Caribbean wrote: Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best.

Absolutely, Occam's razor and all that. The problem is we have no clue whether even simple life is common or rare.

This is one of the most profound things I've read I think:

https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

Yes, I know, I know. .. this topic brings to polite conversation what body odour brings to a party... But. I can't help but notice there are more and more articles out there with both named and unnamed US sources saying this is being taken seriously. "For the last two years, the Department of D...

dmereifield wrote:
Points towards no deal unless the EU moves most of the way to the UK position. Seems unlikely. I'd say no deal now the more likely outcome. And, I wouldn't blame HMG for not accepting such ludicrous demands

Boris would surely be toast pdq if he signed up to that. And surely he knows it too.

10 years access to UK waters to take the majoirty of fish landed and that their so called fair LPF conditions on state aid not apply to EU level funds such as the €750 billion covid recovery fund Is that right, is there a link to the new demands about the LPF and EU funds if correct seems like a ca...

Have you seen their new demands? 10 years access to UK waters to take the majoirty of fish landed and that their so called fair LPF conditions on state aid not apply to EU level funds such as the €750 billion covid recovery fund.... It's ridiculous, and if the EU won't move very substantially from ...

One thing, the idea that this deal was extremely low on the list of EU priorities is looking tired. Most EU trade deals don’t get multiple interventions from multiple heads of state - as far as I can remember anyway.

ils veulent avoir leur gâteau et le manger ou quelque chose comme ça...

ArmChairCivvy wrote:

Zero Gravitas wrote:Italy

An addition to the list? The others have been reported before

FT says Italy too.

BBC currently reports that talks between VDL and Johnson started at 16.30 and are still ongoing. FT said that Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium Italy, Spain, France told Barnier on Weds and Thursday to stay at the negotiating table until either the EUs fishing rights and businesses were protected or “ta...

I had already moved on, and only spotted that illustrative graph from you now, with which went this: I seem to remember that some studies have suggested that the impact from Brexit will likely be less than the observed impact from the 2008 crash on the UK's trend rate of growth. If we do an update;...

For what it is worth, I got this from a "reliable source" which I trust 100% Type 32 Frigate While the 8 Type 26 frigates (also known as the City-class) and 5 Type 31 frigates were already planned to be procured, the real surprise in today’s announcement is the mention for the first time ...

U.K., Canada on Brink of Trade Deal in Brexit Boost for Johnson "Liz Truss, the U.K. trade secretary, said that she hoped Britain could forge a deeper relationship with Canada in future, once this continuity deal has been signed. ~ The Canada deal would be the second major trade accord announce...

Clearly not what I have been saying close to 5 years now: that the plunge after Brexit will cause a big hit in the defence line item in the coming budgets - holding the fort in the next one is a possibilty, just to bed in what is coming out of the IR I am sure, ACC, that you will be pleased to have...

Still in the wrong tense since it deals with what has actually happened This panel shows (for the Japan conversation, where both trade and FDI, with its benefits to the UK have been 'the dicussion') that in that wrong thense we have taken the global bronze medal ... and in the relevant tense we are...

Either way this is good news. If it's £16.5bn - the 'black hole' is £13bn, with £2.4bn for cyber and space - that still leaves £1.1bn which could be batch 2 of T31 aka T32? Someone set up a Type 32 thread :mrgreen: Actually the big question is how much is cut to prioritise other areas of defence spe...

https://ibb.co/QdD23t6 Not sure if this image works? That's the link to the webpage that the image is on, you need to right click on the image once it's uploaded and select 'copy image address' and paste that between the img tags. https://i.ibb.co/yS4wc78/afd.png I did say that my instructions were...

FFS

https://ibb.co/QdD23t6

https://ibb.co/QdD23t6 Not sure if this image works? In the unlikely event that anyone is interested, here is the metric I will be keeping an eye on for the next decade or so to judge the economic success / catastrophe that Brexit will be. This is GDP per capita on a PPP basis in fixed dollars. Tha...

I assume this has been briefed by the Cummmings / Cain end of the spectrum: https://order-order.com/2020/11/16/eu-hardening-position-on-key-negotiation-points/ "Worried sources close to the UK negotiating team have identified a hardening of the EU’s negotiating position over the weekend. After ...

https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1328270562758635520 Everyone in the world has access to the single market via WTO. Yes, they probably wanted people to read more in to it than what they said, but that is the nature of political comms. I'd suggest that assertion that the UK would actually ge...

Pseudo wrote:A fun twitter thread about fish.

Now that is ironic.

Pseudo wrote:

Everyone in the world has access to the single market via WTO. Yes, they probably wanted people to read more in to it than what they said, but that is the nature of political comms.

have we seen? Wrong tense. But perhaps you would like to answer the question, as @D clearly won't, despite expending rows and rows of typing to try to skirt around it? So as D says you are making an assumption about the future. Fine. Maybe you will be right. Here's the actual data. Still in the wro...

they mean they are of little value There still hasn't been a response to/ acknowledgement of the comparison - of benefit at trade flows level (much rah-rah about the deal... which of course is better than 'none') and damage that Brexit will cause through changes in Japanese direct investment in the...

Indeed, in the flurry of unnamed briefings over the past week or so it's not quite clear what's gone (is going?) on. This point is one of the few that I do tend to believe. I think there is zero chance of Frost going prior to the end of negotiations unless he is forced by Boris to make concessions ...