Member Info for mrtibbles

It would require quite fundamental changes to the UK food supply chain and a huge reduction in product choice to move to a self-sustained system!

We need to import over 400,000 tonnes of fresh tomatoes every year to meet demand. “The retail value of British tomato production... is around £190 million out of a total retail market value of £740 million,” the organisation explains. So we’d need a hell of a lot more polytunnels to get anywhere near self-sufficiency. Our pasta sauces and our salads would suffer for quite some time, never mind the investment required.
Sheffield University’s professor Duncan Cameron is the co-director of the Institute for Sustainable Food. He says we should be thinking about the sort of food system we want rather than how that system is acquired.
“Personally, and academically, I think the issue of self-sufficiency is a classic case of the wrong question.
“We talk of an air of Little England, and quasi-nationalism in relation to food. That might be present. But with sustainability and food security, we need to think about what sort of diet we want.
“When we talk about buying British, it’s difficult to know what that actually means. We generally do with lamb, but we all still want to drink coffee and eat mangoes. It’s hard to see how far it can go.
“Certainly there is a logical case to be made for a more local and seasonal food system. That’s usually the more sustainable option, but it isn’t always, even when taking food miles into account.
“Tomatoes are grown under the sun in Spain – they’re more sustainable than tomatoes grown here in a polytunnel. It’s not always that local is best.
“Another overlooked point is where does the labour come from? Say we did all buy British exclusively, who would grow and pick the fruit and vegetables? Around 30% of food manufacturing is filled by EU workers. It’s more in the summer.
“We need these skills and we have a heavy reliance on EU workers. Our food industry wouldn’t exist without a migrant workforce.”
It ought to be supposed that there might be a degree of short-sightedness in this sudden, overarching premise of buying British, not only as a regenerative motion but as a political standpoint!
It works in some aspects but falls well short in others. And as it pushes on, the tide of Union Flags waving triumphantly atop joints of roast pork and summer strawberries, let us spare a thought for bananas, and olive oil, for supermarkets would be all the more boring without them.
Dominic Goudie, the head of international trade at the Food and Drink Federation, is a force of balance if I am not: “UK manufacturers are committed customers of UK farming, and also depend on imports of ingredients that aren’t produced domestically or not in sufficient quantity.
These imports complement our use of UK-produced inputs and are key to delivering the world-leading choice, quality, and value for money enjoyed by UK shoppers.
“Ultimately, the UK’s food and drink manufacturing sector is driven by consumer demand and over time consumers have come to expect foods and ingredients from across the globe.
It would require quite fundame

We’re witnessing the toxification of the British brand!”
Joe Stanley says Europe is as important as ever, both when importing and exporting food!
We absolutely need to nurture trade links,” he says. “There’s a reason America is so desperate to sign a trade deal with us – because we’re a wealthy nation that imports a lot of food.
“It’s taken generations to foster relationships with our European partners to get the food system we have. Liz Truss thinks, ‘oh, Kuwait eats a lot of lamb, let’s go there’. Europe is full of wealthy people, and we should want to sell them our food.
“I’m sure people don’t want to go back to a diet of potatoes and cabbage. We were a culinary backwater. Everyone expects to be able to access a decent range of food. Sure, we should buy seasonal, and be local, but it cannot be only about that, realistically.”
The farmer and broadcaster Gareth Wyn Jones says the 'buy British' discourse is largely positive. After all, he says, last year was one of the best years for lamb, which was “up £1 per kilo”.
“I think it’s a really good thing. People are getting behind British agriculture. It’s about bloody time. We have a lot of bridges to cross.
“We should be adding to it – salad, fruit, veg. We need to be building that British economy on what we’re growing and eating. In the bigger picture we’ll be more sustainable, more seasonal, and with no added cost. We shouldn’t have strawberries in December and French beans from Kenya.”
But Wyn Jones adds that while the buying British sentiment is a welcome one, so too is continuing to nurture links with Europe.
“Diversity is good for food. We do have to ask ourselves, when it comes to cheaper food, ‘how is that produced?’ Do we want avocados brought in from Mexico, where its popularity is causing problems.
“But yes, as some who put Welsh lamb into Europe, I don’t want trade to stop. It’s one of the best products in the world. That’s why it’s imported. And yes, it works both ways. French Camembert. Spanish ham. Wine.
“But carrots – there is no reason why all our carrots shouldn’t be British. I was a Remainer. I want to stay in Europe. I’m not Nigel Farage screaming about buying British. But I’m also a farmer who cares about the environment, so there is a valid point to be made, however it’s dressed up.”
When it comes to carrots, we’re pretty good, actually. The British Carrot Growers Association says the UK grows approximately 800,000 tonnes of carrots annually and is self-sufficient for 11 months of the year.
Patterns get a little more drastic when it comes to food that favours a warmer locale. British tomato production amounts to about 92,000 metric tonnes per year, which is about a fifth of the total volume sold in the country in that timeframe, according to the British Tomato Growers’ Association.
We need to import over 400,000 tonnes of fresh tomatoes every year to meet demand. “The retail value of British tomato production... is around £190 million out of a total retail market

