BrExit?

[Boycie]

Glupa anketa, nije baš da su to odvojene teme pa da se mogu ispregovarati. Sloboda kretanja je integralni deo slobodnog tržišta kao što su noge integralni delovi čoveka.

[bigvlada]

Italy and Spain lead the fight to conquer UK-based EU agencies

Home | Euro & Finance | News

By Jorge Valero | EurActiv.com  Jul 29, 2016 (updated: Jul 29, 2016)

 

 

In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, Rome and Madrid are leading the race to gain the right to host influential EU agencies, while Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia could remain empty-handed.

 

The slow-motion EU break-up triggered by the UK referendum held on 23 June shocked financial markets across Europe, weakened struggling banks in countries like Italy and alerted eurocrats to the political risks of being too strict when EU rules are breached in times of social unrest. Spain and Portugal’s budgetary slippages are prime examples.

 

But Britain’s exit from the European club also brings precious opportunities for others, as the country will have to get rid of its EU agencies: the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), both based in London.

 

Both are among the most influential EU agencies. They play a major role in regulating two of the most profitable sectors and they are popular targets for lobbyists and companies.

 

As the EU and the UK begin to prepare their divorce negotiations, few member states thrown their hat into the ring to fight for the two agencies.

 

 

DENMARK, SWEDEN EYE POST-BREXIT EU DRUGS AGENCY

 

Denmark’s pharmaceutical industry is going head-to-head with its Swedish counterpart by arguing Denmark should be the new home of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) if Britons vote to leave the European Union in a June referendum.

 

Italy and Spain have been not only the most vocal about their intentions to bring the EBA and EMA headquarters to their territory, but have also set up special groups to start preparing their candidacies.

 

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has created a task force to make his case, Italian media reported. In parallel, the major of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, travelled to London on 6 July to promote its city as the perfect candidate to host both agencies “thanks to its excellent infrastructure, ten universities, investments aiming to further bolster the post-Expo area and a real estate market which is in full recovery”, he told reporters .

 

As part of his visit, Sala met with the chair of the EBA, Andrea Enria, in order to better prepare his bid.

 

Madrid supports Barcelona

 

In Spain, the campaign has brought Madrid and Barcelona together, after months of bitter dispute between the national and regional governments caused by Catalonia’s secessionist efforts.

 

Spain’s Deputy Prime-Minister Soraya Saez de Santa María said on Thursday (28 July) that the central government will work “closely and in coordination” with the Catalonian government to “fight for Barcelona as the seat of EMA”.

 

 

She recalled that the city became second when London was elected to host the EU drugs agency. In order to strengthen the Spanish candidacy this time, she announced that the Ministry of Health is preparing to publish a report backing Barcelona’s bid.

 

As for the EBA, Spain is promoting Madrid as the ideal place to relocate the agency.

 

Waiting for an office

 

But EU sources underlined that Spain and Italy already host numerous agencies, while five member states (Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia) have none.

 

Spain has three agencies: the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in Alicante, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) in Bilbao and the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA), in Vigo. It also hosts EU centres like the EU satellite Centre (Satcen) in Madrid, Fusion for Energy in Barcelona and a Joint Research Centre in Seville.

 

Italy hosts the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in Parma, the European Training Foundation (ETF) in Turin and a Joint Research Centre in Ispra.

 

Officials in the Commission, the Council, the EBA and EMA declined to comment on the record on the relocation process, as the issue will not be formally discussed until Britain triggers Article 50 to negotiate its exit from the Union.

 

However, insiders in the agencies noted off the record that there are other factors that would play an important role in the decision besides the absence of an EU agency.

 

In the case of EMA, good transport connections and other logistical factors will be crucial, given that around 210 experts grouped in seven scientific committees have to travel every month to London for their meetings. In total, 3,600 experts regularly visit the agency, which counts  890 permanent employees.

 

For EBA chair Enria, logic dictates that the agency’s 159 employees should be close to a big financial centre. This is why Milan and Madrid are not the only cities on the agency’s radar, but are joined by Amsterdm.

 

In an interview with CNBC on 28 July, Enria urged the Council, the Parliament and the Commission to decide on the new seat of the agency “as quickly as possible” in order to give certainty to the staff. Otherwise, this interim period could “impact” on new recruitments or on the ability of the agency to retain its personnel.

