114 thoughts on “De Saturday Papers

  1. Formerly known as @ireland.com

    “Tory MP threatens Ireland with Brexit food shortages” — More proof, if it was needed, that the Tories are an uneducated shower. That’s what you get, when you don’t have a meritocracy. When Brexit happens, the people will realise that the Tories are responsible, not Europe.

    1. Ollie Cromwell

      One minute the Tories are accused of being run by Eton and Oxbridge-educated toffs and now they’re an uneducated shower ?
      Make your mind up Patrick.
      Perhaps that intellectual giant Jezza Corbyn will be different if he gets in.
      He never went to university after leaving school with two E-grade A-Levels which is the equivalent of being as dumb as a bag of hammers.
      Or a bag of hammers and sickles in his case.

        1. Ollie Cromwell

          Anyone who has ever attended a school has been educated to some degree or other and even Michelle Obama this week said those in the top jobs are not always the brightest.
          I just find rather it rather droll that the munters on here who have spent weeks warning of the prospect of post-Brexit food shortages now whine about propaganda when someone helpfully points out that if there’s food shortages in Blighty you can guarantee there will be similar problems in Ireland.
          But hey,plucky little Leo held out for the backstop and that’s ok.
          You can always eat the pigeons that will come home to roost.
          Heh,heh,heh.

    2. Eoin

      Priti Patel is a disgraced former Tory minister who was forced to resign a year ago after she concealed meetings with the Israeli government and lobbyists.

      https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/08/priti-patel-forced-to-resign-over-unofficial-meetings-with-israelis

      She was summoned back from Africa last November by Theresa May to be shown the door.

      Since then, this disgrace has been trying to make a name for herself amongst the DUP (she’s been a not infrequent visitor to their events in Northern Ireland) and the extremes of the pro-Brexit camp. She cares as much about Brexit food shortages in Ireland as she does about civil unrest in Estonia or corruption in Bulgaria.

      1. Daisy Chainsaw

        Isn’t Ms Patel one of those non white types that Brexiteers want to fock off back to their own countries when they “take back control”?

        1. Ollie Cromwell

          She’s the daughter of Ugandan immigrants welcomed into the UK when Idi Amin was purging his country of their ilk.
          She rose to a senior position in the British government through hard work and personal severance.
          Priti is the perfect example of the inclusive,multi-cultural society of Blighty.
          You,on the other hand,have achieved diddly-squat except snipe from the anonymity of the internet.

      1. SOQ

        Also, Ireland will still have access to it’s other nearest neighbours while Britain will not. Lidl and Aldi will do well out of it mind while Tesco will suffer big time. Centra would have least disruption because they already source local.

        It might actually be a blessing in disguise for the Irish Agri industry because demand will skyrocket once the British are out of the picture.The same may be said for a number of other industries of course.

          1. Ollie Cromwell

            And Centra sources locally ?
            Centra,like Supervalu,is supplied by Musgraves who source their food from all over Europe including the UK.
            Most of it comes to this country via the UK.
            As does Lidl and Aldi which are supplied from distribution centres in the UK – you might want to have a sconce at some labelling on products when you’re next in there buying your frozen chips.

          2. Ollie Cromwell

            Completely the opposite in fact.
            There may be some short-term disruption which is inevitable after disentangling from a trading system in operation for decades but nothing unsurmountable.
            I’m surprised a man of your supposed intelligence has fallen for the what Big Phil Hogan calls the propaganda.
            I refer you to an interesting tweet from the rather colourful Tory MP Michael Fabricant.

            https://twitter.com/Mike_Fabricant?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

          3. Nigel

            I was responding to your comments not Phil Hogan’s, where you gloat over the likelihood of disruption, hardship and political chaos. Which is the real face of Brexit?

          4. Ollie Cromwell

            You and your fellow meerkats have been gloating about the possibility of disruption in the UK for months.
            Now,in a lightbulb moment,it has dawned on you all that what I’ve also been saying for months is correct – if Britain sneezes Ireland catches a cold,influenza and the dreaded lurgy all in one go.
            I’ve also been saying for months that it’s Project Fear 2:0 and only the gullible will fall for it.

