Humphrey Appleby

Not sure what you Brextremists aren't getting? You didn't want to be in the EU and then negotiated an appalling trade deal clearly not understanding the consequences. This is quite aside from all the claims about trade with Europe continuing almost exactly the same as now. I wonder who said such nonsense...?

In the South-East of England things are perhaps less bad, but down in Wales recently around half of the hospitality businesses appear to still be closed because of a lack of staff. And those sort of areas are the places that can least afford it, although they are somewhat reaping what they sowed...

I think it fairness, even in sports that are entirely team oriented like football, players have long had individual sponsorships. It's a difficult one, because if you're turning out in a rusty old white van then that doesn't look good either from a sponsorship perspective or convey a professional image of the sport. I suspect sponsors also expect to get some advertisement on the van and kit as well. Of course you have to question whether any of this is actually benefitting the sport, but I'd not think £20k is an especially high amount when you break it down.

Whilst agreeing that a meeting needs to be more than a 15-heat match, I think the problem with speedway compared to other sports is that it's a 'weekly' sport that doesn't always take place at weekends. To fill out the meeting in the manner above, you're going to need to rely on amateur riders - probably even relying on them to pay their own way to the tracks, and is that going to be viable all season? It might work at the Friday, Saturday and Sunday tracks, but I think it's a tougher ask for amateurs to be expected to turn out midweek on a regular basis. I also think competitions needs to have context - having a few scratch races is okay for an amateur meeting where only friends and family turn up, but I'm not sure will keep the interest of a paying public.

Certainly not because they've lost the UK, which is why it's not one of Germany's top 10 trading partners anymore. Only the biggest Brexit fantasists believe that nonsense now...

No different to the Brextremists now using COVID as the excuse for the economic chaos that's been brought upon the country, even though that clearly has nothing to do with fish left to go smelly on the quayside and unpicked produce going rotten in the fields.

The obvious answer is that England and to a lesser extent Wales and Scotland have removed most of the restrictions that were in place at the same time last year. In particular, mass attendance events are happening and venues where social distancing is non-existent have opened. That will inevitably lead to a rise in cases - amongst the vaccinated (as no vaccination is 100% effective) as well as unvaccinated, though a jump of 158 deaths (especially given the questionable recording protocol) does not seem that statistically significant against the 2,000+ people you'd normally expect to die every day in the UK.

Who'd wish to humiliate themselves?

It's to do with the p*ss poor trade deals she's negotiated, or in with the important countries, not negotiated. So desperate is the government to prove that's it's 'trading with the world' that she's stuffed over the very sectors of the economy that were supposedly going to benefit from the UK's withdrawal from the second biggest trading area in the world. Of course, sacking her would be an admission that the government has got it totally wrong about trade and doesn't actually know what it's doing...

The country democratically voted to be poorer and be run by an incompetent and corrupt government, proving that you can get turkeys to vote for Christmas (assuming they can be delivered this year)...

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/covid-boris-johnson-minaj-chris-whitty-b1920072.html

The inept Liz Truss and the disloyal oily Michael Gove tipped for promotion - says it all about the competence of the government and its leadership.

We're not in a wartime situation, even if many Brexiteers seem to want to "fight 'em on the beaches". In fact, the situation hasn't even been brought on by the actions of outside parties, but simply because of the absurd ideology and incompetence of the UK's own government.

The ONS is a government agency so you can take what they say with a pinch of salt. Simple fact is that ongoing labour shortages will push up prices and reduce supply, which are problems that the EU hasn't inflicted on itself. Its 'poor and corrupt countries' have also seen growth higher than the UK this year...

Yep, it's because the UK Government decided to award the printing of blue British passports to a French company. So much for 'taking back control'...