[Politics] Brexit

[nicko31]

Real class shown by the chairman of The Conservative and Unionist Party Brandon Lewis tonight.

[tweet]1019326263956267009[/tweet]

[tweet]1019298949344219137[/tweet]

Nothing surprises me anymore after their previous antics the other week, they are creating a lot of bad blood in the commons

 

[Garry Nelson's teacher]

I think that we appear to be sinking into something of a practical and moral morass. It's not pretty to watch and it might not be very nice to suffer the consequences. If JRM and his pals have their way we'll leave without a Deal with no transition period. It's a bit of a 'be careful what you wish for' the hard-line Brexiteers. I notice that there was a meeting of the chairs of constituency Conservative Associations held in Downing Street yesterday and I wouldn't be in the least surprised if the fingerprints of some of JRM's pals were all over this. The country needs Mrs May call out these characters.

PMQs today could be lively - but I'm not sure that the current seating arrangements accurately reflect political loyalties.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

To be honest, all we need to do is copy the EU's approvals and guidances. Waste of time us doing a parallel job. The EU just copy the FDA anyway - except they approve EU discoveies (ha ha) sooner. Use to be an issue but drug discovery is actually moribund globally right now. As for package inserts... who reads those?

You seem to be responding in a very broad manner here so it’s difficult to know exactly what you are talking about. But, due to various international standards such as ICH and GCP the MHRA, EMA and FDA are closely aligned in many areas but to say the EU merely copies the FDA is wrong. And I disagree drug discovery is moribund.

And package inserts, or labels as they’re called, do get read at the very least by doctors, most patients, and patient groups for prescription drugs.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

You seem to be responding in a very broad manner here so it’s difficult to know exactly what you are talking about. But, due to various international standards such as ICH and GCP the MHRA, EMA and FDA are closely aligned in many areas but to say the EU merely copies the FDA is wrong. And I disagree drug discovery is moribund.

And package inserts, or labels as they’re called, do get read at the very least by doctors, most patients, and patient groups for prescription drugs.

I suppose what I mean is there is no need for the global replicaton of the same work. I would guess that for 1000 drugs the EU rules are the same as the US in 980 cases. As for drug discovery, I realise that biologics is a productive area but this is quite niche and products tend to be stupidly expensive. Let's not forget Pfizer after Viagra (no new drugs from Sandwich) and the state of so many others such as J&J who think that drug discovery means buying a start up and their hopeful new 'drug'...

 

[Thunder Bolt]

To be honest, all we need to do is copy the EU's approvals and guidances. Waste of time us doing a parallel job. The EU just copy the FDA anyway - except they approve EU discoveies (ha ha) sooner. Use to be an issue but drug discovery is actually moribund globally right now. As for package inserts... who reads those?

It doesn't seem to be so simplistic as that. There seems to be a problem with thyroid treatment in France, at the moment. I read Connexion online, which is an English paper in France, for expats. The drug company the French use for thyroxine seems to have changed the formula, so it appears to me, there isn't a uniform requirement across the EU.

 

[Mo Gosfield]

Remain did not break electoral law. Vote Leave did. The Electoral Commission have handed it to the police.

They did not break electoral law but they did spend £9m of taxpayers money, without consultation, putting forward one side of the argument.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

They did not break electoral law but they did spend £9m of taxpayers money, without consultation, putting forward one side of the argument.

As the government who passed the Referendum Act, they were entitled to do that.
There is a vast difference between using tax payers money, something the government does, day in and day out, and breaking electoral law.
One is allowable and the other illegal.

Even if you don't like the use of tax payers money for this purpose, are you saying that two wrongs make a right?

 

[ManOfSussex]

You seem to be responding in a very broad manner here so it’s difficult to know exactly what you are talking about. But, due to various international standards such as ICH and GCP the MHRA, EMA and FDA are closely aligned in many areas but to say the EU merely copies the FDA is wrong. And I disagree drug discovery is moribund.

