BREAK: 🚨🚨🇫🇷🇬🇧🚗🚙🚗🚙🚗🚙🚗🚙🚗🚙🚗🇫🇷🇬🇧🚢🚢🚢🚨🚨 The UK rejects Dover funding bid to double French passport booths via @FT - long queues ahead...as other ports also don’t get money they asked for to build #brexit border. Stay with me/1 thread

@FT So what is this all about? Well back in October the govt announced a £200m Port Infrastructure Fund - details below - for ports to get ready for the new trade processes for #Brexit border. Dealing with those 215m extra customs decs etc.. /2

https://t.co/aFzelRLlEX
@FT Today we find out what everyone got - but it turns out that 54 ports asked for more than £450m - so a LOT have been bitterly disappointed. Not just Dover (on which more in a second)...they are furious the government is not willing to fully fund the very borders they mandated /3
@FT So here is the list of what everyone got - 41 ports had winning bids totaling just over £194m - but you'll note that Dover got...wait for it...£33k. No, that is not a type. Thirty-three thousand pounds. They asked for £33m!! Why? Well to build new passport lanes. /4
@FT Why? Because as an @NAOorguk report warned in November the Govt's 'reasonable worst case scenario' for delays at Dover for passenger traffic was "one to two hours" and "much longer" in the summer. Eeek. Happy hols everyone! /5

https://t.co/K77Is5tfxk
@FT @NAOorguk So here is @PortOfDover EU Exit boss Tim Reardon explaining to the Lords EU Cmme why they needed to double the number of French kiosks from five to 10 - because we'll soon be facing intrusive new checks; stamps in passport etc. Oh joy. /6

https://t.co/6989KZPHqQ
@FT @NAOorguk @PortOfDover The Cabinet Office have yet to explain their thinking fully on why Dover didn't get the money - or why they didn't fine more cash when it was clear the Fund was more than twice over-subscribed. But ministers have explained how they whittle down the field. See this:/7
@FT @NAOorguk @PortOfDover But none of that explains really why a government that is merrily building borders doesn't appear to want to pay for them to be built...surely in the case of Dover, when everyone is sitting fuming in queues this summer...the extra five booths might have paid off?! /8
@FT @NAOorguk @PortOfDover But his is MUCH bigger than Dover. This is about booting up port infrastructure across the UK to deal with those extra 215m customs declarations, the new processes Ireland-GB, the expected increase in 'short sea' crossings to Harwich and the Humber. It's #Brexit made flesh! /9
@FT @NAOorguk @PortOfDover It's fair to say there is a LOT of grumbling out there today as these awards were circulated.

Portsmouth got £17.1m - which is about £8m short of what they asked for, I am told. /10
@FT @NAOorguk @PortOfDover Their MP @StephenMorganMP is fuming. He says the money falls "far short" of what they need and is less than "the money mandated by the government’s own border operating model" - I can see the Govt getting some heat on all this in coming days/weeks. /11
@FT @NAOorguk @PortOfDover @StephenMorganMP This leaves ports facing a real dilemma as the July 1 2021 deadline approaches...do the go ahead and build scaled back, inadequate infrastructure...or seek more money or what? See this from @mikesellersPIP the boss of @PortsmouthPort /12
@FT @NAOorguk @PortOfDover @StephenMorganMP @mikesellersPIP @PortsmouthPort And I can tell you that dilemma is NOT confined to Portsmouth.

Humber ports like Purfleet & Killinghome that deal with 'trailer' freight from the EU on short-sea crossings also have lots to do. Holyhead must deal with huge new Irish freight issues etc. /13
@FT @NAOorguk @PortOfDover @StephenMorganMP @mikesellersPIP @PortsmouthPort Some got nothing, others took an across the board haircut 33% haricut on what they did get.

