Scotty from Marketing

[Marty_d]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

And Tony Abbott.   Cost 10 quid too. Nev

Do they take returns?

[onetrack]

The worst value for £10 spent, that I think I've ever seen.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Although not issued a refund, the UK has partially taken a return.. Isn't he still a trade envoy for negotiating trade deals after Brexit for the UK? What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Marty_d]

2 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Although not issued a refund, the UK has partially taken a return.. Isn't he still a trade envoy for negotiating trade deals after Brexit for the UK? What could possibly go wrong?

 

So the guy whose 3-word slogan (one of them) was "Stop the boats"  is a trade envoy... how's the shipping going now?

 

 

Edited February 16, 2022 by Marty_d

[Jerry_Atrick]

Replace the 'p's with 't's and you'll have your answer...

 

According to Liz Truss, he is an excellent example of a Conservative

[facthunter]

He's back here as far as I know with the IPA..  Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

Obviously too conservative for the conservatives here

 

[Marty_d]

26 minutes ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Obviously too conservative for the conservatives here

 

Well your conservatives phased out coal mining and took action on climate change.  What we wouldn't give for that kind of conservative.

[facthunter]

I doubt this arrangement will work. Boris won't be there for much longer. I can't see the British Farmers letting in cheap competition when we don't do our share for the climate.  Oil and GAS OWN our conservatives.  The NATS are the real "bogey people" You don't hear them mention Farmers much or tourism. .Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

Like most political parties, they will use their leader only while the real power brokers find them useful. For all his warts... and there are a bloody lot of big ones, he is better than what both the Tories and Labour have to offer... which is a very sad indictment of 21st century politics. Both the problem with and advantage of Boris is.. well.. he is a lad. Partygate has cost him no doubt, and hey may have to resign under the rules of parliament if he cops a fine, but he should have resigned already for intentionally misleading the house, and has so far got away with it. However, the "red wall" (normally Labour) voters that voted him in seem to more or less accept it as a cost of ensuring Britain stands up to the bullying Europe.

 

The Tories are already mindful that he delivered them an 80 seat majority, something that even his pollsters hadn't expected. A lot of established back benchers are worried about their jobs because of him - traditional Tory voters are turned off by him and the big winners from that will be the Lib Dems. In a way, he is saving them from the same fate of the Aussie Demoncrats by keeping them marginally electable.

 

The farmers are definitely worried about cheap Aussie meat.. but it isn't the lack of environmental controls that worries them more than the lack of quality control (i.e. through the use of steroids, genetic engineering and the like - tbh I don't know what Aussie farmers are allowed to do, but it is a hell of a lot more than here). The British farmer, if they hope to keep the now trickle of exports going to the EU, have to maintain standards across all production to ensure no substandard meat enters the European food chain. The easiest thing for Liz Truss (and probably Tony Asshole) to do would to mandate the same standards for meat destined to the UK... but instead they went for lower standards and and a volume phase-in over time..

 

And that helps their plight. The prize isn't an Aussie Free Trade agreement. As already pointed out, although not echoed in the media much, a FTA with Australia will add something like 0.02% to Britain's GDP.. Compare that to the current loss of 1/5% GPD (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-22/how-a-year-of-brexit-thumped-britain-s-economy-and-businesses), and it isn't really a great win.

 

And while a lot of people are saying the prize is to join the new RPEC (APAC FTA), I think that is the second prize. The real prize is a FTA with the USA.. or to join NAFTA. The problem is, the USA is slightly stronger than the UK and have made in clear that they will not join unless the UK accept USA food standards.. standards being a stretch. The press picked up on genetically modified maize, chlorine washed chickens (that are more expensive than chickens here), more additives to beef feed than the weight of the meat itself, etc. The UK citizen isn't ready for it. But, if you can get the farmers to voice their concern of an uneven playing field, playing against Aussie meats and get them to demand the use of more chemicals in the production, the government can claim in the interests of progress and competition, it has to be done.. and once that is done, everything else will follow and they can go for their US FTA.

 

[Yenn]

I don't see Aussie meat being a problem for UK farmers. At the moment we don't have enough cattle to eat off the grss we have. Due to several years of drought, the herd is so diminished that it is going to take several years before we see cheap meat again. The push now is to get the breeding herd up and running. In the meantime the grass is way too high and going to be a problem with fire in a few months.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Interesting.. News here doesn't report it like that... But maybe BoJo needs a good news story about getting food cheaper since we have the highest inflation in the developed European economies.

[onetrack]

There's nothing to fear about nasties being added to our red meat (or even our chicken). Our meat industry is dead-set on having and keeping, a squeaky-clean product image.