And package inserts, or labels as they’re called, do get read at the very least by doctors, most patients, and patient groups for prescription drugs.

I suppose what I mean is there is no need for the global replicaton of the same work. I would guess that for 1000 drugs the EU rules are the same as the US in 980 cases. As for drug discovery, I realise that biologics is a productive area but this is quite niche and products tend to be stupidly expensive. Let's not forget Pfizer after Viagra (no new drugs from Sandwich) and the state of so many others such as J&J who think that drug discovery means buying a start up and their hopeful new 'drug'...

It doesn't seem to be so simplistic as that. There seems to be a problem with thyroid treatment in France, at the moment. I read Connexion online, which is an English paper in France, for expats. The drug company the French use for thyroxine seems to have changed the formula, so it appears to me, there isn't a uniform requirement across the EU.

There was a Newsnight report on this last night which may interest you.

[tweet]1019341738438250497[/tweet]

 

[Mo Gosfield]

You sound like someone who has had six pints and has elbowed people in the face to get into the driver's seat and been told that someone else ought to be driving. Good luck with that.

It will be hard Brexit (a hard border in Ireland, and passports to Calais, and No Deals) or no Brexit. For sure.

Doesn't affect me, but it will probably **** up your kids, if you have any. I wonder if, one day, you'll have the guts to apologise to them?

So... have you never stopped for a moment to consider that the EU might not carry on ad infinitum, in its present structure, or even at all? Have you considered that it has been weakened by our withdrawal, one of the largest net contributors to EU coffers or regard the EU decision to keep expanding and recruit more and more smaller countries to its fold, who will all be net receivers out of the coffers, as significant. The cracks will eventually widen into a chasm.

 

[larus]

Remain did not break electoral law. Vote Leave did. The Electoral Commission have handed it to the police.

Yeah, the establishment investigate the establishment (Remain) and find them not guilty. Who’d have thought that eh!

 

[larus]

As the government who passed the Referendum Act, they were entitled to do that.
There is a vast difference between using tax payers money, something the government does, day in and day out, and breaking electoral law.
One is allowable and the other illegal.

Even if you don't like the use of tax payers money for this purpose, are you saying that two wrongs make a right?

They were using government money to tell people that they should vote remain (based on lies BTW).

There were meant to be 2 sides, the remain and leave side and both had a limit of spending (something like £6m I believe). The leave side has been called out for spending £500k over this (allegedly), but the remain side had the benefit of biased government spending of £9m.

I know in some weird and twisted remainers minds they will try to justiify this as government spending, but it was spending to aid remain. And yet they still lost and continue to lose now.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

It doesn't seem to be so simplistic as that. There seems to be a problem with thyroid treatment in France, at the moment. I read Connexion online, which is an English paper in France, for expats. The drug company the French use for thyroxine seems to have changed the formula, so it appears to me, there isn't a uniform requirement across the EU.

This isn't quite what I mean. There is a tendency for EVERY decision to be taken independently when independent agencies are created. That is wasteful and needless. For people obsessed with having their OWN control over everything it may make them feel good. But why not go the whole hog - just because a clinical trial in the US shows a new drug is safe and effective could be argued to be meaningless until an equivalent trial has been done in the UK. And why not go regional - just because Kent approves something shouldn't Sussex not have its own say? Yes, it could be argued, but it would be nonsense.

On a related issue I spent time earlier this morning having a Skype with a UK university official who needed to check that I looked like the picture in the passport photo I emailed her. This is so I can be employed as an external examiner for a medical school. The fact that I am employed by a UK university and have been so for 30 years, and have over 100 peer reviewed papers with my name and address on them, and was invited to be an external examiner on the strength of this....and have supplied my NI number and home address...all cuts no ice. I have acted as external examiner for numerous medical schools and other science departments over the years. This identity checking came in a few years ago, when the clownish tory government decided to 'come down hard' on illegal immigrants working illegally in the UK. I have now had to show my passport the last 3 times I took on one of these appointments. Till now, institutions accepted a scan. Today I was told I must show them my actual passport, and the Skype was an emergency verification of my face as they need to induct me shortly.

