LongTimeLurker

It will definitely be interesting to see how that affects any deal that is reached over financial services given how much money laundering is involved in that in a City of London context. Also amusing to watch how Brexiteers react on twitter when they read the small print on fishing and see what the EU can do in retaliation after any future changes on fishing quotas beyond the 25%. Any adjustment after 5 years is more likely to be in the EU's favour in exchange for concessions elsewhere, such as not being quite so strenuous on going after the Cayman Islands and BVI where the Old Etonian spivs that rule us have all their assets squirreled away.

Dundee-->Dundee Utd-->ra Sellik-->Dundee?

Think it's more about not having the ERG types believe/grasp that his caving in on level playing field = BRINO.

Singapore is renowned for money laundering as are some other former British colonies like Cyprus and the Seychelles. The good o!d US of A is no stranger to these kinds of escapades. Puerto Rico's pseudo-colonial status has its uses for America's 1% just as Jersey and the Cayman Islands do for the UK's.

Nothing in what you quoted is predicated on that outcome. Long term the EU is going to want it to be Paris and/or Frankfurt rather than London and will craft legislation and treaties that the UK can no longer veto with that goal in mind. China, Japan and the USA have economies that produce goods or handle resources in a way that organically builds a market for a world class financial services centre. The UK on its own post-Brexit does not. Talk of deregulation under Thatcher was always a euphemism for money laundering and global pressure to drain the swamp on that is ongoing and won't go away.

A lot of Irish passport holders involved in an NI context so nothing hugely new on that. SF will have to eclipse FF and FG's combined numbers electorally before rapid rather than eventual UI is on the RoI's agenda. The deal is symbolically hard but in practice likely to be soft due to the level playing field concept so the rationale for a Border Poll to undo or alleviate some of the damage isn't going to be there to the extent it would be under No Deal. There is also less danger of SF taking power in Dublin in the short to medium term. That probably puts the timeline on UI back to 20 years in most people's minds again as it has been for several decades giving Unionism some breathing space to hope the Little Englander nationalism at Westminster that was willing to jettison Ulster to get what it wants on Europe recedes.

The EEC/EU was needed to replace the Empire as the internal market to support the City of London as a global player because the Commonwealth wasn't holding together as a coherent economic unit post-Empire and the UK is too small on its own. Pro-Brexit Tories simply don't seem to be able to grasp emotionally that they are now the smaller party when they are neogotiating issues like fishing and the RoI:NI border. London's ongoing global role to rival New York over the 45 years or so came through being the gateway to an EEC/EU market comparable in size to the American one. You need to have lots of legitimate business opportunities available to launder all that capital of dubious origin that the City could attract through places like the Cayman Islands and Jersey that stayed outside the EU (e.g. revenue from Colombia's main export and kleptocratic third world and post-Soviet elites hiding their stolen loot offshore) and Brexit makes that harder as the EU gets to unilaterally set the terms on access to EU assets now with no UK veto over future EU legislation and treaties. The City of London isn't going to suddenly just collapse and shrivel up and die because that isn't in the EU's short to medium term interest but a long steady decline is likely now relative to New York and markets in the Far East as well as the business that will be lost to other European centres. Being in the EU was the key to a lot of its post-imperial vitality, but deluded Brexiteers thought Britannia still ruled the waves on financial services and the UK was the larger party in global terms as a standalone entity rather than by virtue of being an EU member.

The self-inflicted decision to leave the EU means the other party in these negotiations can now make unilateral decisions and will do so with its long term interests in mind rather than the future vitality of the City of London's. The UK has also lost its veto rights over future European legislation and treaties and can no longer influence the future direction of the EU in that regard to its own benefit on financial services.

Without unhindered access to the EU the sheer scale of the UK's financial services market is seriously bloated relative to the size of the host economy.

