My friend’s wife is a director of one of the Government’s favoured IT providers to HMRC

I would be surprised it makes much difference for one of the big companies. They aint exactly a fan of onshore resources in the main.

This is true. Because the civil service doesn’t pay well, and only attracts people who want a safe easy job with a short commute

How do you account for GDS? Whilst I am not a particular fan of their approach it has been fairly aggressive and innovative in user facing government services.
The problem really comes down to any major IT project. Its very hard to define requirements in a useful way and then equally hard to build something.
The difference between government and private sector large IT projects is you hear a lot more about government failures whereas the private sector only tend to appear in the specialist press or in horror stories amongst friends.

The problem really comes down to any major IT project. Its very hard to define requirements in a useful way and then equally hard to build something.

That is why the working model is so shit, because it makes it hard. And the reason you hear so much about government stories is that a) it’s our money and b) they are often for helping the vulnerable and needy e.g. NHS, DWP which means it’s more than just a company’s commercial reputation at stake.

I had not heard about GDS, but this looks like a really good idea, and something I’d been thinking about for ages. Glad to hear it seems to be having a positive effect.

Does GDS stand for gigantic data senter? It would be about right if it did.

That feel good bounce from the Vote Leave team winning a majority at the election, and getting Brexit “done”…

0.0% growth in GDP in the three months to January, with services also showing no growth. Production (including manufacturing) was down 1.0%, but construction grew 1.4% https://t.co/0v4m2jmo04 pic.twitter.com/y9pYnsHOLD

— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) March 11, 2020

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/budget-rushi-sunak-treasury-figures-brexit-dividend-a9395476.html

yep manufacturing exports had their biggest slump in 3 years thanks to Brexit, in the last quarter- BEFORE cornavirus hit

https://www.ft.com/content/392573ac-669d-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3

but the brexies will be able to blame the virus

Is it just me that’s thinking that this here Coronavirus might be a bit of a dry run for brexit?

(I don’t mean intentionally caused, rather as a model of what happens as soon as people can’t buy shithouse roll and avocados.)

Not cynical enough. Convenient way of knocking off the weak and the lame that might cost long term… 😬

Surely we’ll be getting a year extension to the status quo. I’d kind have hope the great and good have better things to think about right now.

There will not be an extension – remember the tories and their paymasters do not want a sensible deal. they want minimal or no compliance with the EU regs and do not really want a deal. This is the perfect opportunity for them to force thru “no deal”

My money is on there will have to be an extension.

I think TJ has it. No extension. The impact of the more immediate problem on trade talks and preparation for leaving the Single Market & Customs Union is not of concern to the Vote Leave team in government… they are already assuming No Deal or a light sketched out deal… and large companies and monied individuals being mostly left to sort things out for themselves… everyone else can go hang.

Kerley – “no deal” was always the aim. This crisis makes that easier.

Fascinating documentary on Cummings on tonight. Disturbing how on a number of recent political issues he seemed to guess right.

Well at least we are removing uncertainty for businesses in these troubling times.

https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1250755451974803456

That’s like removing the uncertainty of how long you have to live, by committing suicide.

Those shadowy backers were promised access to a mass sell-off of public sector services, with the guarantee of a state bailout when they ruin them whilst taking out huge dividends/salaries/bonuses and spiriting them offshore.

They funded the Leave campaign, they also know who else did, they know where the bodies are buried and they know they can expose the corrupt, stinking, festering, rotten shitshow for what it really is. They have to be given their payout or the game really is up for the Tories.

I can’t help but think a delay is inevitable, but they’re going to deny it for now.

They can’t afford Brexit Voters losing heart at the moment.

There are endless **** idiots about who’ll screw up lock-down to protest, Farage and other “it’s only common sense init” types were spouting off about going out and enjoying the sun a few weeks ago.

Also, we won’t know the full cost of CV19 until we know when it’s going to end.

After this is over, like after the great bail out of 2008 the Chancellor will hold a conference and give us the facts of life. It’s going to cost billions to keep the economy on life-support whilst we’re in lock down, even with Furlough and other stimulus packages business are going to fail and people are going to lose their jobs reducing tax revenue and increasing costs.

From a political point of view, this is the ONLY time they could theoretically delay, even cancel Brexit when they’d 1) Have the EU agree to it 2) Survive it politically 3) do it without riots.

I honestly think Johnson or Sunak could stand outside No10, solemnly say that the world is now a very different place than it was and they need to unwind Brexit to protect jobs and house prices.

Yeah, they could… but they won’t.

They can say what they like, for now. It’s just pacifying the gammons. They don’t need the headbangers stirring up trouble while they try to cope with CV

They know the huge magnitude of the financial shitstorm that’s coming. To willingly inflict another massive financial hit on top of that would be economic and political suicide.

They’ll carry on denying that they’ll ask the EU for an extension right up until the point that they do

Yeah, they could… but they won’t.

They can’t. The real hands behind Brexit can end the Tories with what they know. Backhanders, promises of future backhanders, illegal funding, illegal Russian funding, abuse of data and social media on a scale far wider than Cambridge Analytica….

