What Do You Think Today?

[wayfriend]

It all makes perfect sense
Expressed in dollars and cents
Pounds, shillings, and pence.

Can't you see?
It all makes perfect sense.

[peter]

Amen to that Wayfriend!

[peter]

I'd really like to ask those people who voted for Brexit and are not happy with it, what exactly they expected?

Increasingly now, we are hearing that "the government has made a complete mess of it" from those who promoted it to the hilt as the best way forward for the country. I even heard 'Lord Brexit' himself, the (not very) honourable member for.... well, actually, no where..... Nigel Farage resorting to it in a YouTube posting yesterday?

Well what is it that you don't like?

Come on - let's hear it?

I don't remember there being any kind of other question on the referendum ballot paper - 'In or Out' it asked us, and we said out.

Then Boris Johnson, ably guided by the obnoxious Sir David Frost, delivered us about the hardest kind of Brexit that still kept us even talking to the EU on matters like security and cross border policing (and not even much there), and still you are not happy.

What is it that you would have had? In what way have your fantasies not been realised, unless it be to recognise that you were wrong to be duped into believing it was a good idea in the first place?

And it is here that the real fallacy of the idea is exposed in all of its ludicrous simplicity. Because if you ask this question of those who still 'believe' but are not yet happy with where we find ourselves, you will get different answers based on completely different reasoning.

Some are the, "I always believed we should have gone for the Norway style option," type. Those people are the ones who now realise that the damage of not being able to trade with our nearest neighbours, that there is no magic deal to be done with the Americans (despite what the perfidious Trump would have said). These people are now subtlety changing their stance to make themselves sound reasonable in the face of the obvious calamity that they have foisted on our economy. Well sorry guys - it won't wash. You didn't want a 'soft Brexit' at the time and it is no good pretending that you did now.

Then there's the Farage type. The ones for whom any kind of contact with our European neighbours was anathema. In the face of the clear evidence of the damage that we have wreaked upon ourselves, they can only rage and bluster that "It's the government wot done it!" Somehow the government failed to do a deal with the US that was waiting to be done. It wasn't - the NI protocol lash-up was always going to preclude this even if the country were prepared to stretch out a benevolent hand and 'give the little guy a hand-up' (not the American way of negotiating deals at all). Or it's that we haven't broken away from the ECJ, we still have to bother with all of those pesky workers rights and human rights and whatever. Come on! What happened to "No march to the bottom!"? None of those things are in any way affecting the fact that a hundred billion pounds worth of European trade has been spaffed up the wall at a single stroke. You got your Brexit, just as you wanted (Farage himself stood in front of Westminster cracking open the bottles of champaign at midnight on the day that the Johnson deal came into force) and it's turned out to be a turkey. Now you are casting around for excuses as to why your castles have turned to sand, your promises to so much empty wind.

And as I say, here it is, exposed in all its glory. Because Brexit was never really a thing. It was a million things to a million different people, in a million different minds, with no coherent structure. To some it was getting rid of the immigrants (look how that worked out). To some it was clearing away all of that EU red-tape that the Daily Mail had convinced them existed. It's worse now by a hundred times than it ever was before; ask the thousands of businesses who are now insolvent because the EU simply won't buy goods from us because of it. To some (the old) it was a return to the heady days of their youth, when there was no black faces on the streets and we enjoyed an empire. When the French had dirty necks and we told them so! This has to be the saddest group of all. Not the one of us won't look back on the days of our youth through the rose-tinted spectacles of time passed - but this lot destroyed a nation on the back of it.

So there you have it. And in conclusion I'd say that I'd think much more of you if you could, just for once, be honest about it. Yes - it's a fuck up, you'd say, we own it. But it's a fuck up that's done and now we have to live with it. The way forward, you'd think, would be to but out and let Sunak and Hunt, and whoever it is that will ultimately replace them, try and unscramble the egg a bit - try and rescue whatever can be salvaged from the wreckage without hindrance from you lot who have already been proved so wrong. I heard both Jacob Rees-Mogg and David Frost (arch brexiteers both) bemoaning how "hard they had worked" to get us to where we are, and that they wouldn't stand for seeing it all overturned. Yes - because you both are in the tiny minority who have benefited from Brexit (Rees-Mogg to the tune of millions) while all else have bourne the cost. And besides - it's not about you, about the "work" you have done. It's about the country, the future, making the best of a bad job and taking the steps toward a recovery.

So all you complainers, you who are spouting off in the papers and on television about how Sunak and Hunt mustn't countenance anything that brings us back into the fold of European trade, you who ridiculously claim that it's all the government's fault that Brexit failed, please just do us all a favour and disappear. Just shut up. You've done enough damage already.

[peter]

Just to add to the above, in clarification as it were, I'll return to an analogy I used during the referendum debate itself.

Think in terms of a family going on holiday. They decide to do so, but this is not really the decision at all.

The key decision is where they are going to go. And if every member wants to go to a different place, then the idea that they actually want to go on holiday at all is really an illusion.

And this is exactly what we see playing out before our eyes right now. The illusion of Brexit shattering before the very people who wanted it. Suddenly they all want their different things again and the only thing they can agree on is that they don't want to be where we are.

This was the folly of not settling where the destination post Brexit was going to be before we left the front door (to continue my analogy).

