The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[DungBeetle]

The flip side of this is the constant red tape businesses face (and the incurring ex's which force up prices and reduce competitiveness) from EU reg's when they don't trade with the EU.  There was a smoked salmon farmer on radio five live a week or so ago saying the EU reg's he faces cost him a five figure sum being forced to reprint all his packaging to fall in line with EU reg's even though he doesn't trade outside of the UK to the EU at all.

So businesses are being forced to tell consumers what they are putting into our food, and they have to follow regulations about the size of lettering and so on. Bloody red tape.

I may be wrong but I think the situation was the guy selling salmon had to print something like "contains fish" or some such wording - he was selling salmon!

The guy had to go to the expense of re-printing all his labelling.

It was rather silly (and unnecessary if common sense prevailed).

Correct that is exactly what it was!  Contains fish!  Do me a fucking favour.  Fuck off EU.   Buy some nuts at the boozer and they have to say 'contains nuts'.  No fucking shit.  imagine running a business where you don't trade at all with the EU and being forced to set fire to a five figure sum just to put something insane like that on your new packaging and set fire to the perfectly good old packaging.

You're not getting the point. It has nothing at all to do with trading with the EU. It's about protecting UK customers, employees and other businesses.

Mint, I'm feeling playful - how does getting a guy who sells salmon to reprint his labels to say "contains fish" protect the consumer?

We've managed to sell salmon for hundreds of years and realise salmon is fish.

You have to agree, some regulations are just daft.

So you think that instead of just putting the ingredients on the pack (whether this is single or multiple ingredients) it would be a simpler process to decide - perhaps through complex testing - what the simplest consumer would be expected to know and then either put the ingredients on or not?

And you think the EC are bureaucratic?

And if putting "salmon" on a package is a significant cost to a business in the digital age, they deserve to go under as they are obviously utter mugs.

This is amazing.  Some people are so unwilling to be critical of the EU that they are actually suggesting that some consumers don't know that salmon is fish.

Take a balanced view ffs.  You can be pro EU while at the same time conceding that some of their regulations are pure idiocy implemented by politicians with no concept of small business cost pressure.

It is me who is taking the balanced view.  You seem to think that that its simpler to have a packaging regulation that say sometimes put the ingredients on and sometime don't, based on some nebulous criteria.  Your rationale for this is that there are occasions when it would seem like over-regulation, but it is actually a minor consequence of less complex regulation.

Do you think a pure smoked salmon product should be forced to put Ingredients:smoked salmon?  Same for eggs?  Milk?

It's hardly rocket science to say that one ingredient products where the single ingredient is in huge letters on the labelling doesn't need to have an ingredients list.  It's a single bullet point in a lengthy directive.  The directive had an oversight in my opinion.

While that might seem straightforward, you are making the assumption that they didn't do that due to an oversight on their part, when it is far more likely that they considered 28 countries and 28 languages and 28 different cuisines and just decided to go for the simplest - if a product contains an allergen put it on the label.

And as Nakor confirmed the cost in any case was minor for any competently run business.

Don't buy it.  If I buy nuts in Poland I assume the "contains nuts" is also in Polish so I don't see how that helps.  If I don't understand the polish word for "nuts" in capitals on the label how am I going going to understand the allergen warning?

[JohnCharver]

The flip side of this is the constant red tape businesses face (and the incurring ex's which force up prices and reduce competitiveness) from EU reg's when they don't trade with the EU.  There was a smoked salmon farmer on radio five live a week or so ago saying the EU reg's he faces cost him a five figure sum being forced to reprint all his packaging to fall in line with EU reg's even though he doesn't trade outside of the UK to the EU at all.

So businesses are being forced to tell consumers what they are putting into our food, and they have to follow regulations about the size of lettering and so on. Bloody red tape.

I may be wrong but I think the situation was the guy selling salmon had to print something like "contains fish" or some such wording - he was selling salmon!

The guy had to go to the expense of re-printing all his labelling.

It was rather silly (and unnecessary if common sense prevailed).

