1. There was an interesting article on page 15 of today's City AM, I can't find the text of the article online, but you can find a pdf here.
The headline was "Britain doesn't need a special trade deal to boost trade with the US" and the upshot was that the businesses in the UK and the US manage to buy and sell a huge volume of goods and services from each other, despite the fact that there is no 'free trade deal' between the US and the UK (qua EU Member State). The author gives half a dozen examples of particular restrictions which could be lifted on one side or the other, and concludes:
There's so much that can be done if both sides build on the strong foundations which already exist. Prioritising that rather than attempting a brand new FTA from scratch won't limit the scale of what we can achieve."
A good point. All-encompassing trade deals can take years to negotiate, because dozens of special interests on each side will hold the whole thing to ransom, so it's better to do it a bit at a time on an ad hoc basis.
(My caveat is that the author is Ben Digby, the CBI's International Director, and the CBI are Hard Remain, so they might be a bit biased, but fact is, we buy and sell a lot more from businesses in EU Member States than in the USA, so fair enough.)
2. The Daily Mash made a perfectly valid point with their article headed "If you don't want to eat chlorinated chicken, you could always just read the f***ing label, say experts."
3. I Tweeted the Mash article and @TraderPaulFX replied that most veg and salad in the UK are washed in chlorine. A quick Google indicates this to be correct, see e.g. here.
A grim document
7 hours ago
11 comments:
What about humans, chlorinated in public baths?
S, exactly.
Wow, I can't believe that we eat lettuce which is washed by a process which is supposedly really bad for chickens that it would be a disaster but we don't mind when it is chickens. It says something about the quality of our press.
Perhaps you shouldn't have linked a US website to substantiate the chlorine washing of salad in the UK. Plenty of UK sources such as https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36822962
LF, sure, but "chlorinated chicken" is one of those genius incantations that requires no explanation. Remainers can shut down any debate by chanting it over and over again.
C, good point, thanks for UK link.
"most veg and salad in the UK are washed in chlorine."
Everything that's washed in the UK is washed in chlorine, it's in the water.
Remainer's rebuttal: "Yes, but the chlorine in the water is at a very low concentration" to which the reply is "Do you know the concentration of chlorine in the water used to wash chlorinated chicken? If not, STFU."
A lot of the Remainers I know who shout 'chlorinated chicken!!!!' are actually pescies/veggies/vegans so it doesn't affect them anyway... like @B said my response is STFU.
B, Sh, more good points.
I find that a little chlorinated sodium added to my meal can make all the difference between tasteless and delicious!
Personally I would prefer to eat chicken covered with filth and excrement... (sarc) And in any case, surely British chicken gets cleaned with something before being packaged, and that something will contain?
Isn't the main thing that gives FTAs their importance the fact that the WTO forbids countries from discriminating between any other countries that they trade with under WTO rules (ie any countries that they don't have a specific trade agreement with: either an FTA or a deeper form of integration like the EU)?
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