Off Topic UK politics and brexit ramblings

Mate, one of the prime drivers behind Brexit was that the EU are looking to clamp down on offshore tax havens. The offshore money funded the campaigns. Guess when the new regulations come in? Yep 2019

Then you’ve got Rees Mogg and his hedge fund buddies waiting to clean up when the pound plummets and businesses fail.

 

Shouldn't have much impact here. The UK sites at Broughton and Filton in Bristol design and manufacture the wings and landing gear for all Airbus planes. Apart from the A380, they have a healthy order book. A close family member works there and has said they have had no brexit talks or worries. As always, time will tell based on what happens when.

 

Voters see through charade!' Bill Cash in FURIOUS attack on May's no deal Brexit U-TURN
BREXITEER MP Sir Bill Cash argued voters see through the Government’s “smoke and mirrors” and claimed the UK has now “entered the world of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth”, in response to Theresa May tabling a Brexit motion to remove the threat of no deal from the negotiation table.

 

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has called a snap election for 28 April.

The country’s third general election in less than four years was seen as an inevitability after Catalan secessionists joined rightwing parties in rejecting the socialist government’s national budget on Wednesday.

“Between doing nothing and continuing without the budget and calling on Spaniards to have their say, I choose the second. Spain needs to keep advancing, progressing with tolerance, respect, moderation and common sense,” Sánchez said in a televised address to the nation following a cabinet meeting.

“I have proposed to dissolve parliament and call elections for 28 April.”

 

Catalan secessionists

??

 

Sánchez’s PSOE, which holds 84 of the 350 seats in congress, relied on the support of Basque and Catalan nationalist parties to seize power from the conservative People’s party (PP) in a confidence vote last year.

But the two main Catalan pro-independence parties – the Catalan Republican Left and Catalan European Democratic party – voted with the PP and centre-right Citizens party. The budget was defeated by 191 to 158, with one abstention.

A general election had been due next year.

Sánchez wants a ballot as soon as possible to mobilise left-leaning voters against the threat of the right coming to power.

The socialists are ahead in opinion polls – which show them on about 30% of voting intentions – but the two main right-of-centre parties together poll at more than 30%. In Spain’s most populous region of Andalucía, they unseated the socialists last year with the help of the far-right party Vox.

 

RBS warns of Brexit harm as profits double
Royal Bank of Scotland has reported profits of £1.62bn for 2018, more than double the £752m it made a year earlier.

RBS chief Ross McEwan called the results "a good performance in the face of economic and political uncertainty".

Mr McEwan said the UK economy faced "a heightened level of uncertainty related to ongoing Brexit negotiations".

He told the BBC that Brexit could have a bigger impact on the economy than the Bank of England has suggested.

Mr McEwan said: "Larger corporations are pausing on their investments. And this cannot be good for the economy long-term because those large corporations then employ smaller businesses and individuals.

"If this goes on for a long period of time we're going to see the economy slowing down more than the Bank of England suggested.

"We have a very small period of time left until the end of March and it's time that our politicians got to the conclusion so that we can get some certainty going forward."

He said that 2018 saw benign economic conditions continue, with low defaults by customers on their loans.

But the bank's statement noted the potential impact of "ongoing political uncertainties and geopolitical tensions" which could affect its customers, and, as a result, defaults were expected to increase this year.

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The bank was rescued by the government in 2008 in the aftermath of the financial crisis at a cost of £45bn and it still owns 62% of the company.

In October, RBS paid its first dividend to shareholders since its bailout. In its latest results, the bank announced a final dividend of 3.5p per share, and also a 7.5p special dividend, which means the Treasury is set to receive £977m.

While the government is still RBS's main shareholder, it also has about 190,000 private investors.

The government has been selling off blocks of shares it owns in the bank, and aims to have sold all of its stake by 2024.

But it realises a loss every time it does this as it paid 502p a share and they have not yet returned to that level. RBS shares are currently trading at about 240p.

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A different bank?
Analysis: Rob Young, BBC business correspondent

After RBS's near-death experience a decade ago, this looks like a very different bank. It's a lot smaller, having sold off large chunks. It also seems to have largely dealt with the financial consequences of its past bad behaviour.

RBS hasn't had to set aside more cash to pay for PPI compensation this year. The boss of RBS, Ross McEwan, says the bank is pretty much fixed.

That doesn't mean taxpayers are about to get all of their £45bn bailout cheque paid back. Despite the bank's rising profits, we'll probably still own part of it for a few more years yet. And even when we no longer have a stake in RBS, few expect the Treasury to break even.

There's also the chance that political events could knock plans to sell off the public stake. The bank is warning of the economic consequences of a no deal Brexit.

Mr McEwan says a deal needs to be done by the end of March. If not, he says the economy would take a hit. That could mean a rise in bad loans for the bank. That wouldn't be good for RBS's recovery.

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RBS has continued with its plan to shrink itself. Its assets, which in banking largely means its outstanding loans, shrank from £738.1bn to £694.2bn.

Before the financial crisis, it was briefly the largest bank in the world by assets.

The bank said the switch from physical to digital services was continuing to grow rapidly with 6.4 million customers now regularly using its mobile app, a 16% rise from 2017.

But it gave a severe assessment of the risks presented by cyberattacks.

It said such attacks were increasing in frequency, sophistication, impact and severity.

Competition in the mortgage market meant profit margins remained thin, it said.

Its net interest margin - the difference between what it pays for deposits and what it charges for loans, and a key measure of a bank's ability to make money - shrank to 1.98% from 2.13%.

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Customers are not so happy
Analysis: Kevin Peachey, BBC personal finance reporter

Profits may have doubled, but there is little to cheer for RBS in the latest official customer satisfaction rankings.

The Royal Bank of Scotland brand was the bottom of 16 banks for overall service quality for personal customers in Britain, and 13th out of 14 for satisfaction among small business account holders.

Stablemate NatWest, also part of the RBS group, was in the bottom half of both league tables.

The rankings are drawn from the views of 16,000 people (1,000 from each bank) and nearly 20,000 small businesses asked how likely they would be to recommend their personal current account provider to friends and family. Fewer than half (47%) of Royal Bank of Scotland personal current account customers said they would recommend the bank.

The results are revealed by the Competition and Markets Authority every six months, with the latest published on Friday.

The aim is to encourage competition between banks on customer service. Metro Bank topped the league for personal customers and Handelsbanken was ranked the best by small businesses.

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Been like this at my pharmacy for last 5 years. A friend is also head buyer at a regional pharmacy, no panic from him. Just excessive demand on genetics he says has been a European issue for 5 years.

 

isn't the issue/cost of most drugs down to money?

seen a thing in paper lately about a drug that an american company is trying to take the piss out the nhs charging them for.

 

The big pharmas try and take the piss with drug prices. Their excuse as to the cost of certain drugs is that the costs of development need to be factored into drugs that are niche and thus have small production volumes. However, many drugs are developed with the aid of private funds raised by charities etc, and also in conjunction with University research and resources. Unfortunately both of these sectors aren’t currently savvy enough to ensure that they take a share of the intellectual property rights of new advancements and the pharmas reap the benefits.

 

there's a balance between wanton greed and speed to develop.

if we nationalised or whatever drug development we would probably make.nothing.

the corporate greed in the USA especially however is disgusting and one must question some of the products that are making billions.

the issue is that new drugs are complex molecules designed to be produced as products from cells.

in many ways if you can genetically match a solution to a person's problem it should be simple to make a person sized batch but... the tech to develop the solution to the problem is still in its infancy relatively.

gene splicing and such are utterly astounding but are nowhere near the levels they could get to.

the ultimate is not a 10 year development cycle and massive billion poi d plant to produce a drug.

the ultimate is diagnosis, development and protein snythises within as short time.

a met a guy who works I the field and he explained to me it's not a question of can we cure cancer... it's can we afford the cure.

 

"met a guy who works I the field and he explained to me it's not a question of can we cure cancer... it's can we afford the cure."

that is wrong on so many levels, but when we live in a world where the rich want more and more and you see homeless or families struggling to feed their kids not surprising, and mp's think they deserve a ****ing pay rise!!!!!!!!!!!

one thing we can all agree on though, its a seriously ****ed up world we live in!!!

 

yes.

it's.a simple matter.

if you are a cash cow to the capitalist consumer world then the system.does a calculation are you worth it.

do you have the insurance?

is it worth developing a cure for a rare condition, will is pay off?

Is it value for.money to provide this drug or do you just not (nhs)

 

so.

as UK prepares for.life after brexit finally some.diplomats were hard at work talk8ng with China.

until a moronic defence minister says he's all for the mighty but relatively tiny new aircraft.carrier he's got is something he'd love to send to pacific to "extend UK influence"

and so China call off talks.

you couldn't make it up eh?

****ing retarded days of empire gobshite

 

#thatwentwell

 

seriously.... you are negotiating the needed deals.post brexit and you get a loose cannon as UK defence minister

 

don't think people thought or factored that in when voting on brexit lol, was always going to be an issue of whatever retarded government was in power doing the deals.

 

At least non-Tory politicians aren't actively betting against the UK to make millions from the chaos

 

They spend millions/billion so can charge high prices before they have to make it a generic.

Without ‘big pharma’ we would be in a **** state. You think a cancer charity that funded a drug wouldn’t get its share or university wouldn’t either. ...?

 

What chaos. Will still be the same boarder controls come April. Europe and the UK won’t just shut.

Mark Carney shouldn’t even be a school ****ing governor.