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UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find the exact article. For some reasons "everything" pre-brexit about immigration has been buried by Google. However the route of African migrants through Italy to the UK was well known before Brexit. https://www.euractiv.com/section/uk-europe/news/african-migr...

You are mixing two things: Yes, illegal immigrants get into Italy from the Mediterranean sea. From there they move to north Europe, but this is far from getting Italian citizen and have the freedom to move in EU. However is sometimes very easy for many south americans to get Italian citizenship thanks to our dumb citizen law that grant citizenship to anyone who could prove to have kind of remote Italian ancestor

I know what you are saying but I'm not conflating these separate issues.

The argument was made that UK cannot control its borders from non-EU immigrants because Italy at the time was giving them enough papars so they could travel legally to the UK.

To be honest I cannot recall for sure if they were getting instant italian citizenship or just some form of residency. However in the end they could even get british citizenship because they would live in the UK long enough(i believe it's 5 years) using the EU papers. There was benefits fraud as well.

Unfortunately I cannot find the articles anymore. It's almost like a conspiracy that everything regarding immigration before Brexit is no longer search-able(I know it's just Google's algo discarding old news). Immigration was the issue number 1 for the british people before Brexit. I beleive it's not over yet as european politicians are still ignoring people's concerns on immigration.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#352

Jesus, I think reddit is leaking. Lots of whiners in this thread, if you guys spoke French or German you would know the UK isn't that bad.

What problems do France and Germany have that make the UK seem better by comparison?

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#353
post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Germany falling apart?

Migrants, energy crisis, inflation, extremism, climate change, export-driven strategy etc. Google “Germany falling apart”, sort by last month, see the absolute dire commentary.

All of these are true for the UK as well, with the added problem of Brexit and possible future Scottish independence.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#354
post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Migrants, energy crisis, inflation, extremism, climate change, export-driven strategy etc. Google “Germany falling apart”, sort by last month, see the absolute dire commentary.

All of these are true for the UK as well, with the added problem of Brexit and possible future Scottish independence.

Exactly. I’m not saying other countries have different problems, I’m saying generally they have the same problems. People like to downplay their own problems and relish in other peoples to feel good about themselves. You can search for any country and find incredibly downbeat views on their situation. problems.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#355
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I think Brexit was (and is) a disaster that was really just a reactionary vote against immigration (particularly POlish immigration), I think "Scexit" is a mistake and fail for the same reasons that there will be Ireland reunification. Land borders. In Northern Ireland this creates a problem because you eitehr have to have a customs border between NI and the Republic of Ireland or between NI and Great Brit…

Not every border has to be a hard border. The Scottish border would not necessarily have to change at first because an independent Scotland would not be automatically part of the EU or even the Schengen area. If Scotland wants to join and the status of Great Britain is still not clear by then, then that's another border issue to resolve. The situation with Northern Ireland is different because Ireland is part of the…

> The Scottish border would not necessarily have to change at first because an independent Scotland would not be automatically part of the EU or even the Schengen area

The rUK government is likely to be as bloody minded as the EU has been and acting in it's own perceived interest (which is not purely financial). It would be able to make things very difficult for an independent Scotland if it so wanted.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#356

Current top post on HN is a Raspberry Pi project: rpi is a British invention. Second is a paper from UCL, based in London. In the top few is a paper by DeepMind, also in London. Yet HN likes to go absolutely nuts about how the UK is “done” at every opportunity.

The UK is far from done, but the considerable number of good universities and good companies aren't, for whatever reason, translating into rising living standards. The current crisis can be blamed on energy, but the post 2008 period of wage stagnation and low growth wasn't exactly great and wasn't due to energy.

I'd say there's a fair chunk of NIMBYism and lack of investment outside of London causing some of that.

Cambridge and Oxford basically have no lab space and are surrounded by greenbelt, and neither has enough housing, but rather than for e.g. dump a ton of investment in new labs into Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, etc. and try and build the equivalent of Max Planck Institutes in Germany, the government sticks more in Oxbridge and in central London.

Why would you put a 'Turing Institute' to lead AI research somewhere where your Postdocs aren't going to be able to afford to live? Oh, because it's easy for politicians to nip there for a photo op.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturing employment is declined due to lots of factors: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2020.00054... > UK manufacturing employment fell especially steeply in the early 1980s during a recession triggered by a high exchange rate and high interest rates. The job losses during these years were documented in particular by Townsend (1983) and Fothergill and Guy (1991) and the process of deindustrial…

Can you support the argument that China somehow deindustrialized the UK, starting in the 2000s? The story of the UK's deindustrialization was discussed well before that, wasn't it? The working class in the UK probably doesn't much care where their jobs are offshored to.

For the decline of industry under Labour, see graphs here: https://fullfact.org/economy/did-labour-decimate-manufacturi... Manufacturing was 18% of UK output at the start of Blair's term in office, and 10% when he left in 2010. You can also search for story after story about factory closures following the 1998 Asian financial crisis, which decimated the north of England.

When evaluating Blair's impact it's also important to look at regional shifts, with money and jobs becoming more and more concentrated around London at the expense of the periphery. You can argue about the causes of these shifts, but their existence is not in question.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are effectively no non-American corporations competing with FAANGs on salary. Not at any real scale.

FAANG in London are competing with finance, and there are plenty of non-American firms in finance paying high salaries.

Sure, I was thinking about software engineer salaries, but finance definitely has positions that pay FAANG wages. Those companies aren't really competing with FAANG though since they're looking for different people.

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The party that proposed it did well electorally last time too. Apparently there are lots of people in Scotland who vote for the SNP without fully agreeing with their goals. I'm neutral on the topic of Scottish independence but from a purely tactical perspective it'd be surprising if another referendum could be won at the moment. Sturgeon appears to know that and looks a lot like she's trying to string the SNP base al…

> EU membership means rule from Brussels. This was the Brexit lie, and it's not really a sustainable argument post-Brexit. > Joining can take years, in the meantime it would require severe austerity measures to stabilize the new state's finances. A referendum wouldn't require leaving immediately; again, see Brexit. Negotiate an EU entrance while preparing for exit. > The SNP has never resolved many of the open issues…

The European parliament set laws that standardise matters across the union, and this can only work if it overrules national governments. European regulators create policy. Legal matters can be appealed to the European justice system. The goal of /ever closer union/ is written in the original treaty.

Why do you think rule from Brussels is a lie?

Re: UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EU membership means rule from Brussels. This was the Brexit lie, and it's not really a sustainable argument post-Brexit. > Joining can take years, in the meantime it would require severe austerity measures to stabilize the new state's finances. A referendum wouldn't require leaving immediately; again, see Brexit. Negotiate an EU entrance while preparing for exit. > The SNP has never resolved many of the open issues…

The European parliament set laws that standardise matters across the union, and this can only work if it overrules national governments. European regulators create policy. Legal matters can be appealed to the European justice system. The goal of /ever closer union/ is written in the original treaty. Why do you think rule from Brussels is a lie?

> Why do you think rule from Brussels is a lie?

Because it was a lie the last time it was the talking point.

The UK still winds up having to meet EU standards if they want to sell products there; all the regulatory burden, none of the benefits. They could have decided to have blue passports any time they wanted. The 350 million pounds a week for the NHS never materialized. etc. etc. etc.

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