The link is very evident from the discussion sites exhorting people to buy British.
It might turn-off those who identify as Remainers, but isn't it ultimately a good thing?
After all, when it comes to sustainability, limiting food miles and making the most of our lush pastures, sought after since before the Roman empire, are only good.
Granted we should be elevating our food sector, which has, over recent decades, been evolving, diversifying, and improving in quality, and as the pandemic has shown, there is much to be said for shorter supply lines.
But just far can the 'buy British' exhortations get us?
If we applied it to all our purchases, would we have the food to get by?
In short, no, we would run out by August, according to experts!
The National Farmers’ Union says we are just over 60% efficient, and that is talking generally.
When it comes to vegetables, we grow less than 50% of what we consume, and fruit is even less, we produce just 15% of what we eat!
“For an island nation, being able to feed our population is absolutely critical,” NFU president Minette Batters said recently.
“Even as a global trading nation, shocks can expose fragilities in any reliance on imports.
We all experienced the impact of this during lockdown!
“Imports will always play a crucial role in our food system but our own self-sufficiency must be paid more attention by the government. It is stagnating. We sit now at only 64% self-sufficiency, having fallen from over 75% in the mid-1980s.”
There are lots of reasons for this fall, and, granted, some of them are down to cheaper goods, such as Danish bacon, and Polish apples, being shipped in. There are arguments to suggest concentrating on British pork and apples would be a positive repositioning of resources.
But since the 1980s, the British food system has also become a whole lot more adventurous. French Camembert is basically a staple now, and slices of Iberico ham are hardly luxuries.
We should probably not regress!
The farmer and author Joe Stanley says there has to be balance: “Is buying British fundamentally better? Just because it’s grown here doesn’t make it more sustainable.
“There is a lot to be proud about when it comes to British produce. We have the highest welfare standards in the world, some of the highest quality meat. When it comes to sustainability, let’s hope people buy British, and shop local, and support our industry. British consumers have been traditionally concerned with price, which is a more American mindset than a European one. So there’s a lot to celebrate if people are paying more attention to food.
“But it’s also a huge shame that the buy British mindset, this Union Jack patriotism, is getting tied up with nationalism.
The petty flag use we see in our government is altering things!
“We’re having these conversations about buying British, and at the same time we are straying into an unfortunate nationalistic territory.
cont