And just one further thing; earlier on I watched a Labour MP, a backbencher by the name of Geraint Davies give an address to a nearly empty House in which, as a rebuttal of the constant refrain of the Tories that everything is Labour's fault, in which he actually compared the various economic and societal achievements of both parties during their something like equal periods of tenure in government.

It was as clear and devastating a bill of iniquities laid at the government's door as I have ever heard. In it he shreds the government's go to excuses of the pandemic and Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as showing what the Tories have done to the actual legacy they inherited.

To get the measure of just how bad the twelve years of Tory government have been, I urge you to watch it. It's on YouTube and I'll try to find the name of the posting.

(Edit It's called Geraint Davies's brutally honest review of Tories in power. Go check it out.)

[wayfriend]

Brexit was a one hundred percent success in that Europe no longer rules British affairs.

It's indisputable that they all got their cake, peter. The disappointment is in the surprise that it tastes so bad that they really can't eat it, too.

[peter]

They never did Wayfriend (and I say this for the uninitiated: I understand fully the way in which you are saying it). It is a common misconception that we were under some kind of European yoke while members of the EU. We enjoyed the almost unique position in the body of sitting right on the edge, in terms of our ability to opt out of many of the rulings made, and simultaneously enjoyed the best refunding arrangements in respect of our contributions of all the 28 nations therein.

There is no such thing as perfect autonomy in this modern globalist world. The very act of entering into any kind of agreement means that you become bound by the terms therein. The trick is to negotiate your side of the bargain such that you get the best terms possible, and in this respect the biggest players tend to hold the most powerful hand.

A case in point would be the post Brexit deal that we have negotiated with Japan since leaving the EU. The signing of this deal was held up as a triumph of Brexit - we had finally signed our own deal outside the EU (and incidentally, it was on the kudos gained thereby that Liz Truss built her premiership bid, and we all know where that led) - but the reality was that the deal was worth only half as much as it would have been had we signed it inside the EU, simply on the basis of the better terms we would have been able to demand.

No. Even the most powerful countries are not autonomous in this world simply by virtue of the act of participation within it. They also are bound, they bow to the will of the terms of the deals they sign. It's just that they get better terms. The only true autonomy in this world would be to seal yourself off from it and do no outside trading whatsoever. (And see how long that would last.)

But sticking with the same subject area, I want to shift the debate slightly to the realm of responsibility.

To what extent should our politicians be held responsible, held to account, for what they say in our Houses - words the truth of which those listening take as given and upon which they make decisions about how they will vote, how they think.

George Eustace is not a name that will be familiar outside the UK, but until recently he was the Minister for Agriculture in the UK, and was significantly involved with advising the then Minister for Trade, Liz Truss, on her negotiation of the terms of our (again post Brexit) trade deal with Australia.

This deal was signed in a great flurry of publicity, and waved in the air much like the Munich Agreement, as a sign of how well we had done in leaving the EU. That, in our/her desperation to get a deal - any deal - to show we had done the right thing - Truss had effectively just walked into the negotiating room and given the Australians whatever they had asked for, was understandably not made much of, but there were those of us watching who were aware of what had been done. I have heard since of the Australian incredulity at the ease with which they achieved their demands, which were simply handed to them without question.

This notwithstanding, at the time Truss returned to the UK hailing the triumph of the deal and not far behind her was Agriculture Minister George Eustace, standing up in the House saying that the deal was good and in the interests of the UK.

Eustace, as a serving minister under Sunak's great arch-enemy Boris Johnson and not iirc a Sunak supporter in his leadership bids, soon found his political star falling and was sacked in the Sunak reshuffle (carried out on Sunak's taking office) to return to the backbenches from whence he arose.

And from this position it was that we saw him, a few days ago, stand and say that, now able to speak in a less constrained fashion, that he could admit that the Australian deal was not a very good deal at all. In fact it was a bad deal from which we must learn, in order that the same mistakes not be made in future deals that we might strike (not that there seems to be any in the offing; in fact we seem to have exhausted our supply already).

Now this is atrocious really. A politician standing in the House and admitting that he lied - for his claim that the deal was good and in the interest of Britain was a lie, and he knew it - in support of a government claim that he knew to be untrue..... now this is not something that you see every day.

And yet it seems to be taken as read that this is fully acceptable. That simply on the grounds of consensus governance, of supporting the government of which you are a part, it is acceptable to knowingly mislead the House, mislead the public who are watching with impunity (as opposed to doing the right thing and resigning).....well, this is disgraceful. If this is what collective (cabinet) government requires you to do, then I think it is time for a rethink.

Because this was not a matter of opinion, a situation where one might disagree with ones cabinet colleagues but in the interest of cabinet unity agree to support the opposite position. No - this was a deliberate misleading, in saying that something was good that one knew to be not so. No question of opinion to muddy the waters. This is different and cannot be justified as a way of carrying on.

Our politicians really need to rethink what it means, the responsibilities they hold, when they stand up in our Houses and make statements which influence the future direction of their countries. And they need to face far greater reprisals in cases where they are found wanting.

[wayfriend]

The word you're looking for is "accountability".

In a democracy, accountability is gaining or losing the support of the populus.

The extent to which that has become vestigial is exactly the degree to which democracy has become ... harnassed, for lack of a better word.

[peter]

Accountability! Got it in one Wayfriend.

