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.
2 Likes
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.
1 Like
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 
The Vaccination Minister, Nadhim Zahawi, also seems untypically competent for that Government. Let’s hope he is.
I’d say some heads are being banged together in the Ministère des Affaires sociales et de la Santé. The land of Pasteur and not a local vaccine in sight.
1 Like
Of course - I negotiated all the other deals personally as well 
Allright, I might be exaggerating a little.
1 Like
It appears that the UK has on order enough vaccine to do the whole poulation at least 3X over. Why?
Must have missed that!
Since countries had to order before they knew whether the vaccine would be safe, would work, and be authorised then they had little choice but to hedge bets and order more than might be needed. I just hope they hand it on for free to other poorer countries once supplies start flowing.
1 Like