|
Here we are on the eve
of polling. What
should I do?
Well, I have
been very much helped
by today's edition of
Private Eye. This is
the cover. I think it
sums it all up.
So peg on nose I shall
go to the polling
booth tomorrow and
vote for...
|
Tuesday, 10 December
It seems that the
Conservative dirty tricks
department is very busy.
The Tories have obviously tried
to deflect attention away from
BoJ's bizarre behaviour
yesterday when he confiscated a
journalist's phone which had had
the temerity to display a
picture of a child being treated
on the floor of an A & E at
Leeds. To do this, they
told both Laura Kuenssberg and
Robert Peston that one of Matt
Hancock's aides had been punched
by a Labour supporter at the
hospital. Not true.
In the meantime, Jon Ashworth,
Labour's shadow health minister
has insisted to a (former)
conservative friend that his
party has no chance of winning
the election and that, if he
became PM, Jeez would be a
security risk. Altogether,
a ringing endorsement for his
own party, and one which somehow
seems to have replaced BoJ's
reprehensible conduct in the
news cycle. I wonder how
that all happened?
John McDonnell was a one man
disinformation campaign the
other day when he told us that
the families would benefit from
Labour's largesse to the tune of
£6,700 per annum. What he
didn't quite explain, but the
Radio 4 programme "More
or Less" did this morning,
was that the average family must
have morphed rather a lot. For
his figure to be true, the
average family would need to
have one pre-school child and
another under the age of 10, and
each parent would have to have
an annual rail season
ticket. A slight
distortion of the truth?
Tonight, at midnight, the World
Trade Organisation loses two out
of its remaining three judges
and so becomes a zombie
organisation. Pascal
Lamy, the Director-General
of the World Trade
Organization for 8 years until
1 September 2013, confirmed
the situation on the World at
One yesterday, saying
that trading on WTO terms would
in any event be a disaster for
us, even if the WTO were still
functioning properly!
Monday, 9 December
Professor Sir John
Curtice, knighted one assumes
for his services to opinion
polls, is certainly the go-to
eminence grise for commentary on
the polling figures. In
his view, a 6 point overall lead
for the Conservatives would give
a 50% chance of either a hung
parliament or a tiny overall
majority for BoJ. In other
words, 6% is a sort of tipping
point, with the likelihood of a
Conservative working majority
going up from there. The
polls at the weekend gave him an
overall majority of about 10%,
something which for a while now
has remained fairly constant. So
a BoJ majority government seems
to be looming.
What can we expect in these last
few days of campaigning, as they
all try to avoid dropping
clangers and instead drive home
the messages which they think
will do them the most good?
Well, we already see Labour
promising renationalisation of
water and the energy sector
within the first 100 days in
office. Both undesirable and
impossible to achieve in
anything like that time-scale.
They have repeated their pledge
to increase by 5% the wages of
all public sector workers and
increase the minimum wage for
all, regardless of age, to £10
per hour. And there will be the
£56 billion payment to the
Waspis. On 5th February, there
will be a budget which will
decrease the tax paid by the
workers. All so eminently
achievable. They didn't mention
the effect on inflation and the
international value of the £,
but, hey, what do those things
matter?
The Conservatives seem to have
continued with 'Let's Get Brexit
Done' and also gone back to one
of their old themes - keeping
(European) foreigners out,
unless we actually need their
particular skill sets, in which
case we might let them in as
long as they're useful to us.
The Lib-Dems? I'm not very sure,
albeit they are not any longer
putting revocation of Article 50
at the top of their list.
Here in Coleshill, part of a
leave-voting constituency in the
West Midlands, we've had quite a
bit of literature from Labour,
none of it even hinting at their
leader's name. Some weeks ago,
the local Conservatives kindly
sent us a letter from BoJ
himself asking us to help to
"Get Brexit Done", but with no
mention of our local sitting
MP, Craig Tracey. Mr
Tracey had a significant
majority at the last election
and is one of those who voted
(twice) against Teresa May's
agreement, because it wasn't
hard enough. So not my
favourite politician in all the
world. The Lib-Dems sent out a
flyer fairly early on, the
detail of which I have now
forgotten, but which promised
the now infamous Article 50
revocation should Jo Swinson
become PM.
How shall I vote? A vote
for the Lib-Dems would be
wasted, except as a protest and
an encouragement to them for the
future. Could I vote for
Jeez? I have no desire to
bring the benefits of a
Venezuelan economy to our
shores. Could I ever bring
myself to vote for BoJ and his
Brexit lies? Or will I simply
spoil my ballot paper? Heather
and I will conduct a poll
amongst ourselves and see
whether any course of action has
a working majority. I may
need to get Sir John on the
line.
Friday, 6
December
The refrain in Lewis Carroll's
'Lobster Quadrille' is:
Will you, won't you,
will you, won't you,
Won't you join the
dance?
Unsurprisingly, it seems that
BoJ's response to Andrew Neil's
request for a turn around the
studio will be 'No'.
Why would he after the mauling
received by Jeez and Jo Swinson?
In the name of equality of
opportunity? Somewhat
doubtful.
When, finally, he's become tired
of being world king, perhaps
then will be the time to go on
Strictly Come Tell the Truth.
Thursday, 5
December - Only one week to
go!
I went into the dentist's
waiting room this morning and
found myself faced with an
interview of Boris Johnson by
Philip Schofield on the ITV
breakfast show. It was a
great relief to be called
through to the dentist.
Really, what has it come to when
we have a choice between two
such awful candidate as BoJ and
Jeez. I know of no-one,
including my dentist, who thinks
otherwise on this topic.
But now we have learned from the
Saj that the trade agreement
with the EU is a done
deal. It will provide us
with tariff-free trade in all
respects, whilst at the same
time liberating us from all the
inconveniences and restrictions
attached to being members of the
club. How wonderful.