I don't know if you have the same problem in the US, but over here it seems to be virtually nonexistent excepting in the most egregious of cases of failure to adhere to the 'code' on standards in public life. The area I am particularly referring to here - that of misleading both the legislature and the public for political ends (placing party before country and lying to gain or maintain political capital) - seems to pass with complete impunity. Such that a former minister can effectively admit to it and change his story in front of his peers, without so much as a hair being turned.

While such behaviour is accepted, even condoned, within our polities, we simply cannot expect good governance to result.

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It may fairly be said, from a quick scan of this morning's headlines (and a smattering of news gathering yesterday), that PM Sunak's 'honeymoon period' is well and truly over.

In fact, more than over, it seems to have slipped seamlessly into his period of decline without even having gone through the standard months/years of grey acceptance - the years in which great PM's do the graft upon which their legacies are built.

Already there are signs of deep unrest within the ranks of his parliamentary MPs about his premiership. The affair over the weekend of his reportedly considering closer links with the EU (in a Swiss style arrangement) have done him significant damage with the right of his party, and his denials of there being any truth in the story have to a large extent fallen on deaf ears. I saw one report in which an anonymous backbencher said that, "We were never convinced of his credentials as a brexiteer in the first place." This seems pretty unfair to me since during the referendum I remember him talking in interview about his strong belief that the UK would be better off outside the EU, but this doesn't really matter. In today's age it is enough for an accusation to be thrown for some of it's residue to stick.

The FT reports that, "Sunak is poised to be tested this winter as a fatalistic mood descends on many of his MPs," and the 'i' reports that there is a feeling of lack of direction in the PM's agenda amongst his MPs that is causing increasing fractiousness.

Struggling to control the tempestuous beast that is the Tory parliamentary party is not however the least of Sunak's problems. One of his core pieces of legislation, the Retained EU Law Bill, which seeks to sweep away in one fell swoop much of the legislation that remains from our membership of the EU, is coming under severe attack. The FT reports that a dozen highly influential bodies have collaborated to approach the government with their concerns about the legislation, saying it is a recipe for disorder and confusion for businesses facing already tough challenges in dealing with changing legal requirements resulting from Brexit, and the economic challenges related to energy and supply cost increases. There is particular concern about the so called 'sunset clause' which says that any existing EU legislation that has not been reviewed or revoked by government by the end of next year will be automatically revoked. This, they say is a recipe for disaster which will result in a bonanza for lawyers dealing with the fallout for years to come. This approach comes mere days after the bill was described as ''not fit for purpose " by the government's own Regulatory and Policy committee.

There is ripe ground here for yet further widening of the breach between Sunak and the right of the parliamentary party, since this particular bill is red meat to their Brexit ideology and they hold it dear in their hearts (not to mention how well it will sit with the swivel eyed foam spitting Brexit elements within the population more broadly).

And then there is the way that Sunak and Hunt are dealing with the recession. Under normal circumstances the form for dealing with the negative growth over two quartiles which constitutes a recession is to promote economic activity by splashing some cash out into the population, by boosting public spending and giving the economy a bit of a shunt. But Sunak and Hunt are doing the exact opposite, imposing the largest tax burden since the 1950's and preparing for a second bout of public spending cuts to add to the austerity of the Osbourne years, the effects of which are with us to this day. On the back of these moves the OBR predicts a 'lost decade', a seven percent fall in living standards unprecedented in our history and a shrinkage of the economy that will continue throughout the next parliamentary session.

And suffice to say, there are many among Sunak's backbencher MPs who are not happy about it. There are whisperings that it is Hunt who is running the show, that Sunak is just a puppet leader to the real mover and shaker in the treasury, and that he (Hunt) is bent on pursuing his remainer style borderline socialist policies at the expense of everything that the Tories believe in.

And to cap it all, to add to Sunak's woes, the strikes are about to kick in. The teachers, university lecturers, railway workers, nurses, postal workers - all preparing to withdraw their labour as the Christmas period approaches. And a general population pretty pissed already at the rising cost of living they are experiencing, and which is about to get worse. Much worse.

I saw an episode of The Crown last night in which, during the Ted Heath miners strike era, Prince Phillip was saying that he'd never seen the country more unstable and unsettled. Well I remember that and it was as nothing to what we are in now. Even the Thatcher poll tax situation and police doing horse charges into the rows of pickets, violent and spectacular as they were, don't compare. There is an undercurrent of emotion in the population about what is happening, what has been done, what they have been subjected to with Brexit, with the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis, that is currently sitting in the form of a general despondency, a resignedness about the futility of it all. It is only a matter of time before this translates into anger, at first simmering and then potentially explosive.

So fair to say that the road ahead for Sunak looks anything but smooth at the present. He must be wondering what he has let himself in for, and who could blame him.

[Avatar]

The Afrikaners have a saying... "Jy wil mos..."

Loosely translated it means "You wanted to..." but what it really means is "What you are suffering now is the consequence of your own choices / actions."

It seems appropriate...

--A

[peter]

Sort of "You reap what you sow" style of thing Av. And I'd unashamedly take pleasure in it were the consequences not so terrible for the country. Sunak's troubles are set to continue today (press wise - more generally they will continue until the day he leaves office as PM) with reports that all three of his immediate predecessors in the role are piling in with the criticism of his policies (Truss and Johnson against the continuation of the ban on onshore wind farms and Theresa May on his seeming indifference to the levelling up agenda upon which much Northern goodwill -and possibly many Conservative red-wall seats -rests). This won't bother Sunakunt too much, (I feel compelled to call our PM this as it seems to be that we don't actually know whether it is Rishi Sunak or Jeremy Hunt who is actually performing the role in this administration); former Prime Minister's are notoriously critical of those that come after them by default, and given the record of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss....well, you get my point.