Correct that is exactly what it was!  Contains fish!  Do me a fucking favour.  Fuck off EU.   Buy some nuts at the boozer and they have to say 'contains nuts'.  No fucking shit.  imagine running a business where you don't trade at all with the EU and being forced to set fire to a five figure sum just to put something insane like that on your new packaging and set fire to the perfectly good old packaging.

You're not getting the point. It has nothing at all to do with trading with the EU. It's about protecting UK customers, employees and other businesses.

Mint, I'm feeling playful - how does getting a guy who sells salmon to reprint his labels to say "contains fish" protect the consumer?

We've managed to sell salmon for hundreds of years and realise salmon is fish.

You have to agree, some regulations are just daft.

So you think that instead of just putting the ingredients on the pack (whether this is single or multiple ingredients) it would be a simpler process to decide - perhaps through complex testing - what the simplest consumer would be expected to know and then either put the ingredients on or not?

And you think the EC are bureaucratic?

And if putting "salmon" on a package is a significant cost to a business in the digital age, they deserve to go under as they are obviously utter mugs.

This is amazing.  Some people are so unwilling to be critical of the EU that they are actually suggesting that some consumers don't know that salmon is fish.

Take a balanced view ffs.  You can be pro EU while at the same time conceding that some of their regulations are pure idiocy implemented by politicians with no concept of small business cost pressure.

It is me who is taking the balanced view.  You seem to think that that its simpler to have a packaging regulation that say sometimes put the ingredients on and sometime don't, based on some nebulous criteria.  Your rationale for this is that there are occasions when it would seem like over-regulation, but it is actually a minor consequence of less complex regulation.

Do you think a pure smoked salmon product should be forced to put Ingredients:smoked salmon?  Same for eggs?  Milk?

It's hardly rocket science to say that one ingredient products where the single ingredient is in huge letters on the labelling doesn't need to have an ingredients list.  It's a single bullet point in a lengthy directive.  The directive had an oversight in my opinion.

While that might seem straightforward, you are making the assumption that they didn't do that due to an oversight on their part, when it is far more likely that they considered 28 countries and 28 languages and 28 different cuisines and just decided to go for the simplest - if a product contains an allergen put it on the label.

And as Nakor confirmed the cost in any case was minor for any competently run business.

Don't buy it.  If I buy nuts in Poland I assume the "contains nuts" is also in Polish so I don't see how that helps.  If I don't understand the polish word for "nuts" in capitals on the label how am I going going to understand the allergen warning?

I know the polish word for fish but not the polish word for salmon.

[4KSuited]

The flip side of this is the constant red tape businesses face (and the incurring ex's which force up prices and reduce competitiveness) from EU reg's when they don't trade with the EU.  There was a smoked salmon farmer on radio five live a week or so ago saying the EU reg's he faces cost him a five figure sum being forced to reprint all his packaging to fall in line with EU reg's even though he doesn't trade outside of the UK to the EU at all.

So businesses are being forced to tell consumers what they are putting into our food, and they have to follow regulations about the size of lettering and so on. Bloody red tape.

I may be wrong but I think the situation was the guy selling salmon had to print something like "contains fish" or some such wording - he was selling salmon!

The guy had to go to the expense of re-printing all his labelling.

It was rather silly (and unnecessary if common sense prevailed).

Correct that is exactly what it was!  Contains fish!  Do me a fucking favour.  Fuck off EU.   Buy some nuts at the boozer and they have to say 'contains nuts'.  No fucking shit.  imagine running a business where you don't trade at all with the EU and being forced to set fire to a five figure sum just to put something insane like that on your new packaging and set fire to the perfectly good old packaging.

You're not getting the point. It has nothing at all to do with trading with the EU. It's about protecting UK customers, employees and other businesses.

Mint, I'm feeling playful - how does getting a guy who sells salmon to reprint his labels to say "contains fish" protect the consumer?

We've managed to sell salmon for hundreds of years and realise salmon is fish.

You have to agree, some regulations are just daft.

So you think that instead of just putting the ingredients on the pack (whether this is single or multiple ingredients) it would be a simpler process to decide - perhaps through complex testing - what the simplest consumer would be expected to know and then either put the ingredients on or not?

And you think the EC are bureaucratic?

And if putting "salmon" on a package is a significant cost to a business in the digital age, they deserve to go under as they are obviously utter mugs.