Good to hear from you Zambian & Lynny,
It is not just food. On the ‘Buy British’ Facebook group, recent requests for advice on UK-sourced homemade goods include everything from Lancashire sofa cushions to ‘leisure batteries’ power sources for mobile homes
Food, though, as it so often is, has become the foremost application in a new surge towards supporting British industry.
Since Brexit, there has been a tectonic shift in consumerism as shoppers look to champion UK-made goods, aware as they are perhaps of the additional costs of trading with Europe, of the benefits of contributing to the national economy, and possibly also to supplement national pride.
Whatever the reason, this collective desire is very apparent.
Recently, there was concern in one Facebook group that Quaker Oats are apparently made in Dublin!
Soon, other members were suggesting supermarket-own varieties, namely those produced by Aldi and Lidl, which are milled here on British shores, and are apparently still “smooth and creamy” when stirred with water as with milk.
Another social media post celebrated a bag of granulated sugar that displayed the words “proudly grown in Britain” on top of a Union Jack!
One man shared a picture of a chocolate bar, going so far as to explain the fact it is not only manufactured in Stoke-on-Trent, but is also the work of a British-owned company.
A double win, there, for British pride.
That said the supermarkets in Britain have long sold goods featuring Union Jack flags, they have espoused a homely agricultural ideal when it comes to beef, talking of 'Welsh lamb' and 'West Country beef', local cheeses and English wines, today they are maximising this output.
There are an increasing number of flags on packaging.
Aldi and Lidl, possibly in a move maybe to counteract impressions they are German and reliant more on imports, have been heavier still with their trumpeting, it seems.
Both have pages dedicated to British food on their websites, pledging to do more to buy from internal suppliers.
Traditionally, the paradigm of culinary culture has been firmly cast as seasonal and artisan. It is about looking to our close countryside, where fruit and vegetables grow and are packed into handsome delivery boxes, and it is about recognising the tireless endeavour of the farmers who bring us the tenderest of steaks, if not the Romanians who pick our summer strawberries, a job we only want to do on Saturday afternoons for fun.
Running alongside this now, however, is this apparent shift towards British food not just for its cultural relevance, not only as an ethical, sustainable choice, but as a distinct and robust lifestyle choice, reflecting a pro-Brexit stance.
Cont

Hi Mr Gnome,
Unfortunately the majority of UK's mainstream tabloid media is heavily influenced by pro Tory owners who use them for tax advantages in their business empires and to promote Tory rhetoric a in order to gain commercial advantage over the public sector ( pick up outsourced services,
and government contracts etc on the cheap) .
Why else buy a newspaper that is loss making other than to use it as means to influence the thoughts of the masses by presenting news that appeals to the very worst in people in order to manipulate the outcome for your own commercial gain and use as a tax avoidance instrument.
The Tories have never been interested in a fair voting system, only one in which they are most likely to win!
May 2021
Downing Street announces plans to change English voting system following string of Labour victories
The government is pushing ahead with changes to electoral law that could make it easier for Conservatives to win future mayoral elections.
Home secretary Priti Patel has already unveiled plans to introduce the first past the post electoral system used to elect MPs in Westminster.The government is pushing ahead with changes to electoral law that could make it easier for Conservatives to win future mayoral elections.
Home secretary Priti Patel has already unveiled plans to introduce the first past the post electoral system used to elect MPs in Westminster.
Mayors across England are elected from the existing supplementary vote system, in which the public ranks their two favourite candidates.
Prof Tony Travers, of the London School of Economics, said analysis of Thursday’s polls suggested this change could open a potential route to victory for the Tories in cities such as London.
"It’s likely that first past the post would make it somewhat easier for the Conservatives to win if they could come up with a really good candidate," he said.
There is also evidence that voters are confused by the use of the supplementary voting system. Some 5% of ballots cast in this year's mayor of London election were rejected because people had voted for too many candidates.
The government will have to pass fresh legislation to change the voting system, which would also affect elections for police and crime commissioners.
Labour has pledged to oppose the changes.

Hi Siko,
Thank you for the update!
Only the big nuggets left then!
Of all the licenses awarded the key ones are those who have the resources and capabilities to actually build new mines, and Centamin, Barrick and B2Gold are precisely those!

Keep well !

Tibbs

Mr Gnome,
Those who voted for Boris seem to have forgotten what a waster he is, only thinks of himself!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-46258584
Three water cannon bought and refurbished for more than £320,000 while Boris Johnson was London Mayor have been sold for £11,000.

The vehicles were bought by Mr Johnson as crowd-control weapons following the 2011 riots.

They were sold for £11,025 to Nottinghamshire-based Reclamations (Ollerton) Ltd who will dismantle them and export the parts.