Some of that is a bit dubious given how the RoI is still being treated in Common Travel Area terms. Last time around it was far from clear how Alex's new state would get into the EU making independence a massive leap of faith. Rapid moves towards EU entry by Brussels to get it right up rUK now looks like a credible narrative in the context of a second referendum. The EU vassal state sort of status the UK is now in on trade of goods under the level playing field principle takes a lot of the fear factor out of what happens on trade, if the new state quickly gets welcomed into the EU fold in economic access terms. Remains to be seen what happens on financial services but the EU has most of the leverage in negotiations there as well. Think currency is the main remaining Achilles heel for the Yes side but the pound has lost some of its lustre post-Brexit, so it's easier to sell the idea of launching a new one now which was the obvious outcome of independence that Alex wouldn't admit to last time around.

Are the Shire down to 10 men or something? 4-0 would not have been my prediction for the half time scoreline today.

Can a parisitic entity survive without its host? The City of London isn't going to suddenly collapse post-Brexit for resaons you have outlined, but over the longer term not being able to pull the strings of UK politicians who can exercise vetos over European financial legislation and the ongoing ability of the EU to hinder access to the EU market is likely to put it into a long slow steady decline in global market share terms. The EU is going to shake them down for a much larger slice of the action from now on and will make sure there have to be plenty of EU based jobs and tax payments. It was the combo of offshore tax havens to provide global money laundering and unimpeded EU access on financial services that helped make Thatcher's services orientated economy doable in the aftermath of destroying most manufacturing to kill off the unions and postwar socialism. Most of the population especially outside the SE of England needed a Remain outcome to more easily be able to move away from that again as tax havens got cleaned up a bit to keep the EU happy, but many were blinded by jingoistic nationalism about fish and Polish plumbers into voting for a Leave that was good for Jacob Rees-Mogg types who have most of their assets squirreled away offshore in the Cayman Islands but not for them. If offshore tax haven assets had been more equitably taxed they would probably never have had to go through austerity post bank bailouts.

The EU was clamping down hard on tax avoidance and money laundering through offshore tax havens like Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, etc. A lot of the UK's economy in recent decades has been based on global money laundering through that building up the huge capital base needed to be the EU's main financial services hub. Brexit secures half of that equation to the benefit of upper class spivs like BJ and Jacob Rees-Mogg and the deal softens the impact of disrupted trading links on the plebs short term. Longer term the EU is unlikely to allow London to remain its main financial services hub and UK GDP is probably going to drop significantly as a consequence relative to the EU. Hoorah look at my tie we got a few fish back might work in Burnley but is unlikely to keep the plebs in Scotland who have been disadvantaged long term by these new arrangements and have an alternative available pacified for long. The main arguments that made Better Together the rational choice for an economic pragmatist last time have been severely undermined. NI is now likely to slowly reorient economically away from cross-channel links that involve extra paperwork towards the RoI and EU. A very large chunk of Unionist sentiment was always really about the economy rather than Big Ian style bible bashing, so if a UK with a smaller GDP relative to the EU because it still hasn't rejoined is eventually unable to make it worth staying in subsidy terms...

There would have to be customs checks, so not entirely, but difficult to ramp up the fear factor in quite the same way when GB to NI and GB to EU trade is already subject to that. The almost fully open Norway:Sweden border would be a prime example of what would be readily doable and likely to happen regardless of any posturing. Think the level playing field part of the deal is very important part. A bit like Holyrood having income tax varying powers but never actually using them pre-2017, the symbolism of being able to do something radically different is there but the practicalities of having tariffs imposed after doing so dictate strongly against anything significant ever actually happening. That is likely to make this Brexit a lot softer in practice than it appears at first glance. The EU still has plenty of leverage on issues like financial services that were left out, so has a much stronger bargaining position than the UK does in the years ahead. That should make fishermen nervous about exactly how secure that 25% of fish that was returned is long term.

Ongoing ambiguity on who can enter at tier 8 by application eliminates the need to ever have to negotiate tier 6 entry with locheeboy and the "Midland League" should Brechin City eventually get their way on the boundary, without actually formally commiting to going as far north as Forfar and Brechin in case the membership south of the Forth sees that as way too far to travel and it ultimately turns out they don't have to accomodate that anyway.