------------0----------

That Boris Johnson would be thrown out of office in ignominy. Who knew.

That Brexit would be a disaster. Who knew.

That trade with our biggest neighbours would suffer. Who knew.

That labour and product shortages would result. Who knew.

That exports would be knocked to shit. Who knew.

That the historical trouble of Northern Ireland would be revived by the ham fisted mauling of the Good Friday Agreement. Who knew.

That Truss's mini-budget would bust the economy. Who knew.

That the covid pandemic policies of lockdown would do more harm than they prevented. Who knew.

That rushing through new vaccine production and ignoring the established protocols on testing and safety was a bad idea. Who knew.

That deaths as a result of the cessation of cancer screenings and treatments, of increased waiting times and staff shortages in the NHS would rocket. Who knew.

That the accusations of antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn were a politically motivated fabrication. Who knew.

That Kier Stamer would abandon the socialist heart of the Labour movement in a desperate bid which put the attainment of power over remaining true to one's principles. Who knew.

That the Australia trade deal negotiated by Liz Truss wasn't worth the paper it was written on. Who knew.

That the Japanese deal would have netted us twice as much if negotiated from inside the EU. Who knew.

That internecine wrangling within the Conservative Party would bring the nation to it's knees and threaten the very Union itself. Who knew.

That the poorest sectors of the population would be left carrying the can for twelve years of Tory misgovernment. Who knew.

That the legacy of my generation would be to leave our descendants a broken shell of a country facing an uncertain future in an increasingly polarised and hostile world. Who knew.

(Sigh)

------------0-------------

So let's just get this straight.

A Tory peer, uses a 'fast track' access for those with political connection, to access the huge funds set aside for PPE procurement, of which 220 million goes of to the company she reccomends, of which 29 million pounds at some later point finds its way into the bank accounts of her and her family members........

Does this have the whiff of corruption about it or is this just me....?

[peter]

Big boys games, big boys rules. That's what they used to say about it.

That there was ever a so called 'shoot to kill' policy operated by our armed forces in the Province of Northern Ireland has always been hotly denied by army chiefs, but looking at the detail of the conviction yesterday of a NI veteran in a Belfast court of manslaughter, it seems that perhaps the truth is one step closer to coming out.

The incident happened at a checkpoint in the province during which a 'person of interest' was shot in the back 'accidentally' by a British soldier on duty at the time. The defendant claimed that the shooting had been accidental, but the judge said that this was stretching the bounds of credulity given that the soldier had shortly before carried out a 'search' on the individual (not physical, but on any intelligence that was known about him) and established that he was a potential member of a paramilitary organisation of the region. The bullet came from a machine gun held by the soldier and struck the victim in the back. It was claimed that the gun was fired in accident and it was a ricochet bullet that killed the man. The judge didn't buy it and the man, an ex grenadier guard, was convicted as charged.

It's difficult to know what to think about this. Part of you thinks, "Okay. It was effectively a war situation and had the soldier fallen into the hands of the victim on say, a dark night away from his base, then his life in turn wouldn't have been worth a plugged nickel."

But then another part of your brain kicks in and says, "But hang on - this is an extra judicial killing. Effectively a murder. In a civilised society this cannot be tolerated. If it is, there is no end to it."

And I'm going to be honest, live by the sword, die by the sword - or the rule of law, in cases like this I simply cannot say what I think because I don't know.

But I absolutely do understand that it is politics that puts men into this kind of situation, sets communities against each other and turns men who should be friends, who should laugh together on a Friday night in the pub, not shoot each other in darkened alleys or in country lanes, against each other.......

And for this, the politicians who have played fast and loose with the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland should be ashamed of themselves. It should be David Frost and Boris Johnson and the ownership of the right wing media in the dock, not soldiers of either side, who do what they are told on the orders of their political masters.

This is the first ever former soldier to be convicted of a killing during the 'troubles' and should be front page news on every paper. It comes however, second to sport. How it will be received in the Province remains to be seen, but let's pray it is not just another straw added to the tinder-box that is Northern Ireland post Brexit, or God forbid, even a match.

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One of the most horrid lines I ever heard in a film was the musing comment made by the inimitable Philip Seymour Hoffman, playing a priest in the great and underrated film Doubt as he studied his hand, "I wear my nails long."

It had never occurred to me that one could 'wear ones nails' at all, long or otherwise. It may have been due to the nature of the character he was playing - a cleric who may or may not have been a child abuser - but it seemed to me that there was simply something.... unwholesome.... about the idea. That someone (a man) could be so obsessed with their manicure as to actually consider that they 'wore' their nails this way or that. Nasty.

Yet oddly, I find myself in the strange position of having to 'groom' myself to this effect by virtue of a bruised tooth that I have incurred as a result of biting too hard on a tooth. Alas, I have to admit that for my entire life my fingernails have had to suffer with my biting them down to the quick and the problem of their length has never been one I have faced. My stress levels have always had the possibly useful side effect of sorting out my nail length without me ever having to even think about it, but suddenly I find that this happy situation is no more.

How to deal with it? By nail file? With clippers? Do I find a seat in a nail bar alongside all of the other peroxide blonde adolescents in my town, or sit, Blofeld like, with a minion polishing my nails while I puff, bemonacled, on a cigarette holder, like Dr Evil giving my thoughts to world domination?

