[Tubby Isaacs]

I like that he says "services are fine but they're subject to protectionism". So were goods until the UK (Tory) government took the lead in creating the Single Market while Labour was still stuffed full of Kipper-Leftists.

I recall being surprised one day when I heard (think it was William Hague) talk about the need to complete the EU Single Market in services. It struck me this might have been a better use of Government's clout in the EU than dicking around with vetoes and "renegotiation".

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck me, it's back up. Just the bit in the tweet seems a bit of a stretch.

[Youngian]

Had an IR lecturer who was a big wig in founding the SDP who advocated European regional protectionism. Sounded very eccentric and out of kilter at the time but believed that was where the post Cold War multi polar world was moving. These head in the clouds intellectuals, what do they know?

[Youngian]

Fuck me, it's back up. Just the bit in the tweet seems a bit of a stretch.

Where did they find the 1940s American film-noir b-movie actor to narrate it?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Actual UK Government here.

[Andy McDandy]

That video - it sounded a bit like Kevin Spacey. I mean, he lives over here and he needs the work...

[Philip Marlow]

Fuck me, it's back up. Just the bit in the tweet seems a bit of a stretch.

Apparently there was an earlier video which featured a stampede in an underground station. The slight drawback being that it was actually footage from Penn Station. In New York.

This nightmare broadcast aside, one of the more eyebrow-raising phenomena of recent years has been a distinct uptick - both on platforms like Reddit and just looking at posts from acquaintances and friends of friends on Facebook - in the number of people who don’t live here, but seem to believe that day to day life in London is like a particularly fraught sequence from John Carpenter’s Escape from New York.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, there was a New York clip before. And it was people running away from a false report of gunfire. So if it had been in London, it would have made no sense. "People panic at a false rumour", I blame Sadiq Khan, Then again, I suppose they couldn't have put up people in New York actually being shot.

[kreuzberger]

If they are not lying, they have nothing to say. They are dangerously unpleasant.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I think they've given up on persuading the London electorate, just like they did with Shaun Bailey. The difference is that with Bailey they stopped bothering (he was actually a fair bit closer than they thought). With Hall, they're leveraging the London campaign more for an audience outside London. Whether that's an audience in Britain, which would be in the interests of the UK Tory Party, or an audience of international wingnuts who the people who made this advert might like to work for,, that's less clear.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I never thought I'd say this, but Johnny Mercer deserves our support.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The what? I thought the defence of GB News stuff was that it was comment, and they could have anyone on who they wanted? What's the difference here? Why cant they get in people who they think have interesting things to say? Why do they have to have Nick Timothy or whoever on?

[Andy McDandy]

And by the way, a lot of immigration is fiscally negative

Nick, here are some coins. One of each denomination of legal tender in Britain. Now, I'm going to place one coin - the two pound - on one side, and the other seven over on the other.

Which side has the most coins? And which side has the most value?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Isn't paying higher wages to care assistants fiscally negative? Better not do that.

[Tubby Isaacs]

If they are not lying, they have nothing to say. They are dangerously unpleasant.

They'll give it large about being brave truthtellers soon. It didn't go well when Michelle Donelan tried that live on tv, I don't think.

[Youngian]

What policy work are the likes of Timothy carrying out to embrace depopulation instead of lecturing white women to pop out more fiscally negative babies?
Emigrating takes a lot chutzpah and should be welcomed but the vast majority of people understandably don’t want to uproot. The coming immigration crisis will be a shortage of applicants in the face of global competition for their skills.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This isn't the same thing as work, obviously, but I noticed Timothy talked about AI replacing service jobs in that article. So I suppose his thought amounts to "technology innit".

[Andy McDandy]

"Robots will do the arse wiping so we don't need the immigrants", at a guess.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I think he accepts that care assistants are needed, but we get them from the UK without paying them any more. Or maybe we do pay them more, and fund it from cutting taxes.

Timothy does have a genuine longterm interest in industry, in fairness to him, and I reckon he probably nudged Theresa May in the direction of industrial policy (though she was pushed out before she could make it work). I'm sceptical of that working much beyond a small amount, but it could be useful. But won't that need immigrants, just as it did in the 60s/70s? And I don't get the need to denigrate services.

[Andy McDandy]

He's writing for a largely retired audience who associate service with subservient.