American beef largely comes from feedlots, whereas Australian beef is either largely paddock-bred or rangeland-bred. The number of cattle feedlots in Australia is relatively small in comparison to America. 

 

https://www.mla.com.au/meat-safety-and-traceability/red-meat-integrity-system/

[Jerry_Atrick]

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Another one of Julian Hill's exposes.. But interestingly, how come the press hasn't publicised Australia's downgrade in the corruption perception index from something like 7th in the world to 18th?

 

 

[Yenn]

we may have only a few feedlots, but what proportion of our meat comes from them? The only one I have seen is massive and must have held thousands of head of cattle.

The grass fed beef tastes better and is far less likely to be contaminated. I have heard that in the USA there are thousands of deaths each year from toxin infested ground beef which is used for hamburgers. Not a problem for me as I do not consider a hamburger to be food. I had one in about 1990 and thought it had to be the most overrated food since salmon.

[facthunter]

The great Australian "Sausage Sizzle" must be a contributor to heart disease. The amount of FAT that runs out of them is incredible and whatever else goes into them you wouldn't want to know about. Same with most meat Pies and processed meats.. Donuts.- Starch FAT  and SUGAR... Nev 

[onetrack]

The feedlot FAQ link is below. They state that only 4% of Australian cattle population is in a feedlot, at any one time - but that feedlot cattle turnout, makes up around 30-40% of our grain-fed beef supplies.

What I didn't know is that feedlot cattle here, do not spend all their lives in the feedlot. They spend the bulk of their lives being paddock fattened, but they're finished off with 50-120 days in the feedlot.

 

https://www.feedlots.com.au/faq#:~:text=What percentage of Australia's cattle,total beef production in Australia.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Sadly, I am a purveyour of pies and sausages. My first ritual on returning to Aus is to make a beeline to a 7-11 and get a four'n'twenty... (although, my last visit depressed me a bit because it became difficult to find an outlet selling hot foun'n twenties.. only Coles Express seemed to).

 

But, despite my low brow tastes, I still can't eat those Bunnings sausages, or the ones that were mostly sold in Aussie supermarkets when I lived there.. they were hideous. Over here, you can get quite delicious sausages without nitrates and many of the other preservatives they lace them with.

 

Of course, I love steak, too, which is also not that healthy apparently.. Proves there is no god that everything that is delicious is bad for you.. or that god is a masochist...

 

And it's all SFM's fault... (no it's not. but had to tie to to the thread, somehow).

[Marty_d]

Sausages should be at least 25% fat or they just don't taste good.  It's a "sometimes" food - unless you're incredibly social, you don't have a BBQ every day.

[willedoo]

Some people are concerned by the use of growth hormones in our beef, but this quote, if accurate, puts it into perspective:

'According to research by the European Federation of Animal Health, a single consumer would need to eat more than 77 kilograms of beef from an HGP-treated beast in one sitting to get the same level of oestrogen hormone found in one egg'.

About 40% of Australian beef uses hormone implants, including a lot of grass fed beef.

[Old Koreelah]

17 hours ago, Yenn said:

we may have only a few feedlots, but what proportion of our meat comes from them? The only one I have seen is massive and must have held thousands of head of cattle...

We have two feedlots in our valley; I can see one as I type this. One has 25,000 cattle, the other 40,000…and glaciers of cow manure. They employ quite a few locals and contractors. Many of the trucks on our roads are bringing them cattle or feed. Farmers like them because they put a floor under the price of cattle and fodder crops.

 

[willedoo]

15 hours ago, onetrack said:

What I didn't know is that feedlot cattle here, do not spend all their lives in the feedlot. They spend the bulk of their lives being paddock fattened, but they're finished off with 50-120 days in the feedlot.

It's the economics of it. The cost of feed and overheads of feedlots is too high to be raising skinny cattle. Also a lot of grass and pasture properties don't have the ability to finish cattle off, so will sell cattle as forward stores. They are bought by feedlots or fattening properties.

 

A lot depends on the capabilities of the property regarding rainfall, quality of grasses and pasture etc.. Poorer country is used as breeder blocks, turning off young steers and heifers in ordinary store condition. These are usually bought by better properties with good feed looking to restock. They will get a bit of age and condition on them and then on-sell them to the feedlot trade. Properties with a good fattening ability might fatten them right up for the butcher trade without them going into feedlots.

 

I don't eat meat these days, but when I did, I was never impressed with grain fed beef. What they call good marbling now, you would have thrown to the dogs 40 years ago. Give me lean grass fed beef any day. More taste in my opinion. Particularly if it has that yellowish selvage fat on it.

[nomadpete]

[Marty_d]

6 hours ago, nomadpete said:

Should be pointing to the flush.