quote:

UK ‘rejected offer’ of visa-free tours by musicians in EU, despite blaming Brussels for permit blow
Exclusive: ‘Standard’ proposal to exempt performers for 90 days was proposed, but ‘the UK said no’

The UK rejected an offer of visa-free tours by musicians to EU countries, despite blaming Brussels for what the industry is calling the devastating blow of them requiring permits.

A “standard” proposal to exempt performers from the huge cost and bureaucracy for 90 days was turned down, The Independent has been told – because the government is insisting on denying that to EU artists visiting this country.

“It is usually in our agreements with third countries, that [work] visas are not required for musicians. We tried to include it, but the UK said no,” an EU source close to the negotiations said.

...

It appears the stumbling block was Priti Patel’s immigration crackdown which has introduced tough restrictions on tours by EU musicians.

From this month, they must, like non-EU artists, apply for visas – to visit for more than 30 days – as well as providing proof of savings and a sponsorship certificate from an event organiser.




etc

WhatEvil posted:

Seems Biden has come out and said "we don't need austerity, we shouldn't be so concerned with the deficit, we need to invest" (parahphrased).

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1348031632666718210?s=20

Nice to see, though I'll believe it when it happens.

Comes hot on the heels of the IMF saying that austerity is not inevitable for accounting for coronavirus.

Of course, both of these things probably mean that the UK will go into ultra-mega-turbo austerity as soon as possible.

crispix posted:

ccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh like that

like the people of loughborough saying they come from luffboro is honestly a travesty

Guavanaut posted:

feedmegin posted:

Luffbra m8

WhatEvil posted:

Seems Biden has come out and said "we don't need austerity, we shouldn't be so concerned with the deficit, we need to invest" (parahphrased).

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1348031632666718210?s=20

Nice to see, though I'll believe it when it happens.

Comes hot on the heels of the IMF saying that austerity is not inevitable for accounting for coronavirus.

Of course, both of these things probably mean that the UK will go into ultra-mega-turbo austerity as soon as possible.

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-visa-free-work-musicians-eu-brexit-b1784600.html

big scary monsters posted:

I'm pro glowing children, pro glowing families.

Guavanaut posted:

Is it? The great plagues wiped out ~30% of Europe and the population recovered in a couple of generations, whereas no population recovers from a below replacement birth rate.

Indy posted:

Here I think some Remainers get ahead of themselves – although it was interesting that Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP who wants to rejoin the EU, this week accepted that this is not a “realistic” policy for the party for at least five years. The effect of the temporary disruptions to imports and exports will dissipate, while the long-term costs of Brexit will be invisible. Once M&S has sorted out the logistics of Percy Pig distribution, most people won’t notice much change as a result of leaving the EU. From the point of view of Rejoiners, the problem is that Brexit will make us poorer than we would otherwise have been, not poorer than we are now. It might take decades for people to feel that they are slipping behind their continental and Irish neighbours.

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-visa-free-work-musicians-eu-brexit-b1784600.html

MrNemo posted:

For Britain to rejoin the EU is basically going to require the same conditions that originally got us in: an utterly hosed economy that sees closer European integration as the only likely route out of it. I don't see divergence happening to get to that point for at least 10 years (and assumes that the EU survives and, relatively, thrives in that time).

XMNN posted:

yes, she loves dawn raids

also if they bring back capital punishment she will enjoy that, especially if they let her do the throttling herself

MrNemo posted:

Opinion piece in the Indy about Brexit's fallout in terms of public reaction that seems likely (and depressing)

forkboy84 posted:

Important news

https://twitter.com/RossMcCaff/status/1348039274436947970?s=20

Yes, that's Michael Gove's daughter for sure. Writing in the Sunday Mail. Normal country.

Private Speech posted:

Crossposting from the political cartoons thread, but here's an excellent politoon about that new years opinion piece everyone was talking about a few days back:

Eararaldor posted:

Wasn't she the daughter making TikTok’s about how much she hated being Gove’s daughter?*

*Not hated enough to ride in her parents coattails apparently.

XMNN posted:

yes, she loves dawn raids

also if they bring back capital punishment she will enjoy that, especially if they let her do the throttling herself

CGI Stardust posted:

if she brings back capital punishment it'll be short rope only and televised

forkboy84 posted:

Yes. They made her delete her TikTok. Harsh.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

You've sort of answered your own question there. If you take the god's eye view, which is what you're doing when you say things like "we need to get the global population down", and leave both the logistics and the morality out of it, when you set out to reduce the population just by reducing birth rates you end up with what will be Japan's eventual end game where there aren't enough young people to take care of the old people so all the old people die nastily or 100% of the economy is elder care and nobody's growing food or keeping the lights on. Both end up with massive, uncontrolled diebacks.

