Lloyds Banking Share Discussion Threads

[mo123] 20/12/2020 12:38

Smarkets betting , predicting a 61% chance of an agreement even as the Brexit deadline edges closer.

[alphorn] 20/12/2020 11:42

#512. Is the most interesting post catching up. It is relevant to all countries - illegals will almost by definition be spreaders. They will need vaccinating to protect the population. A very good point.

[pal44] 20/12/2020 11:32

Wow BoJo is wounded cornered bet he agrees to a deal to show some sign of achievement deal coming up soon .. happy Christmas to all Wtf we missed Eed Diwali Honecker ...

[xxxxxy] 20/12/2020 11:09

Our drastic Covid response reflects the state's new moral duty to end deathThe modern world's responsibility to preserve every life is a resounding triumph for secularismBy JANET DALEYThis my last column of the year, it seemed an appropriate moment to try to make some sense of this. It is probably too ambitious to think that a properly considered analysis of the events might be possible. That will be the business of a later generation. But the extremity of our problem being what it is, we really must ask some pertinent questions at this point. Have we experienced the worst viral pandemic in living memory? Or just the most extreme official response to a health crisis the world has ever seen?The answer to the first question is almost certainly, no. The polio epidemics of the 1950s which killed or crippled millions of children, and the Asian flu epidemic of 1968 which took 80,000, mostly young, lives in Britain alone, are right up there in horrific competition with Covid-19. But the second question requires urgent attention because the answer to that is indubitably yes – and it is very important to know why. Rather like the traditional question that is asked at a Jewish Seder at Passover – "Why is this night different from all other nights?" – we need to ask, "Why has the response to this epidemic been different from any previous one?" One possible set of replies might come from science (or "the science" as politicians say).Perhaps our state of knowledge about how viral infections take hold and spread is considerably advanced since the last great events of this kind, so extreme governmental systems of protection and avoidance could be erected immediately to prevent what was known to be a mass threat. But is that strictly true? Certainly the ability to map the genome of this virus is recent – and has miraculously enabled the invention of an entirely new form of vaccine against it – but at the time of the earlier viral horrors of the 50s and 60s, there was a reasonable understanding of what viruses were and how they spread between human hosts. And indeed, the current global response to the Corona virus – which consists mainly of locking people up and preventing them from touching one another – is remarkably unsophisticated. The much hailed progress of modern science seemed to have nothing more helpful to suggest than the medieval idea of isolating plague households. It is important to note that "the science" had little to offer during the wait for a vaccine that could not have been proposed fifty years ago: as many people have pointed out, similar measures of social isolation could have been enacted in 1968 – but they weren't. It seemed never to occur to any leader to suggest such a thing. Why not? It is the politics – or more broadly, the social assumptions – that have changed drastically, not the scientific understanding.There has been one notable empirical fact that must be taken into account here. That is, that the overwhelming majority of people who become seriously ill from Covid are those who are elderly and/or already suffering from conditions that would be expected to shorten life. It is no secret that modern medicine, particularly in advanced countries with public healthcare systems, has devised ways of extending the ordinary life span by many years, or even decades, often by the use of a wide range of prescribed drugs designed to prevent what used to be the usual causes of death. As a consequence, most Western countries now have a much higher proportion of people over the age of 80 than ever before. I hope it is not necessary to say that I believe this to be a good thing. But could it be that the high death toll from the virus in advanced countries is a direct consequence of having kept alive so many old people who are now protected from heart and respiratory failures that would once have taken them from the scene at an earlier age? If it were not for the presence of this very large number of old people who suffer disproportionately from Covid, would we have regarded the disease as a much more minor threat – scarcely more noteworthy than ordinary flu? Our success in prolonging life may also have produced a cultural change that is pertinent to this: we appear now to believe that death and ill-health can and should be preventable indefinitely.The decline of religious belief which suggested that death gave significance to life seems to have combined with a sense that governments should be directly responsible for the permanent welfare of everyone, to produce a perfect climate for this super-response to a spreading disease. State health systems, and public reliance on them, has created a new moral order in which the success of medicine gives it a civil dominion which cannot be questioned: hence, the insensitivity and authoritarianism of medical and scientific experts who pay lip service to the idea that only elected political leaders can decide policy but clearly feel that they should be in charge even of moral priorities. So unquestionable is the medical imperative to preserve every life that arguments about the damage to the quality of other lives is brushed aside. It will probably take some time before we can fully appreciate the strangeness of this conclusion, even though it is much more on the minds of ordinary people than they would ever be likely to admit to an opinion pollster. Maybe some future historian will decide that this was the inevitable triumph of secularism.There are some rather more mundane factors that must come into the reckoning. Social isolation isn't what it used to be. Most of the world now has access to digital communications which mean that you are not cut off from the world when you are imprisoned at home. Perhaps the answer to the question, why have we never done this before, is simply that it has never been possible before. A quite extraordinary amount of economic and social activity has been maintained throughout even the most severe lockdowns. What was deliberately, and quite carelessly, sacrificed was the dimension of human experience which gives meaning and value to private life. That was unquantifiable, and so apparently it did not count. It may never be possible to calculate the full extent of the damage. This has been a social experiment like no other. It should never, ever be repeated... Daily Telegraph

