Andy Burnham, the UK’s Prime Minister, has floated the idea that the UK should consider the relationship that we have with the UK including perhaps the idea of eventually rejoining the EC. Whether or not this is is possible is a tricky political question but the direction of travel seems a very sensible one. There are probably a series of measures that can be taken including joining the customs union and reducing as many trade barriers as possible. But the exact nature of any rapprochement remains to be seen. It might be that the country finds a point of balance which satisfies many if it can enjoy as many of the benefits without full membership as currently enjoyed by Switzerland. The trouble is that if truth be known, Britain had a very good deal with Europe once various opt-outs and rebates had been negotiated, and it is very unlikely that we would ever get such favourable terms again. But most European leaders seem very favourable to the concept of the UK eventually rejoining the bloc. However, the French president, Macron has warned there would be no halfway house on membership requirements and former EU Brexit officials have previously warned that the UK would not enjoy exceptional terms if it decided to rejoin the EU. The UK may have to join the Euro if it wanted to return, join the Schengen passport-free zone, and it would be unlikely to get the rebate it negotiated previously. The UK rebate was a financial mechanism negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1984, reducing Britain’s EU budget contribution by around 66 per cent. British public opinion is largely in favour with figures of about 55%-60% in favour and some 35% opposed. The point was made in a recent TV programme that at the time of the last referendum, any British person resident at least temporarily in the EU was excluded from the vote and if they had been included the majority in favour of leaving might have shrunk to vanishing small proportions. I think that most of the country is now of the view that the proposed benefits to the UK of Brexit have not materialised and we now appreciate the costs of not being in the EU. The problem for the Brexiteers is that when asked a simple question if they can name a single benefit from being outside the EU, the answer came there none. But I think this debate will rumble on and on for years. Yesterday was quite a busy day as after my Tai Chi class I had to come hone and had a swift lunch of a prawn omelette before attending my Spanish conversation class which takes place once a month and is held in a neighbouring village hall. However, the day may turn out to be a more relaxing one than the day before. I have some plans to make some vegetable stock in the afternoon but in the morning as nothing else is planned, I may go for a wander around the newly opened Sainsbury’s, the delights of which I still have to savour. Many of my acquaintances had wished that the store had utilised an upper floor and stocked sone non-food items and certainly the discount stores such as Lidl and Aldo benefit from the framed ‘middle aisles’ in which shoppers van browse and occasionally be tempted by domestic items such as clothing and household goods.
As I had a day free of any pressing commitments, I drove down to pick up my newspaper and to have a ‘free’ coffee and then thought would venture forth to undertake a reconnaissance of the newly opened Sainsbury’s store which opened its doors week ago. When I arrived, I found that there was enough parking for me but the minute I entered the store, was prevailed upon to use a Nectar card which I declined at that stage. My first impressions of the store were very favourable and there was plenty of space in the wide aisles and the vegetables seemed copious in supply and of good quality. By way of comparison, a 1kg bag of carrots is 49p in Aldi, 69p in Sainsbury’s and 75p in Waitrose and perhaps this one item speaks volumes about the pricing structures of the local supermarkets. I was thinking of transferring my allegiance from Aldi to Sainsbury and still might do so as the range of choice is greater albeit at a somewhat higher price. Very impressionistically, the quality of the Sainsbury’s produce might be a tad higher but one would have to buy it and consume it for a few weeks before a definitive judgement can be made. Knowing that I am going to provide a meal centred around lamb when Meg’s cousins come to Sunday lunch about nine days time, I thought I would pursue their offerings of lamb joints and was astonished to discover that if you had a Nectar card, the lamb was offered at half price. So this a clincher for me so I drove straight home to install the Nectar app, which proved to be a bit of a nightmare. I got as far as an account being created and a Nectar account number but the app kept sending me round and round in circles, asking that my email ID be verified, after which it seemed to get stuck in a loop and ask me to verify another time and so on. The problem may have been that I had a Nectar card about ten or twenty years ago and this may have complicated the issue, which even the helpline could not resolve. Eventually, I got a solution which involved deleting the app and then relying upon a link that Nectar had sent me which seemed to give me access to my account. This took about an hour and a half of messing around so I made myself a quick bit of lunch and then struck out for the Sainsbury’s store a second time. The account details seemed to work and I purchased the lamb I needed half price and then visited the nearby smaller Aldi store. where I treated myself to anther stock pot to complement the excellent saucepan bought the other day. I think that the vegetable stock preparation which I had thought I might do during the course of the afternoon may have to be missed out for today but I have some spare cubes prepared about ten days ago which should suffice. At the moment, they are frozen into an ice-cube container in the freezer but I might pop them all out and wrap them in some tinfoil so that they approximate to the commercial product. I noticed that Sainsbury’s stocked the Kallo Organic very low salt cubes and I believe that Knorr used to manufacture a zero salt alternative but this may have been withdrawn. The AI advice on the web is to make your own vegetable stock salt free which actually is what I am doing and intend to continue doing.