Current Mayor Sadiq Khan said "we have managed to finally get rid of them".

The vehicles were bought by Mr Johnson from Germany in 2014 and he volunteered to be blasted by one of them to reassure people of their safety.

Then-Home Secretary Theresa May banned their use in riot situations in England and Wales in 2015, and later used the purchase to ridicule Mr Johnson in the Tory leadership race after David Cameron resigned.

Water cannon have been used in Northern Ireland but have never been deployed in the rest of the UK.

Water cannon
IMAGE COPYRIGHTREUTERS
image captionLondon's three water cannon were bought and refurbished for more than £320,000
The cannon Mr Johnson bought cost £322,000 to purchase second-hand and then refit. Costs included £32,004 for low emission zone compliance, £19,035 for re-painting, £3,109 for signage, and £970 for the fitting of radios and CD players.

Mr Khan said: "For too long, London taxpayers have had to bear the brunt of Boris Johnson's appalling botched water cannon deal. This has been another waste of taxpayers' money by Boris Johnson."

After Mrs May banned the cannon's use, the Metropolitan Police said it was "naturally disappointed" with the decision.

It said while the weapons would rarely, "if ever", be used, they were "a sensible precaution which would allow us to deal with a number of specific public disorder situations".

"In the wake of the London riots, with a worrying rise in knife crime and with his hands tied by the political decisions in the Home Office, Boris made tackling crime his number one priority."

The sale was announced as details were revealed of 72 youth projects that will receive the latest round of grants from the Young Londoners Fund.

The schemes, which are aimed at diverting young people away from crime, will receive a share of £13.2m.

Gold has been struggling this year – but is the turnaround finally here?
Earlier this year, amid gold’s struggle, we noted all the negatives: that bitcoin was stealing gold’s thunder; that bond yields were rising; that the US dollar was rising; that the world no longer valued physical assets as much as it does digital.
But, especially, we noted the role that rising yields were playing.
Gold pays no interest – you don’t get a yield. If bond yields are rising, money that would otherwise have gone to gold (in the event that yields were flat or falling) goes to bonds instead. Gold suddenly has an opportunity cost to it, as well as a storage cost. Thus rising bond yields are bad for gold.
For some reason, the effect of bond yields on gold is most visible with the ten-year bond. I’m not sure why, but one theory is that the average time it takes to take a mine from discovery through to production is around ten years, so gold and ten-year bond yields tend to correlate.
But we also noted that gold was oversold, that it was sitting on an important technical level, that we were headed into a positive time of year for gold (April is usually a good month). What’s more, we noted that business was getting back to normal.
Rising yields indicate that people expect economic strength. A strong economy gives rise to inflation. Gold is the de facto hedge against inflation. In the long-term then, rising yields are good for gold.
The bottom-line roadmap was that we expected a rally in April, a turn in May, a June low and then highs later in the year.
We got the April rally: gold went from $1,680 to $1,845 a couple of days ago. It now sits ten bucks lower. Are we now getting the May turn? It’s possible, but the landscape has changed.
There are two big changes in the underlying drivers. Firstly, bond yields have turned down. Inflation expectations, meanwhile, have risen again. As Charlie Morris notes in The Fleet Street Letter this week: “If the reduction in the bond yield continues, then markets will start to favour more defensive assets. This would be a major shift in the narrative that has built up over the past year, from value back to gold”.
Morris has recommended that his readers, already long gold, buy more. He thinks we are headed back into a “risk-off” environment, and you want to be in safe assets.
The fates of gold and the US dollar are once again intertwined
Perhaps the biggest driver of the lot though is the US dollar itself....
Read the whole of this article on the MoneyWeek website
Until next time,
Dominic

Possibly share holders should consider writing to Centamin IR asking for some reassurance of what measures, if any, have been put in place to safeguard the confidentiality of sensitive information ?

