NEW DEFINITION OF “OVEN READY”.

Wheat output, supplies and use will be lower in 2020-21 | 2020-05-12 | Food Business News
Oven ready bread. (I wonder if Johnson has actually ever been in a kitchen in his life …except the fridge)
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The Withdrawal Agreement is ‘an unequal treaty, which no self-respecting nation would ever regard as a settled matter’.

Although, it seems that the Telegraph was very much in favour, in awe even, of Johnson’s skill in getting this Brexit deal.

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OK, the Telegraph, a fanboy magazine, no longer for the Tories in general, but very specifically for the Boris Johnson’s ERG Tories, even if there was a mild criticism there on the lack of time for debate

It is quite happy to reverse its past thinking, and we can all change our minds, but it fails to explain why Johnson’s man, Lord Frost commended the Withdrawal Agreement to Johnson, Johnson signed it, presumably had the queen sign it, and then told us over and over that it was a second to none agreement that got Brexit done.

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And why the Tories themselves said that there would be no more negoatiations:

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This is a particularly “amusing” note from the Tories as businesses leave in droves, most of us are making vital decisions about how to stay warm and fed this winter, not to mention staying alive as we remain Plague Island and public services are falling to pieces from neglect.

This really is the stuff of Winston Smith.

Tomorrow we may wake up to war with Eastasia.

50 thoughts on “NEW DEFINITION OF “OVEN READY”.”

  2. They must think we have the memory span of fruit flies. Or haven’t realised the interweb never forgets! Time for Scotland to leave, long past time for Scotland to wave bye bye to UK and hello to EFTA/EU

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    1. I’m sure someone in the Westminster bubble must have heard of the interweb…

      I just don’t think they care.

      Very few journos put them on the spot about 100% reversals…and their adoring public still love them, although I find it hard to believe that that s even possible.

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    1. Must be money for them at the back of it.

      Surely waving their gaudy flag isn’t enough, even for them.

      They are all going to the house of Lords and will continue to have offshore accounts…

      Liked by 1 person

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  6. About Joe and Ireland……..(There are six times the number of self-identified Irish in the USA as there are in Ireland.)

    Vice President in Ireland (2016):

    20

    Presidential campaign stop. January, 2020 : “BBC? I’m Irish!”

    President-Elect, November 25, 2020:

    Oval Office, 23 September, 2021: Boris (Interrupting): “On that point Joe, we are completely at one”

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    1. Sums it up.

      Of course the president is far too tactful to make it clear, but if it comes down to it, he’s on the side of the Irish on this.

      As you point out, as the president indicated and as we have said before, across the political divide in the USA, there are far too many Irish constituents for them to be ignored.

      Was Johnson showing off there that he was first name terms with the president? I thought by and large these affairs were kept reasonably formal.

      Can I point out Mr President that I am inm agreement with you… blah blah

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      1. Yes Tris, I noticed that. No doubt heads of state and government who are well acquainted use first names when speaking privately and informally, but in formal public meetings in the Oval Office for example, they tend to address each other by official titles as I recall.

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        1. PS: Maybe Boris was flustered by Biden’s rather offhand reference to a “deal” with the UK that “continues to be discussed.” Perhaps Boris sensed that a trade agreement with the UK may not be at the very top of Biden’s agenda. 😉

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          1. I imagine they will get around to it one day, but President Obama made it clear it wasn’t at the top of anyone’s list.

            Even Trump blew hot and cold on it. On a visit to England, he said there would be no deal and that there would be the best ever deal, within a period of 2 days.

            As ever with Trump it was hardly clear what the hell he was on about.

            Covfefe.

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            1. Tris…..Yes, Trump could usually be depended on to say whatever he thought would play well at the moment, but he would then quickly forget whatever it was he had just said. This could cause great confusion among more reality-based individuals.

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                    2. It was always hard to tell if he had a point to make or not. As for lies, most politicians try to maintain a consistent lie for a period of time. That was hard for Trumpy, since he didn’t even seem to care what he previously said. 😉

                      Liked by 2 people

          2. There is zero prospect of a UK-US FTA. The US has only completed 1 FTA without congress temporarily giving up some of its powers to the execute via a trade promotion authority. Without a TPA it is just impossible to negotiate with 400+ politicians in congress, each with their own local worries.

            The most recent trade promotion authority expired last July and Joe Biden is not about to burn political capital pushing anothher through congress. He just isn’t interested in bilateral relationships and has staked his presidency on multilateral agreements on climate and tax. Liz Truss even made reference to this last winter when she said that any UK-US FTA would need to be completed by April. Well, April was some time ago. It is not going to happen and I think the UK government have actually worked this out.

            The political climate right now is very protectionist. It’s going to be some time before we see a US president as positive on globalisation as Obama or Bush.

            I’d expect the Tories to quieten down about all of the imminent FTAs they’re about to sign because every rollover worth having is now complete. This, however, just gives them more opportunity to rattle their cage over the NI protocol because Biden has fewer means to encourage them to behave.

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            1. I’m wondering how the India one is going.

              Have they actually signed anything yet or just agreed the principles?

              I’ve always thought of the US president having quite a lot of “influence” over the UK. I don’t know that it’s ever real power. It’s just that Britain likes to be up there with a big boys.

