Brexit may kill off the European Superstate dream of the EU perhaps?

Is the end of the EU in sight?

Democracy, what democracy?

The United Kingdom's democratic vote to leave the EU in 2016 seemed to show an indication of what the British public desired - separation from the European super state.

That this vote result was almost trashed by some who decided that their point of view counted more than the citizen, showed a degree of arrogance and an affront to democracy.

When you hold an election, the winner is the winner, yet with Brexit, it seemed there were some who could not accept democracy.

Freedom, perhaps?

So the questions I have for Remainers are easy to answer, but what do they see in the EU that blinkers them to the obvious?

1. Is it common sense to throw back fish because a quota has been reached?

2. So when more fish are inadvertently landed, that the process happens again and tons of perfectly edible food are junked because of this stupid edict? what is the sense here?

3. What do you get for paying the EU around £53 million a week? A free no passport travel situation. And not much else.

4. Are nation states not grown up enough to be able to make their own laws, set their own tax rates and manage their own affairs? Or does the EU just treat them as imbeciles and take their money for the privilege of telling them what to do?

5. How much money does the EU rake in from its member states?

6. Where and how is it spent?

Maybe that's the rub... And when I put these questions to apparently brainwashed Europhiles, they have no real answers. Especially about the money.

Follow the money. 

I wonder why we aren't allowed to see audited accounts from the EU? 

When you see a label 'funded by the EU' that's because the money we pay comes back and we largely 'pay' for the funding that the EU so generously gives out.

The audacity of leaving

There was much publicity given to the fact that the UK would be punished for having the audacity and temerity to leave the EU, so, that threat does nothing for the EU. In fact it shows that there is desperation in the EU to resort to threats of future trade and negotiations in order to scare and cajole, well it didn't work and it won't.

Well, in my view, if that is their pattern of behaviour then perhaps others will adopt the same stance as the UK and leave. 

We stood alone in 1940, we traded outside of the EU before 1973 and we have been very successful too.

The problem is its about the money.

When Britain leaves the EU on January 31st, the money should stop, future demands for divorce bills of £39 billion should be ignored.

That means the UK can disregard being told where and how much to spend on foreign aid and perhaps start spending that money at home on things like dementia care, potholes in the roads (which we surely pay for in vehicle excise duty?), the NHS and many other situations in the UK.

But that's the rub.... it means that EU nations, many already in or teetering into recession will have to make up the UK's contributions. 

The EU Tsunami

Its a perfect storm potentially coming for the EU, in that the UK can pursue trade deals elsewhere it pleases, if the EU plays bully boy, the UK can walk away and embrace a potentially amazing trade deal with the US. 

If the UK stops buying EU goods, the EU is going to start collapsing and that's before the other member states decide to vote and possibly vote to leave the EU.

Look to your history books

All the previous attempts to 'unite' and make a European super state, from Julius Caesar to Adolf Hitler have all failed. The EU will too.

UK Age verification - Ok, so how does this work with EBay, Amazon and Cinemas?

New UK Age Verification Laws - are they workable?

In April 2018, new Age Verification laws for 'Adult content' websites come into force, but is it just a hurried and unworkable mess or even worthwhile?

Is it ironic somewhat that the proposed 'provider' who will process age verification, is actually one of the world's largest conduits of pornography?

Does this come under the 'you couldn't make it up' style of journalism?

I wonder how this will work in other areas of E-commerce and the internet.

This got me thinking, if you need to be 18 to visit adult content sites, then how does this work when you go to a cinema?

In theory, you'd have to show accepted accreditation meeting a national standard, to prove your age if it was obvious a film's rating demanded it.

(In theory, if an 18 film was showing, you'd have to show a form of accreditation just to get in, even if you were going to see a U film?)

This will put you on a 'data map' just as much as if you buy age verification and go on to an 'adult content' website.

This could be dangerous ground.

In the normal run of things, your computer IP address is pretty anonymous, but now with verification, is it not beyond possibility that this goldmine of potentially highly sensitive information could easily be stolen and used for criminal purposes?