It seems though that what he was
referring to was the political
statement attached to Boris's
clucking, oven-ready
agreement. Which of course
commits neither us, nor them, to
any such thing. It sets
out broad aims, but does not go
into the compromises which we
would have to make in order to
have such favoured status. But
such is the panic on the Brexit
side that they will tell us such
obvious lies.
And then there was the
announcement this morning by
Annunciata, she of Rees-Mogg
lineage. She and three
other Brexit Party candidates,
MEPs all, have decided that they
will ask the voters to vote
Conservative rather than for
their Brexit Party. They
apparently fear that by
splitting the Brexit vote in
Labour-held seats, they may not
reach the promised land after
all. What a (rather late)
display of intelligence.
But not of principle - although
they have resigned from the
Brexit Party, what they haven't
done is resigned their seats in
the European Parliament.
I do hope that President Trump
will soon recover from having
been ever so slightly mocked by
other world leaders during the
reception at Buck House the
other day. Considering the
insults he throws around, you'd
think he'd be able to take some
ribbing, wouldn't you? But
then narcissists don't do
self-awareness.
Monday, 2 December - update
I had thought that I was joking
when I said in my post on 18th
November:
Jezza has told the CBI
conference that he is not the
enemy of business, even though
his list of intended
nationalised industries is
growing, with the latest victim
being our broadband services.
Once nationalised, then we shall
get it for free. So
when he nationalises water and
the trains, will we get them
for free as well?
We
have now heard from Jeez that all
train fares will be reduced by 25%
by a Labour government and will
actually be free for those under the
age of 16. So then, has he been
reading the collected thoughts of
Chairman Buckingham? Is
it all my fault?
Should I offer my services as a
policy adviser?
Monday,
2 December
I have felt unable to comment on
the terrible events in London on
Friday afternoon. There is
a very good reason for
this. I don't have all the
facts. It seems, however,
that the principle actors in the
political world have such a
detailed knowledge of what
occurred that they are able to
allocate blame and even make
decisions about the changes to
the law which they consider to
be necessary. Such
omniscience. If only they
had had such all-encompassing
knowledge before this tragedy
had occurred.
I am neither 'lock them up and
throw away the key' nor a
believer that everyone can be
put on the true path. If
only life were so simple.
However, it seems to me that
someone motivated by religion
will present much greater
resistance to change than
someone motivated to commit
'secular' crimes by all the
usual factors.
From the comment made
subsequently by the father of
Jack Merritt, clearly his son
thought that no-one was beyond
redemption. Having some
knowledge of history, I would
have to disagree with such a
belief, but that is no reason to
think that we can know in
advance who will prove to be
totally recalcitrant and who
will be persuadable. In
turn, that means that we should
be putting the effort and, yes,
the money, into rehabilitation,
into doing all we can to turn
people away from repeating the
horrors of their past.
Recidivism is in itself a very
significant social evil and so
to be combated - if nothing
else, for our own benefit.
Saturday, 30
November
I suppose that I should
have pointed out that BoJ's
announcement yesterday about our
protectionist future was also
apparently the answer to the
long-outstanding, hitherto
unanswered question:
What laws,
currently imposed on us by
being part of the EU, do the
Brexiteers want to change?
Standing with his fellow
Brexiteers, the Govester and the
former Labour party MP Gisela
Stuart, he made the following
announcement:
Today we are
setting out specific ways in
which we will change EU law
so we can enjoy the benefits
of Brexit without delay.
We’ll back British
businesses, by ensuring the
public sector buys British.
We’ll scrap the
Tampon Tax.
And we’ll back
British industry, by making
sure we can intervene when
great British businesses are
struggling.
These are just some
of the benefits which will
directly result from leaving
the EU.
That's it? Can't they
even now think of another specific
example?
As for the VAT on tampons, it's already
at the lowest permissible rate of 5%,
rather than the standard rate of
20%. In response to public
pressure, however, a number of
supermarkets have already reduced their
prices to negate the effect of even the
5% rate. If the government wanted
to go further then, rather than leaving
the EU, it could instead have provided a subsidy to all
sellers of tampons to enable
them to reduce their prices so
as to remove the effect of the
5% VAT. This is permissible
providing that no one seller,
product or manufacturer is given
more favourable treatment than
another. Simples.
Friday, 29 November
Is
BoJ following in El Presidente Trump's
protectionist footsteps? Or
might he just be a closet Socialist?
He's certainly no longer a free-market
capitalist. Whatever the underlying
'philosophy', he is now saying that,
post-brexit, the newly liberated
government would be able to offer
state aid to uncompetitive, failing
industries. What?!!
This, of course, is not permitted
under EU regulations and exclusion of
provision of state aid is generally a
condition of the sort of trade
agreement that Boris says we shall be
able to benefit from.
And, he said, public bodies would be
encouraged to adopt a "Buy British"
policy to boost local economies.
Again, it is obvious that such
measures would cause major
difficulties in striking a trade deal
with the EU, or indeed anyone
else.
But obviously Boris still believes in
cake and eating it. We're all
going to get very fat. Or
perhaps not.
Thursday, 28 November
And still two weeks to go of this
dire campaign...
Tonight,
Channel 4 highlighted the no-show of
Nige and Bozza with melting blocks of
ice in the 'leaders debate' on climate
change. We were out at a
screening in the cinema of Present
Laughter from the Old Vic, so I
haven't yet had the benefit of the
collected wisdom of those who did take
part. I suspect though
that our evening had rather more
laughs and I'm not sure that I shall
bother to depress myself by watching
the debate - it seems likely from the
polling figures that the only person
whose views will matter was not
present.
