Lloyds Banking Share Discussion Threads

[xxxxxy] 11/12/2020 07:01

Brexit UK now two steps closer to joining trade bloc to overtake EUThe great Brexit trade news just keeps on coming?© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2020Globe-trotting Trade Sec Truss secures two more significant post-Brexit dealsBrexit Britain just can't stop coming out with great trade news. Another £23 billion of trade with Singapore and Vietnam – sorted. Fresh on the heels of our report on Wednesday showing that the UK now has trading arrangements in place with more than 100 countries, the Secretary of State for the Dept for International Trade announced yesterday that she has signed a trade deal with Singapore and today she will be signing with Vietnam.Here is what International Trade Secretary, Liz Truss, had to say:"Both these agreements are vital for the UK's future as an independent trading nation. Not only do they lock in billions of pounds worth of trade, they also pave the way for new digital partnerships and joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This will play to the UK's strengths, as we become a hub for tech and digital trade with influence far beyond our shores, defining our role in the world for decades to come.?"This is an important part of our vision for a Global Britain that sits at the centre of a network of deals with dynamic nations across Asia Pacific and the Americas as a global hub for services and technology trade."- Liz Truss, UK International Trade Secretary, Singapore, 10 Dec 2020On the road to joining the most populous trading bloc in the WorldThe agreements with Singapore and Vietnam mark another step towards the UK joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Both countries are members and both have said publicly that we would like the UK to join. This trading bloc already has 14% more consumers than the EU.BREXIT FACTS4EU.ORG SUMMARYThe CPTPP compared to the EU27The population of the CPTPP countries is 508 millionThe population of the EU27 is 445 millionWhen the UK joins the CPTPP, the combined population will rise to 575 millionThat will be 29% more than that of the EU27?© Brexit Facts4EU.Org - click to enlargeWhat is the CPTPP?The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a free trade agreement between 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Seven of these countries are already parties to the agreement, with the others going through domestic ratification processes.Brexit Facts4EU.Org analysed the economic opportunity for the United Kingdom. Our research shows :-The 11 current signatories accounted for 12.9% of global GDP in 2019This would rise to 16.2% if the UK were to joinIf South Korea joins, the CPTPP would have 18.0% of global GDPThe EU27's share is 17.9% and fallingAs can be seen above, if the UK joins, the CPTPP will be snapping at the heels of the EU in terms of share of the global economy. A key factor to bear in mind is that many of the countries in the CPTPP have much higher growth rates than the EU27. In addition, several more countries are in the wings.The United Kingdom formally declared its interest in 2018, and this has already been welcomed by several members. The other countries which have made formal announcements include China, Colombia, Indonesia, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. If the UK and, say, South Korea joined, the CPTTP's combined economies would exceed those of the EU27.What's the current state of play for Brexit Britain's trading relationships?"In under two years we have agreed trade deals with 57 countries that account for £193bn of UK bilateral trade. This is unprecedented. No other country has ever negotiated so many trade deals simultaneously. The Government's ambition is to secure free trade agreements with countries that cover 80% of UK trade within three years."- Department for International Trade, 10 Dec 2020For more details see our article on Wednesday here.OBSERVATIONSThese two trade deals with Singapore and Vietnam are yet another blow to Remainers who for years have been talking down their own country.This latest news brings the number of UK trade deals to 57. Toghether with the continuation of trade arrangements with another 47 developing countries, this brings the overall tally of countries with whom trading arrangements are in place to 104.The persistent narrative from the Remain establishment over the last few years has been that somehow no-one would want to trade with the world's fifth-largest economy. Well, not only have countries around the world been lining up, a great number have been putting their signatures on official agreements.It is perfectly true that many of these deals roll over existing arrangements, but they also have improvements which are aligned to the UK's economic interests. And significantly these latest two deals make the accession of the UK to the Trans-Pacific trading bloc even more likely, as both the signatories are also members of that club.And Boris?Today we have nothing to add to the media speculation about the state of play in the UK-EU trade talks. Tomorrow we hope to publish a summary of where we are with the EU and what we believe needs to be done.In the meantime we thought we should report on yet more good news for Brexit Britain.[ Sources: UK Department for International Trade | CPTPP Commission | UN population data | IMF GDP data ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Fri 11 Dec 2020