          5. Nigel

            Yes we know Britain doesn’t care about the effect of Brexit on us is there anything other than the bleeding obvious you have to share?.

          6. newsjustin

            BREXIT may be a threat to convenience and variety of food supplies. It’s not gonna reduce our calorie intake.

  2. fez

    Good to see statins back on the express, it’s been too long. I need take up some sort of bingo.
    Statins on the front of the express, snowflakes on the star etc

      1. Ollie Cromwell

        Poorer healthcare ?
        They don’t have to pay for GP appointments,prescriptions,attending A&E,hospital stays or operations.
        There are more people sleeping on hospital trolleys in corridors every night of the year in Ireland than there are in the entire UK at the height of the annual NHS winter bed “crisis”.
        Poorer healthcare ? I lol’d.

        1. The Real Shrimply Pibbles

          You don’t have to pay for a gp but you do if you want to get seen straight away. There can be a wait of weeks in the public system.

          1. Ollie Cromwell

            This is total nonsense.
            No-one pays a GP,ever.
            If your situation is an emergency you go to A&E which is free.
            If it’s not an emergency but a serious situation you call your GP’s surgery and they will see you immediately.
            If it’s non-serious you may well have to wait a week or two and guess what the reason is behind that ?

            Waiting times to see GPs have increased because of mass immigration – precisely one of the reasons why the UK voted to leave the EU.

          2. ReproBertie

            “Waiting times to see GPs have increased because of mass immigration.”

            This is nonsense. Taxes paid by immigrants help fund the GPs. Remove the immigrants and you lose the taxes and also the GPs. The increased waiting times at GPs are caused by the dropping GP numbers coupled with the UK failing to meet recruitment targets.

            Of course everything is the immigrants’ fault for the Sasamachs.

        2. Catherine costelloe

          And 21% of NHS are Irish doctors and over 13,000 Irish staff, Ollie. They don’t want to come back to HSE either!

          1. Ollie Cromwell

            And very welcome they are too.
            I’ve met some lovely Irish nurses during my occasional use of the NHS

        3. Praetorian.

          But…but…they pay council tax…which essentially covers all them costs.So technically sick or not they pay for healthcare either way.
          Is that why live here now…couldn’t abide paying your neighbours healthcare.

  3. Ollie Cromwell

    Olivier Faure ,First Secretary of the French socialist party says polls show 41% of French are “ready and willing to vote for a yellow jacket party in European elections”
    He warns the movement is “infectious and will spread across Europe”
    France is on the cusp.
    Today is going to be very interesting.
    Vive la revolution !

      1. Praetorian.

        Heh Heh Heh….
        ‘no consistent evidence either way’

        looking at your comments over the last few months it seems you’ll be happier amongst your own back in Engerland…as was said earlier education dosen’t excuse or mask ignorance.

  4. Eoin

    The Telegraph reports six Russian oligarchs are to be placed on an “intelligence list”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/07/romanabramovich-list-six-russian-oligarchs-targeted-uk-intelligence/

    Naturally enough, the Chelsea owner (with the Israeli residency), Roman Abramovich is the headline but below the fold:

    “Well-placed sources have confirmed Mr Abramovich is on the list along with Oleg Deripaska, who was once associated with a number of British politicians but has since been placed on a US Treasury sanctions list.”

    ““Mr Deripaska provides the Kremlin with financial backing and is also believed to have a close relationship with Russia’s intelligence services, including the GRU military intelligence unit that carried out the Salisbury nerve agent attack,” said a Whitehall official.”

    Being placed on “the list” by the Brits will not help Mr Deripaska in the USA.

    As we learned during the week, the US treasury has extended the deadline for finalising sanctions on Mr Deripaska until 7 January 2019. If the sanctions are confirmed on Deripaska’s company Rusal, then the Limerick aluminum refinery will probably close within a month, with the loss of 450 direct jobs (who will supply them with unrefined product or buy the refined product, unless they too want to risk being sanctioned).