But how did we get to the stage that
the Preservatives are, or at least
were on the day of polling, on course
for a 68 seat majority? Is it
what BoJo has said or what the others
have been saying that has made the
difference? I suspect that it's what
Jezza and Co have been saying - those
spending figures seem to keep growing
- and sometimes not saying - like an
apology for antisemitism. Jobo on the
other hand seems to quite enjoy
apologising. I guess that with
his past he must have had quite a lot
of practice.
There is one potential benefit from
BoJ having a substantial
majority. He would not be so
obviously in hock to the ERG and so
might have a bit more room for
manoeuvre in his negotiations with the
EU. And, in other news, it looks as
though Dominic Raab, Ian Duncan Smith
and one or two other Brexit or bust
candidates are on course to lose their
seats. Oops.
When you see the spending figures put
side by side, it really is astonishing
to see the contrast. Initially, I
thought that BoJ was making
unrealistic promises (as now confirmed
by the IFS), but put alongside the
spending promised by the Corbynites,
it's almost small change. The
IFS considers that a Labour government
couldn't even spend what they had
promised to spend, never mind fund it
through taxation on the rich.
And, unsurprisingly, the IFS is now
considered by
both Conservatives and Labour to
be unreliable in its assessments,
although very much supported by the
LibDems who got a big tick from them
for their homework. So much for
objectivity in politics.
Added to the spending figures in the
Labour manifesto, we now have another
£56 billion to be borrowed in order to
fulfil a new promise: this time to
compensate the ladies who had payment
of their pensions postponed beyond the
original qualifying age of 60.
That so many of them are not exactly
in dire financial straights, or that
many were very much aware of the
coming changes, are factors apparently
not considered. And neither is the
fact that those on means-tested
benefits would lose their benefits in
proportion to the 'compensation'
received and so would end up with no,
or a minimal net gain. The
priorities of the scheme are all wrong
when my wife would be one of the
higher net beneficiaries. Sorry
dearest...
Sunday, 24 November
It's all about trust.
Although
we can trust that Jezza and
McDonnell, his avowed Marxist
chum, would try to implement what
they've put in their manifesto,
the country would suffer extremely
badly if they succeeded. We would
be going back to the 70s, with the
Unions in charge, inflation
reducing the value of our income
and inefficient nationalised
industries. After all, who ever in
response to the question: “Who
should run a dynamic, successful
business?” said “Bureaucrats”.
We
can also trust Bozza to 'Get
Brexit Done', but only in the
sense that, with a majority in the
Commons, he would get his Brexit
agreement into law. Again,
though, what effect would it have
on the UK? Their manifesto,
published today, tells us that
under no circumstances will the
one year transition period be
extended. Which means that, as I
anticipated some time ago would happen, the
European Research Group will be
calling the shots. Boris
says it will be simple to
negotiate the new agreement
because we already share the same
standards and indeed laws with the
EU.
But that isn't really the
point. He wants to be able
to change the law. He and
his ERG mates tell us that they do
not want to have proscriptive laws
and regulations dictated by
Brussels telling us exactly how
things should be done. They want
instead to have a system under
which, as long as we achieve the
desired outcome, how we get there
should be of no consequence. Like
that's a simple thing to
achieve!?
But if we believe the manifesto,
then we have to complete our
negotiations with the EU for a
bilateral trade agreement within
the one year transition period or
crash out on WTO terms – which is
actually the ERG's preferred
option. According to the
commentators, no-one has yet done
a deal with the EU in under 3
years. And
see my post
on 13 November regarding the coming
zombification of the WTO on 10
December.
So then, we have Jezza and
McDonnell wanting to bankrupt the
country by spending really
eye-watering sums of money we haven't
got, and so automatically putting
their beloved NHS at risk. And
then we have Bozza determined to
finalise Brexit regardless of the
consequences on our economy.
So then in both cases,
ironically, I'd prefer my trust in
what they say to be completely
misplaced!
Thursday,
21 November
Three weeks to go!
Yesterday saw the
publication of the Liberal Party
manifesto and, today, the Labour
manifesto.
The Liberals seem finally
to have accepted that they are not
going to have a majority in the next
House of Commons. Instead, as
regards Brexit, they say that they
will support another referendum. They
will not go into coalition - once
bitten, twice shy - but will instead
support measures proposed by any
minority government on an individual
basis.
The Labour manifesto is
'radical and ambitious'. Corby
welcomes the 'hatred' of him by the
rich and powerful. He has promised
widespread spending, based on the
state getting massively involved in so
many more aspects of our daily lives,
from the supply of energy to the
postal service and public transport,
whether buses or trains. And of
course, broadband, free of charge.
All of this will be paid
for by tax increases on the rich and
companies and a windfall tax on oil
companies together with massive state
borrowing. ITV's Robert Peston
raised my perennial question
concerning how on earth we could
possibly stay within the EU and at the
same time engage in nationalisation of
so many services when it would clearly
be contrary to EU competition law.
Sensible answer came there none. And,
even if we had a deal with the EU
post-Brexit, it would inevitably
require the proverbial level playing
field in terms of not having state aid
which EU members could not indulge
in. I despair.
As for the proposed
treatment of Capital Gains Tax as if
it were income in the year the gain is
realised, how is this fair?
Gains accrue over many years and are
diminished in real terms by inflation
over that period. No allowance
is apparently to be made for
this. Surely the gain, netted to
allow for inflation, should be spread
back over the tax years of the period
over which the gain has accrued and
subject to tax accordingly. It
should not be subject to an unfairly
high rate of tax by taxing it all in
the year of disposal.
The scale of state
involvement is significantly more than
in their 2017 manifesto, to which
Corbo attributed their improvement in
the opinion polls and better than
expected result in the election
itself. So now he's going for broke,
putting in all the things he's always
wanted to see, in the hope that
they'll swing it for him this time
around.
