1. Some thoughts about picking over the bones of the referendum loss.
TLDR - get over it, move on, and most importantly, find a better strategy.
You are the Sensibles.
In terms of process and economics it’s no competition.
And in terms of sovereignty, well, you can’t eat sovereignty.
It is true that those victories were founded on a series of gross untruths
More from Objective Columnist
London's status as a financial centre isn't as secure as some might think | Dan Davies https://t.co/q9SU7ra4oF
— The Guardian (@guardian) February 13, 2021
The extremely small minority of people who known anything about this who think that Brexit will be good for the City make a number of arguments which I shall address in turn...
1. They need us more than we need them. This is a variant of the German carmakers argument. And we know how that went...Business will follow the profit opportunity and if that has moved then so will the business...
And what do we mean by us / we. We’re not talking about massed ranks of Euro investing / trading etc blue blooded British institutions.
Au contraire. We’re talking about the London based subs of US, Asian and indeed European capital markets players...As soon as they think the profit opportunity has moved then so will they...it’s a market innit...
Still, he's taken a very big step back now. The cliff risk was today; both sides were so close to the edge they could easily have gone over it. The fact @10DowningStreet didn't means Govt must genuinely believe there's now a landing zone that works, & which it can sell ENDS
— Mujtaba Rahman (@Mij_Europe) December 13, 2020
I find it most amusing that people invest so much value in public statements, briefings, tabloid headlines, the tweets of obscure backbenchers etc. Cherchez les fundamentals!
There is a deep vein of analytical pessimism in one particular direction, which, whether correct or not, is noteworthy. On the one hand, a firm belief in the fundamentals - gravity exists - but on the other hand those fundamentals are not meaningful to the final decision.
But gravity does exist! Whether one likes it or not. We do not have wings. Or feathers. And the realisation of the fundamentals will impact the political calculation (though timing differences may apply).
You don’t have to invest any particular optimism or see any virtue in the principal players to make this point.
The Commission’s view, according to several sources, is that Brexit means existing distribution networks and supply chains are now defunct and will have to be replaced by other systems.
Brexit reality bites: The new dawn of trade friction via @RTENews https://t.co/p6VdlhZUAN
— Tony Connelly (@tconnellyRTE) January 9, 2021
Of course, this was never written on the side of a bus. And never acknowledged by government. Everything was meant to be broadly fine apart from the inevitable teething problems.
It was, however, visible from space to balanced observers. You did not have to be a trade specialist to understand that replacing the Single Market with a third country trade arrangement meant the end of many if not all of the complex arrangements optimised for the former.
In the absence of substantive mitigations, the Brexit winners are those who subscribe to some woolly notion of ‘sovereignty’ and those who did not like freedom of movement. The losers are everyone else.
But, of course, that’s not good enough. For understandable reasons Brexit was sold as a benefit not a cost. The trading benefits of freedom would far outweigh the costs. Divergence would benefit all.
More from Health
hospital and ICU utilization has been and remains low this year.
it's terribly curious that so few of these monitoring tools provide historical baselines.
getting them is like pulling teeth.
It took a Freedom of Information request but @Covid19DataUK acquired 2017-2019 averages for England hospitalizations.
— Yinon Weiss (@yinonw) December 31, 2020
2020 had 18% fewer hospitalizations than prior years.
All around the world, using hospital data without context of prior years is just a fear generating lie. pic.twitter.com/DJDpqhIQuw
we might think of this as an oversight until you see stuff like this:
this woman was arrested for filming and sharing the fact that their are empty hospitals in the UK.
that's full blown soviet. what possible honest purpose does that
this is the action of a police state and a propaganda ministry, not a well intentioned government and a public heath agency.
"we cannot let people see the truth for fear they might base their actions on real facts" is not much of a mantra for just governance.

90% full ICU sounds scary until you realize that 90-100% full is normal in flu season.
staffed ICU beds are expensive to leave empty. it's like flying with 15% of the plane empty. hospitals don't do that.
and all US hospitals are mandated to be able to flex to 120% ICU.
the US is currently at historically low ICU utilization for this time of year.
61% is "you're all going to go out of business" territory as is 66% full hospital use.
can you blame them for mining CARES act money? they'll die without it.

https://t.co/w6Sh2pMvJf

1
— (Cyriac) Abby Philips (@drabbyphilips) December 31, 2020
I followed @FitTuber advise and got all these #Ayurveda medicines which he outright claimed are '#safer', ''#effective' than conventional prescription drugs for day to day use. These will be tested for #safety first - will undergo GCMSMS, ICP-OES and FTIR analyses.#MedTwitter pic.twitter.com/IS2KrtsoO8
10 drugs, details, batch numbers R given in pic👇. All by @baidyanathgroup exept 1 by https://t.co/tg46sBhJr2
We did GCMSMS, ICP-OES and FTIR analyses on these samples. Here are my 10 safer modern medicine alternatives 2 @FitTuber's untested, potentially harmful #Ayurvedic drugs

Kanthsudharak Vati by Unjha Pharma
@FitTuber: 4 sorethroat, cold, cough
Analysis: Lead 0.54 mg/kg, Cadmium 0.4 mg/kg, Thallium 0.71 mg/kg and industrial phenols.
Low values, but not ideal.
Safe alternative: Levocetrizine & non-sedative cough syrup Levodropropizine

Baidyanath Rajbati
@Fittuber: for bloating, gas
Analysis:
Mercury 1.2 mg/kg
Arsenic 2.25 mg/kg
Male anabolic hormone - hydroxy testosterone+
Curcumin
Talc powder
Safer alternative: activated charcoal+simethicone (non-absorbed, no side effects) or short course esomeprazole.

Baidyanath Bilwadi Choorna
@Fittuber - 4 diarrhoea
Analysis
Thallium 3.68 mg/kg
[fun fact: 10-15 mg/kg is lethal dose for humans. Death can occur at lower dosages] https://t.co/9ozOKROhCK
Fenretinide - synthetic anti-cancer drug
Liver toxic chromium phosph.
Safer: Racecadotril
