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Alan Beattie

@alanbeattie.bsky.social

33K followers 1.4K following 7.8K posts

Opiner for Financial Times in London. Globalisation, econ, snark. RT≠👍. Views own. [email protected]. Sign up to my FT Trade Secrets newsletter https://subs.ft.com/spa3_tradesecrets?segmentId=357afa03-959c-93ed-0842-58e2115025d4.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · Jan 7

OK, it's well past time to start a thread.

Welcome to Donald Trump's trade policy. Nobody. Knows. Anything.

1/n

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 58m

Well indeed - it's the idea that the UK is likely to be blockaded by a navy that stops it importing food that's loopy.

Reposted by Alan Beattie

Tootlefish @tootlefish.bsky.social · 1h

Samuel L Jackson saying The number of people incorrectly conflating food security and food self sufficiency is too damn high.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1h

Did you come up with that? Genius if so.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1h

That's a story on the same subject as the one I copied round...I don't think the answer is for every country to try to expand their productive capacity in all types of agriculture.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1h

"Suppose there's another war!"

"Against a sea power that's going to do a naval blockade of Britain but leave all the oil pipelines untouched because that would be unsporting?"

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1h

And this, class, is why aiming at agricultural self-sufficiency rather than spreading risk across different countries through international trade is a *really stupid idea*.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1h

Infrastructure week

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 3h

It's the old gag: say what you like about Hitler, but he did do one thing that lots of other people wanted to but failed to do and which helped to usher in a new era of world peace, which was to shoot Hitler.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 7h

This is like the widespread belief in France that their voice doesn't get heard in EU policymaking.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 11h

The King’s Head on Lower Bridge Street in Chester, with some of the cool kids getting served in the weird “wine bar” Claverton (“Clavs”) across the road.

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 19h

I’d also like to bring back the grand old tradition of having one quasi-official police-designated under-age pub in every town, where the drinkers had a strong incentive to behave and the bar staff not to let them get too lairy.

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Reposted by Alan Beattie

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 20h

Worth remembering that Labour MPs sat on their hands as the British Government basically did the same to our international development ministry at around the same time - what little money is still in the "international aid" budget is overwhelmingly spent in the UK

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

i desperately want everyone involved in the destruction of USAID to have to, st the very least, answer to the american people for the suffering and misery they have caused apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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Reposted by Alan Beattie

dan sinker @dansinker.com · 21h

The direct address straight to the camera at the end of this is 100% right out of professional wrestling. Finally.

Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 23h

If you come for my people, you come through me.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

Yep, as do WTO rules. Standard element of trade.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

They aren’t normal tariffs - they’re for supposed emergencies, in this case a massive surge in imports or threat of it.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

Not all assumptions wear capes.

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

I took the "blue and gold" position, which I think was the equivalent of EFTA membership in being a middle ground that annoyed everyone.

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Reposted by Alan Beattie

Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 1d

I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter

Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

2015. COINCIDENCE? I think not.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress

The dress - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

Yes - actually "denial" wasn't the right word for me to use there but as you say, some sense of relativism regarding the Clearances etc which the leadership does a good job of not letting spread.

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

Indeed. TBF I believe the SNP leadership itself are actually perfectly sensible on the matter and clamp down on slavery denial in the party.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah IIRC Tom Devine to his credit did a big pivot and emphasised its importance to Scotland, but IIRC there's a nationalist fringe who insist Scotland was a colony, not a colonialist).

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

I'd say it's had a reasonable shot though probably not as much as Bristol. There was a debate about renaming Penny Lane of Beatles fame, some thought it was named after a slaveowner called William Penny but apparently it wasn't so the issue was dropped.

www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/internationa...

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

In a sense that's actually true, it's an international city which straddles the Irish Sea and the Atlantic, biggest single religion Catholicism. Strong pro-Remain vote in the Brexit ref also.

BTW I should clarify I love Liverpool and I'm sure would much rather have grown up there than Chester.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

Same same except a sort of plasticised canvas and foam for the mats. Still amazed no one castrated themselves on the vault. The number of Olympic-level gymnasts produced by my school has stuck consistently at nil AFAIK.

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