Of course, what he doesn't
take into account was the increasingly
dismal campaign run by Madame May in
2017, which so damaged the
Conservative Party's prospects and
thus automatically benefited Labour.
I'm not convinced that Bozza's
campaign is that good, but I suspect
it's going down better than Teresa's
ever did. So then, we'll see
what happens in 3 weeks' time.
We're still waiting for the
Tory manifesto, but it seems that
contrary to Bozza's assurance that the
manifesto would include a plan to deal
with Social Care, it won't.
Instead the Health Secretary has said
that proposals would be put to
parliament for discussion in order to
arrive at cross-party agreement. His
one red line would be that a person's
house would not need to be sold in
order to fund care. Quite what
this means is unclear. Does it
mean that it would be ring-fenced
completely, or that its sale would be
postponed until the death of the owner
(Mrs May's death-tax)?
Monday, 18 November
For car crash TV, the
interview by Emily Maitliss with his
princeship, Andy, was a real
winner:
"Jeffrey Epstein’s house was
very convenient and staying there was
the “honourable and right thing to
do...My judgement was coloured by my
tendency to be too honourable.”
That's just weird. But the
question now is what effect it will
have on other people suffering from
EES (Extreme Entitlement Syndrome).
Can Boris persuade us that he is not
like other entitled toffs? Will Jacob
ever again be able to recline on the
front benches of Parliament?
But the gobbling up of
space in
the news agenda today by the
Andy dissection has meant that our
would-be political leaders' thoughts
have not had much of an airing.
So then, here are one or
two extracts from today's
offerings:
Boris has decided not
to lower Corporation Tax next year,
as intended - in order to try to
find the money he needs to fund our
great NHS. The captains of
industry at the CBI conference,
while regretting the decision didn't
seem too worried by it. There
was much talk, though, of CBI
members' opposition to Brexit. Bozza
wasn't impressed by the obvious
economic consequences of Brexit,
citing instead the clear democratic
will of the people.
Jezza has told the
CBI conference that he is not the
enemy of business, even though his
list of intended nationalised
industries is growing, with the
latest victim being our broadband
services. Once nationalised, then we
shall get it for free. So when he
nationalises water and the trains,
will we get them for free as
well? Of course all this is
contrary to EU competition law, as
it would eliminate any private
competition. Nobody can compete with
free, funded by the tax-payer. So,
does it mean that we now have an
answer to the conundrum - what would
Jezza campaign for in the referendum
after getting his new deal?
Clearly it would have to be leave
and certainly not remain!
I'm not really very
sure what Jo Swinson told the CBI,
but she and the Scot Nats failed
to persuade the High Court that
their human rights, or whatever,
were being trampled on by ITV's
failure to agree to include them
in the party leaders' debate
tomorrow evening, now only
featuring Bozza and Jezza.
Thursday, 14 November
I am now officially
lost. It seems that the
much-discussed 32 hour/4 day week week
is not something which is to be
imposed on employers/employees after
all. It is rather that,
according to the shadow health
minister, Jonathan Ashworth, if we see
improvements in productivity as a
result of AI or whatever over the next
10 years, then it may be that a norm
of a 32 hour week can be aimed at.
There is no way that it will be
imposed on anyone (?) and especially
not the staff working in the
NHS. So what does this amount
to? Well, nothing really. It
seems to have been a cheap publicity
stunt. What a surprise.
Mr Ashworth himself, is a
model of productivity. His
web-site says:
"Every week I stand up for
people here and I’m always out and
about across Leicester helping
thousands upon thousands of local
people with issues and problems.
I’m always on your side and always
fighting your corner."
That's pretty impressive.
We now look forward to
disentangling Labour's policy on
immigration. Do they want to reduce it
or let it rip?
The Conservatives give the
impression of greater transparency,
but... We know that Pretti Patel
for the Conservatives has said that
they will reduce immigration. At the
same time, they want to introduce an
'Australian style points
system'. The difficulty is that
they can't give us any details of the
criteria to be applied. If this points
system is different from an arbitrary
limit on numbers, then it should mean
that the points system is not adjusted
at the whim of politicians. Any
bets on that?
Wednesday,
13 November
This post is about the WTO
- the World Trade Organisation. OK, so
it may not seem very relevant, but
stay with me.
We are told that a no-deal
Brexit would be on WTO terms.
Indeed, should Boris win an actual
majority in this election, it will
include many Conservative MPs who
would actually favour a no-deal
Brexit, and so on WTO terms, rather
than even contemplate extending the
one-year transition period his
agreement allows for negotiation of a
bi-lateral agreement with the EU.
But unless something
seismic happens, then the WTO will
cease to be a functioning organisation
on 10th December - in just one month's
time.
How can this be?
Well, it's long been the stance of the
USA that the WTO Appellate Body
overreaches itself and introduces new
provisions into the international
agreements over which it
adjudicates. It would say it
does this to make sense of often
ambiguous provisions in those
agreements, just as the American
Supreme Court does in connection with
the US constitution. Preventing
this from happening, even if the
members of the WTO all agreed with the
American position, is actually
extremely difficult.
But leaving aside the
rights and wrongs of this argument,
the US has for some time now had a
policy of blocking the appointment of
Judges to the WTO's Appellate Body. On
10th December, two of the last three
judges standing will come to the end
of their terms of appointment; the
Appellate Body will cease to be
quorate and so will be unable to rule
on appeals. The standard WTO
process calls for ad hoc panels to
issue rulings on disputes over member
country compliance with their WTO
rights and obligations. These are
though subject to review by the
Appellate Body. Decisions by the
Appellate Body are final and binding,
and generally respected by disputing
parties.