It's a quandary to be sure and the sooner this tooth settles and I can chow down on a keratin based regime once more the better. In the meantime I could always see a farrier I suppose. Perhaps that will be less bruising to my testosterone fuelled ego than having to resort to Mrs P's nail file and pink marbalette manicure set!

[peter]

Official figures now in from the Department of International Trade now confirm what we all knew, that trade with Japan since we signed Liz Truss's "historic deal" with the nation, is actually worse, and by a considerable margin.

And let's face it - why wouldn't it be?

Look at it this way. Saying you were involved in setting up a company to make your product on the far side of the world (with the huge cost that entails) and you have a choice. You can set up within the biggest trading block in the world, where once having arranged your operation you then have access to 26 other countries without any border checks or tariffs. Or you can set up on the periphery of that block, in a country from which you cannot move your goods without huge reams of paperwork and additional financial costs. Which would you choose?

Similarly, are you going to import from a small country who's produce is significantly more expensive with no notable increase in quality (UK productivity is historically low in comparison with our European neighbours), or from that huge block from whence the range and cost of products is reflective of the size of the market available to you? Again, it's a no-brainer.

So no inward investment and reduced export of goods is what you would predict and that is exactly what we see, in this case reflected by a ten percent drop in exports since we signed the much vaunted deal.

Yet another kick in the goolies for those who would continue to insist that to leave the EU was a good thing for commercial reasons going forward.

But in truth they know, as do the rest of us, that it was never about that. It was about immigration. It was about sovereignty. It was about insular thinking over outward looking. It was never about trade, or the future thereof.

And that's fine, as long as you are prepared to accept the downside that comes with it and be honest about it. But this kind of acceptance, and this kind of honesty is in pretty short supply in this country at present. As was demonstrated by a YouTube posting of interviews taken in the Midlands town of Boston, the town which had the highest proportion of leave voters in the UK, something over seventy four percent of the population. A large proportion of those interviewed were not satisfied with the Brexit they had been delivered, and now wished they had voted to remain in the EU. Those who were still convinced that they had done the right thing in voting to leave were in some kind of denial about the realities of the post Brexit situation. They simply did not acknowledge the costs of what we have done, preferring to think that it was all remainer sour grapes and that Boris had done us proud.

And so it is and will remain. Nothing to see here.

For the rest of it, it's a pretty thin sort of news day. Michael Gove is stirring up a cabinet split by coming out in favour of on-shore wind farms (against the current government policy under which new development is barred). The cabinet is about fifty fifty on this one, with many looking nervously at their constituents to see how they feel before expressing their views, but Gove will always 'give it a stir' if he has the opportunity.

This Fire Chief in London has made a bit of a storm by talking about a report into his particular service that says it is institutionally racist and mysoginistic. They seem to have forgotten homophobic, but perhaps they all love gays in that service? Who knows?

Anyway that's it. Sorry it's a bit lacklustre, but I don't make the news, just comment on it!

[peter]

The unfolding scenes of civil protest in China must be making governments around the world - not least our own - shuffle a little nervously in their chairs.

Reason - it shows what happens when you push a people too far; that despite all of the propaganda, all of the social control measures, all of the apparatus of state enforcement, you cannot stand against the people when they unite en masse and say,"No!" (Or you can - but it takes a whole new level of state approved violence to do so - violence directed against your own people at a level which neither you, nor they, are used to. In other words, a game changer.)

The West in particular will find themselves in a dilemma over this. In half of their minds - those who occupy the positions of political power, those who control the media, what we read, hear and see - they will want to capitalise on China's discomfort as it's people rise up in anger. And then the devil on the other shoulder will kick in and say, "" But saying it was us? Do we really want people watching images of populations defying their governments?"

And the problem is compounded.

Because the protests in China are surrounding policies that are dear to the hearts of our own administrations - that of being able to tell the people to "get into your houses and stay there!" and have people obey them. Do you really want your own populations to see that in fact, you don't have to take this kind of control, this kind of assault on your freedom, lying down?

And it strikes yet even more of a craw with our political leadership because it happens to be about the very thing that they had done themselves, in the greatest assault on our collective liberty in the history of the West. Those covid lockdowns when we spent weeks away from our lever ones and neighbours, obeying the diktats on who we could meet with, sleep with, worship with. In an outburst of collective anger the Chinese people are standing up and saying, "No!"

Because they want no more of covid lockdown restrictions, of zero covid policies, of being told where they can go, who they can see.

And while our administrations wrestle with the problem of how much we should be able to see of what is happening, how to balance their desire to point score over China and relish their administration's discomfort with their fear of what happens if their own populations start getting the idea that they can also say 'no' - the Chinese government faces a dilemma of its own. What should they do?

Should they go out, Tiananmen Square like, with the tractors and bulldozers; mow down a few thousand with tanks and bullets? Or should they hold back, wait and see if the energy of the protests will dissipate, evanesce and fade away on its own, without the need for the heavy hand of state authority to be applied.

And again, as with the very introduction of the covid lockdown policies in the West themselves (remember when that creep professor Ferguson said in interview with the Times that it was only when they saw the Italian government introduction of lockdown in emulation of the Chinese, that the Sage committee thought, "Hell - we could get away with that here as well," - and I quote directly) our own governments will be watching very carefully as to how the Chinese deal with this mass public insurrection. And make no mistake. If the truncheons and rubber bullets is what it takes, the tanks and 'cunts with guns', then our lot will be just as happy to pick up the phones, to sign the orders, as those grey suited men in the CCP high offices will be themselves.