[xxxxxy] 11/12/2020 06:58

Remain economic forecasts left in shredsBy JOHNREDWOOD | Published: DECEMBER 11, 2020The Treasury and other pro Remain economic institutions told us before the vote that if we voted to leave the following would happen. There would be a big loss of jobs. House prices would tumble. There would be a large loss of output. The pound would fall. This would happen as a result of the vote – they did not say it would only happen after we had left. When their forecasts proved to be wildly wrong., they then shifted their ground and said some of these same effects on a smaller scale would happen after we have left.So what did happen and what will happen next year?Employment surged from 2016 to early 2020, with employment rising from 74% to 76.5% of the potential workforce, with continuing inward migration increasing the size of the workforce at the same time. The CV 19 hit still leaves it higher than in 2016 prior to the vote.House prices continued to rise in cash terms throughout the period post the vote.GPD growth remained satisfactory from mid 2016 until the CV 19 disaster this yearThe pound fell from $1.42 to $1.31 shortly after the vote, but went back up to $1.42 by April 2018. It has fluctuated since and is currently at $1.33.What will happen after we have left the single market and customs union?According to official forecasts from forecasters known for their belief in the advantages of the single market, the UK economy will experience the sharpest rate of improvement in 2021 it has seen for decades. The CBI thinks we will grow a lively 6% in 2021 and a further 5.2% in 2022. Oxford Economics thinks we will grow by more than 10% next year and outgrow other European economies and the USA by a large margin.So our first year as an independent nation will likely see a great growth rate, contrary to expectations. Of course the pandemic has a lot to do with this, but it just shows how wrong the pessimistic forecasts of the Remain forecasters proved to be. They themselves are now forecasting a much better outcome in 2021.

[k38] 11/12/2020 02:58

FDA YET TO DECIDE WHETHER TO APPROVE PFIZER BIONTECH VACCINECOMES AFTER SIX DIE IN PFIZER VACCINE TRIALS, FOUR HAD PLACEBO.andUK WARNS PEOPLE WITH ALLERGIES AGAINST USING PFIZER JAB

[huffy44] 11/12/2020 00:27

The Oven ready deal I believe only referred to the Withdrawal Agreement not the Trade agreements that are being discussed now.

The Australia trade deal is just WTO terms Is it not? I feel the change of wording comes down to the fact it is better now to say we are going for an Australian trade agreement rather than say NO Deal. So I think that is why it was referred to being just semantics when questioned on it.

No Deal was all but done Wednesday night I feel. So we are likely heading for Australian style or if the EU want to horse trade on the fishing and are prepared to drop their controlling demands we may just get Canadian, that’s the best we can hope for I feel.

[k38] 10/12/2020 23:54

I've heard that Boris has given them a Christmas pudding to share and a card wishing them "happy new year"



Now that was nice, after all these billions they spend on us, or was the other way round.....don't you agree?

[maxk] 10/12/2020 23:27

Our time in the EU was a calamity for Britain and a disaster for Europe

As de Gaulle recognised, it would have been better for everyone if we had never joined the European Union



ALLISTER HEATH
9 December 2020 • 9:30pm
Allister Heath




Charles de Gaulle was right: Britain should never have joined the EU. Thanks to his turbulent years at Four Carlton Gardens, he understood us better than our own establishment ever did.

We stood apart, a free-trading, Atlanticist and global island with a very different conception of Europe’s future. We were never going to fit into the Jean Monnet model of EU state-building or even his own more nation-centric version, De Gaulle argued when he gloriously vetoed our application twice during the Sixties. And so it turned out. Our approach was exactly what Brussels was seeking to stamp out.