Post December 10th this
year, even though there will be no
Appellate Body competent to hear them,
appeals will still be able to be made
against panel rulings. And while
the appeal remains 'undecided' the
dispute between the countries involved
will remain on ice, with no
enforcement action being permitted
under WTO rules in connection with the
panel's decision. So then the
WTO will become a zombie organisation,
requiring reference of disputes
between its members to its disputes
resolution procedure, but in fact
unable to resolve them.
That sounds like a recipe
for the resumption of trade wars,
with, yes you've guessed it, the
biggest countries winning! A
good time to be leaving one of the
largest trade blocs, the EU. I
don't think I've heard Boris or the
ERG mention this. I wonder why?
For more information please
click here
and here
Tuesday, 12 November -
update
The National Farmers Union
has issued its policy wish list for
the next government. Apart from
asking for extra subsidy, they also
ask for:
"A commitment that future
trade policy will not allow the
imports of food produced to standards
that would be illegal to produce in
the UK, undermining British farm
businesses."
Seems unexceptionable at
first sight, if rather poorly worded,
but according to the NFU spokesperson,
amongst other countries, the USA has
no real food production
standards. If the NFU's policy
were adopted, therefore, the
much-vaunted FTA with the USA would be
at best a damp squib, as failure to
include agricultural products would
mean that one of the main reasons for
doing the deal from the USA's point of
view would be absent. And if we
did agree to accept food produced to
standards that would be illegal in the
UK, then our farmers would be
massively disadvantaged, not to
mention the effect on our health as a
result. Interesting conundrum
for Boris & Co.
Tuesday, 12 November
And so where are we
today? Nigel Brexit himself has
decided that what he said (was it only
last week?) about Boris's deal not
being Brexit at all, and possibly
worse than staying in the EU, has now
been forgotten. It's gone the
same way as his original intention to
stand (for the 8th time) for
Parliament. He will not now be putting
up Brexit Party candidates in any
Conservative-held constituency. This,
in his opinion, will increase the
chance of getting the proposed
non-Brexit over the line. The
excuse, sorry reason, given for this
is that Boris has indicated a
willingness to embrace a Canada-style
agreement as the basis for our
free-trade agreement with the
EU. The fact that his suitably
named money man, Arron Banks, has said
that they were shooting themselves in
the foot by putting up candidates in
Conservative-held seats is, I'm sure,
of only marginal importance. It also
means that here in sunny Coleshill,
part of North Warwickshire, with its
Brexit loving Conservative MP, Craig
Tracey, I shall not have the joy of
engaging in a door-step debate with
the intended Brexit candidate, whoever
that was going to be. I shall have to
make do with the others.
Now, it may not seem of
great relevance to this election, but
what can we make of Comrade Corbyn's
tweet disapproving of the downfall of
former president of Bolivia, Evo
Morales? He has said that it was
a coup. In fact, the people have
been on the streets in Bolivia for
some time now, trying to persuade
Evostick to go, following a clearly
rigged general election. But
Morales is, or was, one of the group
of socialist leaders in South America
so beloved of Mr Corbyn and
friends. So enamoured of them is
Mr Corbyn that he doesn't now seem to
be able to look beyond their identity
as Socialists and see election fraud
for what it is. Fraud with
intent to defeat democracy. He
seems to be determined to support
those who subscribe to socialism
whatever activities they engage in,
even if it produces
dictatorship. The benefits of
socialism apparently trump everything.
Perhaps not a good look for a
potential British Prime Minister,
especially as he is normally so
anti-Trump? Sorry...
Friday, 8 November
Now
we've had the great reveal - how much
the main parties are going to borrow
and spend.
The Saj has decided to adopt Labour's
borrowing target of £25 billion extra
from their 2017 general election
manifesto, even though the
Conservatives derided it then as
totally profligate. In order to draw a
distinction between the parties, MacDo
has decided to at least double last
time's figure should the great
Allotmenteer get into power.
Old MacDonell tells us that the
borrowing and spending is to fix
global warming and the broken social
system, although there's no definition
of what this means. He claims that the
amount is unprecedented in Europe or
indeed anywhere-else in the Northern
hemisphere. Perhaps he's got his ideas
from the Southern hemisphere.
Venezuela anyone?
In
the meantime, the highly respected
Institute for Fiscal Studies has said
that even managing to spend that
amount of money would just not be
feasible, at least in the early years
of the program. It would amount
to close on £2,000 per household per
year. So that's probably the
answer: give it to us. We'll
soon spend it!
Oh, and under Labour, employees would
be entitled to choose their own
working hours as part of a shake-up of
workplace law. There is already
a right, after working for a company
for 6 months, to apply for flexible
working, a request which the employer
is obliged to respond to in a
'reasonable manner'. Under the
new regs, a right to choose what hours
you work will be the default position
from day one. I'm afraid that
although it's nice to be able to
choose when you work, it's also quite
nice for the company to be able to
function efficiently - and, in my
experience, that requires that most
people are working for most of the
normal working day.
Thursday,
7 November
Truthiness is
the concept for today. In the
sense that we may question whether
BoJo's speech yesterday launching his
party's campaign had any.
He
said: "[My deal] delivers
everything I wanted when I campaigned
for Brexit.”
Reality:
It's a reheated version of the May
deal, which he voted against on
numerous occasions.
He
said: “We can
leave the EU as one UK, whole and
entire and perfect as promised.”
Reality:
He told the
Democratic Unionist Party at its
conference last year that regulatory
checks and customs controls between
Great Britain and Northern Ireland
would damage the “fabric of the
Union”. Under his deal there
will be both. So, an outright
lie.
He
said: “If we can get
this deal over the line . . . then we
can release that pent-up flood of
investment. Hundreds of billions are
waiting to pour into the UK
Truth:
Many firms have put off investment
decisions due to Brexit uncertainty.