 

The decision to relocate the EBA could be taken as part of the Brexit talks, once Article 50 is activated, or as part of the review of its regulation, which takes place every three years, and where the three institutions would play a role.

 

The last review took place in late 2015.

 

EU officials noted that the final say is in the member states’ hands. Article 341 of the treaties stipulates that “The seat of the institutions of the Union shall be determined by common accord of the governments of the member states.”

 

Meanwhile, other voices warned of the damage that could be caused to the agencies once they are relocated.

 

Richard Bergström, head of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, said that the process of moving the EMA would be “very messy”. In his view, its expertise would be damaged as “huge numbers” of people with deep institutional knowledge might quit the agency, putting at risk the quality of its regulatory work.

 

https://www.euractiv.com/section/euro-finance/news/italy-and-spain-lead-the-fight-to-conquer-uk-based-eu-agencies/

 

 

[Prospero]

Rule Britannia!
 

 

British warships must be sent to Gibraltar to “protect it from Spain” during Brexit negotiations, a former Ministry of Defence special adviser has said.

 

Luke Coffey, director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, argued the step was needed as part of measures to fend off Madrid’s bid for joint sovereignty as discussions with the European Union continue.

 

[Prospero]

The Worst - Or Best - Five Years Of Your Life: Staffing The “Department for Brexit”

 

03/08/2016 17:56 | Updated 3 hours ago

 

Martha Gill Political Reporter, The Huffington Post UK

 

 

NIKLAS HALLE’N via Getty Images

 

When Theresa May became prime minister the first thing she did was create a “Brexit department”, to be known as the Department for Exiting the EU, to be known, shortly after, as DExEU. For the next five years or so, DExEU will be the most important department in Government. It will oversee negotiations on almost every aspect of UK policy, and it will manage an enormous transfer of powers, the largest since the Government was formed. It has a great deal to do. 

 

For this it will need staff - several hundred of them. And here comes the hitch. At last count it had just forty, and further recruitment looks to be rather uphill. According to government employees, DExEU is “sending adverts round departments like mad, to no interest”. As one official puts it: “Who would take that job?”

 

“It must be the hardest job in British politics since the end of empire”, he says. “It’s a job demanding world class negotiation skills, world class trade knowledge”, and “world class analysis of EU law”. “And it’s like, would you like a civil servants salary for that?” “It’s like, we are going to pay you a civil service salary to have the worst five years of your life.”

 

Part of the problem, says a government source, are the “horrific hours” these jobs are expected to involve. Another says that plans to plug gaps from the private sector will put civil servants off, as they don’t want to be “surrounded by people from Accenture doing the same job on five grand a day”.

In the past such mixed teams have had mixed results. Back in 2008, struggling to staff the unit overseeing the Olympics, the government brought in external candidates, the upshot leading one internal recruit to comment that his new colleague’s bonuses were “more than my annual salary”. 

 

And the biggest problem recruiters will battle, say civil servants, is that “the whole of the civil service is massively disappointed about Brexit”. According to one source the department’s new email addresses may end in “@brexit.gsi.gov.uk”, which potential recruits worry will “completely destroy” their international credibility. And those who want to work on the EU, says another, “want to work on the EU because they love the EU”. 

 

All this, say insiders, means that DExEU is “in a massive panic”. There are rumours of “funnelling a load of inexperienced fast-streamers” into the project. And one civil servant says the department will offer large promotions to tempt new recruits, who otherwise “won’t be paid enough because of how shit the job is”.

 

But there are some who reckon the posts won’t be hard to fill. “It’s the big issue of the day, which makes it exciting”, says one official. Others think there will be plenty of idealists willing to join the department “for the sake of their country”. DExEU, meanwhile, denies it has any trouble recruiting, saying “every day there are more people here.”

 

And among the small bunch so far at DExEU there is certainly talent. The lead press officer is David Thompson, former Daily Record and BBC political journalist. The department has also nabbed Whitehall high flier Sarah Healey, formerly Director General at the Department for Culture Media and Sport. George Bridges, the department’s Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, is a real star hire: newly a minister but a behind the scenes veteran who has worked for Michael Howard and David Cameron. And Olly Robbins, formerly Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office, has been widely tipped for greatness.