As a 'celeb' for example, or someone with a high profile job role, should someone steal your verification and your transaction data and match it to your profile and any sites by name you visited, this could be very embarrassing for you. 

Data crime is big business, a disgruntled employee able to steal quality, qualified data has a valuable commodity on their hands. 

Anyone then able to exploit this data could hand the criminals an open cheque book, which could lead to compromised people becoming victims of crime and possibly taking their own lives, rather than pay up or have the shame of exposure. Exposure could cost them everything. Literally.

If every site you visit and use your data verification is logged, then this database of information is to the criminal, a potential pot of gold, if they can get hold of this data.

Another question is, if legitimate on-line platforms such as EBay and Amazon sell '18 age' products, will any users of these sites require age verification just to go on there? Even if the visitors are not buying or interested in '18' age products?

This could include sex aids, both of which platforms had these items being listed for sale. 

The question is, ultimately, are we all going to be made to have age verification just to get onto any websites? This seems a bit too 'Big Brother' for me.

The question is, if you are below 18 and want to buy a book for your educational studies from say Amazon, a book which is not containing 'adult content', would you then need an Age Verification registration just go on the site, because the site may contain over 18 material or products? 

Another question is that of competition.

Is it fair business practice to have just one provider of age verification?  That is a monopoly surely?

The most important thing concerning this exercise, is the safety of the data and what the data is being collected for.

Is there any justification in this collection and could this be used against a person?

If someone was unfortunate enough to have to appear in court for an offence, would Age Verification data of their account transactions be used or obtained for use in evidence, perhaps to discredit the person or try and demonstrate guilt?

This again does raise serious questions about this whole process and personal privacy. 

Of course we want to protect those under 18 from certain material but if adult material is available on DVD on legitimate internet platforms that anyone with a debit card or Paypal can purchase, then Age Verification is worthless. 

The material will just  go 'underground' or get hidden away and people will eventually find ways of getting to it.

Indeed the tech-savvy younger people are just the people who are likely to be able to do this, exactly the target group that the legislation is being supposedly designed to protect.

Let us look outside of this argument for a moment and consider Alcohol, Driving,Firearms and Narcotics. Alcohol does have an 18 age limit, we all know this rule is broken on a daily basis.

With most firearms banned and some narcotics being 'controlled' by law and prohibited from ordinary possession, criminals can easily get hold of a gun and drugs are widely available almost openly being sold on the streets and used by younger people even those at school. Underage drivers steal or obtain and drive cars. Regulation does not prevent this at all.

The measures above to protect people are failures, because the prohibited items are able to be obtained by those without the legal rights to do so.

Age verification is one step behind, it will be expensive to do and will largely fail, based on the previous models of prohibition. It also impinges on the human rights of privacy and security for the individual's data which is of far greater concern.

Update:

The proposed introduction of age verification in April 2018 has been quietly put back to the end of 2018, hopefully this puritan notion will be left in the long grass and be quietly forgotten. Perhaps the powers that be have seen that this form of prohibition is unworkable?

When Britain leaves the EU after Brexit in March 2019, we will no longer have to observe EU laws. 

Brexit and guitars - buy now if you can!

Thinking of buying a guitar? It may be prudent not to delay

Whatever your standpoint on the In / Out argument over Britain's membership of the EU, two things are happening, Sterling has weakened and other currencies have not, causing UK citizens' buying power to decrease.

When Brexit was announced, we should have immediately started to talk whilst at the same time started drawing up the deal we wanted. It needed business people to do this
 
In 2015, the Dollar started to gain ground against Sterling, the world is geared  to the Dollar price for commerce and as a result, its value started a climb as Sterling weakened. Suddenly, we in Britain were getting less for our Pound. 

For those of us in the music industry or players, we saw the sale ticket prices of instrument start to climb. It has always been unfair that in the US you can pay a lot less for a musical instrument, yet over here, the same instrument is or was about half as expensive again in real terms.

With new models out on the market, Britain is now paying out more than before, so the answer is if you can, buy now. The good news for the second hand market is your used instrument is now worth more and is a more attractive buy than a new one.