WT actual F? How many extra people are being employed to administer this guff? There is no agreed process for dealing with these checks, either, and all that institutions seem to do is keep the info on file 'in case' they are investigated by Mrs May and her ruthless and efficient inquisitors.

Incidentaly this 'vitally important and hard sought after appointment' I recently obtained, which is 'pivotal to British Industry and requires careful handling so that ordinary British people are not disadvantaged by the ILLEGAL employment of a foreigner' takes up maybe 19 hours a year and earns me the princely sum of a few hundred quid. It isn't really a job at all - just a bit of outreach in the sector for which I receive token payment and expenses. The administrative costs associated with my 'employment' will far outweigh this however, not least because managing, writing the forms I have to fill, 'updating' these forms each year, having strategy meetings to determine best practice for the process etc etc form a significant part of the job description of the person employed to deal with this, and colleagues. And there will be at least one of these for every institution. Like multiple drug regulatory agencies worldwide, wasteful and pointless.

Now you can see why at my university 70% of employees are administrative support staff, collecting and collating information on me and my students, our 'performance' and its 'management' with updating of forms every year, a self-perptuating collection of 'B Arc' employees, ever expanding to provide further workers to mange the oversight of the management oversight.

Where I work, if I want to employ my own PhD student (already on the college's books, her right to work and pay fees already docmented) to help me with some undergraduate practical teaching, I have to employ her via an employment agency. This means that she has to upload all her detals which are then checked by the agency to determine if she is legal to work in the UK. Then I have to go through a process of writing a job description and advertising the job. Then after a few more cycles of bullshit she is employed. Then she has to apply to be paid - every week - and I have to approve it. And if she is paid £15 an hour, the agency add another £6 an hour which they charge my institution as a fee. This happend for several thousand part time workers every year. My institution doesn't need to do any of this, but has decided to do so in order to preclude someone accidentally employing an illegal immigrant (as 'Southbank' or another small college accidentally did a few years ago). They fear that government will impose fines and sanctions, restricting fees and introducing performance management if this happens, and see using an employment agency as a watertight solution. So an insane nuclear industry (not simply a bomb) to crack a tiny nut. All so the government can declare to readers of the Sun and Mail they are tough on immigration.

What an ocean of absolute load of old beaurocratic wasteful driveling nonsense.

After Brexit will we get more or less of this? There will still be illegal immigrants so we will need to prove we are not aiding and abetting them. What worries me about the repeated checks on my own right to work in the UK is that this proves there is no central record. A potential employer can't look me up from my NI number, or even my passport number, so it seems. But instead they have to see the physical document (passport or birth crtificate) then make a local decison on my status which is never passed on to government of a third party. This is not so much a police state as a boy scout state, with each scout hut not even having a phone line to its 'independently operating' neighbouring scout troop. How the **** did we ever win the war?

 

[Thunder Bolt]

This isn't quite what I mean. There is a tendency for EVERY decision to be taken independently when independent agencies are created. That is wasteful and needless. For people obsessed with having their OWN control over everything it may make them feel good. But why not go the whole hog - just because a clinical trial in the US shows a new drug is safe and effective could be argued to be meaningless until an equivalent trial has been done in the UK. And why not go regional - just because Kent approves something shouldn't Sussex not have its own say? Yes, it could be argued, but it would be nonsense.