Why didn’t we listen? Why did we waste 47 frustrating years as ambivalent members? To future generations, the opportunity cost will look staggering. If anything, Le Général underestimated how hard it would be for the UK to become European: he thought we would have to undergo a fundamental transformation of our economics and politics. He assumed we would never try; but in fact our political classes, declinists desperate for a post-imperial outlet, did their best, trashing our political system and the democratic compact between people and government. In the end, even that wasn’t enough.

The reality is that the EU has never been about genuinely free trade: it has always been about the construction of a new state, supposedly to avoid war. That meant bringing down internal borders and harmonising, while erecting a Zollverein. The British couldn’t understand this: whereas we saw a liberalising and pro-competition programme, it was actually an attempt at using internal commerce as a vehicle for a political project.

To use Hayek’s terminology, the vision was constructivist. One assumption was that trade was a top-down exercise, permitted and promoted by bureaucrats, rather than a spontaneous, truly international process. Another was that whoever controlled money was the true sovereign, and therefore that the EU should have its own currency.


We will never fully recover from our long, debilitating membership of the EU. Historians have a term for this: it’s called “path dependence” or “branching histories”. The past matters and changes us irrevocably.

It’s not just that our destiny would have been radically different had we never joined or had we left in the Eighties: all important periods in our history leave an indelible mark. We still drive on Roman roads, and Londinium remains our capital; post-Brexit, we will continue to use kg and cm. Just as critically, every important period of history has only ever ended at great cost. Did Eurosceptics fully grasp the costs of disengagement from the EU? No. Do we still believe that Brexit is the way forward regardless? Absolutely.

On economics, Neil Kinnock had the last laugh. We have absorbed swathes of the European social-democratic model, not least high minimum wages: the Vote Leave agenda was very different to the Bruges one outlined by Margaret Thatcher in 1988.

In one of the most powerful speeches of the 20th century, she argued that “we have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level, with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels”. Yet we are now leaving, and the size of the state is unlikely to shrink, even if competitive pressures will, in time, incentivise a pro‑growth supply-side agenda. The EU’s protectionism towards any economy it doesn’t control – rationalised as “defending the integrity of the single market” by inane “trade experts” – is forcing us to hire customs agents.

The precious common law heritage that helped ensure the rise of freedom and the blossoming of the Industrial Revolution has been permanently impaired. Yes, the Government will roll back the European Court of Human Rights (a non-EU institution) and other excesses, but decades of membership of the EU’s legal order have changed the legal profession. Britain as a whole has become blander, less unique and less eccentric, our approach more Cartesian and rationalistic.

EU membership has also accelerated the decline of Scottish and Northern Irish unionism. Yet while the end of the UK would be a high price to pay for regaining our self-government, Brexit would really just be a casus belli, rather than the primary driver of any rupture.

Some of the permanent changes from our time in the EU were hugely positive, of course: we will benefit enormously from the millions of hard-working Europeans who have made Britain their home. The City was turbocharged after the euro launched in 1999, and its dominant position will now be very hard to undermine.

But it’s not just that we should never have joined: the EU should have kept us out for its own good. Yes, in the short term it benefited from having us. We handed over billions in transfers. Its mercantilists saw us as a captive market. Its ideologues believed our membership proved Europe was the EU, the legitimate continent-wide hegemon, the successor to a great civilisation. This fooled them into thinking they could expand without dilution, absorbing Eastern Europe.

That fatal conceit means that the EU project is now in crisis. The acquis is no longer guaranteed, at least when it comes to territory. More countries would have to leave before full centralisation (one way of making the euro viable) is possible, but that is anathema to Brussels.

UK membership also served as a crutch for the EU. We were a bridge to America, a decentralising influence, a reformist force, especially in trade in services and agriculture. Some countries used to hide behind us, knowing we would defend markets and national interests. All of that is gone, and yet the EU has refused to adjust. It will become more socialist and anti-innovation, accelerating its decline. There will no longer be any counterweight to the Franco‑German axis. Brussels remains infantilised geopolitically, dependent on US subsidies to Nato, sucking up to Russia, China and Iran.

Brexit will be a positive shock for Britain, jolting the country out of its stupor; but it has left the EU reeling with disbelief, its central convictions overturned, its certainties blown to smithereens. Like all bureaucratic dinosaurs, it cannot adapt, even to an extinction-level event. Why didn’t it listen to de Gaulle?