Was he such an old fool, he seems to have more integrity than Cameron or Boris and I doubt he ever lied as much as they continue to do so.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/jean-claude-juncker-should-not-listened-david-cameron-brexit-961807
Time is said to be the greatest healer. But for Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Union between 2015 and 2019, the gaping wound of Brexit five years after the referendum still seems sore.
The Brexit vote, he argues, goes against history. But not helping the healing process for the fiercely pro-European former Prime Minister of Luxembourg – his views were shaped by listening to his father’s stories of the destruction of the Second World War – is that it happened on his watch.
He blames his former nemesis David Cameron for the “mistake” of Brexit, himself for listening to Cameron, and the ‘misinformation’ that he claims ‘brainwashed’ the UK’s electorate.
“I should not have listened to David Cameron,” he says leaning back in his chair in his office in the commission’s Brussels HQ.
“He told me not to interfere in the debate in the UK, not to come to London, not to do interviews with the British press. I made a mistake because I did not defend the EU’s point of view in the UK. They asked me to shut up, so I shut up. That is something I criticise myself for. I should have spoken out rather than stay silent.”
Whether or not his intervention would have turned the 2016 vote in favour of Remain is up for debate. When US President Barack Obama infamously said Britain would be at the “back of the queue” for any trade deal, the intervention backfired tremendously. And this was with a politician popular in Britain. Juncker – perhaps unfairly – has often been portrayed as the ultimate European bureaucrat.
e has more to say on Cameron’s failure though. Before calling the referendum the then Prime Minister renegotiated some terms of Britain’s membership arrangements. It was an intense and controversial deal to secure a special status for the UK.
“And yet, I saw that this agreement we negotiated with the British government played no part in the referendum campaign,” Mr Juncker, 66, said.
“No one told the British public what we agreed on, say, the free movement of workers,” he adds, shrugging his shoulders at what he says was ultimately a pointless pact.
It could be argued, however, that Mr Cameron failed to secure all he needed to really win over the British public, with German chancellor Angela Merkel refusing to grant Britain an ‘emergency brake’ to halt migration within the bloc.
Juncker was already seen as a bête noire by the Brexit campaign. He was the EU’s ultimate insider, an architect of the Euro, and – as Luxembourg Prime Minister for almost two decades – had attended more EU summits than any other leader. He was branded an arch federalist, said to be an alcoholic, and even tied to the Nazis through his father, who was forcibly conscripted into the German army following the invasion of Luxe

Thank you Marmot,
This is the shower of crooks that for so long have been complicit partners in the Cartel of precious metals price manipulation.
First it was Covid why they couldn't comply with Basel 3 on time with the rest of Europe and so got the exemption until Jan 2022.
But now it's an accounting error, understandable of course it's easy to mislay 3,300 tonnes of silver!

I made some enquiries on this , see below-

This has been in the public domain for some time and Alison Baker left Centamin a long time before the EDV bid even took place, so she was not part of the defence.

Endeavour will be listing in London at some point soon and they need UK/female directors and Alison is well regarded.

All in the swamp together!
Really can't see how they can be impartial, as Cowichan point s out there must be a conflict of interest at times.

Absolutely Mr Gnome, Boris full to bursting point of B.S, he has always written it, he has always spouted it, problem is he gets away with it now and he will get away with it in the future because he is allowed to by most of the Boris friendly tabloids.
It was to be expected that the Scot's will go for independence after the way they wee misled during the last independence referendum.
The Irish situation is tragic and brought about because Boris lied to them, he can't be bothered with the details of anything he is involved with.

Not for me to advise them what to do, but they may well be wise to do a complete about turn now.

They really care not a jot about inflation risks because for many it's just about trading up and down and for many a long term hold is probably a day.
So what is the future for the UK, far from certain, ordinary people have no job security anymore, most supposedly full time staff are on employment contracts that at one time would have been regarded only barely fair or suitable for those on as temporary or casual work.
So many at one time solid companies are now just a brand owned by others with who capitalise on the reputation of the original brand by fooling the consumer into thinking they are buying far better quality or service than they receive, al part of the big racket .
Still who cares, it's not about the quality of the product or the service offered by the company its all about flashy website that all too often promice far more to what they actually deliver and getting the customers to do all the work themselves on app's whilst cutting staff to the bare minimum in order to increase the bottom line for as long as it lasts.
True there are some decent companies about that do deliver on what they promise, but unfortunately finding them involves a bit more effort than using the likes of Amazon or Boo Hoo.