On a related issue I spent time earlier this morning having a Skype with a UK university official who needed to check that I looked like the picture in the passport photo I emailed her. This is so I can be employed as an external examiner for a medical school. The fact that I am employed by a UK university and have been so for 30 years, and have over 100 peer reviewed papers with my name and address on them, and was invited to be an external examiner on the strength of this....and have supplied my NI number and home address...all cuts no ice. I have acted as external examiner for numerous medical schools and other science departments over the years. This identity checking came in a few years ago, when the clownish tory government decided to 'come down hard' on illegal immigrants working illegally in the UK. I have now had to show my passport the last 3 times I took on one of these appointments. Till now, institutions accepted a scan. Today I was told I must show them my actual passport, and the Skype was an emergency verification of my face as they need to induct me shortly.

WT actual F? How many extra people are being employed to administer this guff? There is no agreed process for dealing with these checks, either, and all that institutions seem to do is keep the info on file 'in case' they are investigated by Mrs May and her ruthless and efficient inquisitors.

Incidentaly this 'vitally important and hard sought after appointment' I recently obtained, which is 'pivotal to British Industry and requires careful handling so that ordinary British people are not disadvantaged by the ILLEGAL employment of a foreigner' takes up maybe 19 hours a year and earns me the princely sum of a few hundred quid. It isn't really a job at all - just a bit of outreach in the sector for which I receive token payment and expenses. The administrative costs associated with my 'employment' will far outweigh this however, not least because managing, writing the forms I have to fill, 'updating' these forms each year, having strategy meetings to determine best practice for the process etc etc form a significant part of the job description of the person employed to deal with this, and colleagues. And there will be at least one of these for every institution. Like multiple drug regulatory agencies worldwide, wasteful and pointless.

Now you can see why at my university 70% of employees are administrative support staff, collecting and collating information on me and my students, our 'performance' and its 'management' with updating of forms every year, a self-perptuating collection of 'B Arc' employees, ever expanding to provide further workers to mange the oversight of the management oversight.

Where I work, if I want to employ my own PhD student (already on the college's books, her right to work and pay fees already docmented) to help me with some undergraduate practical teaching, I have to employ her via an employment agency. This means that she has to upload all her detals which are then checked by the agency to determine if she is legal to work in the UK. Then I have to go through a process of writing a job description and advertising the job. Then after a few more cycles of bullshit she is employed. Then she has to apply to be paid - every week - and I have to approve it. And if she is paid £15 an hour, the agency add another £6 an hour which they charge my institution as a fee. This happend for several thousand part time workers every year. My institution doesn't need to do any of this, but has decided to do so in order to preclude someone accidentally employing an illegal immigrant (as 'Southbank' or another small college accidentally did a few years ago). They fear that government will impose fines and sanctions, restricting fees and introducing performance management if this happens, and see using an employment agency as a watertight solution. So an insane nuclear industry (not simply a bomb) to crack a tiny nut. All so the government can declare to readers of the Sun and Mail they are tough on immigration.

What an ocean of absolute load of old beaurocratic wasteful driveling nonsense.

After Brexit will we get more or less of this? There will still be illegal immigrants so we will need to prove we are not aiding and abetting them. What worries me about the repeated checks on my own right to work in the UK is that this proves there is no central record. A potential employer can't look me up from my NI number, or even my passport number, so it seems. But instead they have to see the physical document (passport or birth crtificate) then make a local decison on my status which is never passed on to government of a third party. This is not so much a police state as a boy scout state, with each scout hut not even having a phone line to its 'independently operating' neighbouring scout troop. How the **** did we ever win the war?

It's the same in a lot of 'institutions' where admin outstrip the actual workers.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Yeah, the establishment investigate the establishment (Remain) and find them not guilty. Who’d have thought that eh!

How strange, when the Establishment, as you call it, are so determined to push Brexit through.

 

[Garry Nelson's teacher]

How strange, when the Establishment, as you call it, are so determined to push Brexit through.

A case of mild paranoia I'm afraid. I would have thought, though, that the staunch Bexiteers would be proud of a country that has the Rule of Law especially as applied to its democratic processes. And this is Good, British Law - not your dodgy ECJ variety. (Blame everything you can on the EU and if that is patently ridiculous then there's always the Establishment waiting in the wings/pulling all the strings.)

