The risks that arise from Merkel's departure this year aren't really linked to her succession, but rather the vacuum she leaves behind in Europe. For Brexit/UK watchers, this is an important transitional year for the EU - & one worth paying attention to
Thread 1/
“sovereignty“ & geopolitical relevance - laid the groundwork for the EU deal Merkel's presidency brokered with China 7/
https://t.co/u7AMJoEBnV 15/
https://t.co/mZmrfO8mA1
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.
The rupture between Margaret Thatcher and Jacques Delors lives on in Brexit https://t.co/r3YiyPoSFB
— john milbank (@johnmilbank3) January 9, 2021
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.
A not-so-little thread on how post-Brexit work permit regulations will apply in Scottish football and why it’s, broadly, not a good thing...
1) Work permit calculations are based on the points formula from this site - https://t.co/sjqx8Df7Zg
As things stand, while this article deals with England, the system applies to Scotland also.
The goal is 15 points and the article shows various ways to get there. Essentially, play regularly internationally or in a top 5 league and you’re in. But read the article because it’s a bit trickier than that.
2) There are elements of this I’d dispute. For example, here’s the banding of leagues and, lower down, it’s an absolute mess - Denmark (ranked 14 in coefficient table) and Serbia (16) banded lower than Croatia (20), Greece (18) and Czechs (19)? It’s wholly random.
I get the point that leagues should be banded, but there doesn’t seem to have been loads of sense applied to how these things are actually banded, rather they’ve just shoved a bunch of leagues together and hoped for the best.
1) Work permit calculations are based on the points formula from this site - https://t.co/sjqx8Df7Zg
As things stand, while this article deals with England, the system applies to Scotland also.
The goal is 15 points and the article shows various ways to get there. Essentially, play regularly internationally or in a top 5 league and you’re in. But read the article because it’s a bit trickier than that.
2) There are elements of this I’d dispute. For example, here’s the banding of leagues and, lower down, it’s an absolute mess - Denmark (ranked 14 in coefficient table) and Serbia (16) banded lower than Croatia (20), Greece (18) and Czechs (19)? It’s wholly random.

I get the point that leagues should be banded, but there doesn’t seem to have been loads of sense applied to how these things are actually banded, rather they’ve just shoved a bunch of leagues together and hoped for the best.
End of week 2 thread on post Brexit food trade
There is continued growing unease. The main picture remains one of depressed/tentative trade (c50% down y-o-y) and some high profile logistics business have taken the rational step to stop and regroup.
The big worry here is that ‘not-trading’becomes a habit. We can’t/won’t carry on at half the volumes of before, but as volumes claw back we may only reach something like 80% of previous volumes and that is a disaster for a food industry already battered by a recession.
Lots of focus has been on the idea of EU businesses stopping serving the UK. Worries about how we feed ourselves has trumped worry about our exporters at every stage. Even though it is the collapse of our export businesses that is (and has always been) the greater threat.
To reassure the mainland British shopper that feels like less of a risk. UK is a large market of wealthy consumers, and UK gov has shown it will do anything (however unfair) to ensure stuff gets in - even letting supermarkets have access to the fast track lane to Dover.
I am not as close to this but it feels like shortage on the shelves is more of a genuine immediate threat for the island of Ireland. The types of innovative solutions we have discussed this week can help but will they come in quick enough?
There is continued growing unease. The main picture remains one of depressed/tentative trade (c50% down y-o-y) and some high profile logistics business have taken the rational step to stop and regroup.
The big worry here is that ‘not-trading’becomes a habit. We can’t/won’t carry on at half the volumes of before, but as volumes claw back we may only reach something like 80% of previous volumes and that is a disaster for a food industry already battered by a recession.
Lots of focus has been on the idea of EU businesses stopping serving the UK. Worries about how we feed ourselves has trumped worry about our exporters at every stage. Even though it is the collapse of our export businesses that is (and has always been) the greater threat.
To reassure the mainland British shopper that feels like less of a risk. UK is a large market of wealthy consumers, and UK gov has shown it will do anything (however unfair) to ensure stuff gets in - even letting supermarkets have access to the fast track lane to Dover.
NEW. \U0001f6a8\U0001f6a8\U0001f69b\U0001f1ec\U0001f1e7\U0001f644\U0001f69b\U0001f69a\U0001f6a8\U0001f6a8 clear signs govt is preparing for coming #brexit turbulence - consulting on new fast-track scheme for food lorries returning to Europe /1
— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) January 13, 2021
https://t.co/QqDKxBUu3f
I am not as close to this but it feels like shortage on the shelves is more of a genuine immediate threat for the island of Ireland. The types of innovative solutions we have discussed this week can help but will they come in quick enough?
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I hate when I learn something new (to me) & stunning about the Jeff Epstein network (h/t MoodyKnowsNada.)
Where to begin?
So our new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was "longtime lawyer and confidant of...Robert Maxwell," Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad.
"Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991." https://t.co/DAEgchNyTP
OK, so that's just a coincidence. Moving on, Anthony Blinken "attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York City"...wait, what? https://t.co/DnE6AvHmJg
Dalton School...Dalton School...rings a
Oh that's right.
The dad of the U.S. Attorney General under both George W. Bush & Donald Trump, William Barr, was headmaster of the Dalton School.
Donald Barr was also quite a
I'm not going to even mention that Blinken's stepdad Sam Pisar's name was in Epstein's "black book."
Lots of names in that book. I mean, for example, Cuomo, Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen - all in that book, and their reputations are spotless.
Where to begin?
So our new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was "longtime lawyer and confidant of...Robert Maxwell," Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad.

"Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991." https://t.co/DAEgchNyTP

OK, so that's just a coincidence. Moving on, Anthony Blinken "attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York City"...wait, what? https://t.co/DnE6AvHmJg
Dalton School...Dalton School...rings a
Oh that's right.
The dad of the U.S. Attorney General under both George W. Bush & Donald Trump, William Barr, was headmaster of the Dalton School.
Donald Barr was also quite a
Donald Barr had a way with words. pic.twitter.com/JdRBwXPhJn
— Rudy Havenstein, listening to Nas all day. (@RudyHavenstein) September 17, 2020
I'm not going to even mention that Blinken's stepdad Sam Pisar's name was in Epstein's "black book."
Lots of names in that book. I mean, for example, Cuomo, Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen - all in that book, and their reputations are spotless.

"I really want to break into Product Management"
make products.
"If only someone would tell me how I can get a startup to notice me."
Make Products.
"I guess it's impossible and I'll never break into the industry."
MAKE PRODUCTS.
Courtesy of @edbrisson's wonderful thread on breaking into comics – https://t.co/TgNblNSCBj – here is why the same applies to Product Management, too.
There is no better way of learning the craft of product, or proving your potential to employers, than just doing it.
You do not need anybody's permission. We don't have diplomas, nor doctorates. We can barely agree on a single standard of what a Product Manager is supposed to do.
But – there is at least one blindingly obvious industry consensus – a Product Manager makes Products.
And they don't need to be kept at the exact right temperature, given endless resource, or carefully protected in order to do this.
They find their own way.
make products.
"If only someone would tell me how I can get a startup to notice me."
Make Products.
"I guess it's impossible and I'll never break into the industry."
MAKE PRODUCTS.
Courtesy of @edbrisson's wonderful thread on breaking into comics – https://t.co/TgNblNSCBj – here is why the same applies to Product Management, too.
"I really want to break into comics"
— Ed Brisson (@edbrisson) December 4, 2018
make comics.
"If only someone would tell me how I can get an editor to notice me."
Make Comics.
"I guess it's impossible and I'll never break into the industry."
MAKE COMICS.
There is no better way of learning the craft of product, or proving your potential to employers, than just doing it.
You do not need anybody's permission. We don't have diplomas, nor doctorates. We can barely agree on a single standard of what a Product Manager is supposed to do.
But – there is at least one blindingly obvious industry consensus – a Product Manager makes Products.
And they don't need to be kept at the exact right temperature, given endless resource, or carefully protected in order to do this.
They find their own way.