But it doesn't mean that investments
will flow in if Britain leaves the EU
by the end of January. Most companies
will wait to see what, if any, free
trade deal is agreed.
Truthiness is
also the word we need to think about
when reading Tom Watson's letter
explaining his decision to resign as
deputy dawg for the Labour party and
not to stand again as a candidate for
his constituency in West
Bromwich. He has a
fitness/weight loss book coming out
and wishes to cash in on this by
becoming a personal trainer.
Really? He also wishes, in the
time-honoured phrase, to spend more
time with his family. But no
mention of his fundamental
disagreement over Labour policy?
Come on!
Wednesday,
6 November
It seems that the Rt Hon
Jacob Rees-Mogg MP has revealed another
area of his expertise. No longer is he
just the English
Language Tsar and the arbiter of
scientific units
(Imperial of course). He has now added
to his portfolio of skills that of fire
safety expert. Apparently all that the
people in Grenfell Tower had to do when
faced with the inferno they were caught
up in was to exercise their common sense
and get out of the building, rather than
follow the Fire Service instruction to
stay put. It's nice to know that
we have people cleverer than us in
charge, such as the Mogg. as his mate,
the no doubt equally clever, the Hon
Andrew Bridgen MP told us.
But of course they are
neither of them MPs any more, as
Parliament has been dissolved. They are
now ordinary citizens without their
former super-powers and never to be
heard of again. Just wishful
thinking.
I was delighted that the
Green Party takes the view that they can
borrow £100 billion per year over the
next 10 years if they take office.
I think that's a trillion pounds all
told. We would be adding around
50% to our national borrowing. Not much
in the great scheme of things obviously
and so it will have no effect at all on
the rates of interest available to us on
the money markets. In fact, at the
moment the government can borrow money
for a period of 10 years at a rate of
0.76%. It will obviously not worry
the markets in the slightest if our
borrowing starts to look like that of
Italy and Greece. Hmm.
The borrowed dosh will
be invested in building zero-carbon
houses at the rate of 200,000 per year
and retro-fitting the housing stock we
already have with insulation. I
take it that they don't intend to sell
on any of the houses in order to recoup
any of the money borrowed. I get
the impression that they would like to
replace the council house stock we used
to have. So if
they rent out the houses up and down the
land at an average of £600 per month,
then they would gross about £1.5 billion
p.a. per 200,000 houses. If each
house cost £200,000 to build, then
that's a total cost of £40
billion. Unless they make a
charge, which I don't think is what
they're proposing, there's no return on
the insulation cost for the government
and so they would still only be making
£1.5 billion on the entire borrowing of
£100 billion per year - 1.5%. If
they do make a charge for the insulation
from those able to afford it, leaving
the buyers to recoup the cost over the
next 10 years, then I suspect that the
uptake, as with other such schemes in
the past, will be very low.
Quite how long it would
take to pay off all this borrowing is
difficult to imagine. It certainly
wouldn't be in my lifetime, even if I do
as well as my mother and get to receive
a telegram, albeit from King Charles
III, or even perhaps King Wills.
And where do we get the labour required
for all this? We certainly haven't
a prayer of finding it without very
substantial help from other parts of the
world - i.e. immigrants.
And Mr Corbyn announced
the other day that he was going to pay
for TV licences for all those over 74
years old. I am a great supporter
of the BBC, but bearing in mind that
even the older people in our community
use subscription services, why would he
baulk at also paying for a Netflix
subscription for me when I hit the
required age or pay for my friend's Sky
service? Or is all that capitalism too
much for an old Marxist to accept?
Tuesday,
5 November 2019
We know that Boris has
been promising a spending splurge as an
inducement to us all to vote for him. He
has at the same time been promising tax
cuts. I'm not sure what he's done
with the original Conservative
Party. I suspect it's been taken
hostage and is currently languishing in
a damp cellar somewhere.
Mr Corbyn has promised
even more extravagant spending,
accompanied by a promise to increase
taxes on the rich and reduce taxes on
the poor. He and his sidekick John
McDonell want to rewrite the rules of
economics, amongst other things
expropriating shares in companies for
the benefit of, yes, the workers, but
also the Government. In other
words an extra tax on companies.
They are also going to renationalise
everything that has been privatised by
successive Tory and Labour governments.
Ironically, in order to do this, they
will have to issue government bonds on
that dreadful capitalist thing, the
money market.
But not only will Mr
Corbyn try to upend the capitalist
system, he will introduce a 32 hour/4
day week on the basis that work
shouldn't be the 'purpose of
life'. This at a time when the
French government is trying to untie its
economy from the constraints of the 35
hour week! Truly, our politicians
live in a little local bubble.
Monday, 4 November 2019
Fascinating
thought. Nigel, who has long
complained that anyone-else in his
position would by now have been offered
a knighthood or a seat in the Lords in
recognition of his manifest services to
politics, now complains that he has
recently been offered a peerage, twice,
by the Conservatives. He’s
complaining about it, because he says it
was offered in order to shut him
up!
I’m not quite sure how being given
a place in the Upper Chamber shuts you
up, but presumably he was asked to sign
a non-disclosure agreement – an
agreement not to disclose why he would
thenceforth become strangely
silent. That was always going to
work.
But we’re left asking ourselves
what honour would be appropriate.
He is not intending to stand for a
constituency, but instead to tread the
length and breadth of Great Britain, but
not Northern Ireland, in support of his
crusade to get others elected. So
then, I don’t think an ordinary
Baronetcy would be nearly sufficient -
they are, after all, normally tied to a
particular town.
And so I have been searching my
mind for someone similar, someone of
strong opinions, with an image as a hard
drinker and smoker. Now I don’t
know why, but unbidden came into my mind
John Wayne, or ‘The Duke’ as he was
known. So how about Duke Farage of
Great Britain? Would that be a
sufficient honour? We can't offer
much more!