@timgmorris Chief Exec UK Major Ports Group says they're "very disappointed that the allocations of funding are so late in the day and significantly short of what many ports require."/14
@FT @NAOorguk @PortOfDover @StephenMorganMP @mikesellersPIP @PortsmouthPort @timgmorris His group is now calling on the Government "to work urgently with the sector to review funding levels and timings”...because tickety-tock the new border hurtles towards us (exact details still tbc...checks date...16 Dec...mops brow) /15
The point is that everyone, I think, knows it is going to be pretty choppy logistically few months - and then again, with a 'second cliff-edge' in July 1 2021 for goods coming EU-GB, so it seems odd to me Govt isn't chucking sufficient wedge at this one. /16
Because if & when the blame game begins over port congestion, I think I have a fair bet about where the finger will be pointing - at least from the point of view of a pretty sore UK ports industry today. ENDS

More from Peter Foster

Another head-banging day for the £112bn UK creative sector that is starting to ingest how difficult #Brexit is going to make their lives - and how little the government is really willing to do to fix the lack of a 'mobility' chapter in the EU-UK trade deal. Quick update.../1

First Equity @EquityUK put out a letter to @BorisJohnson warning that #brexit was a "towering hurdle" (you'd want Brian Blessed reading that part) to UK actors plying their trade in EU - a double whammy with #COVID19 /2

https://t.co/mXjTAISqZk


@BorisJohnson One third of Equity members say they've seen job ads asking for EU passport holders: "Before, we were able to travel to Europe visa-free. Now we have to pay hundreds of pounds, fill in form after form, and spend weeks waiting for approval" /3

@BorisJohnson Worth recalling that all this goes back to the UK desire NOT to have a 'mobility' provision within the TCA - all part of 'ending Free Movement' and the professional services folk - including musicians, actors, fashion models etc -are all victim of

@BorisJohnson What's the government going to do about all this? Good question, which brings us to todays @CommonsDCMS hearing in which the Culture Minister Caroline Dinenage @cj_dinenage frankly pin-balled around the issues /5
Good to see @Marthakearney on @BBCr4today taking @pritipatel to task over the numbers of lorries in Dover - now 1,500 in Stack (M20) and Manston airfield combined - rather more than 170 that @BorisJohnson said yesterday, baffling haulage groups /1

@BBCr4today @pritipatel @BorisJohnson She won't say whether lorry drivers will have to take a PCR test (long-winded, requires RNA extraction etc. 24-48hrs) rather than much faster (and less sensitive) lateral flow test. Short Strait will struggle to operates with PCR tests. You'd need one yesterday for tomorrow! /2

@BBCr4today @pritipatel @BorisJohnson Because of the delays that have empty lorries already stuck in the queues, in an earlier interview British Retail Consortium @the_brc Andrew Opie said fresh food shortages would occur within days because lorries couldn't get back to Spain etc to reload /3

@BBCr4today @pritipatel @BorisJohnson @the_brc Haulage experts like @RHADuncanB are always at pains to explain that the lorries at Dover (and GB-IE, for that matter) are flowing in a continuous cycle. More than 85% are from EU countries. So if you block one side, or artery the whole system starts to grind to a halt/4

@BBCr4today @pritipatel @BorisJohnson @the_brc @RHADuncanB This episode has been a bit of a teaching moment, exposing the canard that the UK can unilaterally "take back control of its borders". It can't. Borders are membranes. Traffic flows in both directions. Actions by one side impact the other - as French move has demonstrated. /5

More from Brexit

This very short article by Jeremy Cliffe is the best thing I have ever read on Brexit and the EU. It pivots on the contrast between Delors’ and Thatcher’s authentically provincial Christian visions and suggests the battle in Britain between the two is not over.


Thatcher: Protestant believer in the totally free market and absolutely sovereign centralised nation state. Delors: Catholic believer in third way personalism, corporatism and federalism. Individualism versus relational love. Heterodoxy versus Orthodoxy.

The article useful gives the lie to the idea that the Catholic vision of the EU has altogether vanished even though it is weakened. Delors wanted a social dimension to the free market and single currency and yet lexiteers laughably insist the EU is more neoliberal than the U.K.!

Subsidiary federalism is a doctrine of democracy and human fraternity. State sovereignty is a doctrine of naked power. It is a face of Antichrist. Leviathan.

Those combined that democracy can only be inside a single state fail to power just how much of private law and evermore so is necessarily international. Thus if political institutions don’t extend over borders there can be no democracy.

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Margatha Natarajar murthi - Uthirakosamangai temple near Ramanathapuram,TN
#ArudraDarisanam
Unique Natarajar made of emerlad is abt 6 feet tall.
It is always covered with sandal paste.Only on Thriuvadhirai Star in month Margazhi-Nataraja can be worshipped without sandal paste.


