Leaving the EU (not really a rant)...

[Allan Carr]

Oooh, not sure that makes me feel any more confident of ever seeing my goods...

Hopefully it has improved in the following years. I did quite a bit of work with India over the years and it has always been an 'interesting' place to deal with.

[Stuart Keasley]

Hopefully it has improved in the following years. I did quite a bit of work with India over the years and it has always been an 'interesting' place to deal with.

I've worked in India a couple of times, last time we had to check 96 boxes of camera gear through on carnet. The customs official started on line 1, went through each item line be line... realised by about the thirtieth item he wasn't actually bothering to check the physical item against the line item, or even look up to see what we were holding. Started offering up the nearest thing to hand, the more ridiculous the better, just to get through as quick as we could. He got bored after a few pages, it still took about an hour and a half.

Visited the Taj Mahal on the same trip. Entrance sequence was

- pay money to 1st person
- get ticket from 2nd person
- give ticket to 3rd person, who clipped the corner
- give ticket to 4th person to check the ticket had been clipped
- give ticket to 5th person, who tore ticket in half
- give half ticket to 6th person to finally gain entry

All of these people were stood next to each other in line, the queue to get in was about 60 mins, despite us getting there before sunrise.

Still, they all had a job, and the wait was worth it.

[Tim Digger]

The Taj is brilliant especially in 2019 soon after it had been cleaned, sadly I may have to go again as my wife missed out with a bad case of Dehli Belli.

[Allan Carr]

On one occasion in New Dehli, they were grass cutting in front of Government House - a line of about 50 blokes with hand shears followed by 50 women with rakes cleaning up the cuttings. Why use machinery when you can keep the locals in work.

What many people don't realise about the Taj Mahal is that it is all inlaid with carved semi-precious stone decoration. We visited a local workshop where they still use the original techniques to make carvings and jewellery. Looking at the conditions they are working in I hate to think what HSE would make of it.

When I was running a management training course in Mumbai, the manager from Dehli (an Indian, ,not ex-pat) went down with Dehli Belly. The way the locals treat it is not with immodium but with a laxative. They believe in getting rid of the bugs in the shortest time possible!

[Paulo]

The way the locals treat it is not with immodium but with a laxative. They believe in getting rid of the bugs in the shortest time possible!

I had that conversation with a Pakistani doctor one day when I had dysentery. It was only when there was blood coming out that he agreed to change his planned treatment course. That'll teach me for eating peanuts from a farmer's field in central Africa

[Barrygoss]

On one occasion in New Dehli, they were grass cutting in front of Government House - a line of about 50 blokes with hand shears followed by 50 women with rakes cleaning up the cuttings. Why use machinery when you can keep the locals in work.

What many people don't realise about the Taj Mahal is that it is all inlaid with carved semi-precious stone decoration. We visited a local workshop where they still use the original techniques to make carvings and jewellery. Looking at the conditions they are working in I hate to think what HSE would make of it.

When I was running a management training course in Mumbai, the manager from Dehli (an Indian, ,not ex-pat) went down with Dehli Belly. The way the locals treat it is not with immodium but with a laxative. They believe in getting rid of the bugs in the shortest time possible!

Doing various components on my civil’s degree. Including designing a load of developing country stuff. You need a $9 an hour labour to make getting machines in viable

B

[jturner]

Back on topic(ish), this just popped up in my newsfeed: https://bylinetimes.com/2021/01/19/g...cHH4Hg8FSgZzGM

[Chrisch]

Back on topic(ish), this just popped up in my newsfeed: https://bylinetimes.com/2021/01/19/g...cHH4Hg8FSgZzGM

Interesting - pretty much what I have posted for the last 5 years. Thanks for sharing it. I disagree with the author that the Labour party is going to do much about it though. I do agree that the general business community are now far, way over to the left of the Tories. I suspect nevertheless some of the brexit business leaders like Dyson are fully on board with the agenda. The battle that is coming will - I think therefore - be between businesses that give a shit and those that do not. On past form it tends to be a race to the bottom, which is why I am so negative about it. I guess we will see what the next couple of years bring. The pandemic has changed things - if the inoculation program makes it a distant memory then I fear the agenda will continue.

[Stuart Keasley]

Back on topic(ish), this just popped up in my newsfeed: https://bylinetimes.com/2021/01/19/g...cHH4Hg8FSgZzGM

It's an opinion piece from a publisher that makes the Daily Mail look centrist and objective , we've heard much of the content repeated on this forum ad nauseam.

Up until the November last year, we heard repetitive assurances that Britannia Unchained was afoot, that regardless of any pretence (nay lies) of the Tory Scum, we would be forced into a hard brexit. What we actually saw was a government that followed their stated line, ie that they absolutely did not want a hard brexit, would do what they could to avoid it, but the chance of it was always on the table. Yep, plenty of lively discussion on where that deal has left us, however it is a deal, not a no deal, those repetitive assurances were utter cobblers.

Cast your mind back to November 2019, we also heard repeated allegations that Brexit was all about the tax dodge, the huge rush was to get things done before the new EU tax avoidance directives came through in Jan 2020. This allegation was debunked by various reliable sources, basically because the UK have had laws in place (some dating back to way before discussions about the EU Tax Avoidance scheme had even started) that already covered the majority of the new directive, and had already passed a bill through the house of commons to implement the rest, with little opposition. Despite full conformance from the UK last year, I've heard people mutter the same baseless stuff as a recent as a few weeks back.

The latest round of mud slinging is the "Attack on Worker's Rights". But if you cut through all of the headlines, guesswork, made up crap, ripping up rules, next chapter of Britannia Unchained etc etc etc, the facts that you are left with is that Kwasi Kwarteng "is reviewing how EU employment rights protections could be changed" however has given assurances that they will "they will not be watered down".

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...workers-rights

Perhaps the Conservatives will try and water them down? Perhaps they will simply adjust, align, rebalance them more towards a UK centric approach, i.e. the way people in the UK want to work. They may even improve them? We wont know the results of the review until the review has been completed and published.

Personally, I'm really not a fan of putting a boot in early just in case it kicks off, I'd much rather wait for some actual facts before I pass judgment.

[jturner]

Up until the November last year, we heard repetitive assurances that Britannia Unchained was afoot, that regardless of any pretence (nay lies) of the Tory Scum, we would be forced into a hard brexit. What we actually saw was a government that followed their stated line, ie that they absolutely did not want a hard brexit, would do what they could to avoid it, but the chance of it was always on the table. Yep, plenty of lively discussion on where that deal has left us, however it is a deal, not a no deal, those repetitive assurances were utter cobblers.

"What we actually saw was a government that followed their stated line"... you can explain that to the fishermen. They were also promised various things but what they got is a shafting. As for maintaining standards, I guess that's why the pesticides that the EU has banned without a permit due to the harm caused to bees is allowed again now. Your faith in a group of consistent liars is very trusting but probably misplaced. Time will tell indeed, but sitting back and staying quiet until everything has been transformed, and then complaining, isn't the best way to prevent it happening in the first place IMHO. Hard-won rights are better preserved, than lost and having to go back to square 1 to recover them.