Brexit, for once some facts.

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
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A Bell engaged in subterfuge? that's one of my relatives!
This one is Mrs Judy Bell, who runs Shepherds Purse Cheeses near Thirsk in the North Riding.

A very spirited Bell, she enthusiastically went to war against the EU over the feta name ruling. Although she had to concede in the end, her alternative name of Fine Fettle Cheese cheekily mimicks feta in its middle word. I bet many, including her, pronounce it as fine feta cheese.
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anotherkiwi

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jan 26, 2015
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This one is Mrs Judy Bell, who runs Shepherds Purse Cheeses near Thirsk in the North Riding.

A very spirited Bell, she enthusiastically went to war against the EU over the feta name ruling. Although she had to concede in the end, her alternative name of Fine Fettle Cheese cheekily mimicks feta in its middle word. I bet many, including her, pronounce it as fine feta cheese.
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flecc, the link!

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

for the lazy:
The preambles to the regulations cite consumer demand for quality foodstuffs, and identify a number of goals for the protection regimes:
  • the promotion of products with specific characteristics, particularly those coming from less-favoured or rural areas;
  • the improvement of the income of farmers, in return for a "genuine effort to improve quality";
  • the retention of population in rural areas;
  • the provision of clear and succinct information to consumers regarding product origin.
The Basque cheeses were big losers in the Canadian Trade agreement, soon you will be able to buy "Basque" sheep milk cheese made from Canadian cows milk... At least your false feta was made from sheep milk, the French industrial rip offs are made from cow's milk. That was the main target of the Greeks when they fought to protect the AOP but the protection has to be extended to all.
 

anotherkiwi

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Jan 26, 2015
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They're not very happy about this feta name issue in Yorkshire. The EU Commission rejected an application for protection of the Yorkshire Pudding name, saying it's a generic term.

Question, so why is feta not a generic term for sheeps milk cheese?
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Actually it is sheep's milk cheese preserved in brine made from a certain species of Greek sheep that eat certain plants in two specific areas of Greece...

I eat several very different sheep milk cheeses, one of which is Roquefort, another AOP. I understand the farmer taking the easy way out and calling her cheese feta but she could have been more creative and called it Fine Fettle Cheese from day one and said in the descriptive text "similar to a popular cheese from Greece".

Another cheese scandal here is the agro-industrial complex being given the right to put AOP stickers on factory made cheeses just because they have built the factory in the correct zone. Then they bring in tankers full of milk from other areas often 100s of km from the AOP zone... Your favorite Cantal may be made there but not with milk from cows which graze the unique combination of plants that make up those pastures.
 
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oldgroaner

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Nov 15, 2015
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understand the farmer taking the easy way out and calling her cheese feta but she could have been more creative and called it Fine Fettle Cheese from day one
Clearly you don't understand the logic applying here.
It's a matter of Principle
eg: Nothing is illegal to the Bells unless you get caught at it, and even then they have to make it stick so to speak.

"It's not so much a Registered Name and Protected by law
More of a guideline really
Anyway, we're Bells 'aint we?
look how long we got away with it before they knobbled us.

Style of thing

I'm certain the after Brexit of any stripe, the Bell business techniques will make a stunning comeback.
Oh Yessy!:eek:

PS: I'll be surprised if the Government aren't recruiting from the Clan as economic consultants as we speak!
 
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flecc

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Actually it is sheep's milk cheese preserved in brine made from a certain species of Greek sheep that eat certain plants in two specific areas of Greece...- - - I understand the farmer taking the easy way out and calling her cheese feta but she could have been more creative and called it Fine Fettle Cheese from day one and said in the descriptive text "similar to a popular cheese from Greece".
The Greeks though are far from blameless. Greek yoghurt is supposed to be made from sheeps milk too, but much of their production of this now is from cows milk and it's nothing like the same thing.

That makes me wonder how faultless their feta production is.
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oyster

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We don’t make electric bikes,I am sure the U.K. Chinese bike importing business would rejoice if the anti-dumping duties on all e-bikes were removed.
KudosDave
What a mess this all is. Imagine zero tariff on Chinese ebikes. But we might have a combination of an Irish Sea border and non-legal status of ebikes in NI. What a disadvantage for any NI company that wanted to import them.
 