Why US employment matters to global markets?
If the world’s most important economy gets weaker, it tends to have a knock-on effect across the rest of the world (note that something similar goes these days for China, which didn’t used to be the case).
So US employment doesn’t just matter for American jobseekers, it matters for global markets. And so you tend to get a big reaction if the data is better or worse than expected.
Now, for a while during the pandemic, people stopped paying as much attention to the reading. In the early days, they knew it would be awful, and in the recovery phase, they knew it would be chaotic.
But we’re through that now, it seems. Investors now view a rapid US recovery as baked in. They now want to see confirmatory evidence of that in every economic data point, and when they don’t, they get a bit of a jolt. That’s what happened on Friday.
Economists had expected employers to hire almost a million people last month. As it turns out, payrolls only grew by 266,000 jobs. Meanwhile the unemployment rate rose to 6.1% from 6%.
Don’t get me wrong – adding a quarter of a million jobs would historically be a very good reading for the US economy. But historically, the US economy has rarely been recovering from a global flu outbreak.
So that’s a big disappointment, however you read it. Naturally, the stockmarket rose sharply to record highs.
Why? Well a duff reading like this means that there’s no chance the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, is going to pack in the money printing any time soon. So investors lost some of their fears that the central bank might start to raise interest rates – or even talk about raising rates – in the near future, a spectre that Janet Yellen had raised just a few days ago.
One obvious result of lower interest rates for longer was that the Nasdaq – full of tech stocks that prefer low long-term interest rates – jumped after a tough week. But so did gold, which also benefits from the idea that interest rates will stay down (or more specifically, that “real” interest rates will fall).
Competing with stimmie and “stonks”
However, there’s a bit more to it than just “money printing forever, yee haw, etc”.
The bull case for the stockmarket is predicated on a vigorous recovery. Yes, that’s a vigorous recovery accompanied by record-low interest rates and preferably as much money printing as possible.
But if the economy loses steam, that’s not good news for stocks!
John Stepek
Executive editor, MoneyWeek

Pleasure Rebess.

The U.S. government has declared a state of emergency to keep fuel supply lines open following the shutdown of Colonial Pipeline on Friday. The 5,500-mile conduit, whose owners include Shell Midstream Partners (NYSE:SHLX) and others, carries 2.5M barrels a day to the East Coast, or 45% of its supply of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel. While Colonial is working toward a restart of operations along the key artery, some smaller lateral lines between terminals and delivery points are now operational. In the meantime, the Biden administration is allowing drivers that transport fuel to work extra hours, while oil products could be permitted to be shipped in tankers up to New York.

Recap: Hackers stole almost 100 gigabytes of data from Colonial Pipeline's networks, before locking its computers with ransomware and demanding payment. Multiple sources have confirmed that a cybercriminal gang called DarkSide was behind the attack, and some evidence has emerged linking the group to Russia or elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The White House also formed a task force to probe the pipeline breach, and the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is coordinating with Colonial Pipeline.

Fear of shortages: U.S. gasoline futures (XB1:COM) jumped more than 3% to $2.217 a gallon as trading reopened for the week, while WTI crude futures (CL1:COM) rose 1.3% to as high as $65.76/bbl. Besides connecting refineries to more than 50M people, the pipeline network serves major U.S. airports, including Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson. While the U.S. Department of Energy could tap its reserve of 1M barrels of diesel fuel in the Northeast, it's "little more than a Band-Aid," ClearView Energy Partners said in a research note

Outlook: The attacks are "here to stay and we have to work in partnership with businesses to secure networks, to defend ourselves against these attacks," Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told CBS's Face the Nation. The hack could also give renewed impetus for Biden's $2.3T infrastructure plan. In fact, the president this week is hosting top Democratic lawmakers at the White House, as well as a group of Republican senators who have proposed a separate $568B infrastructure plan, though Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has previously said Biden is willing to push through the "American Jobs Plan" without bipartisan support.