According to Theresa May austerity has ended. According to Philip Hammond it has not. I know who I believe. And it is not the Prime Minister. The madness of the cuts programme is ongoing. According to the TUC this morning:
Protecting our borders from illegal goods is the responsibility of both UK Border Force and HMRC, but they've both suffered under the government's austerity agenda.
This means there are huge areas of our coastline that aren't protected right now — and we haven't even left the EU yet.
There are also plans to slash HMRC's operations to just 13 regional centres and five specialist sites, leaving most ports and airports in the UK miles from the nearest HMRC office.
There will be no offices in Scotland outside of Glasgow and Edinburgh, even though the Scottish mainland has over 6,000 miles of coastline.
Offices in Southampton and Ipswich are also set to close, while the entire South West will be covered by one office in Bristol.
This won't just mean job losses, but the loss of years of experience at a time when we might need up to 5,000 extra people to cope with Brexit.
That's why it's complete madness for HMRC to be pressing ahead with office closures just a few months before Brexit day on 29 March 2019.
The TUC's logic is impeccable. If only the government's was. These office closures were madness before Brexit. They are insanity now.
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You have just reminded me of my grand plan, on the off-chance Scotland has to Brexit too: buy a boat, get a pilot licence, to start a smuggling operation – lots of coastline, as you say, and not much oversight, is excellent news for this business venture. Can you recommend any specific ports?
(And, no, I will never get round to it, lots of ideas but I just don’t have that entrepreneurial spirit for action 😉 )
Someone watched too much Poldark and got ideas to smuggle goods into the country to undermine local producers. Many parallels between Poldark and Brexit
Deliberate wrecking, not insanity. I can only suppose their intention is to create disorder with a view to removing rights and imposing some form of military or pseudo-military authority on us all in order to sustain themselves in authority. They know their goose is cooked, one imagines, so they’re now retreating into what in wrestling parlance would be known as ‘desperation moves’ before the fork gets properly stuck in. I expect it’ll get worse before it gets better. I’m buying in thyroxine from Bulgaria to tide me over brief shortages. I’m on it now, it seems OK, does what it’s supposed to. On the latest #3blokes video (where they discuss Brexit, on Youtube, recommended) they were contemplating the appointment of a minister for food distribution, not something which I can recall previously needing ministerial oversight, perhaps leading to house to house food searches by the army (or whomever) as people sought to hide stashes of food over and above their government allocated rations. Grim times.
It is indeed lunacy
mind you did you hear the conference speech yesterday? Her is some of the concluding lines…
T May PM 3/10/2018
“This is a moment of opportunity for our party.
To champion decency in our politics.
To be the moderate, patriotic government this country needs.
To be a party not for the few, not even for the many, but for everyone who works hard and plays by the rules.
And it’s a moment of opportunity for our country.
To honour the result of the referendum.”
She really said those words, together, consequentially, without any sense of irony.
How is it possible to honour the referendum result if you want decency in politics and be the party for everyone who plays by the rules?
I just don’t think you can make this stuff up and as usual the media doesn’t pick up on a blatant non-sequitur. It is madness. I think everyday the country dies a little.
( as usual sorry for the rant)
The comments are surreal at best
Disingenuous to be kind
A lie if I am honest
And blatantly so
Given the wild contradictions between what is being said by May and co and reality, the only question is whether it is cock-up or conspiracy.
Im inclined to the latter, though this lot will probably cock-up their conspiracy. Bringing the the house down around them as they do so.
James Patrick is looking more credible every day
There will also be no offices east of Nottingham with most of Eastern England devoid of a presence.
I recently met a former HM Customs and Excise colleague who one of the few highly experienced Inland Customs officers left and he told me he is having to train former HM Inspectors of Taxes in their fifties who have spent their careers analysing annual accounts in how to check import entries and examine containers for Customs purposes – hardly the most motivated of personnel for post Brexit Customs checks !
I also heard that an experiment in not visiting VAT traders but just examining records remotely was a failure with minimal yield so reluctantly management agreed visits could continue – but only in the meantime.
This is gross management incompetence of the most staggering sort….
If you wanted the UK to be (an even greater) centre for tax avoidance you’d cut HMRC.
Similarly if you want the UK to become a centre for smuggling and the illicit movement for goods…
Should go down a storm with our 27 next door neighbours. Expect an appropriate response
Perhaps this is their post-Brexit survival gambit, they intend to stave off the rioting by making cheap contraband goods available to all.
Food and medicine shortages combined with lax borders and customs inspections…
The black markets will be booming
Let’s be frank Richard, is there any point in taking any notice whatsoever of anything May says? As you say, at best she is surreal – and that’s being exceptionally charitable. I just turn to John Crace’s pieces in the Guardian who has the Maybot, and the rest of the wretched fools in this government down to a tee. ‘Strong and stable’, ‘Brexit means Brexit’, ‘Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’ ….Franz Kafka couldn’t have done better than this.
As a VAT caseworker in HMRC, I can confirm there’s been no let up in austerity at all. The latest one is that there’s no money for overtime if caseworkers think a business needs a late night visit. Apparently the department is looking at people’s contracts of employment (many of which were signed years ago) to see if these can be interpreted as meaning staff are expected to be out in the early hours of the morning as part of their normal hours!
And then there’s the fact that the principal civil service unions are taking the government to Judicial Review for it’s refusal to properly consult on the pay guidance issued for 2018 by the Treasury, which has resulted in civil servants getting the lowest pay rise in the whole public sector. (The courts have recently agreed to grant this, by the way.)
And then management express surprise when staff surveys reveal record low levels of staff engagement!
You are facing the reality of austerity…
And the management who willingly impose it
This covers whats happening pretty well:
http://www.brexitshambles.com/why-is-the-uk-government-so-keen-on-no-deal-the-astonishing-truth-behind-the-illusion-of-democracy/#
May’s government are intent on the hardest of Brexits with all that implies.
I must say that it looks more and more as if we are being set so laxly, so deliberately that BREXIT can only really be the hardest kind. No Deal.
Then the UK will become a free for all wild west frontier – a totally free market where caveat emptor will extend beyond housing and the used car market to everyday foods and drugs.
What a mess that is brewing.
Agree with all. Billions in Chinese scams on EU VAT were 80% perpetrated through the UK. We are refusing to pay the fine. Does May think she can lead us to a new empire of Come Dancing?