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anotherkiwi

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The Greeks though are far from blameless. Greek yoghurt is supposed to be made from sheeps milk too, but much of their production of this now is from cows milk and it's nothing like the same thing.

That makes me wonder how faultless their feta production is.
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There you go! Blaming the Greeks again! Typical Italian :rolleyes:

Your assumption is correct - I am very picky about my cheese, I like to know who made it and there is Greek feta and Greek "feta" if you get my drift... Needles to say I only eat the former :D
 

anotherkiwi

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Jan 26, 2015
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What a mess this all is. Imagine zero tariff on Chinese ebikes. But we might have a combination of an Irish Sea border and non-legal status of ebikes in NI. What a disadvantage for any NI company that wanted to import them.
"Listen you can buy this lovely pedelec, but don't you go riding it in the street now!" - the NI way of fighting climate change. What? You vote DUP(e) and you don't believe in climate change?
 

oyster

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The Greeks though are far from blameless. Greek yoghurt is supposed to be made from sheeps milk too, but much of their production of this now is from cows milk and it's nothing like the same thing.

That makes me wonder how faultless their feta production is.
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Wiki says what I thought: or from a mixture of sheep and goat's milk.

I agree that sheep and/or goat cheeses are very different to cow cheeses.
 
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anotherkiwi

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Wiki says what I thought: or from a mixture of sheep and goat's milk.

I agree that sheep and/or goat cheeses are very different to cow cheeses.
Have you tried Spanish Mexcla? Can be all three milks. I am not a fan, I find it too rich and a little sickening.
 
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oyster

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 7, 2017
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Yet another "Did you really vote for this?" moment:

No-deal Brexit 'may mean cancelled NHS operations and staff shortages'

Exclusive: Warnings revealed in notes on contingency plans for NHS Scotland and Wales

A no-deal Brexit could mean cancelled NHS operations, delays in diagnoses and long-term pressure on staffing numbers, private letters and briefing notes seen by the Guardian reveal.


The set of 30 documents released under freedom of information requests provide a detailed portrait of contingency planning for Brexit in NHS Scotland and Wales.


They say it could take years to train enough staff to replace departing EU nationals, increasing the burden on the health service at a time when staff shortages are already starting to bite. They also suggest the consequences for patients could be serious if vital medical supplies are held up.


The warning of staffing shortages comes from a Welsh government “high-level summary for the country’s health and social care services after Brexit.


Rest of article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/28/no-deal-brexit-may-mean-cancelled-operations-and-staffing-shortages-nhs-scotland-wales
 
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anotherkiwi

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jan 26, 2015
7,845
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Yet another "Did you really vote for this?" moment:

No-deal Brexit 'may mean cancelled NHS operations and staff shortages'

Exclusive: Warnings revealed in notes on contingency plans for NHS Scotland and Wales

A no-deal Brexit could mean cancelled NHS operations, delays in diagnoses and long-term pressure on staffing numbers, private letters and briefing notes seen by the Guardian reveal.


The set of 30 documents released under freedom of information requests provide a detailed portrait of contingency planning for Brexit in NHS Scotland and Wales.


They say it could take years to train enough staff to replace departing EU nationals, increasing the burden on the health service at a time when staff shortages are already starting to bite. They also suggest the consequences for patients could be serious if vital medical supplies are held up.


The warning of staffing shortages comes from a Welsh government “high-level summary for the country’s health and social care services after Brexit.


Rest of article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/28/no-deal-brexit-may-mean-cancelled-operations-and-staffing-shortages-nhs-scotland-wales
Fact reminder:

Wales
Leave 52.5% - 854,572 VOTES
Remain 47.5% - 772,347 VOTES
 
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tillson

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May 29, 2008
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What are you on about? Where in the theory of trickle down economics is there mention of free money? Letting very rich people take more than their due was supposed to create jobs. Those jobs were supposed to have real wages...
Good points and I agree with you that anyone who is prepared to go out and work should be appropriately rewarded for their efforts. I also agree that many are not paid fairly for the work that they do.

