Comments by "Quentin Newark" (@quentinnewark2745) on "Will the Indian variant delay Covid unlocking? - The Week in 60 Minutes | SpectatorTV" video.

The illness so awful, most people don’t know they have it. I nearly dropped my green tea when she said delay the opening up “by a few weeks”... there are a total of 3,000 people with Indian covid, about twenty in hospital, not a single death yet... we lose 20,000 a year to flu, 3,000 a year to traffic...
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@JesterEric thats quite a list of doom. Why is the pound going to collapse? No signs that us mere mortals can see, seems robustly healthy. If it doesn’t collapse, food ought to reduce in cost, so many more new sources. Nigel above isn’t writing off British agriculture, just pointing out that our lamb season doesn’t clash with the Antipodeans.
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Yes it came out as ‘effigy’, perhaps tension, simmering hysteria at the idea of having to go back to work.
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@jacksonmiked try this — https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/planet-normal/id1514949294?i=1000522434123 — about ten minutes in they itemise bed occupancy in the Indian mutant variant epicentre: the hospitals in Bolton. 500 occupied beds, 139 empty beds, a mere 24 covid patients, five in ICU (they dont itemise vaccined or not, age, existing conditions). Of the 3,000 reported cases, it would be useful to know, how many with which testing method (LFT much higher false positives), and how many had symptoms, any?
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@JesterEric as for eruptions, these seem to be going off very frequently — https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanic_eruptions_in_the_21st_century — do you mean something absolutely mammoth, like Krakatoa? (Which apparently still affects our sunsets, making them redder than they once were.)
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@JesterEric the Reichmark was not holding its own in 1922, it was backed by American loans, and when these loans ceased (as America could no longer afford them), investors would not buy RM bonds. Britain is nowhere near that. The national debt is large but not unserviceable, and many countries have expanded their debt in the panicky-demic. International investors are likely to see UK bonds as a safe bet. As long as govt can fund its bonds, we are fine. Yes the economy is services now... it was once agriculture! Things evolve. As for catastrophic eruption — yikes!!
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@liaminwales you make lots of good points. Here is NZ’s export strategy, you’ll see biggest customers are China/USA/EU not UK. The same will be true for Australia. As China gets ever wealthier, its demand for meat will grow, given its geographic proximity, China will continue to absorb pretty much all the meat Aus/NZ can deliver to it. I doubt either country has the capacity to “flood” the UK. https://beeflambnz.com/your-levies-work/trade-policy You’ll also see that they favour agreements and stability. Predictability. It is not good strategy to ruin the markets of a country you want an enduring relationship with. Our pork industry looks to be in fine health: https://ahdb.org.uk/pork-market-outlook I completely agree UK needs to produce much of our own food, and preserve ‘food security’. I don’t see why importing some food from abroad threatens that. Otherwise you are in an EU CAP situation, protectionism, preventing developing countries from developing. Look at the EU ban on processed coffee and cocoa, preserving those high-value industries within the EU (Germany is biggest coffee producer in EU and doesn’t grow a single bean). Our population seems hungry enough to eat and drink far more than domestic production alone can sustain. I think we will see far more free trade agreements, like today’s Australian deal (tariffs and limits on a taper). As for standards, fully agreed. Will this not be an issue of labelling? I (grudgingly) pay more for free-range organic chicken. My cousin only ever buys British food. British farmers with their admirable husbandry don’t need to sell to every Brit, just enough of us.
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