L00b

If they voted Remain and Conservative, it’s still their own fault.

The point is: ‘sympathy’ is neither here nor there, this is merely another unavoidable consequence of the form of Brexit pursued by recent British governments.

With a side helping of irony: the U.K. contributed to and approved this EU visa waiver scheme for third country nationals whilst still an EU member state at the time (2016 lol!)

7 minutes ago, RollingJ said:

Curious - how many people actually have an applicable 'criminal record' - unless of course, the EU or constituent countries decide to trawl back 30 years, which will be pointless as most spent convictions are wiped from your records after so long, anyway?

Devil likely to be in the details, as always.

[edit: here goes, https://etias.com/articles/applying-for-etias-with-a-criminal-record. 10 years for crim conviction; 20 years for terrorist conviction; ‘variable geometry’ application (some EU countries still entitled to refuse entry notwithstanding ETIAS)]

Like this detail (unrelated to criminal conviction, but most bothersome for -no doubt- many British residents):

Starting in 2024, it will be a requirement to be a full British citizen before applying for an ETIAS, so travellers holding a passport or travel document with a different status such as a British subject, British overseas citizen or British protected person will be required to apply for a full Schengen visitor visa, and not an ETIAS.

1 hour ago, Annie Bynnol said:

(…)It is also probable that rules will change with certain countrie pushing  for much tougher requirements from UK with spent criminal, drug, fraud, abuse and violent histories being declared. The UK thresholds are seen as being far too weak.

This consequence, rather than the fee, is likely to provide the biggest upset for many UK travellers, with a criminal conviction long in their past but still on their record and motivating a refusal. No more travelling to the EU for them.

3 minutes ago, fools said:

tell us a joke

Who the **** are you again?🥱

10 minutes ago, Chekhov said:

Farage is a smokescreen, THIS IS NOT JUST ABOUT FARAGE.

In actual fact I think the story about the vicar and Yorkshire Building Society is more chilling, but even that is just a rerun of the PayPal v "Us For Them" story (and many others).

Farage made it ‘just about Farage’ with his usual victimhood snake oil, to gain a little traction in the MSM as his popularity continues to ebb away.

Look, it’s the evergreen ‘**** around, find out’ truism in action: if you don’t want to be ‘victimised’ for your bandwagon-hopping, schlock opinions, then keep them to yourself, or at any rate in a private circle, instead of shouting them to the world  for grifting. 
 

As a bank, how much extra business do you think you’d be getting, by becoming known as Putin’s or Pol Pot’s service provider? Extreme examples to illustrate the point: same difference, toxicity in public perception has a PR -and then business- cost, and banking services are a commercial commodity, not a human right. This is really not hard.

26 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

Guess the lad was unlucky then . Shooting through a windscreen and hitting your target is very difficult .

Everyone makes their own luck, tbh.
 

All rights and wrongs put aside for a moment…it’s not exactly a smart move, to be setting off and bumping a person -police officer or villain matters not- who happens to be pointing a gun at you about a foot or two away.

Poor judgement in the fist place, followed by poor judgment in the heat of the moment, and there you have it. The anger from Police is understandable (note to the hard of understanding : ‘understandable’ does not mean ‘condonable’), they are likely placed in such situations daily. 

Has posted the actual video of the incident yet? Not graphic, and adds context.
 

The car is stopped, one officer is holding the car driver at gunpoint over the windshield ahead of the A pillar, another officer is by the driver’s door, it is unclear whether he is asking the driver for the keys, or to come out, or trying to open the door. Then the car begins to speed off. Then the officer by the A pillar shoots through the windscreen.

17 minutes ago, Mister M said:

So what's his problem then?

Farage’s problem is his long, close and very public association with Aaron Banks, Donald Trump and many other very prominent PEPs, each with a non-trivial baggage of alleged links to Russian money. 
 

In banker’s talk, the habitual expression is ‘our bank has no appetite for this service’ (edit: meaning, no appetite for risks -real or estimated- associated with providing the service).

Have experienced it many times myself, beyond the example of paying legitimate costs of Russian legal service  providers that I gave earlier in the thread. E.g. as simple (and, you’d think, very straightforward) as arranging bank transfers for paying official fees (‘a tax’) to a legitimate government office in French Polynesia. And that’s Luxembourgish bank branches, you’d believe more flexible than most, after over 3 decades’ worth of happy/profitable/etc. daily banking for a double digit £m turnover local business.
 

Aside of any dodgy funds, it’s a free market, end of, and simple as. Deal with it, Nigel: you’re not so special.

8 hours ago, Organgrinder said:

You should know know full well that I meant military intervention so you insult my intelligence to think I was unaware of the weapons aid and sanctions.

I’m offended that you’re offended 🤪

8 hours ago, Organgrinder said:

(…)

I also think that you mistake the meaning of my post.  I was answering the posts which claimed that Putin is no longer a superpower.

I am a pacifist and I don't want to go to war with Russia or anyone else and have said that numerous times on the forum.

The point I am making is to answer those who seem, all of a sudden,  to think that Putin's no longer a superpower.

We know that he is breaking every rule in the book and western commentators say it regularly but the fact that we don't even consider military action shows that he is still a superpower.

(…)

I understood the meaning of your post -as it was written- perfectly well.
 

Sadly, I am not a mind reader, and so could not even begin to guess at all this additional meaning hidden behind your prose.

I also understand pacifists’ perspective on this conflict, as on all others. It doesn’t mean that I have to agree with it, however: I was against ‘Iraq 2.0’ from the start and kept to that position, the same as I was against intervention in Afghanistan based on ‘war on terror’ motives (there were much less benign, and just as effective, ways of getting at Fundies and ISIS without boots on the ground), but I am for supporting Ukraine and have been since the start because, unlike these 2 earlier examples, this is a war of aggression started by a “democratic” country for nakedly imperialist (not to say outright mafious) aims, not a political crutch for western political systems and influence.

11 hours ago, trastrick said:

So who's the "strongman" of the Western Alliance?  :)

 

Who's begging Putin and the Saudis for their Oil and Gas?

 

The so called "sanctions" against Putin is like you promising not to buy your bread from the only bakery in town 

 

Meanwhile Putin is laughing while the West is financing his war of attrition on the Ukraine.

 

Who's side are they really on?

 

What a way to run a war! 

😆

It’s quite funny to see banks becoming the next ‘woke’ thing in political debates.

Banks.

’Woke’.

🤣🤣🤣

2 hours ago, Organgrinder said:

Don't know what you mean.

The border is there and causing problems. We need a way to solve it and the only way the EU would accept ( as far as I know ) is for us to join the Customs union

It's the future of Northern Ireland that the border is ruining and there seems no apparent answer.

Sunak's tried and his deal is still not accepted by Northern Ireland.

If the public had known all this,  I'm sure that they would not have voted for Brexit in the first place.

‘not accepted by the DUP’, is what you must mean.

Which, nowadays, is a minority -borderline fringe (at the scale of the whole U.K.)- party, that regrettably still maintains some leverage due to its statutory prerogatives with/at Stormont. 

The Northern Irish public is both very happy with the Protocol (and Windsor FW), catch any local poll since the 2016 referendum result there…

….and not blind to the DUP’s crass stupidity borne from its sectarianism, as the  last elections there attest.

On 30/06/2023 at 22:39, mart said:

Wouldn't dodgy cash be kept away from banks? 

These days, only if you’re savvy enough to ask for and receive your dodgy cash in some obscure cryptocurrency.

On 01/07/2023 at 08:19, trastrick said:

(…)

 

The Washington Post still has him as "Global Strongman".

 

Matter of fact, they say he risks losing that standing with all this Wagner nonsense.

 

Putin's standing as global strongman in jeopardy after revolt

Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com › world › 2023/06/28

3 days ago — The Wagner Group mutiny has jeopardized Vladimir Putin's strongman image, jolting assumptions about his autocratic credentials and Russia's ...

 

He's obviously calling the shots in Ukraine, while the World waits breathlessly for his next move.

The WP and whoever else are free to call him a ‘strongman’…

…but it’s still him who goes begging to Jinping and Modi, not the other way around…

… and it’s his national economy that is on its @rse, not theirs, nor the West’s.

On 30/06/2023 at 19:49, Organgrinder said:

Tell that to Putin then.

Why is the  West standing by and letting him do as he pleases and making illegal war on innocent civilians.

He's had the upper hand for years and we have stood and watched him getting away with it whilst doing almost nothing.

Of course they're a Superpower or we would have intervened as is our usual custom.

 

The masses and masses of Western aid (edit: military and humanitarian and economic and interventionist (as sanctions on Russia and named Russians)) to Ukraine since April 2022 must have passed you by.

As for the ‘usual custom’…after the mess of Iraq and the much more recent ignominious end to Afghan intervention, maybe “the West” has finally learned something. Western politicians certainly have: no more body bags coming home.

Funny how this only seems to happen to populist politicians with overt -or more hidden- ties with sanctioned individuals and countries.

Marine LePen had banking services similarly withdrawn years ago. Then she turned to a Russian bank for a loan. That went well.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/le-pen-insists-crimea-is-russian/

”She also denied being aware that the Russian company had repurchased only the debt that concerned her party and not the total assets of the bank in bankruptcy”. Fancy that 😏😆

Banking problems or a gravity test through a faulty high-rise window? I know which I’d pick 😁

2 hours ago, crookesey said:

Slightly off topic, but can Russia still be classed as a world super power, I think not?

It’s been a while since Russia featured in the ‘super power’ class.

The global anchor points nowadays are China, the US and the EU (in no particular order), and India is inching up.

13 hours ago, Longcol said:

If I was Ukraine , I'd be keeping a very close eye on the northern border with Belarus just in case the tiff between Putin and Prighozin was a cover for relocating the Wagner group to a much shorter road to Kyiv.

Can’t see it. If there is/was a plan to relocate Wagner in Belarus for a fresh go at Kiev, why undermine Putin with a fake putsch and draw faction lines between Russian services? Might as well just do that relocating, quiet like.

Russian services have since taken to infighting like rats in a sack (esp FSB vs Army (Shoigu faction) currently) and the only party which this state of affairs helps, is Ukraine.

14 minutes ago, Delbow said:

My first thought was whether it might be Russian sanctions related. Especially as his other bank is Aaron Banks.

I had Russian patent applications in my care last year and earlier this year, in my previous job. After days’ worth of form-filling and countless email to’s and fro’s with the bank (BNP Paribas Lux, one of the largest), proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the money would not benefit the Russian government or military or sanctioned Russian individuals, still couldn’t arrange payment of the Russian IP firm’s fees and disbursements, for love or money. Couldn’t arrange it with with a costly in-between IP firm in Jersey that specialises in these “hard to deal with” situations and places, either. The Russian patent applications eventually lapsed (cannot expectRU agent to work for free…though they must have gone bust by now, as all other referring IP firms would be in the same boat).

Just started with the new job the other week, and one of the first tasks is to oversee the final stages of the RU office/subsidiary closure.

Banks really don’t **** around when the merest whiff of sanctioned money appears. It’s solid platinum-grade corporate risk and they’ll turf out any client exhibiting it, quicker than quick.

1 hour ago, The_DADDY said:

All you people who are gloating about our Nige's woes are witnessing the beginnings of the UK's own social credit system.

Banks closing accounts because of wrong opinions is the start of a very slippery slope.

 

The bank is allegedly Coutts. “Man of the people” and all that 😏

Irrespective, the simplest -and therefore likeliest- explanation for such a bank behaviour nowadays, is a severe AML and/or KYC due diligence issue. Typically, refusing to disclose to the bank where funds originate from.
 

Banks don’t care one bit about their clients’ political leanings, but they are terrified of being found to handle funds originating from sanctioned sources/countries like Iran, North Korea…Russia…

So, if no other bank will touch him, well… 😉

Doncaster Airport was a great opportunity, but badly marketed, and possibly badly run over time. It had a clear run at Leeds Bradford and Hull (…to say nothing of then-Sheffield airport) and could have rivalled East Midlands and Manchester for medium haul holiday charters. But low costs rejigged structure and slots in the late 10s, Flybe went away, and then Covid finished it off.

Wait until you realise what happened with Eurostar at rail privatisation time (all those years ago) and now this year after Brexit 😏

2 hours ago, Mister M said:

How Boris Johnson sold out Britain’s farmers over dinner with the Australian PM – POLITICO

 

Australia is quite literally laughing at Britain over the failures of Brexit | indy100

The taps are only just beginning to open, and the damage-limiting BS peddled by the government, MPs and the opposition is just not cutting through with the public anymore.

Vote in haste, repent at leisure.

22 minutes ago, Mr Bloke said:

I don't think anyone on here will be the least bit surprised to hear that you come from generations of loobs...

Gammons will certainly not be surprised, indeed 👍🏻

9 minutes ago, Jack Grey said:

"British slang, stereotype of a right-wing person who is seemingly always sunburned."

 

So its a racial term aimed at white people.......like Karen 👍

Heh, it’s kinder than twunt 😘

5 minutes ago, Mr Bloke said:

Hmmm...

Quoting from the Urban Dictionary?

I'm not sure you should have gone there!

 

 
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=loob

 

The difference is, my forum handle is a family nickname going back decades, and I don’t recognise myself in that UD definition, so I don’t consider myself insulted by that in the least.

Stay confused, Bloke lad 😆

1 hour ago, Slinny said:

Pl ease explain what is a gammon , By the sound off things it not just a cut off meat , I know what a toss pot is and there is plenty on here ,

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gammon

1 hour ago, Al Bundy said:

I am guessing fascist is the new buzzword?

 

Fascist and gammons though.

 

😆😆

There's nothing new about fascism. That's exactly why it is so easily recognizable.

Gammons is new enough, though, I'll give you that.

It is very apt. Both because only those who would consider themselves as such, take offence over it ; and particularly since not all gammons are fascists, in fact I'd venture that most of them aren't :  they just like the  appeal of simple 'punch down and get unicorn jam tomorrow' non-solutions, to highly-complex socio-economic problems and their consequences that few of them understand, while the fascists (well, the vested interests pushing them at the @ss, really) tighten the noose for self-interest.

You know...no differently to hard-up Germans in the early 1930s.

The last few years on this forum have been quite the eye opener, in that respect. Political talk and opinions used to be less pervasive (it finds its way in most threads nowadays, very soon at that), the bias seemed to be much more 'left' oriented (more posters, more of them left-leaning), yet the debate was less polarized and people far less accepting (never mind supporting) of ideological extremes, like that 'Rwanda plan' of the Tories (to name just one example - there are countless others). I guess there's no escaping the Overton window shift.