    1. Giggidygoo

      Your link is to an ITimes waffle-fest. No substance to it. Just generalizations.
      But Ollie – do you think that all import must come from or through the UK? There are european suppliers that can replace UK suppliers at the drop of a hat. There are direct ferries to Ireland from Rotterdam, Le Havre, Cherbourg, Spain, and others to come on stream. All of those ferry costs are on a par with the land ridge costs. At the moment, a lot of trucks transit through the UK. Do you think that will stop? I don’t think so. And in effect, these trucks bound for Ireland won’t be customs cleared in the UK, but will travel on a T-1 or T-2 document which in most cases will require only stamping at UK ports. No, or very few customs exams. Goods bound for the UK itself though will be subject to customs clearance, exams, delays.

        1. Giggidygoo

          Id say I have decades more experience of international trade and customs formalities that you have Ollie. You rely on a lot of links. In this matter I rely on knowledge.

      1. Clampers Outside !

        “in effect” Giggidy…. we don’t have the capacity, and admin costs will go through the roof. Ollie’s not the one with his head in the sand. “Direct ferries” are up to 4 times longer in transit times.

        Verona Murphy, president of the Irish Road Haulage Association, on operating our own customs…
        “We don’t have the capacity as we developed our ports in line with the free movement of goods and people, therefore there has never been the need for storage capacity,” Murphy said. Some 14 police officers are needed to check each arriving ship, she said, piling on the administrative costs.

        Liam Lacey, director of the Irish Maritime Development Office, said Dublin Port is expanding but admitted that the reimposition of customs controls post Brexit was a complication. “We didn’t design our ferry terminals over the course of the last 20 years to handle that sort of build up of traffic”.
        From Ollie’s link. Read it.

        1. Giggidygoo

          In case you aren’t aware, driver-accompanied services to and from Europe with respect to Ireland are being hit big time by unaccompanied services. Verona Murphy has skin in the game as she is, understandably, representing her members.
          Are you saying that door to door transit times using direct ferries on the routes i mentioned are four times slower than going landbridge over the UK? I can tell you that if a load is collected in Holland on Friday, it will deliver to door in Ireland on Monday by either method.
          There are things too such as working time directives and driving hours that come into play

          My point however was about delays of goods coming from Europe to Ireland and customs requirements/controls. if you ship on a directly from ireland to europe and vice versa, as distinct from traveling through the UK, there are (as it is now) no customs formalities.
          If you decide to come via the UK, then there may be slight delays as T-1/T-2 documents have to be authenticated at the UK ports of entry and exit. (Do you know the function of those documents.
          I actually depend on my experience of the shipping industry along with my experience of customs formalities rather than soundbites to give my input. Take it or leave it but i know what i’m talking about.

          1. Clampers Outside!

            Fair enough on Verona,even putting her aside, Lacey says in that link those Dutch routes are still 12 hours longer than the landbridge of the UK.

            Maybe they both err on the side of caution, but there is no denying increased times for travel, at port time likely to be longer than current due to capacity issues, increased admin costs, and resulting reduction in value of imported perishable goods, all likely to be handed to the consumer in costs.

            I won’t doubt your experience of import/export issues, but I do think you are viewing with rose tinted glasses.

          2. GiggidyGoo

            The direct ferries allow drivers to take their legal breaks. After delivering in Europe and then traveling to collection points, drivers then end up having to take their breaks on the continent or in the UK.
            The thing about the direct ferries is that trailers can go unaccompanied thus reducing shipping costs. In fact, the Zeebrugge/Rotterdam route takes 95%+ unaccompanied trailers and containers.
            The French direct routes would take 60% unaccompanied freight. And that’s one area where Verona is coming from. The more unaccompanied trailers, the less need for Irish hauliers doing long runs. Drop and pick.
            The emergence of alternatives to what was the norm is a worrying factor for the Irish haulage industry.
            Couple that with the ever increasing availability of foreign hauliers coming in and out of the country and decimating freight rates, these are worrying times for the Irish haulage industry. (And my living is directly linked to that industry)