 

Still, it is notable that none of these reputations have been built on EU experience. This lends credence to a rumour in the civil service of a recruitment bias against those who have done EU jobs “because they’ll all be anti Brexit”. Go to Brussels, says one, and it “claims you for life”. DExEU denies this, saying “I’m sure everyone recruited will be recruited on their merits”.

 

In any case the task of staffing a large department is a headache the Brexit process could do without. Another headache is finding somewhere for it to work. One government source says DExEU is still holding department meetings in a Starbucks on Victoria Street, as it is yet to find a building. 

The department denies this and says its address is 9 Downing Street. (Some say that the fact that 9 Downing Street is simply the back entrance into the Cabinet Office means this is a temporary solution).

 

And forming a department at all may be the wrong move. Jill Rutter at the Institute for Government, a think tank, thinks it “a costly distraction”. A better initial solution, she says, would be a free-floating Secretary of State, who could act as a co-ordinator between Whitehall departments working on Brexit. A small unit set up to support this role, she says, would have done the job. 

 

“If they get a new email system that will be a cost. Separate finance and HR will be another cost. Salaries may be transferred from different departments but they may not make a matching overheads transfer for things like photocopiers”, she says.

 

“The last thing you want is for senior manager to be working out all those logistics rather than getting on with the job.”

 

DExEU could yet be a success. Civil servants working in the Olympics unit, finding it to be the most exciting game in town, ended up turning down promotions to stay there. But DExEU has some way to go before it can start responding to queries without adding “it’s a work in progress”. And right now, as one official puts it, it’s “a work in not very much progress at all”.

 

[MancMellow]

I jos te posle drze odgovornim za nesto sto ko zna kako ce da ispadne. 

[Prospero]

Mac, mac, dođi, dođi...

 

 

 

tako izgleda ponuda

[hazard]

Neka unajme konsultante iz Indije. Radice relativno gledano za kikiriki, spavace po desetorica u jednom dvosobnom stanu, bice tu na privremenim radnim vizama, nece morati da nose breme svog rada do kraja zivota jer ce se vratiti u Indiju gde ljude boli tuki za brexit, a rezultat ce biti samo jedno 10% gori nego da ga rade Britanci.  -_-

[Hamlet Strašni]

Али ће се у договору мистериозно наћи забрана клања крава у Британији

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[bigvlada]

Brexit could herald end to British fruit and veg sales, producers warn

 

Many of the country’s biggest producers say that without a scheme for seasonal workers, homegrown produce would all but vanish from the shelves

Farmers and migrant workers: how has Brexit affected you?

 

Damian Carrington

 

British fruit and vegetables would all but vanish from shops if Brexit means the foreign workers who pick virtually all the home-grown produce are no longer able to come to the UK, according to some of the country’s biggest producers.

 

They warn that the nation’s food security would be damaged and that produce in UK shops would become more expensive if the freedom of movement for EU workers came to an end. They are urging ministers to set up a new permit scheme for seasonal workers.

 

Without a scheme, they say production would move abroad, where many already have large operations, or would switch to cereals which are harvested by machines. The Brexit vote is already deterring foreign workers from coming to the UK, the producers report.

 

About 90% of British fruit, vegetables and salads are picked, graded and packed by 60,000 to 70,000 workers from overseas, mostly from eastern Europe. Many of these work in areas which voted very strongly to leave the EU: the largely agricultural borough of Boston in Lincolnshire had the highest vote for leaving the EU in the whole country, at 75%.

 

“If we don’t have freedom of movement and they don’t replace it with a permit scheme then the industry will just close down” in the UK, said John Shropshire, chairman of G’s, one of the nation’s biggest producers of salads and vegetables, which employs 2,500 seasonal workers and also has farms in Spain, Poland, the Czech Republic and Senegal. “No British person wants a seasonal job working in the fields. They want permanent jobs or jobs that are not quite as taxing physically.”

 

“The government has to make a decision: either we bring the people to the work or we take the work to the people,” he told the Guardian. “The government has to decide does it want [the UK] to produce food or not - that is their decision.”

 

Angus Davison, chairman at Haygrove, a major berry and cherry producer, employing 800 seasonal workers, said that without them their growing would be exported: “We would move it to the continent. We wouldn’t be able to operate here in the UK because we would not be able to harvest the crops.” Half of Haygrove’s production is already in Portugal and South Africa.