[crazi] 10/12/2020 23:10

That full article sounds to me like:

* You can pay out a reduced dividend for 2020 (decent news)
* But 2021 dividends are frozen again until we say otherwise (another half year at least of Investors not knowing WTF)

[jl5006] 10/12/2020 23:02

What have we got as our Govt?
Absolutely nout
Sad eh?

[minerve 2] 10/12/2020 22:54

Global Britain seems to be drawing a surprising amount of inspiration from North Korea’s closed economy in its rhetoric. Given that English grit these days doesn’t cope well with KFC running out of chicken for a few days this is a very bold move.

[edward hopper] 10/12/2020 22:50

Very exciting dividend news this evening particularly considering February isn't very far away.

[alphorn] 10/12/2020 22:50

Apparently today Boris was describing to the cabinet that the level playing field issue was like buying expensive handbags. He makes some of the posters on here seem like Nobel prize winners.

[crazi] 10/12/2020 22:46

The Dividend update from the PRA

2021 Dividend... does this mean what I think it means...ie. The Divi's are actually still frozen for 2021 as banks can't actually pay them out yet????





Returning to standard capital-setting and distributions processes through 2021:


In the meantime, for 2021 dividends the PRA is content for appropriately prudent dividends to be accrued but not paid out and aims to provide a further update ahead of the 2021 half-year results of large UK banks.

[minerve 2] 10/12/2020 22:42

The coward can’t even say “No Deal”.

He promised an “oven ready deal”.

The GE was won on this premise, most likely.

He should call a referendum and resign.

[alphorn] 10/12/2020 22:30

Rather obvious - he does not want to be remembered as the guy who screwed the country. I did my best guv to get a deal.

[stonedyou] 10/12/2020 22:23

Boris Johnson warns there is now a 'strong possibility' of a No Deal Brexit as he steps up preparations for a chaotic split from the EU but insists he is willing to 'go the extra mile' to strike a last minute accord


Boris Johnson warned tonight there is a 'strong possibility' of the UK and the EU failing to strike a trade deal.

He said the UK is now stepping up its no deal Brexit preparations as he said the EU's offer is unacceptable.

But he insisted he is willing to 'go the extra mile' to break the negotiating deadlock with trips to EU capitals.

Comes after Mr Johnson met Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels last night but failed to secure breakthrough.

Ms von der Leyen today published EU's contingency plans but immediately faced a backlash from Brexiteers..


Boris Johnson has warned there is now a 'strong possibility' of the UK and the EU parting ways on December 31 without a trade deal in place.

The Prime Minister said this evening he is stepping up British preparations for a chaotic split from Brussels at the end of the 'standstill' post-Brexit transition period.

Mr Johnson said the 'deal on the table is really not at the moment right for the UK' and 'we're really not there yet at all' on the crunch issue of fishing rights.

However, the premier vowed to 'keep going' and to 'go the extra mile' to try to break the negotiating deadlock as he raised the prospect of a whistle stop tour of EU capitals in the coming days to get a deal over the line.

Mr Johnson said he is willing to 'go to Brussels, I will go to Paris, I will go to Berlin, I will go to wherever to try and get this home and get a deal'.

But with time running out before the end of the transition period, Mr Johnson said now is the time to ramp up no deal preparations.

'We're not stopping talks, we'll continue to negotiate but looking at where we are I do think it's vital that everyone now gets ready for that Australian option,' he said.

The Government has long-described a no deal departure as the UK having an 'Australia-style' relationship with the EU because the country has no trade agreement with the bloc.

[cardinal3] 10/12/2020 21:54

The Irish are panicking over no deal so assume nothing yet. I did vote remain but accept where we are and also fully understand where Boris is coming from tonight. It cannot be right that another state/organisation tells us what laws to impose in our country.

[poikka] 10/12/2020 21:37

It just gets dafter and dafter, although I'm sure that two certain (or should that be uncertain) individuals would ok it.