Thyroid UK

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Customs duty post-brexit

helvellaAdministrator•

The article below appears in today's Guardian. I do think some of the wording is quite good in how it explains some of the changes due to leaving the EU.

My 'Brexit bonus' proved to be a customs duty bill from DHL

Whether picture frames or trainers, buyers are counting the cost of ordering from the EU

theguardian.com/money/2021/...

(I know that aspects of the article and, even more so, the comments, might be seen as political. This is absolutely not why I am posting - which is simply because it does explains several aspects quite well. Please avoid political comments.)

59 Replies

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Buy British - the slogan of our youth 🥴

Sounds better than "Death and taxes"!

Pity they got rid of British NDT or I’d deffo be supporting it!

Some pigs are more equal than others 😊

Some pigs are more squeal than others ?

😊. And a neat little anagram there.Well done Hell Veal.

Indeed!!!

😉

Buy British - the slogan of our youth 🥴

Must have been more affluent than mine ....i only remember " turn the bluddy light out " and "get off the phone"

They were trying to counter the mass import of Chinese goods. My father had a bit of a turn once when I bought a pack of colouring pencils Made in China. When he bought them for us he always bought the Lakeland ones.

He wasn’t best pleased either when I bought a Japanese car in my youth. I think we forgot how many of that generation had a fierce loyalty to our manufacturing industry.

I come from Birmingham, the City of a Thousand Trades. Gone now is the famous Jewellery Quarter, the car industry etc.

Actually the jewellery quarter IS still there (although rather more swanky bars there as well than you might remember) - I bought a friend some ear-rings there not so long ago when up there for work; but the car industry is certainly a shadow of its former self (although I'm not sure how may people lament the demise of the Maestro)

That’s interesting. I remember the old Jewellery Quarter selling from their factories - at greatly discounted prices. I believe that now it’s got several jewellery shops who sell at normal retail prices.

As for the car industry - too many Friday afternoon cars. Nuff said. 🤨

Certainly not as cheap as it used to be

But it's still mostly little businesses that make the stuff at the back with a shop at the front. Certainly there's nothing nicer than picking the stones out for your engagement ring and having it made just for you

That’s very romantic 💓. We bought mine in Cyprus.

Aah but you did have a phone tatt. 😊

Our phone was almost the same no as Rockferry train station and my dad got fed up with innumerable calls to the effect of: “hey mate, what time’s the next train to Liverpool?” It was soon disconnected! We didn’t have a phone for years after that and woe betide you if you had the temerity to actually use it! Imagine being able to call your local train station.....from Annus Mirabilis to Annus Horribilis ++

We had a similar thing happen. My parents had a phone number which had been allocated to a taxi firm. They got a bit sick of being woken up in the middle of the night. They got their number changed. We didn’t have a phone until I was 18 though - and we weren’t allowed to use it either 😳

I don’t remember the Rockferry station mimic phone but I was about 14 when we got another number. Yes permission had to be sought and it wasn’t worth the hassle phoning anyone besides no one generally phoned one another of my age back then. Fathers were such tyrants and no one thought it reprehensible behaviour.

Those were the days..... " mummy , please can i phone Christine ?"

"no, you can give her three rings and she can phone you back" ~ (Christine was loads better off than us, they had yoghurts in the fridge that they were actually allowed to eat...... ). We still had a Party Line for several years, we'd pick it up to dial a number and the 'lady up the road' was on it already.

OMG Tatty. I’d forgotten the ‘three rings’ signal 😊😊We had a party line for a while too. My mum was convinced that they used to listen in on our conversations 🤣

I DID used to listen to the lady up the road..... there wasn't a lot else to do for fun on Sunday afternoons in the 70's

🤣🤣🤣

Back to the 1960s... how dreadful! So restrictive in 2021!

A couple of weeks ago, I heard a very upset mother on Radio 4 speaking about her inability to now source medication for her child with epilepsy 😱

My daughter has just had a £98 customs tax bill on vital B12 for injection.

Sorry Helvella, but the truth is we were lied to............

Absolutely. Why do people have such problems in accepting the truth? And if you don’t agree your comments are removed... Surely this is not healthy for a democratic future. We should be going forward not making a backward move. I am not the only one thinking along those lines.

I'm breaking my new rule not to comment here anymore in order to agree with you!

Sorry... and thank you. However it isn’t a question of being controversial per se but trying to keep a logical balance. If people are muffled, prevented from freedom of expression (as long it isn’t incendiary and done deliberately to upset the applecart or anyone specifically) then we’re on a dangerous path of losing democracy . Democracy is precious and we need to preserve it.

Absolutely.

I was most upset to see lotus Biscoff biscuits have gone up to £1.34 from £1.

*Huff *

Not that I can eat them anymore anyway. 😒

Not only are these things getting more expensive - they’re getting smaller. I do our Asda shop online and bought a multipack of Toffee Crisps. I was so excited as I’ve not seen them for years. I was amazed when they arrived. I know I’ve got a big mouth, but I was shocked that these were little more than a mouthful.

