There is an interesting article in Prospect Magazine by David Allen Green in which he suggests that the judicial activism of the recent past is just not true and where he concludes: So there is an artificially inflated narrative of judicial activism. The context for this is telling: there are concurrent attacks on impartial civil… Read more
Category:
Brexit
About the decision, background and process of the UK leaving the European Union.
Work of the insane
Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), speaking on Tuesday stated that fears over chlorinated chicken imports were entirely justified. This was after the Environment Minister, George Eustace (amazingly a former farmer himself as well as former UKIPer) failed to explicitly rule out chlorinated chicken imports over the weekend. She said: This isn’t… Read more
Constitutional defence
There is an interesting piece in the London Review of Books by Ferdinand Mount, Mrs Thatcher’s former policy advisor (and another Old Etonian), on Johnson’s government and, what has become a recurring theme on PP, his fascist tendencies. The article suggests: ‘Hobbes told us long ago, and everyone now understands, that there must be a… Read more
Passports please
These are the new blue passports (I have spared you the full view of the holder – our smirking home secretary). In full-on irony the new passport seems to sum up Brexit. It is in a new colour reminiscent of an older style, though, in fact, the EU has never prescribed passport colour. The new… Read more
Will the UK go Rogue on Northern Ireland?
Introduction As we have left the EU, the “trivial” task of negotiating the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) is done. It is now a legally binding international treaty, including the Irish Protocol. We now move onto the far more complex future relationship talks. It always seemed impossible that the talks could be concluded successfully within the 10-month… Read more
Bloody immigrants…
Coming over here and taking our best jobs… That is effectively what Patel and Johnson’s plan seems to be because the low skilled – for which read low paid – will not be able to find work in the UK. So, ironically, the Brits will need to take the low skilled jobs whilst the more… Read more
Brexit visions
This was tweeted by Nick, who I know only as an Arsenal supporter but his take on Brexit serves a conclusion much wider than that! He suggests that Brexit is: “People celebrating an imaginary freedom, over an imaginary oppressor in an imaginary war. With imaginary benefits.” I really cannot improve on that. Yet is this… Read more
Fascism as a Methodology rather than an Ideology
Introduction My father attempted to do a PhD in Germany from 1937-39, but it became increasingly obvious that things were deteriorating rapidly in Nazi Germany and that war was coming. He returned to Dublin in July ’39, a few months after the British navy finally withdrew from its occupation of Irish ports. He believed strongly… Read more
HS2 wail – back to the future
Johnson will probably have a problem with the HS2 review. He wants to be popular, thinks he has been ‘lent’ votes in the north, but lots of his Tory MPs think that HS2’s increasing costs are prohibitive, it cuts through their blissful Tory shires – or perhaps it is just a gravy train. I confess… Read more
Emotion is essential…
A recent article from Ian Dunt sums up much of the problem: We are living in a world in which truth is a devastated property. That’s often the result of hermetically-sealed tribal identity groups online and the malicious impact of hostile actors, like Putin’s Russia. But it is also because the government we live under… Read more