            My own evaluation is that Europe to Ireland will
            pose very little problems, even if trucks transit from Europe through the UK. UK to and from Ireland will experience problems if freight companies and businesses don’t act and establish a system of bonded warehouses. The intelligent ones have already done that.
            (Once you have a bonded warehouse then vehicles can come directly to a warehouse without doing customs formalities at the port)
            With the online clearance facilities even UK IE loads will have minimal delays Same as goods coming from China or US or wherever. Green,Orange,Red routings are given once customs entries are made. The red and orange routings are in the Minority. Green is by far the usual one.

          3. SOQ

            Just a question but will this mean that with all the extra scrutiny in and out of England, drugs will be more difficult to import?

    2. Praetorian.

      As and of March ’19…Roscoff/Cherbourg/LeHarve – Rosslare….Westcoast UK ports will soon become irrelevent….like the UK.

  5. Eoin

    411 (4-1-1) already detained by police in Paris . Yellow vests also mobilising in Brussels.

    How come our media missed this scandal during the week, apparently it’s stirred fresh energy into the French yellow vest movement

    “A video showing a mass police round-up of protesting high-school students in Mantes-la-Jolie west of Paris has caused outrage in France. Video of the detained students kneeling in mud started circulating on social media Thursday evening.”
    https://www.france24.com/en/20181207-france-student-police-yellow-vest-macron-mantes-la-jolie-yvelines-kneel-mud

    1. Ollie Cromwell

      Tony Connolly is RTE’s Europe Editor.
      He hasn’t posted a single tweet about the protests in Paris.
      I wonder if we’ll see him reporting from the tear-gassed streets as Sky’s Europe correspondent Mark Stone is this morning.
      Or is he holed up in Brussels waiting for his EU spin doctors telling him what to say next ?
      And no-one from the Irish Times there either.Relying on agency reports.
      Macron’s unpopularity simply doesn’t fit their liberal news agenda.
      Brexit O’Toole has gone very quiet too.

      https://twitter.com/fotoole/status/861283461994336256

    2. GiggidyGoo

      Same way as our EU friends missed the water protests stories and Garda brutality. Media bought by governments.
      No wonder they want to stifle social media

      1. Janet, I ate my avatar

        ylYep, the only way you really see what’s happening, comparing friends feeds to official media, the chasm is wide.
        May everyone stay safe.

          1. Janet, I ate my avatar

            my understanding is that it has gone beyond that, it is more of a protestation of the inequality and hypocrisies in society, that socialist France is no more and that people wish for redress

          2. Janet, I ate my avatar

            that’s not the desires of my friends in the movement,
            it’s a wide wide ranging movement of dissatisfaction with no ONE goal

          3. Janet, I ate my avatar

            unless by one means a huge kick back to inequalities injustice and a move back towards the original values of a true republic

          4. Clampers Outside!

            Any movement without a goal, or list of them, is destined to spin out of control.

            I guess then, these propests spinning out of control into mindless violence were inevitable.

          5. Janet, I ate my avatar

            Clampers I didn’t say that there was on goal just not a single goal, the violence is the infiltrated groups and even possibly the crs themselves to discredit and undermine the movement

          6. Clampers Outside!

            im not asserting blame on the original protest idea. But it is out of control, way beyond the original intention. And I realise it is a hodge lodge of groups, with thugs from both the far-Right and far-Left in the mix now… unfortunately.

          7. rotide

            Let’s face it, It’s never taken very much to get the french out on strike or protesting.

            Clampers is right though, now that the original protesthas been won for the GJs, the remaining protests are basically just very violent ‘Down with this sort of thing’ gatherings which are not going to do much good for whatever hundred causes they are protesting for.