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I'm in a bit of a quandary.

I have taken it as read that the way forward out of our problems is to get back into the single market, the customs union, get our export trade up and running again. And so it is. Nothing changes there.

Thus it came as a bit of a shock to me to hear Kenneth Clarke - an ex Tory Chancellor and ardent remainer, say that he completely agreed with Kier Stamer's recent speech to the CBI in which he said that the day of cheap imported labour from the EU must be over. That we must engage in training our own workforce and paying them well, if we are ever to get out of this ever descending circle of decline that we are in.

Well yes, I get that. And I've always been aware of how imported labour from the EU was being used to keep wages for British workers artificially low - but I confess, I'd never given much thought to the effects of this on growth. But of course it does have an effect here. People with no money in their pockets don't spend - and no spending means no demand for growth. And according to Stamer and Clarke, it is this falling back of wage growth in comparison to similar Western economies, that is now resulting in a division between how we are recovering from the pandemic, compared to the rest. (Well, that and Brexit as well.)

This, said Clarke, was not a problem prior to the admission of the Eastern bloc countries of Poland and Romania into the EU, which suddenly upped the numbers of cheap migrant labour that wanted to come to the UK. Up until this point immigrant labour had not had this depressive effect upon wages. But of later time, the influx of cheap labour had held our wage growth (and investment in new technology designed to increase productivity - another issue hampering our economic recovery) down to the point where it was far behind our neighbours, and indeed stifling the very growth upon which our economic health was dependent.

Which of course brings us back to our reentering the single market and customs union, which yes, would sort out our export problems, sort out our food shortages and the Northern Ireland issues, sort out our labour issues in the hospitality and agricultural sectors, the NHS and care homes......but would also demand as a minimum requirement, our reintroduction of free movement of labour.

And while this is happening, our wages ain't growing, and we are not the introducing the new technologies required to address our productivity problems (and as the guy said, when it comes to economic health, productivity isn't everything - but it's nearly everything). So in doing what we heed to do in order to save our economy (ie rejoining the single market and customs union) we are also doing the things that will maintain the downward pressure on wages and innovation that we need to reverse in order to save our economy.

Riddle me that! I'm no longer so sure I understand any of this. Perhaps Jeremy Corbyn and Mick Lynch and all the Leavers were right to want out of the EU? Perhaps it was no more than a means for business to introduce downward pressure on wages, making them rich but screwing the economy in the process?

Oh fuck! Was The Fallen right all along? That's a spoonful of humble pie I don't want to eat!

[I'm Murrin]

The solution to that quandary, of course, is to raise wages anyway, even if migrant workers would be willing to work for less. You know, do the thing that will fix the problem rather than bow down to the companies who just want to maximise their individual profits.

There's no real scenario where employers are going "oh no, these foreign workers are demanding we pay them less than British workers" - they're just taking advantage. Pay them what their labour is worth. The problem isn't the immigration, it's the exploitation.

[Avatar]

Well said Murrin.

--A

[peter]

Fully.

I think that the training issue has to be addressed as well. For years we have been skimping on the training of our own population on the basis of it's being cheaper to import the skilled labour we need. The NHS is the classic example of this but the trend pertains elsewhere as well. Proper payment at all levels of the workforce, a properly funded education system, both university and technical in particular (those being the areas where funding has simply been stopped altogether in recent years) but across the board as well. The private education system should die by attrition, because the state schools offer better education carried out by better paid teachers in smaller classes, not because of it's being 'banned'.

The care system in particular needs to be addressed via a complete change of attitude toward how it is perceived. It needs not to be seen as the last option for workers who can't find anything else, and who are paid minimum wage for shocking working conditions in intolerably difficult working environments. It should only be entered through a two year qualification in general care (covering geriatric, special needs, et al) and paid a proper professional wage with proper and appropriate respect given for the essential service these workers provide, and provided by the further education colleges we have built in every town in the country. A National Care Service on a par with the NHS should be set up, paid for by taxation and liasining with the latter for medical services and logistics.

In short, we need a post covid consensus that mirrors the post war consensus of the Atlee government and raises the game for the whole UK population and not just an elite section of it.

---------------0----------------

Jeremy Hunt tells us that it is our patriotic duty to reduce our energy usage (by fifteen percent is, I think, the figure he wants) in order to "defeat Putin" and prevent him using energy shortages as a means to apply pressure on the West in respect of his war in Ukraine.

Well okay. But wouldn't it be more correct to say that we need to cut energy usage over the winter months because, well, we simply haven't got enough to go around?

And that the reason for this is that we have followed an unsustainable energy policy in pursuit of our commitment to the green agenda and net zero - policies that are simply not designed to meet our burgeoning energy needs.

In 2020 something over forty percent of our electricity came from renewables and like it or not, the supply from these sources is less reliable than from traditional generating plants. It is simply too unreliable and insufficiently provided to meet the energy needs of a country of sixty five million people plus our industrial requirements as well. In addition, rather than open up further gas fields that are available to us in the North Sea, we have chosen instead to import gas from Europe and oil and coal from Russia.

