and attitudes that keep the Guardian being read.

    Like that bloke who egged the new statue of Thatcher (pbuh) runs an arts centre. These places are 100% left wing, no Conservative votes in them, most of the public don’t care about them, yet Conservative councils keep funding them. If he was fired and had to find a real job helping people, he’d soon change his attitudes.

    Story at the weekend about government cutting links and funding to the NUS. Something to do with anti-semitism, but why was a Conservative government ever funding the NUS? It’s a private organisation that mostly acts as a training ground for the left. Why the would a Conservative government fund that?

    Yes, the Guardian will hate you for doing these things, but so fucking what? They are not even potential Conservative voters. It’s like Richmond Sausages worrying about offending rabbis.

  5. What happens when the narrative metric for economic success is the numbers of individual jobs. The mid 70’s were a time of booming prosperity & high immigration is an unalloyed benefit.

  6. There are lots of assertions but not many facts in the article.
    If trade is £1 billion higher with the South, how much lower is it with GB? Trade diversion is specifically mentioned as grounds for Article 16 in the protocol.
    Manufacturing jobs might be increasing, but from a much lower base. And how much do they pay?
    If NI is so rosy, why do we have the highest per head spend by Westminster – bigger even than Jockistan?
    Boris should grow a pair, bin the protocol and just get on with it. After all, as the article says business adapted quickly to the protocol, so will adapt quickly to any new settlement.

  7. You’re right BoM4. The Tories just do not understand how to fight a war. Either tactically or strategically. And it is a war, if one goes on the adjectives their opponents employ. WTF do they never try to learn from what their opponents are successfully doing?
    It’s not just the Tories, either. Look at the Brexit debacle. It was bloody obvious to me that the referendum & Leave result was just one battle in a lengthy campaign. A campaign that still being fought now. That probably won’t be finally won for at least a decade. If it ever is. Yet the Brexiteers were claiming victory the day the votes were counted. There seemed to be no plans for turning the vote result into reality & how to meet the inevitable counterattacks. There still aren’t. It’s still possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

  8. BoM4 – yarp, unfortunately a lot of conservative MP’s agree with the Guardian/BBC. Or at least solicit their approval.

    BiS – the Left (whatever that means these days) was always good at organising. Quite autistic on the subject, in fact. But correctly so, it yields results.

    The Right doesn’t really like That Sort of Thing. The Right mostly selects for people who prefer having an actual life to spending their evenings conspiring to seize control of the Northern Norfolk librarians’ and canteen ladies’ union.

    The Blessed Margaret Thatcher was the last centre-right British politician who understood how to put her enemies on the back foot in reality, not just rhetorically. The current Johnsonite regime seems to be play fighting instead. Reminds me of those smug American donor-funded conservatives who are forever DESTROYING the left with FACTS and LOGIC – this is Big Daddy / Giant Haystacks stuff, not a real conflict.

  9. As to why the Tories and the alleged ‘right’ don’t destroy their enemies, I’m sure that partly it’s because some of them are inattentive and stupid, some are lazy, some are fifth columnists and some are too busy running businesses and having a good time, but it is also useful to have enemies and objects upon which you can direct the gaze of your supporters. A good two minute hate does wonders to rev up the faithful.

  10. I put it down to the wrong form of education. The product of “good” schools. They treat life like a game with rules to be observed. The left don’t. They realise it’s the punch below the belt, the knee in the goolies, get your opponent on the floor then kick & stamp him soggy. They play to win. They’re much better capitalists than the right.

  11. It’s why socialism inevitably ends up producing fascist dictatorships or kleptocracies. To be a successful socialist requires being the opposite of what you profess to be.

  12. “A good two minute hate does wonders to rev up the faithful.”

    That works until the faithful realise that you are full of shit and not doing anything. I should be a Conservative member, but what’s the point? What have they done in the past decade (except Brexit, which was forced on them).

  13. @BoM4

    Yes, it obviously doesn’t work on everyone. But it doesn’t need to work on everyone does it? All they really need – as long as they bother with elections – is to sway the swayable 5-10% at the undecided extremes of the electorate. We all know people who dutifully vote Tory or Labour or Green or whoever else can produce the right combination of nice words that tick their personal boxes, those are baked in.

  14. Oh FFS Interested! This isn’t about who gets elected. It’s about who gets what they want. The left achieves its aims just as well under Tory government as it does under Labour. Because the Tory politicians see the way to get elected is to keep conceding ground to the left. In military terms it’s a fighting retreat. Dunkirk was not a fucking victory!

  15. @Rob Fisher

    Thanks

    For all

    “National Grid slashes gas shipments meant to tackle energy crisis”
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/15/national-grid-slashes-gas-shipments-meant-tackle-energy-crisis/
    .Or
    https://pastebin.com/MWLiqcgR

    Oh great, we import gas, pay to upgrade network, then give the gas to EU – higher bills for us & more gas for EU

    Anything to do with “We’ve Left EU”:

    Leaked EU document on gas supply
    .
    Brussels warns that in an emergency the measures will affect almost all EU partners. Even countries with other sources of supply than Russia would have to share their gas with the countries affected by the cut. In addition, Brussels is calling for energy rationing to start with industry. Companies in a country with full supply should not have a competitive advantage over countries affected by a limitation
    .
    Brussels will use the Security of Supply Regulation, in place since 2017, to enforce measures to ensure the supply of sufficient gas to protected customers
    https://blackout-news.de/en/news/leaked-eu-document-on-gas-supply/

  16. @Pcar the article is a mess; it takes some decoding. I *think* the problem is that there is not enough storage for LNG. Presumably LNG is replacing piped gas from elsewhere and this change is causing these problems.

    The bit about Europe is probably actually good (in the long run). The article says Germany can’t process LNG so having it arrive here, turning it into normal gas and piping it to Germany ought to be a nice little earner.

    Total throughput is one thing, but the storage you need depends on whether your shipments arrive regularly or in bursts. So it could just be a matter of it taking time to upgrade storage to cope with the new state of affairs.

    The confusing bits are the energy companies complaining, and Ofcom getting involved. I suspect what’s going on there is just sorting out who has to pay whom for gas that doesn’t end up where it was promised due to the storage problem.

    How long all this takes to sort out and what effect it has on gas prices when are anybody’s guesses, I suppose.

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