Sunday,
3 November 2019
The classic definition of
madness is doing the same thing again
and again but expecting a different
result. It is perhaps for this
reason that Niggel Farage has decided
not to present himself, yet again, as a
Parliamentary candidate. The
reason he has actually given is that his
energies would be better used travelling
the length and breadth of the country
supporting the 600 candidates the Brexit
Party is apparently going to
field. One is coming to a
constituency near you and,
unfortunately, me.
The polls are interesting this
morning, with a bit of a bounce for
Corbyn and the opposite (whatever that
might be) for the Brexit Party.
Obviously it’s far too early to see any
reliable trends, but I have the feeling
that if the Brexit Party hasn’t been
able to get a bounce out of Farage’s
interview with the Trumpmeister the
other day, then I suspect that he has
every reason not to feel very confident
of success. Probably very sensible not
to stand – and risk looking foolish yet
again. And if by any chance he did
succeed, then he
couldn't also be an MEP. He would
have to content himself with the meagre
salary and expenses of a British MP.
Saturday, 2 November 2019
Mr Trump kindly consented
to be interviewed on LBC on Thursday
evening by his BFF, LBC presenter and
Brexit Party leader, Niggel
Farage. Mr Trump is of the opinion
that BoJo and Nigel should combine for
the coming election. They'd win sooo
many seats. Perhaps they could
campaign under the name BoFa or
NiJo. During the interview, El
Presidente said how difficult the EU
were to negotiate with, but that he
could bring out something big to
overcome them. He also said that
he had a magic wand. Suggestions on a
post-card please. He went on to say that
the terms of the Boris version of the
leaving agreement meant that a trade
deal of any size couldn’t be negotiated
with the USA, although he didn’t explain
why.
Strangely, at the launch event for
the Brexit Party the following day, the
Nigel said pretty much the same thing -
you might even think that he had written
the President's script. He called
for Boris's agreement to be abandoned
and for there to be a non-aggression
pact between the Conservatives and the
Brexit Party, dividing up the
constituencies on the basis of which
party was the more likely to displace an
incumbent Labour MP.
Interviewed on Friday on 'The
World at One', Mark François fulminated
against the whole concept, saying that
Nige, had, in effect called
BoJo a liar as a
precursor to proposing to negotiate with
him - not a good idea. In his
view, to say that the agreement meant
that we couldn’t do a worthwhile trade
agreement with the US of A was just
nonsense. Monsieur François
asserted that he and the other Spartans
of the ERG would never have given it
their blessing if this had been
true! I have to confess that I
have difficulty in seeing Mark François
or most of the others as Spartans.
They all look too unfit and too well
fed.
I suspect that Corbyn will in any
event make the most of the President's
intervention to claim that it’s
confirmation that ‘Our NHS’ is about to
be sold to American billionaires.
What Bojee Wojee will do, I
haven’t a clue. In response to Nige’s
overtures, he’s said that he won’t do a
deal with the Brexit Party - but then
he’s said a lot of things!
PS
I see from his column in the Times
this morning that Matthew Parris has
now resigned from the Conservative
Party and is joining the swelling
ranks of those intending to vote for
the Lib-Dems.
Wednesday,
30 October 2019
General election
anyone? Well, whether we like it
or not, that's what we're going to have
on 12th December. We shall be able
to choose between our dishonest,
narcissistic PM and a bunch of right
wing extremists on the one hand and the
Marxist leader of the Opposition and
erstwhile columnist for the Morning Star
and his Momentum fan-club on the
other.
Or just possibly, we might like to
back the Lib-Dems and their PM in
waiting, Jo Swinson. Despite some
encouraging poll numbers (although not
nearly good enough), I can't see the
Lib-Dems managing to get the votes in
the constituencies needed to get 326 MPs
in the next Parliament.
So what happens next? Johnson is
good at campaigning, but I doubt that
the present 12% Conservative lead will
hold up until polling day, because
campaigning is also Corbyn's
forte. Of course, we are seeing
numerous moderate MPs from both the
Conservative and Labour parties deciding
not to stand in this election and so
both parties will, in their new
incarnations, be even more extreme than
they already are.
I'm not going to try to predict
the outcome of the election, but if
Boris and the Preservatives were to get
back in by a squeak, what then?
Does the ERG flex its muscles so that we
leave on no-deal terms or will it be on
the basis of the BoJo agreement?
Will Parliament ever regain its
reputation after the mauling which
Johnson is going to continue to give it
as an integral part of his
electioneering? Silly, I know, but
I had thought that getting back our
parliamentary sovereignty was what
Brexit was all about. I must have
missed something.
Paul Buckingham
25 October
2019
Whilst visiting
Johnstown Castle in Ireland, just
prior to Halloween, I was
privileged to meet the Honourable
Member for the 18th century who
graciously consented to be
photographed in a recumbent
position.
20 October 2019
And so Super Saturday
turned into a debacle. Yet
another defeat for the indomitable
BoJo, mainly thanks to the former
conservative, Oliver Letwin, and
the DUP
The difficulty, which
was there right from the
beginning, is that any iteration
of a Brexit deal which conforms
with the Good Friday Agreement
means that some part or the whole
of the UK remains subject to EU
law even though we would have no
say in its making. Obviously
Boris has decided that NI is the
part of the UK which should be
sacrificed in order to ‘liberate’
the rest of this Sceptred Isle and
so finally achieve the nirvana of
Brexit.
That he should have
given the infamous assurances to
the DUP conference and now so
obviously have put them in the bin
is, I’m afraid typical of Boris
and per se justifies the Letwin
approach, based, as it is, on a
complete distrust of anything he
says. He and others will, it
seems, now support the deal
granted that we have now made the
application for the extension.