The EU and its free movement of labour policy has continued to worsening employment conditions and poor wages. Employees travel to the UK and are prepared to work for very low wages and minimal employment rights. This has undercut wages and employment conditions fought for over decades by trade unions. Employers will naturally gravitate towards reducing their overheads in order to increase their competitiveness. The casualty is the ordinary employee as wages and worker rights are constantly undercut.
 

oyster

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Nov 7, 2017
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Fact reminder:

Wales
Leave 52.5% - 854,572 VOTES
Remain 47.5% - 772,347 VOTES
Very well aware of the Welsh vote. Sounds like Swansea has had a bit of a rethink. And the one person who often works in my office, who admits voting leave, would now switch to remain.

Issues like Irish Sea border, huge questions over agricultural exports, etc., seem to be having their impact on opinion.

(I voted in England.)
 
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flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
52,763
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There you go! Blaming the Greeks again! Typical Italian :rolleyes:
The Italians can't speak, they're the worst for food fraud, been caught for everything from chemically doctored wine to olive oil thinned with other oils! Now their olive trees are suffering disease they'll probably be doing the latter again shortly. :(
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oyster

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 7, 2017
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The Italians can't speak
Most assuredly, they CAN speak! At length, with volume and animation.

And sometimes they surprise. When I met some Italian engineers who had flown to the UK to investigate a problem, I really wasn't expecting them to speak German. (Though I know that some areas do so, it didn't occur to me on the day.)
 
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oldgroaner

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Nov 15, 2015
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The EU and its free movement of labour policy has continued to worsening employment conditions and poor wages.Employees travel to the UK and are prepared to work for very low wages and minimal employment rights.
Really? nice Urban myth you have there Tillson

The Tory fallacy: that migrants are taking British jobs and driving down wages
Vince Cable
The leaked proposals on post-Brexit immigration give us a useful insight into the government’s thought processes. The desire seems largely to be about addressing “public concern” over pressure on public services, depression of wages and displacement of UK workers: that is, issues of perception, whether or not they are real.


Post-Brexit immigration: 10 key points from the Home Office document
Read more
That policy is driven by an obsession with meeting the net immigration target of “tens of thousands”: despite it being continually exceeded since the Conservative pledge was made seven years ago; despite its dependence on levels of emigration over which the government has absolutely no control; and despite the inclusion of overseas students in the net immigration numbers whose contribution we now know to be massively overstated.

The document makes much of the distinction between skilled and unskilled labour and between “hard” and “soft” skills. Bankers, engineers and footballers are welcome, but not hotel receptionists, care workers, chefs or cleaners. By implication, unskilled jobs should be reserved for British workers. But it isn’t clear where, with record levels of employment, the reserve army of unemployed, unskilled Britons is currently billeted.

At the heart of the politics of immigration is the belief, repeated by Theresa May as a fact, that immigrants, especially unskilled immigrants, depress wages. At first sight the argument seems plausible – and undeniably there is low-wage competition in some places. But there is no evidence that this is a general problem. When the coalition embarked on its review of EU competences in 2013, I commissioned a range of reviews and studies to establish the facts. They showed that the impact on wages was very small (and only in recession conditions). By and large, immigrants were doing jobs that British people didn’t want to do (or highly skilled jobs that helped to generate work for others). This research was inconvenient to the Home Office, which vetoed the publication of its results. I have now written to the prime minister to ask her to publish them as part of the current public debate.

Take note of the sentence I marked out in Bold.
 
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oyster

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 7, 2017
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At the heart of the politics of immigration is the belief, repeated by Theresa May as a fact, that immigrants, especially unskilled immigrants, depress wages.
This is an issue which has so many facets. Not least that they cannot depress wages below the minimum wage. At least, not if the government actually polices that effectively. Surely they do?

Further, I don't know the ages of the job-stealing immigrants, but I have a suspicion few are below 21. So our younger persons could very easily sneak in and undercut the immigrants on full minimum wage, couldn't they?

Year 25 and over 21 to 24 18 to 20 Under 18 Apprentice
April 2018 £7.83 £7.38 £5.90 £4.20 £3.70
 
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