This is amazing.  Some people are so unwilling to be critical of the EU that they are actually suggesting that some consumers don't know that salmon is fish.

Take a balanced view ffs.  You can be pro EU while at the same time conceding that some of their regulations are pure idiocy implemented by politicians with no concept of small business cost pressure.

It is me who is taking the balanced view.  You seem to think that that its simpler to have a packaging regulation that say sometimes put the ingredients on and sometime don't, based on some nebulous criteria.  Your rationale for this is that there are occasions when it would seem like over-regulation, but it is actually a minor consequence of less complex regulation.

Do you think a pure smoked salmon product should be forced to put Ingredients:smoked salmon?  Same for eggs?  Milk?

It's hardly rocket science to say that one ingredient products where the single ingredient is in huge letters on the labelling doesn't need to have an ingredients list.  It's a single bullet point in a lengthy directive.  The directive had an oversight in my opinion.

While that might seem straightforward, you are making the assumption that they didn't do that due to an oversight on their part, when it is far more likely that they considered 28 countries and 28 languages and 28 different cuisines and just decided to go for the simplest - if a product contains an allergen put it on the label.

And as Nakor confirmed the cost in any case was minor for any competently run business.

Don't buy it.  If I buy nuts in Poland I assume the "contains nuts" is also in Polish so I don't see how that helps.  If I don't understand the polish word for "nuts" in capitals on the label how am I going going to understand the allergen warning?

I know the polish word for fish but not the polish word for salmon.

I suspect that there will be a requirement to put "contains egg" stamp on eggs pretty soon. Just in case people don't know what an egg looks like, or in case some clever marketeer has developed packaging that looks just like an egg (but they've put something else inside!!) 

[DungBeetle]

The flip side of this is the constant red tape businesses face (and the incurring ex's which force up prices and reduce competitiveness) from EU reg's when they don't trade with the EU.  There was a smoked salmon farmer on radio five live a week or so ago saying the EU reg's he faces cost him a five figure sum being forced to reprint all his packaging to fall in line with EU reg's even though he doesn't trade outside of the UK to the EU at all.

So businesses are being forced to tell consumers what they are putting into our food, and they have to follow regulations about the size of lettering and so on. Bloody red tape.

I may be wrong but I think the situation was the guy selling salmon had to print something like "contains fish" or some such wording - he was selling salmon!

The guy had to go to the expense of re-printing all his labelling.

It was rather silly (and unnecessary if common sense prevailed).

Correct that is exactly what it was!  Contains fish!  Do me a fucking favour.  Fuck off EU.   Buy some nuts at the boozer and they have to say 'contains nuts'.  No fucking shit.  imagine running a business where you don't trade at all with the EU and being forced to set fire to a five figure sum just to put something insane like that on your new packaging and set fire to the perfectly good old packaging.

You're not getting the point. It has nothing at all to do with trading with the EU. It's about protecting UK customers, employees and other businesses.

Mint, I'm feeling playful - how does getting a guy who sells salmon to reprint his labels to say "contains fish" protect the consumer?

We've managed to sell salmon for hundreds of years and realise salmon is fish.

You have to agree, some regulations are just daft.

So you think that instead of just putting the ingredients on the pack (whether this is single or multiple ingredients) it would be a simpler process to decide - perhaps through complex testing - what the simplest consumer would be expected to know and then either put the ingredients on or not?

And you think the EC are bureaucratic?

And if putting "salmon" on a package is a significant cost to a business in the digital age, they deserve to go under as they are obviously utter mugs.

This is amazing.  Some people are so unwilling to be critical of the EU that they are actually suggesting that some consumers don't know that salmon is fish.

Take a balanced view ffs.  You can be pro EU while at the same time conceding that some of their regulations are pure idiocy implemented by politicians with no concept of small business cost pressure.

It is me who is taking the balanced view.  You seem to think that that its simpler to have a packaging regulation that say sometimes put the ingredients on and sometime don't, based on some nebulous criteria.  Your rationale for this is that there are occasions when it would seem like over-regulation, but it is actually a minor consequence of less complex regulation.

Do you think a pure smoked salmon product should be forced to put Ingredients:smoked salmon?  Same for eggs?  Milk?