[xxxxxy] 20/12/2020 11:08

Pierre Sauvon 20 Dec 2020 10:46AMThe deadline "looms" like a cloud driven by the wind in any direction the wind chooses.There are no deadlines.It is simply who walks first.  

[maxk] 20/12/2020 10:28

Boris Johnson would regret trying to bounce Parliament into a deal

The ERG and Red Wall backbenchers are poised to ruthlessly scrutinise any last-ditch agreement


MARK FRANCOIS
19 December 2020 • 9:30pm
Mark Francois





In less than two weeks, the UK will exit the Transition Period, under the revised Withdrawal Agreement (WA), the deal by which we left the European Union on 31st January 2020. But the question remains: can we agree a further deal, or will we depart on World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms?

The PM has already been shown to be a tough negotiator. The EU assured his predecessor they would never reopen the original WA or drop the “backstop”. When Boris Johnson became PM and reopened these issues, it was the EU that blinked first and then did both. It is for such reasons that the ERG has actively supported the Prime Minister, as these tortuous negotiations have dragged on.

The reconfigured WA was accompanied by a revised Political Declaration, by which both sides undertook to negotiate a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement. Article 184 of the WA committed both parties to negotiate in good faith - but actions such as telling us a fortnight ago that the UK would only be allowed to catch around 18pc of the fish in our own territorial waters make an absolute mockery of that commitment. Similarly, threats of deliberate cross-channel trade disruption in January by the EU would leave them wide open to legal challenge, via the WTO.

However, in order to understand the EU’s behaviour, we should view the negotiations from their perspective, not just our own. For many continental politicians, their belief in “Ever Closer Union” and the eventual creation of a Federal State is an established orthodoxy, bordering on an act of religious faith. What is referred to by its disciples as “The Project” transcends all other considerations..

For ardent advocates of The Project, the British decision to shun it, is akin to heresy, for which we must be very publicly punished. This process is also fully intended pour encourager les autres, just in case politicians in Warsaw, or even Rome, might one day contemplate emulating our apostasy.

There is also the fear in EU circles that an unfettered UK, with an “Anglo Saxon economic model” (i.e. less of their endless red tape) would, not overnight but over time, outcompete them in world markets. Their dogmatic insistence on a “Level Playing Field” is simply code for hamstringing our ability to compete independently and internationally in future. For the EU, the remarkable success of Liz Truss in negotiating multiple global trade deals in under a year, is merely a harbinger of what is to come if we are ever allowed to strike out on our own.

However, simple common sense dictates, that if we accept any deal which means that when the EU issues a new Directive or Regulation, we are legally bound to follow it – whether we like it or not – then in truth, we have not really left the EU at all but merely remain in their orbit as a vassal state. So, in negotiating with the European Union we are dealing not just with a complex institution but also with a powerful collective mindset. However, the EU has met its match. David Frost has said consistently that no further agreement is possible unless the EU “internalises” the new paradigm of the UK becoming a fully independent, sovereign state. If the EU won’t acknowledge this fundamental point, Frost has stated repeatedly that no further deal can follow; a proposition with which the ERG wholeheartedly agrees.