A well looked after and best condition guitar retailing at £1700 secondhand is going to be a better buy than the same or near same at £3600 new, the value almost having gone up by half on the new price from some that were £2800 a year or two back. The reality is that many shops now get guitars with big ticket prices in to order. 

The future may hold a better deal, but not for a while. If the UK can get the best of both worlds and cash in on the rich Dollar market so we don't have to pay over the odds for USA goods, then we will be ok.

The EU has to have the UK buying its goods, if we didn't it would be in trouble. The fact we are getting out means that our membership fees will have to be picked up by the other remaining countries many of which can't afford what they already pay now.

The EU could likely cease to be within a few years perhaps, but meanwhile, be smart with your buying.

Brexit should mean cheaper USA guitars, if so why not?

Can we look forward to cheaper guitars from US companies soon?

Nice Gretsch 6120AM Amber Maple - brand new

We in the UK are getting out of Europe and the EU project at last. One thing that has been a contentious issue for many of us has been the price of guitars from America, outside the EU. Perhaps now that the EU is going to be history, we will then get Dollar for Pound parity.

Guitars as one commodity coming into the UK or Europe zone, have long been subject to high import duty and costs. In the UK, when the exchange rate was 1.5 or better, we would be paying the equivalent Dollar price tag, but in Sterling, so we were losing out big time, because we in the UK, weren't in the North American trading agreement. 

Before Brexit, new USA or Japan made for the USA market guitars were on the market at something more than the previous models were. With Brexit and the fall in Sterling, the guitars are about half as expensive in real terms again, before adding the price increase for the new models.

This has been a problem for many years in things we buy from the US market, the good news is that this may change in a short while. It is also likely that the EU will cease to exist if the elections of major players such as France and Holland vote to reject the EU and go out on their own like the UK. Even if they don't I do not forsee the EU surviving for much longer after that.

Donald Trump will give us a better Brexit deal!

We can now have our country back!

The cry babies and nay-sayers can pack up their protests now that democracy has prevailed and that Brexit is going ahead.

Seriously though, I would say that this gives Europe a chance to get their own countries back too. They can see that Britain has had enough of being told what to do and asked to pay handsomely for the privilege.

Donald Trump is very important to Britain -

and what it will get out of Brexit

The news that Donald Trump will want a good trade deal with the UK is good news for the UK and for European countries. With Britain out, the EU has to shore up and pay for this glorious project by heaping more demand on the remaining struggling countries left in the group.

Played right, the UK could become a massive distribution hub into the Eurozone, importing at zero duty from its trading partners who can then use the UK distribution base as a zero import duty ticket in to Europe.

The bloated Eurocracy -

Doomed to fail as has every attempt to unite Europe

Who are the losers?

The EU project.

They will no longer be able to wring taxes from out of EU imports that come through the UK or are supplied by UK based arms of these out of the EU zone companies.

No doubt this has already been seen by other nations who are anxious to trade with and through Britain.

How is Brexit going to pan out? Played properly it will be good. My opinion is that we should have enacted Article 50 immediately, cut off funding the EU and abiding by its often ridiculous legislation.

This would have sent a clear message.

The EU project is failing, the Euro has never exceeded the value of the Pound and after this current blip, it will go down in value.

Britain is certainly still very open for business and the trading figures show month  on month growth, not recession.

Donald Trump has good things going for him, he runs businesses, he understands business, he has already helped create new jobs before he is in business. He wants to bring jobs back to his country and make his country great again.

A pity we did not have someone like this here in power.

Someone like Nigel Farage could have been that man.  

Why the British Police service needs reform

 

Things have moved on since then -

Or have they?

The 1926 General Strike saw an important agreement made afterwards, that the Police service would not strike.

For that agreement, to continue to serve, keeping of the peace and prevention of the disturbance without recourse to withdrawal of labour, has ensured that the service has perhaps not been subject to the level of restriction against things like labour conditions and performance agreements that may have been foisted onto other organisations.

