Here is yet another article in the ‘Daily Telegraph’ – I know – people will think I read nothing else! Which is probably why I chose – just in case – to add this piece to our series on understanding the Right Wing mind. If Johnson is the after-dinner speaker as Prime Minister, then I… Read more
Category:
Brexit
About the decision, background and process of the UK leaving the European Union.
Brexit disaster looms…
There is worrying news from the WTO, which seems to be little noticed. The only record I can find is here, and which ‘Yorkshire Bylines’ are, I suggest, well worth following. The USA has long refused to approve more WTO ajudicators (arbitrators for disputes) so these judges are now inquorate. Trump has only accentuated the… Read more
Covid-19 How is the UK doing?
Introduction From HMG’s perspective, now that the UK has left the EU, the Covid-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to show the UK’s true genius, unshackled from an allegedly moribund Europe. What better opportunity to showcase the true and exceptional greatness of Great Britain? The UK is world-leading (almost). According to the Global Health Security Index… Read more
The right to work (or not)
I enjoyed this (below) which is apparently doing the rounds in the USA – though in the UK it is also, by all accounts, those hyper wealthy Tory backers who want the lockdown unlocked pronto: These wealthy Conservative backers have got, as a result of Johnson’s softening – or is it the Daily Telegraph’s hardening?… Read more
A duty of care perhaps…
The recent ‘clarification’ letter to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee from the FCO Permanent Under-Secretary is deliciously obtuse and obfuscatory: As David Allen Green suggests the prose is strangulated and he has obviously been ‘directed’ by Raab to issue the ‘clarification’, which manages actually to be nothing of the sort! However, my purpose here is… Read more
Macron much more impressive than our lot, but
Macron is rather impressive in his interview for the FT here – and certainly way more reflective and intelligent than our own political pigmies. And although he has made mistakes he has endeavoured to protect his people – which is rather more than our own government “we cannot protect every business and every household” (why… Read more
The perfect excuse to remain…
So Johnson is being looked after by a member of the medical profession who is here as the veritable result of EU ‘freedom of movement’: For the avoidance of doubt he is an NHS doctor at Guy’s and St Thomas’. As David Graeber has said “Boris Johnson is a heartless bastard but I’m not, so… Read more
The economic recovery position is not a walk in the park
It is rumoured in the Sunday papers that Matt Hancock and Rishi Sunak don’t see eye to eye over lockdown – with Hancock favouring a prolonged lockdown and Sunak wanting to get it over with. I’ve no idea if this is right but it certainly looks plausible; I’m not a Hancock fan – not only… Read more
The banking party
In the old joke about hell the French were supposed to be the mechanics and the chefs were British. Times have changed; not only are British chefs rather good but so too are the French much better at the ‘mechanics’ of society. The French government’s emergency, state funded, unemployment pay of 84% of normal wages… Read more
Criticism all round – even from your major supporter abroad
When even the Trump administration – and indeed the man himself – ridicules the UK government’s covid-19 policies you are not in a good place… Hers is a good point of course, but it would be better still when we know that the survival rate on a ventilator is roughly 50:50, I understand. Whereas fewer… Read more