Read the article…Kevin Holinrake was our MP in 2016 and strongly remain, he then got junior gov job and supported Brexit as the will of the people!
Not sure if I fully understand the actual effect…does this apply if you use sterling plastic to pay in sterling to a EU supplier, or only if the payment is due in euro…so there is a conversion back into sterling on the issuers card.
I’d guess that if the vendor charges the sterling plastic in sterling there’s no charge. But if the sterling card pays in Euro then there the charge and an unfavourable exchange rate. Maybe Paypal will do well out of it… and Revolut.
I liked this quote “Some people might put this change down to Brexit, but it is actually just greed,” Joel Gladwin, of the Coalition for a Digital Economy”.
I always find their exchange rates in transactions to be poor.
I use a HSBC UK debit card for sterling transactions so I’ve no experience of Paypal exchange rates Mat. I just bung some cash in every no and then via Transferwise. I do remember that when I travelled a lot on business I found Mastercard a rip off.
I think it is when delivering to a French address Paypal want the transaction to be in Euros so it converts the £ to Euros automatically just badly! You can opt to pay in £ but you have to step in to stop it going through automatically.
I just read that it’s the charges to the vendor not the cardholder that have changed and that it’s the card issuers rather than Mastercard itself that will profit.
Roaming will be next 
Possibly, the thing that makes me doubt that is that (eg) Three offer free roaming in non-EU countries anyway as do other operators so it would be odd to not continue to offer the same in the EU. Not impossible, of course, and will probably depend on commercial deals done with EU operators but they do 71 destinations - i.e more outside the EU than inside.
But the economics are not proportional to the number of countries. The most visited country outside the EU is America - but it’s less than 5 million visits per year, as opposed to the EU with more than 50 million visits from the UK. Once the EU ended roaming the cost of ending it to other countries was pretty marginal - but now they can reintroduce it they might see it as worthwhile.
True, but telcos are under a lot of pressure. Then again competition could prevent them, and Whatsapp calls.
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I was goping to make the same point in reply to Geoff, people are used to not having roaming charges so the first mobile operator to dip a toe into the waters of reintroducing them might come off badly. Unless they all do it at the same time (cartel, what cartel??).
It works the other way as well. Lots of EU visitors to the UK.
It’s one of those we’ll see things, there are arguments both ways.
AstraZenica - EU row and EU’s mess up over vacination sourcing and roll out (compared to UK, have to admit Boris has stolen a march) is lovely gift to Brexiteers to deflect bad outcomes from trade deals and new bureaucracy.
And I’m NO Boris lover !
I think the story is far from over John.
and
I found the different approaches of the British and German Governments amusing. The Germans are not rolling out the AZ vaccine to over 65s because there’s no proof it’s effective and the British are rolling it out to over 65s because there’s no proof it’s not effective 
Personally I think I’d rather have a shot that might be effective that no shot at all but the Pfizer one seems the good standard for oldies.
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Have a surf round: www.renewparty.org.uk.
Sent out a very interesting email today with a vision of EU -Uk relationship. And it’s not a rant about just rejoin, in fact they are one of the better fringe political parties tying to coalesce a joined up way forward.
They are planning to set up a French support group.
Is there a way I can attach or link the email to SF
Screenshot?
If it is a text/link email copy and paste into the message.
I had the Moderna one…also now in short supply but seems pretty similar mRNA vaccine to Pfizer one, and the Brits haven’t ordered any so perhaps supplies will flow eventually.
I’m pretty sure the UK have doses from Moderna on order, they have orders placed with 7 different companies including the 2 newest announced.
We ordered 7 million doses of the Moderna vaccine.
You personally Paul? If so, well done you!
More seriously, the more I see of Kate Bingham the more I think this woman is impressive.
This was her last October …
Well, it looks like the AZ one is the lowest performing of the bunch, and even then there has been a lot of speculation of its efficiency. One might suspect it was a rushed job 