But has that meant that reform of the service by past governments has been limited and changes to the service, perhaps not as far reaching or definitive as hoped, have been in the past watered down to appease the non-striking body?

Whilst representation of the staff members of the Police Federation is something that should be preserved, the federation does wield power. And in the past has managed to strongly argue for what it will or will not accept.

The Police Community Support Officers-

A wasted opportunity for greater efficiency?

One of the recent innovations to policing, the introduction by David Blunkett of the Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) was worthwhile, but the concept was watered down perhaps.

This could have been an opportunity for two tier policing, allowing a front line operational deployment of federated staff, but backed up with a wider tranche of PCSO staff with a limited remit but with power of arrest.

In essence, the PCSO would do a lot of the ordinary work such as patrolling, statement taking and the like, which would free up the other officers for targeting of criminals and preventative crime work.

The PCSO's would have provided vital boots on the ground as an integrated part of visible policing. The fact they are not equipped to operate in a more fulfilled role in my view has been a mistake. It also means that their role is less fulfilling and perhaps job satisfaction would be greater with more scope for a more comprehensive nature of their remit.

Some officers see the Special Constable as little more than being 'hobby police.' Although this is not the case with all. The Special Constable is a volunteer and largely only available because they give their spare time.

With policing cuts, the Specials have been in demand more. Often being used to try and fill the gaps in operational policing, particularly on night shifts.

The nature of crime is changing -

technology allows foreign criminals to operate in the UK, remotely from abroad

Crime is now no longer what happens on our streets. Cyber crime, whether by computer fraud, hacking or email scams is big business, often by foreign criminals and terrorists is a reality that affects UK citizens.

The police service has to change and evolve to meet the demands of maintaining law and order in this new age.

So, there has to be a new way forward, where the government of the day protects the livelihood of the police officer but at the same time, is on a more 'working' basis, not a confrontational one, without the General Strike carrot and stick fall back position?

We frequently get the 'there is no money' and 'budgetary restraints' arguments when politicians orate. This is no excuse anymore, not when we waste billions in 'foreign aid' payments. It is time to start reinvesting in the UK infrastructure and that includes the Police, Fire, Ambulance and Military services.

Basic income Guarantee would help provide volunteers to help the police service

With automation taking many jobs, Mark Carney the Bank of England Chief has recently predicted half of the 31 million UK work force will lose their jobs permanently to automation. This means the government must introduce a basic income payment.

Basic income would also allow others to volunteer and this would help efficiency in law and order provision. It would allow more Special Constables, whilst this influx might not sit well with some regular officers, what other answer is there except major investment by the government, rather than cuts to police numbers?

I served in the police service for seven and a half years and saw changes and cuts in my time. 'Lean' management practices have cut too far and there is nothing left to cut. If the UK has no money, politicians should ask why and then do something about it. Britain first, has to be the way forward if we want this country to be great again. 

We must not sacrifice the sanctity of law and order on the altar of bean counting, we need to take our country back, Brexit has started that ball rolling. We must now grasp this opportunity to reboot Britain, law and order and homeland security must be in that mix. 

Should Foreign aid be dropped? - its time we looked after the UK.

Charity begins at home -

We should start spending at home

We could an awful lot with £12.2 billion -  that's our Foreign aid budget, put that with the £14 billion we will save fron EU donations post Brexit and that's a lot of money we can spend at home, in the UK.

They say charity begins at home and the time has now come to shut  our foreign aid budget down and start spending the money in the UK.

We have faced years of cuts to services  in the UK, yet at the same juncture, we are sending money to oil rich countries like Bahrain, how mad is that?

We give to countries that have space programs - why?

If they can afford this they don't need our money

If a country has a space program then they don't need our aid, yet thanks to external directives issued beyond our shores, we seem obliged to give where it is not needed.

We give aid to China -

This is madness!

Yes, you couldn't make it up, we give foreign aid to the second wealthiest nation in the world - China.