This overall energy strategy has left us vulnerable on just about every front possible. Vulnerable in terms of energy supply. Vulnerable in terms of price fluctuations on the international markets. Vulnerable in terms of the pressure that may be applied to us in our dealings with our neighbours and competitors both, for fear of disrupting our supplies.

So if we face power cuts this winter, if our factories have to shut down, it won't be because Putin has gone to war in Ukraine, it will be because of the failure of our government to see the vulnerabilities into which their energy policies were leading us, the absolute risks that are now coming home to roost, and Hunt would be the better man if he were to admit it.

-------------0----------

All of the papers are telling us with great relish that "Jill Scott is set to make Millions!" following her success in both the I'm a Celebrity game show and her football career. She will do this apparently via television appearances and advertising endorsements.

More power to her elbow - I haven't seen anything she's done having no interest either in football or reality game shows, but I don't begrudge her, her success.

But what I question is why the media should be so intent to tell us about it? We had the same story with the tennis girl Emma Raddacannu or whatever she was called, with updates as to how she had "swopped her VW Golf for a top of the range Porsche" at a later point.

Doesn't it strike the creators of these headlines that in a time when forty percent of the children in this country are living on or below the poverty line, when old people are making the decision whether to 'heat or eat' and thousands face the prospect of loosing their homes - that these stories might be just a little bit insensitive? They cannot simply be stupid so why do they do it? There has to be a reason why they insist on rubbing our noses into the fact that a few fortunate individuals who make it up the greasy pole, suddenly gain access to the huge quantity of mullah that swills about at the top end of our society.....but I can't for the life of me work out what it is. Do they actually want the people of this country out on the streets?

Recently we've had this story about this Tory peer who has managed to rinse twenty nine million quid out of the ppe procurement budget for herself and her family, via the 'VIP' channel which those with political connection could use to direct companies they could endorse toward the relevant government departments. This woman spoke directly to Michael Give, got the company the contract (of which the bulk of the stuff provided turned out to be useless) and trousered twenty nine million of the 220 million total in commission.

You'd think she must be cock-a-hoop at the earner she had pulled off, but I doubt it. Why? Because twenty nine million is small change to this woman. She's worth millions herself having made a fortune selling bra's and knickers, she's married to a billionaire and lives in the Isle of Man, a noted tax haven favourite of the offshore banking profession.

And this is the way it goes in this country. Create a system where those at the top can milk it until the rivers run with gold and the poor struggle to even put food on the table for their kids.

And this is what pisses me off here. Because the system actively supports the quasi-corrupt behaviour of people like this woman, she's done no wrong they'll tell us, it actively supports that just by getting into the right spot at the right time can shoot you up into the stratosphere of earnings where you make in one year more than some drudge in an old people's home makes in a lifetime of caring for our elderly...... and they won't even tax you properly on it (unless like David Beckham you actively elect to pay your proper proportion of taxes; most don't, preferring the Tory peer's route).

Now I don't give a flying fuck how rich you can get - but institute a proper tax regime that keeps it all fair and pay the rest of us a proper living fucking wage commensurate with the graft we put in! How hard can it be? How fucking hard?

----------0---------

Rishi Sunak's need/desire to pander to the right of his party (generally, but more specifically to the MPs in the House) is a major stumbling block to his ability to do what is necessary for the good of the country as a whole.

Take last night's speech to the Lord Mayor's Banquet in London as an example. In fis first major foreign policy speech he was at pains to stress that the "Golden era of UK-China relations was over." From now on we would be taking a much more "robust pragmatism" approach, rather than the "wistful thinking" one we have adopted to date.

Fair enough. Do it if that is what you think is right. But was there any need to issue a public slap in the face to an undeniable power in today's world, simply for the good headlines it would give him in the Telegraph? Comments like this may play well with the Tory right, but do they really add anything to our ability to function in the world - to negotiate on the world stage?

Dealing with China is like it or not something that we have to do. If we are ever going to get them to come on board with our attempts as a world to deal with climate change, to influence Russia, to change their own approach to human rights, then speeches of this nature will help not one jot.

He needs to man-up and deal with the right of his own party, not throw down gauntlets to countries that we will inevitably have to parley with if we are ever going to exercise any geopolitical influence on the world stage again. This is realpolitik not party politics, and the sooner he gets it the better.

[peter]

I mean, I'm sorry to keep going on about it, but the more I think about it the more ridiculous the whole thing seems.

Does anybody think, for example, that Vladimir Putin is sitting at home worrying about the state of the planet and climate change? Or is he more concerned about selling as much oil and gas as he can for the highest price he can get for it? And if we choose not to buy it, on the grounds of combatting climate change, or because he has invaded Ukraine or for whatever other reasons we come up with - does that mean that no one else of the two hundred or so other countries is going to buy it? I'm not saying this as a reason to continue buying Russian oil and gas, just as an indicator of the futility of thinking that we can ever wean the world off fossil fuels.

And let's look at the worst culprits for carbon emissions in the world. China comes top with thirty percent of all global emmisions followed by the USA with fourteen percent. Yet these two countries are barely speaking to each other and we in the West seem to be doing everything in our powers to keep it that way. (Incidentally, we the UK are down at number seventeen with just one percent of emissions accountable to us. The only country with a sizable carbon output above us is India, up at seven percent and Russia coming in at around four percent).