This will probably happen even if you set out to just stabilise, rather than reduce, the population this way because you end up with an hourglass-shaped population graph - you end up with almost all of the population being too old or too young.

Plus of course we're living in a preview of what society looks like when the population skews massively towards the old - imagine the Boomers just getting more and more and more powerful as time goes on.

Now you can definitely make the case that overshooting (undershooting) our new global population target, possibly to the point of complete societal collapse, is actually fine - better, even - for the planet by getting rid of the human infestation that Earth has been suffering from, but if we bring the morality back in you've just condemned billions of people to die in deeply unpleasant ways rather than just doing it in a controlled and painless way at the start of the process.

Vitamin P posted:

I get hostility because I'm a contrarian arsehole, am very comfortable with that, Ash gets hostility because she's constantly and coherently a white-noise ethnonationalist it's not the same.

Eararaldor posted:

Wasn't she the daughter making TikTok’s about how much she hated being Gove’s daughter?*

*Not hated enough to ride in her parents coattails apparently.

quote:

A supporter of Keir Starmer’s leadership is to launch a new attempt to lead Labour’s most generous union backer, the Observer can reveal.

Gerard Coyne, who was narrowly defeated by current leader Len McCluskey in a bitter battle for the Unite leadership in 2017, has announced that he will aim to become its new general secretary when a contest begins later this year.

…

Coyne was sacked in June 2017, three months after standing against McCluskey for the union’s leadership. While McCluskey won 59,067 votes (45.4%), Coyne won 53,544 (41.5%). This time around, Coyne’s allies believe he may be helped because there are two candidates fighting for support for the union’s left.

…

It comes with the new leader of another Labour-affiliated union set to be unveiled on Monday. The frontrunner to be named the new leader of Unison, the UK’s biggest union, is also a figure said to be broadly supportive of Starmer’s leadership. Christina McAnea, one of the union’s assistant general secretaries, faces a challenge from counterpart Roger McKenzie, who has been backed by Corbyn.

TACD posted:

If there ever is a serious Rejoin campaign it’ll have to overcome ardent Brexiteers smugly pointing out all the disadvantages we’ll have compared to when we were in previously — no exemption from the Euro or Schengen, for example. But I’m sure our media would explain those issues in a calm and sensible way!

The Times posted:

Teenagers who were due to sit their GCSEs and A-levels this summer will face some form of test this year, the exam regulator Ofqual is expected to announce this week.

Under the proposals, children will sit tests or “mini” exams in schools, to be marked by their teachers. The tests, which will be devised by exam boards, are likely to be taken late in the summer term, when it is hoped that coronavirus infection rates will have died down enough for schools to be fully reopened.

There would also be internal assessments set by teachers in some subjects, including the chance for children to submit porfolios of work completed in the past two years.

If schools do not reopen as planned, children may have to do the tests at home, raising the prospect of their having to produce important work from their bedroom, kitchen table or elsewhere.

Neither the tests nor the internal assessments will have to be taken on a single date across the nation. It is not known how examiners will be able to stop children simply telling one another what is in the papers, if they are held on different dates in different schools.

A sample of teachers’ marking will be checked and moderated by exam boards, to be used as the basis for awarding GCSE and A-level results. Consultation on the plans will last until the end of the month.

While it is hoped that the tests will be taken in classrooms after schools reopen, Kirsty Williams, education minister for Wales, raised the possibility on Friday that some assessments used to award A-level and GCSE grades might need to be taken online at home.

Wales has announced a three-week extension to its lockdown and schools will now remain closed until late February. In England, school closures are due to be reviewed in two weeks.

Wales has drawn up a plan for teachers to assess pupils’ work in schools to award GCSE and A-level grades, also using tests and pieces of marked work, but Williams said that was under review because of the “worsening public health situation”.

She said: “There is potential for some assessment to be done at home and electronically marked. University students are doing open-book exams and many schoolchildren are doing work online and submitting work online.”

Alan Smithers, education professor at the University of Buckingham, said that online tests were vulnerable to cheating. “It would be a first if we did tests and assessments for GCSEs and A-levels online. The potential for cheating is huge,” he said.

Teachers have asked that the term “teacher-assessed grades” should not be used because they fear parents and children may complain directly to them if they think the marking is too strict.

Schools, however, are likely to point out that plans for online assessment risk being scuppered as a legal challenge is launched today against the government for failing to make sure that up to a million poorer children have the laptops and free broadband they need to study and complete assessments online at home.

The Good Law Project has said hundreds of thousands of children still do not have what they need, 10 months after the government promised laptops and routers.

Ofqual declined to comment but confirmed its consultation proposals would be published this week.