If you dance with the devil, you don’t get to change the tune.

Boris ‘dead in a ditch, lie down in-front of the bulldozers, go whistle for divorce bill’ Johnson definitely wont perform a last minute U-turn

He might, he might not. Thing is, they basically have an opportunity here to Get Brexit Done and to blame all of the fallout on coronavirus. If they delay, then all of the damage of brexit arrives just as we start to get over coronavirus.

Yeah, they could… but they won’t.

They can’t. The real hands behind Brexit can end the Tories with what they know. Backhanders, promises of future backhanders, illegal funding, illegal Russian funding, abuse of data and social media on a scale far wider than Cambridge Analytica….

If you dance with the devil, you don’t get to change the tune.

I know, but it would be nice wouldn’t it?

Actually, as for backers, I don’t know about that. It was the Tories who joined the EU in the first place and the Tories who campaigned for us to remain (a lot more than Labour under Corbyn did).

All the major business groups. Which represent the core of their backers have been remain / soft Brexit since the outset.

I don’t believe there is some great conspiracy (from within the UK anyway) the GE showed it really was the ‘will of the people’ egged on by the Tabloids (who blow with the wind) and populists like Farage.

Is this Boris – what would be the chances he would need to take a one day trip to Afghanistan on the same day as a key Heathrow vote – Johnson?

The optimum Boris improbability index has to be a thing – in any situation what is the chance toast lands butter side up in the Johnson household.

It was the Tories who joined the EU in the first place and the Tories who campaigned for us to remain (a lot more than Labour under Corbyn did).

Brexit has fundamentally changed the Tories into a proto-populist rightwing cabal. Sensible voices were purged, made to recant or just told to shut up if they wanted to keep their jobs.

There was always a wing of the Tories that were swivel-eyed nationalist notions, but now the wing has become the body.

It wouldn’t surprise me if they went through with it, what better way to pay off all the bills than setting yourself apart from EU laws etc..To entice companies to set up here

They have no reason not to go through with it. And by that, I mean no reason that applies to any of them personally, rather than to these nations as a whole. All this reasoning about companies getting a double wammy hit, and state agencies already struggling to be ready for the end of the year before having to spend months on mitigation for the current crisis… all amount to nothing unless there is a way that those now in government can gain personally or politically more from a delay than they do from pushing on through with the current timescales…

GE showed it really was the ‘will of the people’ egged on by the Tabloids (who blow with the wind) and populists like Farage.

Once again, more people voted for pro-remain parties.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-no-deal-nhs-pandemic-bma-final-say-voters-referendum-a8493221.html

All parties will be weakened if the UK’s quits key EU bodies such as the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in March 2019, the BMA said. Without a deal this will create “considerable uncertainty about the UK’s ability to coordinate pandemic preparedness”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/10/health-alliance-warns-brexit-can-leave-uk-exposed-to-global-outbreaks

Tackling global outbreaks such as coronavirus could become harder if the UK loses access to the EU’s early warning system for cross-border threats without finding an effective replacement, according to an alliance of health bodies.

Public health is at risk if health is not made a priority in the forthcoming negotiations with the EU

Once again, more people voted for pro-remain parties.

Once again that doesn’t really mean anything.

No, it doesn’t … except in reply to some “will of the people” nonsense about Brexit and the General Election. It wasn’t a referendum, so neither claim has any more validity than the other.

leave.eu spent the last week or so posting cheery good news covid stories all over their social media channels, then today led with “It’s time to end the lockdown and get Britain moving!”. They seem to be getting mostly torn a new arse but there’s obviously a lot of crossover between Get Brexit Done and Get Dying Of Corona Done.

Once again that doesn’t really mean anything.

It does if your argument is that the election proved Brexit is the will of the people.

There’s a good article by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian today

Boris Johnson is the wrong man in the wrong job at the wrong time

She concludes, accurately:

“If Johnson blunders on (with Brexit) as the economy collapses, then we will truly know we are in the hands of fanatics”

She’s bang on. The economy is going to be so screwed after all this that to pursue the same timetable for Brexit, with no extension, would be suicidally reckless.

Binners – don’t get your hopes up = the paymasters have to collect and this is a huge opportunity for them as they can hide the economic damage from Brexit and blame it on covid.
It will be no deal in november.

I’d really love to disagree, TJ, but I can’t see any way that this is going to do anything other than further the drive for the hardest of Brexit, or indeed a no deal.

Binners – don’t get your hopes up = the paymasters have to collect and this is a huge opportunity for them as they can hide the economic damage from Brexit and blame it on covid.
It will be no deal in november.

Toynbee makes the mistake of thinking that the real leaders behind Brexit give a shit about anything other than accumulating and squirreling away wealth. Brexit is the heist of a lifetime.

to pursue the same timetable for Brexit, with no extension, would be suicidally reckless

You’re absolutely right, Binners, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do it. Apart from the the basic character of the key players, you could say that only prioritising PPE and testing 3 weeks after lockdown, not 3 weeks before, would be have been suicidally [or homicidally] reckless.

You guys miss the elephant. Those who pay Johnson and Co want a no deal brexit. This is a huge opportunity for them.