They are trying to save you from yourself.

The big confectionery manufacturers have repeatedly promised to reduce "portions", yet continue to sell multi-packs. It is so obvious that instead of us buying one full-size bar, which is well over a "daily allowance", we are expected to buy several in a multi-pack and consume two, three or four of them. Yes, the calories in one are less than some arbitrary limit - but everyone knows purchasers consume at least similar quantities regardless the individual bar size.

That’s exactly what I did 🥴. Ate 3.

Clearly there is a dilemma for the manufacturers - the health of the nation or their profit margins.

I remember when Jamie Oliver got on the bandwagon about healthier school meals. Secondary school children went to the chip shop.

Nanny State has got no chance.

Lots of vitamin c in chips!

Yes . So OH tells me. He gets fruit instead 😎. He did tell me once that chocolate oranges were good for you. Silly man

I emailed Jamie Oliver when he was promoting the sugar tax - he didn't reply. My daughter is a type 1 diabetic and used to be able to use lucozade if her blood sugars dropped. One day it just didn't help, and we realised they'd taken most of the sugar out to keep the price down.

He was a pain in the butt Nellie. Do you keep Dextrosol in the house now in case her blood sugar drops?

Yes, Srumbler he's a self serving twit - not so slim himself now either.

Glucotabs - dissolve tube in 1/2 litre boiling water, add some squash and then top up to 1l with cold water makes them more palatable - and you don't need too much of it -what's left over goes in the fridge.

Excellent idea.

I don't think meals got that much healthier. The masses of burgers were just replaced with cheese/ham/chicken panini's, which is basically the same thing!

They made less cakey things, reduced the range of non-diet soft drinks (but upped the availability of orange juice, which is still extremely sugarry) and I think they sold less crisps too, but they just provided alternatives like cereal bars.

The healthy switches were just lateral moves to other heavily processed food items, that weren't that much better for you anyway. The quality was still terrible.

They certainly didn’t get any healthier. I worked in a school and was entitled to a free meal. Not likely.

Most of my children brought sandwiches to school. I felt so sorry for the children with a free meal entitlement who had to eat the stuff.

This country is the most unhealthy country in Europe. My GP was telling me “we’re the fattest country in Europe “! Just look around and it’s easy to see ! Too many people simply don’t cook proper healthy meals. School meals and hospital meals are so unhealthy. Yet it wouldn’t take much to cool simple healthy meals.

We are the most obese nation in Europe and, as you say, when you look around there’s plenty of evidence. Young people are developing Type 2 Diabetes and other conditions relating to obesity at an alarming rate.

I think one of the main reasons is alcohol consumption, closely followed by take-away and ready meals and, not least, lack of exercise.

I’m tired of hearing weary excuses about genetic make up, metabolism, glandular disease etc etc.

With the greatest respect to the victims on this Holocaust Day, no obese person ever came out of Belsen. 😢

Absolutely! Spot on. Of course deep respect to the victims of the Holocaust... such a tragedy. Post war very few people were obese. Yet people had to endure shortages of food and they were more physically active hence not obese.

I hope society at large will wake up and actually make the effort to understand what a healthy diet is and cook properly.

Of course too many people (if they still have a job) are working very long hours and that includes women, so perhaps they feel too tired when they get back to cook a decent meal but this is the way to serious diseases as you stated. Also many jobs are desk bound... doesn’t help.

I think that we need to be aware that there are many people who, for one reason or another are not able to ‘cook from scratch’. It could be health, social circumstances etc.

The most important thing is that everyone - boys and girls - should know how to shop, prepare and cook food. In other words they should be ‘food aware’

Very good point indeed. Unfortunately so many young people don’t see meals prepared from scratch so they have no example to follow! Nutrition should be taught in schools (I believe it used to be taught to a certain extent )as well as economics and debating.

Actually medical students should be taught nutrition too.

Indeed. I don’t think any member of this forum would disagree with that 😊

I miss these too. I used to keep the individually wrapped ones in a biscuit jar.🙃

I used to eat half a pack with a cup of tea. 😂 They'd never last long enough to go in a biscuit jar!

I tried making some gf biscuits a couple of weeks ago using a Dove's Farm recipe - what a disaster. I'm going to learn though.........eventually.

I made some this week, which were just nut butter, sugar, baking powder, egg and vanilla essence.

They were delicious!

Beats trying to figure out GF baking!

I'm so jealous, but I've no idea what nut butter is. I'm not keen on peanut butter, but I love peanut cookies, or used to.

You can use any nut butter you like. We used Almond! But peanut butter would work, or hazelnut or cashew!

Well it’s another Brexit bonus... more to come unfortunately . How are people who are already struggling will manage ? This is a great concern.

I'm a bit surprised at the price of Italian trainers. That person would probably have saved some money by spending a weekend in Rome last Autumn and trying them on to check sizing Seriously though, I had family in Denmark and still remember having to be careful what value presents etc. we sent them at Christmas, and what we wrote on the customs labels, so that they'd avoid having to pay any duty, and vice versa.