 

“Do you want all your fresh produce to come from foreign countries?” he asked. “There would be more risks around its security, we wouldn’t be as food secure as a nation.” Davison said his company had 15 workers a day applying to its offices in Romania and Bulgaria before the Brexit referendum, but this has dropped now to one or two: “We are genuinely concerned. People over there are feeling they are not wanted here.”

 

More than 98% of those coming to the UK through a previous Seasonal Agricultural Workers scheme returned home. It ran from 1948 to 2013, when Theresa May as home secretary scrapped it. Davison said: “Seasonal workers for harvesting crops are not migrants. They come here to do a job and they go away again.” Davison and other producers told the Guardian their existing seasonal staff had been very unsettled by the Brexit vote and that there was a moral duty for the government to clarify their future status.

 

The UK produces only half of the fresh produce it eats, but despite consumers wanting more British-grown fruit, vegetables and salad, the investment to increase the nation’s self-sufficiency is at risk if seasonal workers are not available, said Chris Mack, chairman at Fresca Group, another major producer whose businesses include five huge salad greenhouses at Thanet in Kent, where 64% of voters backed leaving the EU.

 

“We were hoping to build the sixth [greenhouse], but unless we have the people to go and pick the tomatoes, it’s difficult to see how we are going to do that,” he said. The introduction of the national living wage was already causing fruit and vegetable producers, who do not receive EU subsidies, to move to lower cost countries, Mack said: “If there is a further issue around the availability of labour, moving your fields overseas will be almost be the only option.”

 

Mack also said shoppers will be hit in the pocket if Brexit negotiations lead to no freedom of movement and no access to the single EU market: “There will be less access to fresh produce and prices will inevitably then go up.”

 

It is not just major producers who are concerned about the availability of seasonal workers. Erica Consterdine, from the University of Sussex’s Centre for Migration Research, said: “What is absolutely certain is that, without foreign labour, there are going to be massive labour market shortages. I’m not sure the government quite realises just how reliant these sectors are on EU labour.”

 

“It’s looking pretty bad in terms of the security of the food supply chain. It would be disastrous,” she said. “I can’t really see how the industry can survive in the long term without freedom of movement of workers, without reintroducing some kind of agricultural workers scheme. Economically, looking at the sector, it seems absolutely crazy not to.”

 

A government spokesperson said: “Nothing is changing overnight – freedom of movement remains in place while we are in the EU. The public clearly demanded control over immigration in the EU referendum and that is what we are going to deliver, but it will take some time. There will clearly be challenges to overcome in our negotiations to leave the EU, but Brexit means Brexit and we’re going to make a success of it.”

 

The National Farmers Union (NFU) is undertaking its largest ever consultation with its members after Brexit, with the issue of seasonal labour a key element. “There is a huge threat to an extremely important sector of British farming,” said Meurig Raymond, NFU president. “How often did we hear from the leave campaigners that we wanted to see more controlled immigration? The seasonal workers scheme was a controlled system.”

 

Attempts to recruit British workers for seasonal work have failed, farmers told the Guardian. Those willing to take temporary jobs opt for hospitality and other sectors, while others sent by unemployment offices rarely last a week, they said.

 

“I know one or two companies that have gone to very significant lengths to set up a supply of UK labour and it just hasn’t worked,” said Jack Ward, chief executive of the British Growers Association. “I think it is probably the outdoor nature of the work.” Consterdine said a pilot scheme from the Department of Work and Pensions had been “totally unsuccessful”.

 

The fresh produce industry is not the only farming sector warning of the risks of losing migrant workers. “If the central and eastern Europeans went back to their native countries then dairy farming would be in dire straits,” said Tim Brigstocke, policy director at the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers.

 

Roger Kelsey, a former butcher and now chief executive of the National Federation of Meat & Food Traders, said the UK meat industry was heavily reliant on labour from overseas: “It would not survive without them. Go into any abattoir or meat processing factory in the east of England – or anywhere in the UK – and you will see Polish and Portuguese workers helping the slaughtermen and doing what are seen as the unpleasant jobs, such as evisceration.” Even the vets employed by the Food Standards Agency are overwhelmingly - 98% - from the from EU nations.

 

All these sectors supply the UK’s biggest manufacturing sector: food and drink. The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) says its 7,000 member businesses employ 130,000 people from eastern Europe – more than a quarter of entire workforce. “If we are to remain competitive, we need urgent reassurance for the EU nationals working in the UK food and drink manufacturing sector and continuing unhindered access to workers from the EU,” said Ian Wright, FDF director general recently.