Africa should by now after trillions of dollars of aid be at a level of development equal to modern European nations. Yet we keep tipping buckets of the stuff out, unaccountable 'gifts' which are not administered, allow rife corruption, which seems to be the norm.

Giving to help with incidents is one thing, but we now need to put the UK first if we want a secure future.

Will China end up getting Trumped?

This President means Business -

Because Donald Trump understands business, money and jobs.

Like him or not, newly elected President Trump is something few, if any former American Presidents have been - a business man who understands business, money and jobs.

I have said recently, that the time for amateurs in government is over. How can a person be employed as in charge of transport one week and then seamlessly move to health a week later? inexpertise is a weak point that allows corruption, or was that the point of it?

The Brexit split is something America now seems set to echo

The Brexit split was met with real anguish from those on the opposite side of the voting paper when the UK made its choice. Well, too bad for the losers, the decision was made, democratically. Just because it didn't go your way, that's your hard luck.

And that's the reaction in the US to Donald Trump being elected, some folks just can't accept that their point of view was not shared. Well, that's showbiz folks and no hanging or dimpled chads in sight on this occasion.

The talks of trade are notable. With the hapless Obama sending us 'right to the back of the queue' for daring to Brexit, our friend Donald wants us right at the front. I can do business with this man, already.

Well, Obie never liked the UK much because of Kenya, did he? Anyway, goodbye to President Doolittle and hopefully Donald will reinstate the Winston Churchill bust removed through a 'lack of space wasn't it?

His 'Yes we can' was hollow rhetoric and turned out to be 'no he can't or didn't. The poor black folks who voted for change got more of the same old, same old. So that's why many voted for Donald Trump.

China has prospered jobwise at the expense of the rest of the world

If we turn to that economic and manufacturing powerhouse that is China, this is one nation where our new man wants to reclaim jobs back from.

Basic Income Guarantee has been proven on paper to be cheaper

than Social Security in the USA, even if paid to everyone over 16 in the USA

He understands the economy because he runs businesses. Its time for him to start going to work, to create those jobs back home and to reform government, to cut out the dead wood and the excess from Government or lack of it.

Time to rid America of the shoddy shambles that is Obamacare that is costing more than three times as much to buy into than anticipated, for ordinary people, time to introduce Basic Income Guarantee to cut the social security bill, yet leave people better off. 'Yes he can' where Obie failed.

The problem with overseas manufacturing has been the crumby trade deals. NAFTA was one deal that the new President wants out of apparently.

One thing the new President has done, much like the UK getting out of Brexit, is smashing the silent under government - the New World Order, tenets of which the EU wants to promulgate for as long as it can to control worldwide trade and money wealth.

No wonder a 'yesterday's man' like Tony Blair is desperate to get back into UK politics, he wants to perpetuate this United States of Europe and get Brexit overturned, but the system of that is failing, now Britain has voted to go, others will follow suit.

France and the  Netherlands, just two countries who have had enough of being told what to do and how many immigrants they must take, a situation which is causing unrest, despite the liberals calling anyone who raises the subject a racist. They want referenda and to leave.

The EU is the latest example of how the 'European project' is doomed - the historical figures who tried to conquer and maintain a European super state project were - The Romans, Napoleon and Adolf Hitler  - all met with defeat and failure.

The current incarnation of the EU control mechanism is failing too. This self-appointed club is about over and done with. Even Mr Trump questions NATO and whether the US should be a part of it?

Clearly, if we do not express aggression to Mr Putin, he is not likely to trouble us.

Now we see a new era where we might get the sort of Gorbachev - Reagan relationship between the US and Russia, we can only hope that this can lead to countering the real, common enemy we face.

Clearly, our present and future collective enemy is Islamic terrorism and that will be the focus from now.

That war is against a sect of people who have hijacked a belief system and used it as a means of control and wealth gathering, by means of terror and subjugation. 

It is the work of cowards and the inadequate, by people who can do nothing positive for humanity or make anything, except trouble. They can't fight real soldiers and they don't because they are not up to it.

Donald Trump is not one to shy away from that problem. Thankfully.