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              1. Tris, Terry……..My eyes glaze over pretty quickly when I try to read articles about trade negotiations, but we can be sure that Congress can’t agree on much of anything these days. I’m not sure they could pass a Mother’s Day resolution. 😉

                As for India, I found a current article which says: “Biden administration’s focus on China and sticky issues relating to India’s reluctance to provide greater market access has meant the [India] trade deal is off the table for now.”

                As for the current situation with China, the NY Times has an article about slowness of the Biden administration in developing a new China Trade Policy after the Trump tariffs which are still in place.

                Websites of the International Trade Administration and the US Department of State declare that the United States currently has 14 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with 20 countries, the most recent of which was signed 14 years ago, and none of which involves countries of the EU. Wiki says: “Negotiations [between the USA and the EU] were halted by United States president Donald Trump, who then initiated a trade conflict with the EU. Trump and the EU declared a truce of sorts in July 2018, resuming talks that appeared similar to TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.) On 15 April 2019, the negotiations have been declared “obsolete and no longer relevant” by the European Commission.”

                I don’t really understand anything about bilateral or multilateral FTAs. I do recall that Trump and the EU were slinging tariffs at each other, even as he and China were doing the same.

                https://theprint.in/economy/indias-trade-deal-with-the-us-remains-a-non-starter-for-now-heres-why/720392/

                https://www.trade.gov/free-trade-agreements

                https://www.state.gov/trade-agreements/existing-u-s-trade-agreements/

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                1. As I understand it, proper trade negotiations can take many many years to get done, Danny. They are immensely complex and require highly trained legal experts.

                  That’s about that I know about them.

                  I recall warnings about it, including dire stories of the Canada-EU talks. but then I heard that British trade ministers had been signing agreements with small countries all over the world.

                  What I think they have in most cases, is some sort of roll-over from the trade deals that were already signed with the EU.

                  Obviously there will have been adjustments. No one wants to import olives from England or oranges from Scotland. Presumably as we will buy a lot less that the EU overall, the adjustments will mean that we have less good deal.

                  The NEW trade deals are full of holes. Australia for example involves the UK buying large quantities of their meat, which, as I understand it, is not raised to the same standard as we have been used to.

                  It will be cheaper, which might be good news for poorer people and will certainly be good news for the likes of McDonalds, Burger King, etc, but is bad news for UK farmers, who thought that Brexit would be a godsend to them.
                  It may well put them out of business when added to the fact that there is no labour (labor…LOL) for working in fields and processing the crops.

                  I’ve been seeing a few fields in the countryside around here with “For Sale” sighs on them and a friend of mine, who used used to farm in the glens outside Kirriemuir, has sold off his land and relocated with his French wife, to the south of France…. Lucky !!!

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                  1. Tris…….South of France sounds like it would be a considerably different climate. 😉

                    The only trade agreement we would hear much about was NAFTA, the “North American Free Trade Agreement” between the US, Mexico, and Canada. It was implemented back in the Clinton administration. Some Americans liked it and some didn’t. Trump didn’t, and scrapped it. Then negotiated a new one with a different name…….. United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA)……..which was about the same as NAFTA, but with an unpronounceable acronym that Trumpy could nevertheless call his own.

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

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        3. I thought that.

          I’m not a particularly formal person myself and tend, in Scotland anyway, to call people by their first names. It’s less acceptable in France.

          But I was sure I’d heard other referring to other politicians by their titles.

          Of course, I’m sure they are on first name terms.

          I remember reading in Tony Benn’s diaries, how Jim Callaghan was boring the backsides of his cabinet colleagues bragging about the then president, Gerald Ford, I think, calling him Jim.

          How proud he was…

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  8. What seems to be happening is that the Brexiteers are trying to cover up the mess that Brexit is by fabricating a trade war with the EU for internal consumption by a UK audience.
    They know that for the EU,the ECJ is the guarantor of fair trading within their market and will not compromise on that just to satisfy political requirements in London.
    They are trying to setup the EU as the body which has broken the Belfast Agreement by forcing a hard border within Ireland so that they can claim to the Americans that it wisnae them what done it.
    The only solution for Ireland is either for the Republic to leave the EU or the reunification of the island.
    The unionists in the North have never liked the Belfast Agreement so are trying to recreate the hard border that used to exist but businesses in the North are driven by very different motives from those of people like the DUP so it will be much harder for them to follow that path.
    As for comments from creeps like Cummings that international agreements are there to be broken and that every country does this…..fine,let’s just ignore the Treaty of Union then and simply declare that the Scottish state is reconvened.

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  9. Anyone know how the cross-border arrangements between Spain and Gibraltar are working out? Are they having any of the same problems with Customs, Agri-food (SPS), Pets, Manufactured goods, Medicines, VAT, Subsidies or Governance that seem to bedevil the agreement that the EU and the UK signed up to with regard to borders?

    Thinking back though to when the UK was in the EU…was there ever a time when there was a problem with the Isle of Mann? They’re not and never have been either in the UK or the EU.

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    2. I’ve wondered about that.

      Not just in the case of the UK, but also of Italy (which has two tiny countries as enclaves, San Marino and two different territories of the Vatican City State) and France (Monaco) and Spain/France with Andorra.

      I’ve a Jersey friend who used to smoke and he used to buy duty free on his flights home, just as you could when you were travelling to any destination outside the EU.

      I’ve no idea how it is working in any of these places.

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  10. OT/

    Eton College has confined 50 students to their boarding houses this week, cancelled assemblies & chapel & instructed the entire school to wear masks & take daily lateral flow tests…

    Unlike any school for ordinary people in England.

    Like

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