It's hardly rocket science to say that one ingredient products where the single ingredient is in huge letters on the labelling doesn't need to have an ingredients list.  It's a single bullet point in a lengthy directive.  The directive had an oversight in my opinion.

While that might seem straightforward, you are making the assumption that they didn't do that due to an oversight on their part, when it is far more likely that they considered 28 countries and 28 languages and 28 different cuisines and just decided to go for the simplest - if a product contains an allergen put it on the label.

And as Nakor confirmed the cost in any case was minor for any competently run business.

Don't buy it.  If I buy nuts in Poland I assume the "contains nuts" is also in Polish so I don't see how that helps.  If I don't understand the polish word for "nuts" in capitals on the label how am I going going to understand the allergen warning?

I know the polish word for fish but not the polish word for salmon.

I suspect that there will be a requirement to put "contains egg" stamp on eggs pretty soon. Just in case people don't know what an egg looks like, or in case some clever marketeer has developed packaging that looks just like an egg (but they've put something else inside!!) 

The Happy Egg company already did it a while back, much to the bemusement of the FSA who assured the Daily Mail "investigative" team that the word EGGS in capital letters on the box was sufficient!

[MintTrav]

This thread has degenerated a bit. This fish stuff is tabloid-style nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing. Hopefully, we'll get back to discussing real issues soon.

[david3103]

This thread has degenerated a bit. This fish stuff is tabloid-style nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing. Hopefully, we'll get back to discussing real issues soon.

This.

Let's talk about the UK steel industry and whether it should be possible to support it by ensuring that UK projects use 100% UK steel (subject only to a UK plant being capable of it's production).

[Woodsey]

This thread has degenerated a bit. This fish stuff is tabloid-style nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing. Hopefully, we'll get back to discussing real issues soon.

Immigration obv 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/26/net-migration-to-uk-nears-peak-fewer-britons-emigrate

I know someone that works in a food factory in Nottingham and they struggle to get regular work because Poles have moved up to management, they have the say who gets the work.....and yes they give the first work to their fellow poles before Brits. But that's racist mentioning that innit 

[JohnCharver]

This thread has degenerated a bit. This fish stuff is tabloid-style nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing. Hopefully, we'll get back to discussing real issues soon.

This.

Let's talk about the UK steel industry and whether it should be possible to support it by ensuring that UK projects use 100% UK steel (subject only to a UK plant being capable of it's production).

Government should purchase all steel at a price that allows the steel industry to continue. When they decide contracts for parasite corporations and governments they should force them to use local steel sources. Would involve cameron climbing out of his overlords pocket tho so, gg.

[JohnCharver]

This thread has degenerated a bit. This fish stuff is tabloid-style nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing. Hopefully, we'll get back to discussing real issues soon.

Immigration obv 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/26/net-migration-to-uk-nears-peak-fewer-britons-emigrate

I know someone that works in a food factory in Nottingham and they struggle to get regular work because Poles have moved up to management, they have the say who gets the work.....and yes they give the first work to their fellow poles before Brits. But that's racist mentioning that innit 

English people are lazy though, Id employ poles aswell.

[Woodsey]

This thread has degenerated a bit. This fish stuff is tabloid-style nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing. Hopefully, we'll get back to discussing real issues soon.

Immigration obv 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/26/net-migration-to-uk-nears-peak-fewer-britons-emigrate

I know someone that works in a food factory in Nottingham and they struggle to get regular work because Poles have moved up to management, they have the say who gets the work.....and yes they give the first work to their fellow poles before Brits. But that's racist mentioning that innit 

English people are lazy though, Id employ poles aswell.

That statement must make you racist lol   

[JohnCharver]

This thread has degenerated a bit. This fish stuff is tabloid-style nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing. Hopefully, we'll get back to discussing real issues soon.

Immigration obv 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/26/net-migration-to-uk-nears-peak-fewer-britons-emigrate

I know someone that works in a food factory in Nottingham and they struggle to get regular work because Poles have moved up to management, they have the say who gets the work.....and yes they give the first work to their fellow poles before Brits. But that's racist mentioning that innit 

English people are lazy though, Id employ poles aswell.