      2. Ollie Cromwell

        Water protests and police brutality in a minor outpost of the EU are somewhat different to make social and political upheaval in a country like France.
        Now Ireland has danced to the tune of Druncker and Tusk during the negotiations,as it did during the bond-holder bailout,it has outlived its usefulness and will go back to being the equivalent of Malta in its importance in Europe.
        I hear the pathetic and desperate claims by some on here that the EU will come to Ireland’s aid if No Deal Brexit causes economic damage here but recent history would suggest otherwise.
        Ireland’s statement of intent was made clear when it rolled over in the 2nd Lisbon vote.
        The fighting Irish became the 33rd Team in the EU.

    3. Clampers Outside !

      From your own link…
      1. Threats to burn people in their cars alive
      2. Throwing stones at the cops
      3. Carrying baseball bats with intent to riot
      4. Covered an “educational official” (teacher, I presume) in petrol.

      Oh… they were put on their knees and told to put their hands behind their heads… that’s terrible (s/).

      Did I miss something? If I did, please enlighten me.
      Before you do, please read 1. and 4. above again, thanks.

    4. rotide

      are we supposed to be shocked by the fact that 411 people have been arrested after two+ weeks of rioting that’s killed 6 people and cost the economy millions of euros?

      It’s also interesting that a lot of the tacit support for the yellow vests come from the same quarters that were making (rightly) approving noises about Attenboroughs speech this week. These two things are pretty much at odds with each other

      1. Clampers Outside !

        +1

        The knee-jerk outrage to that video is the real disturbing issue. Teens acting like a bunch of out of control thugs.
        And they deserve whatever punishment they get, which will likely be feck all beyond being put on their knees and made put their hands behind their heads… cop on people, they were rioters and acting as thugs pouring petrol over an innocent civilian, and threatening do same to others FFS!

      2. Eoin

        It seems unfair to structure your economy so that a large cohort are living on the breadline, and then to demonise that cohort as selfish or climate change deniers when they’re really protesting at being at the pin of their collar and not being able to shoulder additional climate-change taxes.

        If the yellow vests were to be given tax breaks or social welfare adjustments which would cushion the increase in taxes on climate-change fuels, then there probably wouldn’t have been protests at all. But that’s not how Macron and the recent French political ethos sees the world.

        To paraphrase Sting “the yellow vests love their children too”!

        And as for Clampers, whatever your thoughts about the video, it’s being held up by the protesters as grounds for continuing their protest. Would have been nice to see it covered and for it to be placed in context. It looks awful.

        1. Clampers Outside !

          I hear ya.

          And yes, context is everything.

          They are not, as the video is being used, just “kids” to be used as reason or justification for more violence. They are extremely violent and out of control participants in a violent mob, young or not. Only a fool, like those who defend the violence of antifa, could justify this violence.

          1. Janet, I ate my avatar

            those participants are people who are taking advantage of the mayhem to loot and cause violence regardless of the movement, it would not matter the cause, should the cause be less relevant because these bottoms are profiting ?

          2. Clampers Outside!

            I’m not suggesting it should.

            I was commenting on the thug behaviour, and that being made kneel and put one’s hands behind one’s head is small punishment for dousing a person in petrol, and other violence, as I’m sure you’d agree.

  6. Ollie Cromwell

    ” Seems to me Sarkosy was heads and shoulders above the rest ”

    The one thing Sarkozy will never be is head and shoulders above anyone.

  7. Ollie Cromwell

    Think about it.
    Would the owners of an internet forum designed to stimulate debate prefer more or less input ?
    Something has the pay people to run this site.
    What you’re really asking is can we have fewer people who don’t agree with our point of view.
    That would be Snowflake Central.

    1. Cú Chulainn

      And there was me thinking you were the thicko alter ego.. will you let me know what’s in the sun tomorrow.. it cheers me up no end..

  8. Mattress Pat

    I see “Constance Markievicz” (1868 – 1927) on the Times is wearing a 1921 Truce Commemoration medal, issued on the 50th anniversary of the Truce in 1971. 44 years after she died, quite a feat.

      1. Mattress Pat

        It wasn’t a military action, and we don’t really have citizen awards here. I’d suspect that’s why.

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