 

John Hardman, at the agricultural employment agency HOPS Labour Solutions, told the Farmers Guardian he was not optimistic that avoiding the loss of seasonal workers was high in government priorities: “We may only just start to move up that list when we cannot pick all of the strawberries for Wimbledon or Brussels sprouts for Christmas.”

 

Shropshire is more confident however: “I just can’t believe it will happen. “It would be a great shame for the country to export a large chunk of the British fresh produce industry.”

 

Laurence Olins, chairman of industry group British Summer Fruits, recently sent a letter and a large tray of fresh strawberries, raspberries and other berries to the new environment and home secretaries, Andrea Leadsom and Amber Rudd: “I sent the tray so they could actually taste them and see what they would be missing.”

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/03/brexit-could-herald-end-to-british-fruit-and-veg-sales-producers-warn

 

[MancMellow]

Ama...najbolji komentar, jedini koji sam video da je na tragu nekadasnje pameti, je dao u Guardianu ako se ne varan John Crace koji je jos pre referenduma rekao, prepricavam: EU ima sanse da se raspadne...i tacno to je razlog zasto bi trebalo da ostanemo unutra, jer kad se bude raspadala taj proces moramo da usmeravamo kako nama odgovara. A ako se NE raspadne a mi ostanemo zauvek izvan najebali smo. Nista pametnije od toga nisam cuo ni procitao od bilo kog politicara. Jos jedan dokaz da je i Brtanija zemlja gde pamet vise ne stanuje u strankama, nimalo. 

Edited August 4, 2016 by MancMellow

[jms_uk]

The Bank of England has cut interest rates from 0.5% to 0.25% - a record low and the first cut since 2009.

[hazard]

 

Brexit could herald end to British fruit and veg sales, producers warn

 

Many of the country’s biggest producers say that without a scheme for seasonal workers, homegrown produce would all but vanish from the shelves

Farmers and migrant workers: how has Brexit affected you?

 

No problemo, umesto istocnoevropskih radnika koji imaju ta neka prava, dovesce posle brexita induse i bengalce da rade za 5 silinga na sat

 

Silinge ce uvesti opet nakon brexita, jer je decimalizacija briselsko zlo

[bigvlada]

Ne zaboravi Gvineje, samo još da se dogovore sa lokalcima oko nekih pojedinosti. 

[bigvlada]

 

THE CLARKSON REVIEW: 1957 WOLSELEY 1500 MK 1

 

Joie de vivre? Not in this Brexit poster boy

 

I FEEL such an idiot. For 20-odd years I have been coming here and — foolishly, as it’s turned out — talking about cars from exotic places such as Germany and Japan. I’ve spoken breathlessly about turbocharging and exciting new lightweight materials. And I’ve tried to bring to life what it’s like to drive a 700bhp Ferrari on the Transfagarasan Highway in Romania.

Stupidly, I believed that you might be interested. I thought that, thanks to social media and easyJet and exotic new takeaway restaurants that can deliver exciting dishes to your door in a matter of moments, I was speaking to an audience that was sophisticated and international. Broad-minded. Global.

But it seems I was wrong. The Brexit vote has shown me and everyone else in the sneering metropolitan elite that, actually, you want to live in a black-and- white world with Terry and June on the television, pints in glasses with handles on the side, prawn cocktail crisps, powdered coffee, pineapple juice for a starter, ruddy-faced police constables, red phone boxes and no one speaking bloody Polish on the bus.

You weren’t remotely interested in torque-vectoring differentials or sat nav systems, because you only go to Bridlington once a year and you know the way already. So you don’t need some electronic German barking orders at every roundabout and T-junction. You want it to be the 1950s all over again, because Britain was great then, apart from the lung diseases.

You certainly weren’t interested in buying a Renault, because it’s bloody French. And you were never going to buy a Fiat, because you need at least one of the gears in the box to not be reverse. What you’ve always wanted is the car I’ve been driving recently. The post-Brexit poster boy. The Wolseley 1500.

Compared with the modern-day equivalents from abroad, it’s not very fast. It goes from 0 to 60mph in a leisurely 24.4 seconds, but the top speed is 78mph, and that’s plenty because 70mph is as fast as you need to go here on this, our fair and sceptred isle.