That statement must make you racist lol   

Its true tho, lets not make out the poles are dodgy when they are just simply undercutting lazy english people and working harder. The biggest crybabies over eastern europeans are tax dodging cash in hand merchants, taxidrivers, builders,mechanics etc (I can insult more people on request). Daily I see the horrors of paying an englishperson to do a minimum wage job (or not as the case is).

Shut the doors before they realise the rest of us are useless aswell imo.

[Woodsey]

This thread has degenerated a bit. This fish stuff is tabloid-style nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing. Hopefully, we'll get back to discussing real issues soon.

Immigration obv 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/26/net-migration-to-uk-nears-peak-fewer-britons-emigrate

I know someone that works in a food factory in Nottingham and they struggle to get regular work because Poles have moved up to management, they have the say who gets the work.....and yes they give the first work to their fellow poles before Brits. But that's racist mentioning that innit 

English people are lazy though, Id employ poles aswell.

That statement must make you racist lol   

Its true tho, lets not make out the poles are dodgy when they are just simply undercutting lazy english people and working harder. The biggest crybabies over eastern europeans are tax dodging cash in hand merchants, taxidrivers, builders,mechanics etc (I can insult more people on request). Daily I see the horrors of paying an englishperson to do a minimum wage job (or not as the case is).

Shut the doors before they realise the rest of us are useless aswell imo.

Not sure how you can undercut min wage factory jobs but hey ho....

[JohnCharver]

This thread has degenerated a bit. This fish stuff is tabloid-style nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing. Hopefully, we'll get back to discussing real issues soon.

Immigration obv 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/26/net-migration-to-uk-nears-peak-fewer-britons-emigrate

I know someone that works in a food factory in Nottingham and they struggle to get regular work because Poles have moved up to management, they have the say who gets the work.....and yes they give the first work to their fellow poles before Brits. But that's racist mentioning that innit 

English people are lazy though, Id employ poles aswell.

That statement must make you racist lol   

Its true tho, lets not make out the poles are dodgy when they are just simply undercutting lazy english people and working harder. The biggest crybabies over eastern europeans are tax dodging cash in hand merchants, taxidrivers, builders,mechanics etc (I can insult more people on request). Daily I see the horrors of paying an englishperson to do a minimum wage job (or not as the case is).

Shut the doors before they realise the rest of us are useless aswell imo.

Not sure how you can undercut min wage factory jobs but hey ho....

So they are stomping their feet because they cant get enough hours in a food factory at minimum wage? Oh no I cant think what to do.......

[Woodsey]

This thread has degenerated a bit. This fish stuff is tabloid-style nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing. Hopefully, we'll get back to discussing real issues soon.

Immigration obv  

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/26/net-migration-to-uk-nears-peak-fewer-britons-emigrate

I know someone that works in a food factory in Nottingham and they struggle to get regular work because Poles have moved up to management, they have the say who gets the work.....and yes they give the first work to their fellow poles before Brits. But that's racist mentioning that innit  

English people are lazy though, Id employ poles aswell.

That statement must make you racist lol    

Its true tho, lets not make out the poles are dodgy when they are just simply undercutting lazy english people and working harder. The biggest crybabies over eastern europeans are tax dodging cash in hand merchants, taxidrivers, builders,mechanics etc (I can insult more people on request). Daily I see the horrors of paying an englishperson to do a minimum wage job (or not as the case is).

Shut the doors before they realise the rest of us are useless aswell imo.

Not sure how you can undercut min wage factory jobs but hey ho....

So they are stomping their feet because they cant get enough hours in a food factory at minimum wage? Oh no I cant think what to do.......

I can, make sure Brits are first in line for work and fill the gaps left with immigrants as suits our needs.

[doubleup]

This thread has degenerated a bit. This fish stuff is tabloid-style nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing. Hopefully, we'll get back to discussing real issues soon.

This.

Let's talk about the UK steel industry and whether it should be possible to support it by ensuring that UK projects use 100% UK steel (subject only to a UK plant being capable of it's production).

imagine running a business where you don't trade at all with the EU and being forced to set fire to a seven figure sum just to keep some twats in business who can't produce steel at market rates.