Alan Beattie

That's fine, as long as I stop him/her selling at least one copy of that dreadful book and/or drive him off one social media platform it'll have been worth it.

They do seem from googling to be cheaper in uk supermarkets, £1.10/kg here from Waitrose. But whatever’s driving it, it’s not tariffs.

www.waitrose.com/ecom/shop/br...?

Maybe. Though TBF the banana prices might well be right, IDK. But if they are it must be some combination of better sourcing/better supply chains/higher volumes/loss-leader pricing/maybe currency effects/whatever whatever but it can’t be tariffs.

The time has surely come for someone to test the market for tariff-related sex toys.

Not if one if them is a near-homonym for an online lingerie and sex toy emporium it isn’t. That’s the only authority I need.

(Clarification: in post 3/n I said the claim was that the EU had to increase its TRQs. In fact the claim was that the EU had kept its TRQ the same, but of course that quota is bigger relative to its GDP now the UK has left. The claim is wrong either way.)

The idea that such a small market share could make a material difference to banana prices is ludicrous.

To sum up: the only three claims I have looked at are wrong or massively implausible. I'm disinclined to look at the rest and I would dissuade others from wasting their time doing so.

10/10

Whatever the source, it's gigantically implausible that tariff cuts seen so far have caused this. The World Bank WITS database shows that (by my calculations, feel free to check) that Mexico and Peru between them constitute 0.23% of UK banana imports by value. 9/n

The book cites a source called "loveMONEY" claiming bananas are cheaper in the UK than the EU and implying this reflects lower tariffs. I confess I had not heard of loveMONEY; I initially confused it with Lovehoney, the online lingerie and sex toys emporium, but apparently it's different. 8/n

It's true the UK has agreed to look at banana quotas/tariffs as part of the Andean trade deal it is currently revising, but the only quota/tariff changes to have happened so far that are cited (and indeed that I know of) are for Mexico and Peru as part of CPTPP entry talks. 7/n

In none that I know of did the EU/UK grant the double-bubble quota outcome that the book claims they did.

Claim 3. Lower UK banana tariffs have already delivered cheaper bananas than in the EU. Utterly wildly implausible.

6/n

In some the EU seems to have modestly increased its quotas relative to its proposals; in some (eg chicken from Thailand) the UK seems to have done so.

tradebetablog.wordpress.com/technical-no...

Here's one for the US.

tradebetablog.wordpress.com/2021/07/05/u...

5/n

Instead in 2018 the UK & EU unilaterally announced their own estimates of the split of the existing quotas. After a series of negotiations, the EU/UK and trading partners have arrived at a variety of outcomes. 4/n

Claim 2 is that the UK has only had to offer the same tariff-rate quotas on agricultural products as before Brexit whereas the EU has had to increase its quotas. This is false. That "double-bubble" agreement is certainly what a bunch of ag exporters asked for. However the EU & UK said no. 3/n

with the result that UK exporters are disadvantaged vis-a-vis EU exporters. The EU's refusal to grant diagonal cumulation in the TCA with the UK also means UK producers are in a worse off position than before Brexit. 3/n

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-poli...

www.charlesrussellspeechlys.com/en/insights/...

Claim 1 is that the UK exactly replicated the EU's bilateral trade deals (except one or two negligible minor ones) and hence got the same access without paying the price of EU membership. This is untrue. Famously, Canada has played hardball and refused to roll over the deal with the UK 2/n

OK, let's take this seriously. I had an odd half an hour and via Apple Books had a quick look at the three claims I knew most about - two re the post-Brexit bilateral preferential trade agreements replicated from the EU versions and one about cheaper bananas. All are wrong or wildly implausible. 1/n

Jews have long been a terrible disappointment to antisemites.

TBF the Tory party were getting away with it for far too long, Badenoch felt destiny calling and believed she's a star but someone should tell her they're out to get you and she's got to say something and not just keep waltzing along etc etc

You've left stuffy regulatory conventions like spelling behind. Tear up the dictionary and embrace the free market in words.

I've never played a game on a Sega, a Nintendo, an X Box or a PlayStation. I did have a go on my nephews and niece's Wii once.

How polarised is Britain? Behind media perceptions of a sharpening political divide is a more complicated picture

Terrific weekend essay by @henrymance.bsky.social

Possibly the most appropriate use of that gif I've ever found.

No, it's woke socialism designed to bring about global maritime sharia and it should be repealed.

His idea was to put all the regulations in the UK economy on a website and have the public vote whether to keep them, right?

Tawny owl

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

I’d start with this one, which sounds like woke nonsense to me. The Royal Navy didn’t build the Empire by worrying about petty things like seaworthiness.

We could secede from one treaty per working day, which would keep us going for about half a century:

treaties.fcdo.gov.uk/responsive/a...