Apparently the Scottish Fishermen's Federation were. Well and truly kippered by Boris just like the DUP were before them, because they had an over-inflated sense of their own importance in the larger scheme of things. Good luck consistently getting those extra time-sensitive perishable items you can catch through Dover now there is all that extra paperwork even with a deal in place.

Even without Brechin City getting relegated if Albion Rovers are Club 42 instead, the Montrose Roselea example could easily be used to justify telling Brechin Vics that they are too far away and really do need to look north instead. If the initial idea of the Club 42 rule was primarily that the four part-time Angus SPFL clubs belong with the HL that could also be extended to Forfar WE, Forfar United, Arbroath Vics and Kirriemuir. Dundee/ Broughty/ Carnoustie clubs that are really not much further than Tayport on travel and don't appear to be wanted by the HL could then go south if EoS clubs were OK with that along with any remaining Perth & Kinross ones, such as Scone, Coupar Angus and Blairgowrie. Doesn't have to be all or nothing on this as you point out.

....and in the context of Scottish politics what matters most to Laura's mob will be that Hector Brocklebank's no happy: If they were going to make such a fuss about fishing they needed to deliver a lot more than they actually did. After the 5 years are up the EU fisheries access is effectively tied to other issues in the agreement now, so there will be opportunities for the EU to apply pressure again on an annual basis in exchange for concessions elsewhere that are viewed as more important to the overall UK economy with nothing guaranteed to the SFF in the longer term.

After the seed potato thing to annoy the fermers in Tory held constituencies in Scotland, Boris better have his finger on the pulse of which species matter in Shetland:

Think so and might make an SNP election campaign for Holyrood revolving around an imminent referendum dicey in majority terms. Time will tell. Longer term though it's difficult to peddle fear stories about hard borders in future after all this.

Unless they fall out over the last details on fisheries, the imminent Brexit deal appears to be soft enough with Farage and assorted kippers not being happy campers that UI is unlikely to be happening as quickly, if ever, as it might have in a No Deal sort of environment where there would be a much more significant barrier to trade between Stranraer and Larne.

January was a more realistic starting date than October was my posture as far back as August because I knew there was going to be an apparent "second wave" when the economy was opened up. The new and probably more contagious variant they are talking about on the news is a legitimate second wave that would need significantly more infections to happen in the absence of a vaccine before herd immunity starts to kick in naturally when R0 dips below 1. I didn't see that one coming as all the indications had been that there was a low mutation rate. What we had previously was just the delayed tail end of the first wave when opening up the economy again meant more infections were going to be needed to achieve herd immunity again as people got out and about more creating more scope for transmission. The more lockdown measures imposed by the politicians the longer things were going to be dragged out on that, which is why I suspected it would take until at least January before Nicola S would be comfortable on letting crowds in given how cautious she has been. It was starting to happen in some areas before the new variant kicked in with Kello Rovers already OK that way given they are based in D&G. Given it is only a new variant in the SE of England rather than a new strain there are unlikely to be issues with vaccine efficacy at this stage, so still looking good for a reasonably rapid trajectory towards normality if OxfordAZ gets the nod on Monday.

The possible Dundee airport anomaly (when I have raised it in the past the Dutch guy from Lochee has claimed the line is a stone's throw south and I could never be bothered checking if he was right) and what happens once you start to go west of Invergowrie shows how absurd the use of a line of latitude was. There were no EoS rules that stopped Luncarty entering with a registered ground north of the line because the only rule that exists anywhere on this applies only to the relegation of Club 42 from the SPFL, so it really does boil down to how EoS clubs would vote at the AGM if a Dundee club put an application in.

Vaccines arriving on the scene that actually worked at Phase 3 was extremely good news even if a large chunk of the population already got their chance to play Russian roulette with the virus in the first half of the year. There is even less excuse not to have a season now as much more effective herd immunity can be rapidly built up that way once more than just Pfizer is available. At that point the media and politicians won't go into hysterics again over relatively minor secondary infection waves when society tries to open up as it will be much less likely for R0 to rise above 1 in a sustained national rather than temporary localised manner. MHRA has the full data set from OxfordAZ now so approval may come as soon as Monday setting us on a trajectory towards full normality: