Brexit

It may be and has its faults but it is the best system we have, It is quite highly regulated in most modern countries and should not be blamed for the bad behaviour of some

 

I think it doesn show the bureaucracy as it took them longer to sign deals due to having to balance all the country requirements and their self interest

 

Decisions will always be quicker when you have the capability to make those decisions alone, The EU has to take in to account many countries and therefore is slower with decisions taken by committees and power brokers in the commision, Fine when you have years to make policy and make agreements but a burden when decisions have to be made quickly.

 

Isn't there? What about the fact that Holland, Germany, Italy and I think Spain were well on their way to ordering vaccines in their own group - and would have put their orders in at the same time as us - but the EU took control under their collective arrangement. They promised that would be more efficient, better value, quicker, etc, etc, but in reality slowed down the process and intrinsically caused the delay.

Isn't that a fundamental representation of the institution and how collective agreements can be slower and more cumbersome than smaller arrangements?

It's not about validating Brexit, but on the first test of how the two structures work its an interesting comparison and blows the theory that bigger negotiating power is always better out of the water.

 

A strange one for sure on the news today tonight they were saying Hungary and Poland could go with the Russian vaccine so why the wait for the AstraZenica vaccine if countries can make their own call with regards what vaccine they think is best for their country.

 

The EU don't have an agreement with the manufacturers of the Russian vaccine so the countries can make the own call on those.

The EU has a contract with AstraZeneca centrally so all the 27 have to go through that....unless you're Germany apparently.

 

Talking of Germany, a recent headline in their respected newspaper Die Ziet, when comparing the UK's vaccine response to the shambles of the EU, was ''The best advert for Brexit''. Made me smile that did

 

I don’t disagree with much of that to be honest. Of course it’s an important data point of how a large institution can be more cumbersome than an individual position, and of course bigger negotiating power is not always better.

That’s not however to say that it has to be the case, though. Would we be even better if England, Scotland, Wales and NI had been free to pursue their own vaccine acquisition? What about individual local authorities? There’s no argument that US vaccination shouldn’t be run at a federal level, for instance. There’s no intrinsic reason it shouldn’t work.

The reason the EU are in the position they’re in now is because they’ve made a complete pig’s ear of it. I don’t think any nation’s aims differed really here, they all want their citizens vaccinating as fast as possible.

 

I think that's a fair point and there's no one-size-fits-all system that is automatically correct, that's my point to an extent. It was previously made out that you had to be massive to get anywhere in the world - you only had to look at the media stories from July when the UK didn't participate, the automatic response was that the UK was going to be left behind. Even to the point that they were going to 'kill' people to preserve Brexit.

This shows that there is another way though and there's no point having enormous leverage if the people involved in it an not competent to use it.

In the end this is a good thing. The UK will have to find ways to compete with the enormous market that is the EU and the EU will have to find ways to be smoother, quicker and less beuracratic. It should improve both outlooks.

What can't happen - from either side - is that there can't be sulking and bullying when it becomes clear that the other outlook has been more fruitful.

 

Everything you say makes perfect sense to me. The EU though slow on their response got their doses cheaper than we have. As far as im aware. I think the collective bargaining works to an extent.

 

Im sure you will all be interested to know my thoughts.

Simply put the EU are acting disgracefully and have got a lot to answer for. They seem to forget the 16million EU citizens that engaged in a schizm with their fellow countrymen in order to fight for ideals which the EU has shown none of. I suspect they have lost a large degree of that support. And will do so if anyone in the UK dies as a result.

It is behaviour that a remainer would expect of Boris or Trump. However it is silly to say that this vindicates brexit as in any democratic system there are ways to reform and fight within against poor decision making.

Brexit is much larger than the vaccine issue and we still have no answers for the rest of it which is currently a shambles.

 

Did they get it cheaper? I thought AZ were doing this at cost or something like that?

 

I would hope with the worldwide pandemic cost is the last thing on any leaders mind, minute in comparison to what countries have spent with regards the virus trying to keep people in work and companies ticking over.

 

I think part of the EU issue is that the countries involed were both having the EU do a deal and negotiating their own deals on the side, the equivalent would be UK buying but Scotland dealing direct with manufacturers as well

 

Happy first anniversary to Brexit, One year old today,

 

Have we died yet?

 

have we reached the sunlit uplands?

 

No, but we can only have straight bananas in future, I just knew it would all go tits up...

 

Well I've been working in the office for the past year with no annoying people, I think I've reached that very destination.