Frost knows full well that even if he agrees a new Treaty that the European Research Group will live up to its name and go through it with a fine-tooth comb. If there is some unacceptable “poison pill” which truly undermines our sovereignty, buried deep within Article X of the voluminous text, then we will find it, to the displeasure not just of all our members but also no doubt all those new “Red Wall” Conservative backbenchers, who were elected on an unequivocal pledge to their constituents to “Get Brexit Done”. Similarly, any misguided attempt to bounce Parliament into voting for such a complex Treaty, before people have even had time to examine it properly, would go down like a lead balloon on the backbenches.

The ERG fully supports our PM and David Frost for “hanging tough”. If the EU will not accept that we are now a fully independent sovereign state then there is unlikely to be a deal anyway and we will simply trade on Australian/WTO terms instead, much as most of the world does successfully already. If there is a deal, however, the European Research Group will do exactly what is says on the tin – and thoroughly scrutinise it, against an acid test: Does it really guarantee our future sovereignty, or not? As Barnier loves to remind us, “the clock is ticking” – so let’s see what happens just before midnight.

Mark Francois a Conservative MP and Chair of the European Research Group

[bargainbob] 20/12/2020 10:19

The clock is ticking Big Ben awaits .

[xxxxxy] 20/12/2020 10:15

It comes as Mark Francois, the Chairman of the European Research Group, wrote in The Sunday Telegraph that they "fully support" the Prime Minister and Lord Frost for "hanging tough," but warned: "If the EU will not accept that we are now a fully independent sovereign state then there is unlikely to be a deal anyway and we will simply trade on Australian/WTO terms instead, much as most of the world does successfully already."If there is a deal, however, the European Research Group will do exactly what is says on the tin – and thoroughly scrutinise it, against an acid test:  Does it really guarantee our future sovereignty, or not? As Monsieur Barnier loves to remind us, 'the clock is ticking' – so let's see what happens just before midnight."... Daily Telegraph

[utrickytrees] 20/12/2020 10:14

Cant beat a bit of uphill gardening of a Sunday morning Merv, r u going to get Fritz to wear his full Liverpool kit?

[minerve 2] 20/12/2020 10:13

The pharmas I hold are bought slightly 'blind' because I don't have the abilility to accurately judge forward sales on drugs.

[xxxxxy] 20/12/2020 10:12

Sovereignty is worth much much more than any deal with the discredited EUSSR.The EUSSR never wanted an actual Deal. Just wanted us as a Treasure Island, a colony of the German Empire, now known as EU. A Fig leaf for its embarrassing past.Sovereignty means Democracy and doing things Democratically.Sovereignty is priceless. Not some afterthought, like call it sovereignty if you like.We have seen the true EU, as a vile evil EUSSR.No DealWTOLiberty

[minerve 2] 20/12/2020 10:10

Oh, just in case anyone was interested, my stock positioning is for No Deal, effectively short on the £. I don't have a single holding that is fully dependent on UK sales ATM. Serco is the closest.

AA I sold out of early having executed an event arbitrage that, once annualised, gave me a nice return.

Followed Buffett a bit and have bought 3 US pharma stocks he has. Abbvie I have held before and am quite familiar with the company. Bristol Myers Squibb I have never held although I know Buffett has several times in the past. Merk & Co is also a new holding. I also added to my holdings in Roche.

[minerve 2] 20/12/2020 10:05

ATM the moment it is raining here so hoping it will soon pass.

[minerve 2] 20/12/2020 10:04

Good Morning scruff1

No, but I watched it on BT Sport.

I actually think LFC played better against Tottenham mid-week and in the first half Crystal Palace were at least equal if not slightly edged it. You've probably seen the goals on MOTD - the finishing was excellent. For me, Firmino's 1st goal was the best, Mo's 2nd - second best.

I suspect you are watching Man U v Leeds later?

My better half wants me to tidy up the garden so I'll catch up with the results later.

[scruff1] 20/12/2020 09:57

Minnie = were you at Selhurst park yesterday? Sounds fun

[minerve 2] 20/12/2020 09:54

MM2

Has the pooch had its walk?
Has the pooch pooped this morning?

ROFLMAO!