Obviously, this kind of performance means the Wolseley would be a bit out of its depth on the German autobahn, but you don’t care about that because you aren’t going to Germany any time soon. Because you can’t stand the buggers. The Blitz. Hitler. Battle of Britain. Best film ever made. And so on.

It must also be said that by modern standards the handling is extremely poor. The steering wheel is connected to the front wheels by what feels like a bucket full of rapidly setting cement, and there are some alarming levels of lean in the bends.

Of course, if you are bothered by such things — and why would you be, because having fun in a car is flamboyant and therefore almost certainly foreign? — you could buy the Riley One Point Five, which is basically the same car but with sportier suspension and two carburettors. Which are French, and therefore disgusting.I began my journey with the Wolseley in Wales, which is just about all right. Certainly it’s better than Scotland, which is full of people who are possibly communist. I stayed in a hotel that served British poached eggs on toast that had been made from proper bread, which is like a wet vest and not all full of fancy bits.

Opposite, there was a dress shop selling some rather fetching one-piece bathing suits. Seeing them on the mannequins in the window made me a bit aroused, I’m sorry to say.

So I hurried to the car, which was painted in a fetching shade of grey, and climbed aboard. The seats were made from leather and the dashboard from wood, which is entirely right and proper. Around the doors were strips of red velvet, which gave a very regal feel, and that’s what you want, of course, not some plastic, which is republican and therefore untrustworthy.

The car smelt of home. By which I mean it had the aroma of a headmaster’s wood-panelled study. There was that familiar fustiness, caused possibly by the carpets gently rotting after they’d soaked up the tears of all those abused pupils. Those were the days. Damp days. Dismal days. Wonderful days.

The visibility all round was excellent, there was space for two children in the back , which is the number parents should have. Not 17, like the bloody Catholics seem to think is sensible. Bloody Pope.

I eased the MG gearbox into first, and off we set into the Brecon Beacons, which are more beautiful than anywhere else in the world. Apart from Bridlington, obviously. And soon, in my wake, there was a lengthy traffic jam, made up of various foreign vehicles such as Fendt tractors and a dustbin lorry or two.

The Wolseley is not even on nodding terms with speedy, as I’ve said, but that’s OK, because why do you need to get anywhere quickly? That’s the language of big business and global activity. Download speeds. Coffee to go. A third runway. That’s not what you want at all.

And, anyway, there’s so much to enjoy from behind the enormous wheel of this fine British motoring car. There’s an indicator stalk with a green blinker light on the end. Not sure that green is the right colour, mind. It’s a bit Muslim.

But the switchgear had that reassuring feel we crave. The wiper knob, you just know, was attached by a man with a Birmingham accent who was wearing a brown store coat and loved Harry Worth. Which is probably why it came off in my hand.

I was going to say that the 1.5-litre engine pulled well in a high gear (fourth), suggesting that it had good torque. But torque sounds French and is therefore not a word that we should be using any more.

After a couple of miles I tried to pull over in a lay-by to admire the view, but the weakness of the brakes — which are basically milk bottle tops — meant I missed it completely and ended up in a Costa Coffee car park several miles further down the road.

There I enjoyed some proper sandwiches and a sausage roll made from proper sausage meat; none of that foreign muck with la-di-bloody-da herbs in it. And then I finished off with a banana that was bent. Like a proper British banana should be.

I wanted to listen to the Jeremy Vine show, because I agree with all its callers, but, sadly, although the Wolseley had a speaker in the middle of the dash, there was no radio. Nor was there much of a heater, come to that.

This is how life’s going to be now. It’s what more than half the voting public want. The country as it used to be.

And I’m sorry to have to say this, but what I wanted was what the country could have been. Which is why, next week, I shall be reviewing the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.

If you’re not happy about that, buy the bloody Sunday Express instead. Apparently it’s reviewing the new Hillman.

http://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/clarkson-review-wolseley-1500-mk-1/

[MancMellow]

 

The car smelt of home. By which I mean it had the aroma of a headmaster’s wood-panelled study. There was that familiar fustiness, caused possibly by the carpets gently rotting after they’d soaked up the tears of all those abused pupils. Those were the days. Damp days. Dismal days. Wonderful days.

 

The visibility all round was excellent, there was space for two children in the back , which is the number parents should have. Not 17, like the bloody Catholics seem to think is sensible. Bloody Pope.