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Also worth noting, the vessel involved today spends most of its working life at the Port of Ramsgate. The pontoon system and service infrastructure of which was recently redeveloped with a grant from the European Fisheries Fund.

It's certainly not guaranteed by its existence. I don't think anybody would claim such a silly thing. But it comes off a bit like somebody loudly shouting that having a supporting wall isn't a guarantee that a house won't fall down, over the noise of them smashing it with a sledgehammer.

They couldn't give the smallest toss who we speak to during that time. The Commission know full well that we won't be able to agree anything with anybody until the full details of our future relationship with the EU are known. Until it's agreed how and to what extent we are going to diverge then we have nothing to put on the table. When DFDS Fox sits down with his American / Chinese / Nigerian counterparts, what can he negotiate over? They say (for example) "are you going to relax your agricultural standards to open your market up for us?", we say "dunno, maybe, it all sort of depends". As you suggest, it's nice to let the other side think they've got a win. Particularly when it doesn't actually change anything.

Seems pretty good on balance. Nothing changes at all and near-complete capitulation on everything that the EU said we would have to capitulate on. Probably would have been cheaper and more sensible to not throw away all of our input on the laws that we will be obeying, but on the bright side, at least it'll feel like we never left in the first place. Well played.

In the run-up to the referendum, somebody had an uncharacteristically prescient thought about what a decision to run away might mean: "There is the Putin factor: we don't want to do anything to encourage more shirtless swaggering from the Russian leader, not in the Middle East, not anywhere" (the other Telegraph article when he decided to roll his dice and ended up with snake eyes)

Dunno what you mean. Gavin Williamson's "Russia should go away, it should shut up" is some pretty statesmanlike oratory. Sorry, my mistake. It's the sort of thing that would be embarrassing for a six year, complaining that her brother had pulled her hair to say.

I prefer the mission statement "the undefined being negotiated by the unprepared to deliver the unspecified for the uninformed"

Yes, if your aim is to keep yourself hidden and avoid suspicion falling upon you. If your aim is to put a big flag on who you are and what you are doing, while still just about retaining enough plausible deniability, it's an ideal way to do it.

So basically...

Apparently this is still a thing, in and amongst all the James Bond stuff. EU Parliament have voted that the future relationship should be a bog-standard free-trade arrangement, with Northern Ireland (at a minimum) remaining harmonised with the Single Market and Custom's Union in the absence of any other acceptable solution (which a BSFTA doesn't even come close to). Nine days until the European Council meeting where this is either punted into the weeds indefinitely or goes properly nuclear. At least there's nothing else going on right now to distract attention...

We get nearly half from our own sources (mainly the North Sea). Most of the rest comes from pipelines from Europe. However around a third of the gas used in mainland Europe comes from Russia. So "do we get our gas from Russia?", is basically yes, no and sort of.

In every sense of the word.

Those Britain First bellends have been jailed. Not for long, but still jailed. (Not 100% in keeping with the thread subject, but they're only a slightly different shade of faecal brown to the subject party)

Nah. It would have just been another thing for pernicious little toads like Johnson and Hannan to add to their list of false scaremongering claims. "Just because we're leaving the EU, doesn't mean our place in the Single Market / existing trade agreements / passporting of financial services / rights of UK citizens abroad / Irish relations / European roaming / etc / is under threat. Why would our neighbours want it to change?" Sadly believed and lapped up by people who should really should know better. Coming soon to a ranty moron near you : "them EU types, punishing us patriotic Brits wanting to leave by taking our roaming away. Just shows how right we were..."

Yet you still want to own, and want anybody else to own enough military hardware (based on that reprehensible "look at my new weapon" thread) to take over a small country. Forgive me for saying that your "but it's not supposed to be like this" comes across as a little trite.

Quite. The rebuttal is invariably "we'll just regulate ourselves and make sure that everything is up scratch, which means we'll be fine". Which sees the point sail quite far over their heads.

But then it's hard to carry out a really stupid idea without looking really stupid. Those in charge are doing the worst job imaginable, and the next lot in line have shown nothing to suggest they even understand why the current lot are ballsing it up. But there's no path to take which solves all these problems which they just didn't know about. If you ask someone to build a house out of balloon animals, then however good they are they're still probably going end up doing a pretty shoddy job.

"In my speech in Florence, I set out why the existing models for economic partnership either do not deliver the ambition we need or impose unsustainable constraints on our democracy. For example, the Norway model, where we would stay in the single market, would mean having to implement new EU legislation automatically and in its entirety - and would also mean continued free movement. Others have suggested we negotiate a free trade agreement similar to that which Canada has recently negotiated with the EU - or trade on World Trade Organisation terms. But these options would mean a significant reduction in our access to each other's markets compared to that which we currently enjoy. And this would mean customs and regulatory checks at the border that would damage the integrated supply chains that our industries depend on and be inconsistent with the commitments that both we and the EU have made in respect of Northern Ireland" She says the words. It's like she's reading back the thing that someone who actually understands all this has patiently told her. So why doesn't she get it?

That any deal must respect the referendum result That any deal must not break down That any deal must protect jobs and security That any deal must be "consistent with the kind of country we want to be" - modern, outward-looking and tolerant That any agreement must bring the country together There's that detail and clarity we've been looking for. What an embarrassment.

The same way you fight for any political change. The same way the hateful arseholes fought for so long for this to be where we now find ourselves. Fortunately, it won't take us forty years given the hilarious pig's breakfast they are making of their "prize". The mess that they are making is going to be the best advert for scrapping the whole charade.

Why turn and run while a bunch of horrendous gargoyles ruin your country? Why not fight for what's right?

We still are being told that now. Often by the same people who said that it wouldn't be difficult at all.

That's quite possibly the most facile, dopey argument imaginable.

There probably are lots of bankers in Brussels, but not in the context he is referring to. There is also the European Central Bank, the Eurozone's version of the Bank of England. But that's in Frankfurt.

"Their own Government" put them in that position in the first place. There are plenty of people to blame for the state of Greece, the EU included. But they probably don't even get a podium finish. Out of curiosity, what would you have done differently if you were in the position of the Commission and the ECB?