Brexit negotiations!
Yes, I know this could go in the Brexit thread, or the BBC bias thread, but as a catch all:
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From the BBC
'But after another day of talks on Thursday, just before 19:00 GMT, things seemed to take a turn for the worse.
UK sources said the talks had "gone back 24 hours", claiming the EU has toughened its stance on an independent regulator to police what happens if the shared rules and regulations are broken, and things go wrong.
A senior government source told the BBC:
"At the eleventh hour, the EU is bringing new elements into the negotiation. A breakthrough is still possible in the next few days but that prospect is receding." '
Any reporter/commentator worth their salt should be very well aware, and saying, that this is the standard EU internal negotiating model, used without fail in negotiating every meaningful treaty from day one. That the French are the masters of it and it isn't at the 11th hour, it is at one minute to silly o'clock in the early hours of the morning, against a usually artificial deadline, forcing the participants to negotiate through the night and then, just as the deal looks secured, introducing the completely unheralded demand that worn out negotiators concede to get it over with. Thus slips in the really damaging clause without ever having come under scrutiny.
Irritation does not come from the EU using its standard tactic, it's a predictable creature of its own habits, but from supposedly knowledgeable and neutral British Broadcasting Corporation 'reporters' who do not include that highly relevant fact.
Brexit: Have trade talks taken a turn for the worse?