Perhaps the tide will turn and 2017 will be a splendid year, better than this 2016 has been.

Post Brexit result jobs market is better - for a number of reasons

The EU is now facing a collapse of the 'Project' post UK voting to leave

Some months after 'Project Fear' failed to stop the rout, Britain is leaving the EU building, albeit slowly. So has Britain collapsed? Far from it.

Although a lot of speculative bidding was done on the eve of the Brexit vote, those that anticipated a remain, sadly lost a lot more than their shirts when the vote went against them.

But far from gloom and disaster predictions, Britain has not crashed and burned, au contraire, countries are queueing up to negotiate trading deals. So the scaremongering didn't work. Thank goodness.

In the months that followed the leave vote, there has been a shift in the jobs market, more opportunities and why is that?

Partly to do with immigration falling. The future of unlimited it seems immigration is over, there is no automatic right to remain for outside visitors and migrants have been making renewed efforts to get into Britain from the European continent.

What Britain needs is an Australian style points system, so that we can choose who we allow in to the country. We don't need any more Mullahs spouting hate or terrorists so that is one demographic sector or two we can get rid of from our list of people.

Seriously though, the drop in migrants many who come here for agricultural work is down to the advances in Robotic Machinery. These new advances displace human labour, they are able to work for longer and even identify produce at the peak time for picking.

The new interest in Britain has also started to come through into orders from companies to British manufacturing firms which is welcome.

Over the next 10 years 9 million people's jobs will be displaced by robotics and automation, the problem will be how to fix that gap. And how to pay the displaced. That's easy, a basic income guarantee (BIG) is the answer and is cheaper than the current employment model.

Governments must get qualified ministers like Donald Trump - the days of the amateur civil servant are up.

All governments must get qualified people to manage departments

It beggars belief that the responsibility of running major state departments is left in the hands of often unqualified amateurs with no relevant experience.

Give Donald Trump his due, he is a man who understands business. He knows about economics because he has to make his businesses work because he has no safety net of public money.

Donald Trump knows it, he knows things don't always work out, but he has come back. Politicians in the main, find themselves put into very senior positions of responsibility with large budgets of public money at their disposal and the inevitable outcome is they are out of their depth and screw things up.

Why are these often unqualified amateurs put into these senior positions when they clearly have no relevant or real world experience?

Real World. There, I said it. Many  of these people have never had a 'proper job' in the real world. They go from school to university to politics and that's the problem. How can someone with not even a school level biology exam qualification be a Health Minister?

It's just such a joke. It has to change.

Brexit may be that change medium.

The UK is already attracting significant interest from countries outside of the EU who want to trade with it on a big basis now they are leaving the EU. Those countries in the EU are losing a major G8 player and as such are going to have to prop up the ailing EU superstate project with almost third world level players from the former Communist Bloc.

So now more than ever, the need for people with relevant experience to take over and run the government departments is vital. Just because you knew X from school or university is no longer acceptable. That's why the government system is not performing to its full potential.

If qualified business people ran the government, the country would be far better off.

Brexit means goodbye to Low Hanging Fruit Pickers from the EU

Grapes of Wrath?

Automation is coming to the agricultural industry, displacing the manual worker.

With many seasonal workers coming to the UK to pick fruit and vegetables, those days could soon be coming to an end thanks to the march of the robots.

Robotic pickers that can analyse produce for growth, readiness and optimum picking time are now coming in to play.

The units can 'read' produce to determine suitability for collection, this means that the best ready fruit is picked and at any time of the day or night. The machines can 'remember' and know where to pick due their vast memory. Essentially their data builds 'picking lists' and the machine selects only those optimum stocks.

This ensures profitability, with no or much reduced human labour costs, a one off investment in machines which can work almost all of the time, less servicing time which will often be out of the growing season and less wastage.

With a 'to the provider' level of optimum condition 'prime' products, this removes much of the attributable waste that can be claimed by an end seller such as a supermarket, which is a winner for the producer.

The automation march is certainly impacting the workplace in not just low skilled work but all the way up to the top levels of the game.