Of course, that doesn’t
mean we’re out of the woods even
now because, as the chief whip
said yesterday (to reassure the
Spartans), there could still be a
no-deal Brexit if the transition
period provided for by the deal
expires without either an
extension to it or its replacement
by a free trade agreement with the
EU.
We shall therefore need
yet another piece of legislation
to compel the government to extend
the transition period until a free
trade agreement is actually in
place. That though only
works if Boris is not returned
with an absolute majority and so
able to repeal any such
legislative block.
In the meantime, we
have the DUP going rogue and
suggesting they may support a
people’s vote.
C’est compliqué,
n’est-ce pas?
Paul
Buckingham
17th October 2019
And now we have an
agreement. At least we have
an agreement between BoJo and his
henchpersons and the leaders of
the other 27 European
states. We are still
awaiting approval by the European
Parliament, but this is very
likely to be forthcoming.
The next major step is,
of course, the attempt to get
approval from our Parliament on
Saturday.
It looks as though most
of the de-whipped 21 will vote for
it. They will be accompanied
by the members of the ERG, but the
erstwhile BFF of the ERG, the DUP,
have already said ‘No!’ as only
they can. It seems that they
can’t accept that they won’t have
a veto when it comes to the first
4 year approval of the agreement
by Stormont. Instead, the
decision will be by a simple
majority.
Now, it is true that
the Good Friday agreement is based
on consent for all major decisions
by both Protestants and
Catholics. And yes, I know
that Ian Paisley (the original and
only), with Martin McGuinness
became an integral part of the
Chuckle Brothers as First Minister
of Northern Ireland and so able to
exercise power in 2007. But
this was after the Ulster
Unionists, previously the largest
party (who had accepted the GFA)
in Northern Ireland were defeated
in 2005. Until the St
Andrew's agreement in 2007, the
DUP had been violently opposed to
the Good Friday Agreement, so I’m
not sure what to make of their
bleating about its partial
non-implementation being unfair at
this stage. No, I am
sure. Tough.
So if they stick to
their guns – and their
para-military friends do have
quite a lot of them – what will
happen? Well it seems that
the Liberals
won’t vote for the agreement unless
it’s tied to a second
referendum. Likewise the SNP.
Labour won’t vote for the agreement
but I'm not sure if they would want a
second referendum.
Of course, the
opposition could take control of the
order paper again and try to force
through legislation requiring
another referendum to approve the
agreement but, technically, I can
see quite a lot of problems with
that idea. All it needs is an
election returning a majority Boris
government before the referendum
takes place. Boris can then
immediately repeal the legislation.
Hanging on without an election until
after the referendum would need a
BoJo minority government to remain
in office for the next 5/6 months or
a single-policy caretaker government
to survive for that period – that’s
how long a referendum takes to
organise. I’m not sure that
either option is really feasible.
Did Boris/Dominic
have a master plan all along?
Maybe it was this - Boris to go for
an agreement which was very similar
to Teresa’s, with a replacement for
the back-stop which was just as
unacceptable to the DUP, but which
in other respects was apparently
better. In particular, we are told
that from day 1, we shall be able to
nail those long-awaited bi-lateral
trade agreements. Those which
all those other countries have been
itching to sign with us. This then
puts him in good light with the ERG
who ditch the DUP.
Boris then has an
election in which he puts himself
forward as the man with the
agreement ready for confirmation if
only he can get enough of those
pesky MPs to be on his side.
He says that he wants a majority in
order to implement his plan.
Of course it doesn’t
mean that he has to implement it if
re-elected. He could still go
for a no-deal Brexit if the ERG
re-grouped following a win with only
a small majority for the
Conservatives. I don’t think
that he would want to, mainly
because I don’t think that he has
any particular belief in a no-deal
Brexit, or indeed any kind of
Brexit. Like Ian Paisley, what
he wants is to have power. But
to keep power, he might do anything,
including doing obeisance to Mark
François and the Honourable Member
for the 18th century and his antique
Bentleys.
Of course the DUP
may crack. Enough Labour MPs
may vote for the agreement on
Saturday. It’s possible, but I
wouldn’t bank on it.
It looks as though
we’re in for a bumpy ride.
Paul Buckingham
26
September 2019
I felt like dancing in the
aisles when Lady Hale and the Supremes
gave their unanimous verdict* on the
government's blatant refusal to follow
the conventions and instead prorogue
Parliament in order, quite simply, to
shut it up.
As a retired lawyer, I’d been
following with interest the arguments
put by both sides and, as far as I
could see, the government simply
hadn’t put up a case, beyond perhaps
“It’s high politics”. Low
politics, more likely. And when Lord
Kerr asked the government's QC what
was to prevent prorogation at the whim
of the government for a year instead
of 5 weeks, my hopes were certainly
raised.
As Milord Peter Hennessey has
been pointing out for some years now,
our constitution is based on everyone
being ‘good chaps’ (or chapesses) and
so knowing where the boundaries of
acceptable behaviour lie - and acting
accordingly. But, when they’re
spivs instead, then the whole edifice
comes crumbling down – or not, thanks
to the intervention of the Supreme
Court. What it means now is very
murky, with Boris showing that he’s
even less of a good chap with his
calling into question the Court’s
decision.
As for the Queen, Lady Hale made
it clear that her Maj is, in effect,
just a cypher in all of this and so
not to blame for the illegality. What
a relief. I think it means that
she can, with a clear conscience, now
lock Boris 'the Narcissist' Johnson
and Jacob “the Spiv” Mogg in the
Tower.
One day, I suppose, we shall see
an end to all of this, hopefully from
within the EU and not from outside.
Paul Buckingham
26
September 2019
* https://www.supremecourt.uk/watch/uksc-2019-0192/judgment.html
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