Apparently there were those well-known anti-Establishment figures Messrs Gove and Johnson sitting in key roles on the Leave campaign who almost certainly knew what was going on.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

So... have you never stopped for a moment to consider that the EU might not carry on ad infinitum, in its present structure, or even at all? Have you considered that it has been weakened by our withdrawal, one of the largest net contributors to EU coffers or regard the EU decision to keep expanding and recruit more and more smaller countries to its fold, who will all be net receivers out of the coffers, as significant. The cracks will eventually widen into a chasm.

I seem to be semi permanently stopped, considering...

Actually I don't see the EU disintegrating, and if we do flounce then the chances are even less. That doesn't mean I think te EU is 'working' as it should. But of course the simple answer to your question is neither you nor I know the answer. Personally I see it as like a marriage. A couple can get a bit pissy with one another from time to time, and there may be fundamental issues of conflict that are managed rather than resolved. But that does not mean that my fundamental position is that couples should divorce because of this. And I certainly don't advocate couples divorcing in case they fall out later.....which seems to be what you're saying.

Separately I do see systems, all systems, as having a limited shelf life. Like my employers (see other post) institutions get bigger and bigger if not held in check. As they get bigger they may lose their identity and structure. They become wasteful. Eventually, like all past great civilisations, they will fail and be replaced. The EU is no different. Personally I would rather be part of the reformation process, and involved with the successor, if there is to be one soon, than stuck on the sidelines.

Its a bit like football. We spent years trying to get into the PL. I know that some of us would prefer us to be smaller, like the old days, more intimate, swapping emails with the club etc etc. And there are risks from being in the PL....we could missmange our position and suffer badly (as we did after the FA cup final and the relegation). But I would rather have ALL that and be where we are now, than settle for being outsiders, playing in the conference or lower, avoiding having too big a vision in case it doesn't pan out.....

 

[Garry Nelson's teacher]

"The cracks will eventually widen into a chasm."

Wow - that will be good fun to watch: people getting poorer, renewed conflicts between neighbours, splintering and fragmenting alliances. With a bit of luck we'll all go back to 1939!

 

[Thunder Bolt]

A case of mild paranoia I'm afraid. I would have thought, though, that the staunch Bexiteers would be proud of a country that has the Rule of Law especially as applied to its democratic processes. And this is Good, British Law - not your dodgy ECJ variety. (Blame everything you can on the EU and if that is patently ridiculous then there's always the Establishment waiting in the wings/pulling all the strings.)

Apparently there were those well-known anti-Establishment figures Messrs Gove and Johnson sitting in key roles on the Leave campaign who almost certainly knew what was going on.

I doubt the mud will stick that high up, as their Establishment mates witll make sure it doesn't. There will be scapegoats, like Darren Grimes, but they will be at the end of the food chain.

It always puzzles me when people deride the ECJ. The European Court of Justice was formed in 1950, with Winston Churchill as a signatory. This was long before the Common Market, EEC, or latterly the EU, but seems to be lumped in with Europe, so must be bad.
Bizarre.

 

[Garry Nelson's teacher]

I doubt the mud will stick that high up, as their Establishment mates witll make sure it doesn't. There will be scapegoats, like Darren Grimes, but they will be at the end of the food chain.

It always puzzles me when people deride the ECJ. The European Court of Justice was formed in 1950, with Winston Churchill as a signatory. This was long before the Common Market, EEC, or latterly the EU, but seems to be lumped in with Europe, so must be bad.
Bizarre.

Pedant alert: The court was established in 1952, by the Treaty of Paris (1951) as part of the European Coal and Steel Community.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Pedant alert: The court was established in 1952, by the Treaty of Paris (1951) as part of the European Coal and Steel Community.

I stand corrected. Thank you.