After removing the sandal paste,day long rituals & various abhishekam will be
https://t.co/e1Ye8DrNWb day Maragatha Nataraja sannandhi will be closed after anointing the murthi with fresh sandal paste.Maragatha Natarajar is covered with sandal paste throughout the year


as Emerald has scientific property of its molecules getting disturbed when exposed to light/water/sound.This is an ancient Shiva temple considered to be 3000 years old -believed to be where Bhagwan Shiva gave Veda gyaana to Parvati Devi.This temple has some stunning sculptures.
The first ever world map was sketched thousands of years ago by Indian saint
“Ramanujacharya” who simply translated the following verse from Mahabharat and gave the world its real face

In Mahabharat,it is described how 'Maharishi Ved Vyasa' gave away his divine vision to Sanjay


Dhritarashtra's charioteer so that he could describe him the events of the upcoming war.

But, even before questions of war could begin, Dhritarashtra asked him to describe how the world looks like from space.

This is how he described the face of the world:

सुदर्शनं प्रवक्ष्यामि द्वीपं तु कुरुनन्दन। परिमण्डलो महाराज द्वीपोऽसौ चक्रसंस्थितः॥
यथा हि पुरुषः पश्येदादर्शे मुखमात्मनः। एवं सुदर्शनद्वीपो दृश्यते चन्द्रमण्डले॥ द्विरंशे पिप्पलस्तत्र द्विरंशे च शशो महान्।

—वेद व्यास, भीष्म पर्व, महाभारत


Meaning:-

हे कुरुनन्दन ! सुदर्शन नामक यह द्वीप चक्र की भाँति गोलाकार स्थित है, जैसे पुरुष दर्पण में अपना मुख देखता है, उसी प्रकार यह द्वीप चन्द्रमण्डल में दिखायी देता है। इसके दो अंशो मे पीपल और दो अंशो मे विशाल शश (खरगोश) दिखायी देता है।


Meaning: "Just like a man sees his face in the mirror, so does the Earth appears in the Universe. In the first part you see leaves of the Peepal Tree, and in the next part you see a Rabbit."

Based on this shloka, Saint Ramanujacharya sketched out the map, but the world laughed
राम-रावण युद्ध समाप्त हो चुका था। जगत को त्रास देने वाला रावण अपने कुटुम्ब सहित नष्ट हो चुका था।श्रीराम का राज्याभिषेक हुआ और अयोध्या नरेश श्री राम के नेतृत्व में चारों दिशाओं में शन्ति थी।
अंगद को विदा करते समय राम रो पड़े थे ।हनुमान को विदा करने की शक्ति तो राम में थी ही नहीं ।


माता सीता भी हनुमान को पुत्रवत मानती थी। अत: हनुमान अयोध्या में ही रह गए ।राम दिनभर दरबार में, शासन व्यवस्था में व्यस्त रहते थे। संध्या को जब शासकीय कार्यों में छूट मिलती तो गुरु और माताओं का कुशल-मंगल पूछ अपने कक्ष में जाते थे। परंतु हनुमान जी हमेशा उनके पीछे-पीछे ही रहते थे ।


उनकी उपस्थिति में ही सारा परिवार बहुत देर तक जी भर बातें करता ।फिर भरत को ध्यान आया कि भैया-भाभी को भी एकांत मिलना चाहिए ।उर्मिला को देख भी उनके मन में हूक उठती थी कि इस पतिव्रता को भी अपने पति का सानिध्य चाहिए ।

एक दिन भरत ने हनुमान जी से कहा,"हे पवनपुत्र! सीता भाभी को राम भैया के साथ एकांत में रहने का भी अधिकार प्राप्त है ।क्या आपको उनके माथे पर सिन्दूर नहीं दिखता?इसलिए संध्या पश्चात आप राम भैया को कृप्या अकेला छोड़ दिया करें "।
ये सुनकर हनुमान आश्चर्यचकित रह गए और सीता माता के पास गए ।


माता से हनुमान ने पूछा,"माता आप अपने माथे पर सिन्दूर क्यों लगाती हैं।" यह सुनकर सीता माता बोलीं,"स्त्री अपने माथे पर सिन्दूर लगाती है तो उसके पति की आयु में वृद्धि होती है और वह स्वस्थ रहते हैं "। फिर हनुमान जी प्रभु राम के पास गए ।