Now given the geopolitical tensions between all of these top carbon emitters, it is absolutely clear that there is going to be no common ground in which agreement stands a hope in hell of being reached. On this gloomy basis it means that essentially everything we do in order to try to limit our carbon footprint on the world is essentially wasted. With the situation that pertains between the countries above us, the really big emitters, it is simply a waste of time. Unless and until these guys get their acts together it is simply a pointless exercise for anybody else to even bother to try. It really is an all or no one situation and it's as simple as that.

So by not utilising our own coal and gas fields, we simply put ourselves through the mill to no reasonable effect. Our old people go cold, our energy costs are prey to any and every turbulent event on the world stage and we gain not one jot from it.

Sorry, I don't like it more than you, but until the big guys sort out their differences and cut their own emissions down to zilch it simply behoves us to accept the reality that nothing is going to change and that we are fucked. Either that or for the rest of the world to cut China and America off totally - I mean no selling to them, no buying from them and no travel to or from them - until they both start to play ball. And like this is going to happen.

Crazy sort of post and I'll be really pleased if someone can say "no Peter - you are missing something here," - but I don't see it happening.

I mean everybody in the world is so busy alienating everyone else at the moment, that to pick the bones out of it and come to some kind of realistic agenda on carbon emission reduction seems to me to be for the birds.

[wayfriend]

just as an indicator of the futility of thinking that we can ever wean the world off fossil fuels.

Well, if he has instilled in you that sense of futility, then he has won.

It's not futile. It's only hard. The difficulty is separating the decision making from the vested interest.

One day seas will rise [more], drought will happen [more], and prices will rise [more] and then there will be changes.

But we talked about accountability. Maybe climate change leads to nothing. But if it leads to a lorry full of shite, ask yourself if Putin will be held responsible. Or if he'll be sunning himself on his tropical beach in what is now Siberia, drinking chi chis (google it), and laughing at all the screaming?

[peter]

Problem is that the more the changes attributable to global climate change impinge upon the West, the more the global elites who are the chief financial beneficiaries of the system that underpins high level carbon emissions will retreat from it.

You already see a global elite who can live a completely segregated life from the ones whose lives are affected by the actions they take. There is no reason to think that this is going to change any time soon and thus any attempt to change the outcome is already doomed.

Do we see any changes in the advertising that encourages us to live profligate consumerist/throwaway lives? Home consumerus has been carefully crafted in order to create these fortunes and the model has worked. Try to take the drug away now and see what the result is. China is only lately discovering the drug that has fueled American wealth for three quarters of a century (and British for a good deal longer than that). They have 1.5 billion people to bring into the consumerism habit and they ain't going to stop anytime soon. India is but a half-step behind. Same argument. Pressure from the top. Pressure from the bottom. Animosity and suspicion looking side to side. Ergo no change.

Depressing but realistic.

-----------0----------

As a man approaching his mid sixties I am always exited to read about any advances in the fight against Alzheimer's disease ( ) but despite the blazing headlines such stories are often presented with, the reality upon deeper reading is always something of a damp sqib.

Thus it was that I saw this morning's press announcement of yet another huge breakthrough in the treatment of this terrible affliction and prepared myself for another disappointment.

I wasn't wrong.

I had briefly thought that perhaps on this occasion we might have something of substance to digest - after all, it was more than just the Daily Express (who have hailed Alzheimer's breakthroughs every month for the last twenty years - perhaps assuming that most of their readership already have it and will not remember this anyway) reporting it. No less than three papers featured the story and so I actually decided to give it a look over for a change.

The first problem appears to be that the effects of the new miracle drug are minimal at best. The second is that it only works if given in the earliest stages of the disease long before it is currently diagnosable. Thirdly it works on a feature of the disease, the acretiation of amyloid bodies around nerve cells, whose role in the actual disease are unknown and quite possibly correlation related rather than causal. And fourthly, if the drug development does lead down an avenue of fruitful research towards some really meaningful progress, then (as always) it is years down the line and will do nothing to aid those currently facing the tragedy, either coping with it or just about to. I take a tablet daily for my blood pressure. I'm told it reduces the risk of heart attack and strokes. I've never (touch wood) had either and have not suffered the distress of having had them. So this tablet I take does nothing to actually help the suffering but rather prevents it occurring in the first place. Such appears to be the possible benefit of treatments such as the one being reported today and worthy as it is, the prevention of suffering that has not yet manifested will never have the impact of treating the suffering itself. The medical profession is very good at telling us we have got a condition that we don't yet know we have got and then telling us it has cured it. When it comes to reversing a condition that has already manifested or alleviating the suffering caused thereby - not so much.

So anyway, I won't hold out much hope of anything in this story impacting my life very much, and on this basis have little recourse but to retreat into humour. Someone once said that Alzheimer's is the only disease that gets better as it progresses and this may actually be true. Also, in years gone by when we looked after our parents and relatives within the home as a matter of course, such diseases were not recognised. In those days it started off as forgetfulness and progressed to ''Old Aunt Agatha is having one of her turns again! " (Probably finished with her being stifled with a pillow for all I know.)

But be that as it may, I'm reminded of the bloke who goes to the doctor and the doctor tells him, "I've got some good news and some bad news - which do you want first?''

"I'll have the bad news," says the bloke and the doctor says, "You've got aids and Alzheimer's."

"Aids and Alzheimer's!" says the bloke, "What's the good news?"

"By the time you get home you'll have forgotten about it," replies the doctor.

[Fist and Faith]

...a damp sqib.

https://youtu.be/XnXKVY-_i2c