None of them are likely to make up what we are losing through Brexit.
Cohen writes:
"My sources report that Truss changes her mind constantly and civil servants are exhausting themselves as they try to keep up with her contradictory demands. She insists her special advisers rewrite her civil servants’ briefs to make them more ideologically palatable, as if Conservative political appointees can make Britain great again by redrafting the country in Microsoft Word."
But the fantasies don't end in the DIT, they run through the entire government. The Telegraph (!) this weekend has an article about a tunnel between Scotland and Ireland which is apparently "set to get the green light." However, reading the article we learn that:
"A study by Sir Peter Hendy, the chairman of Network Rail, will say whether a link between Stranraer in Scotland and Larne in Northern Ireland is workable. It would be the same length as the tunnel under the Channel between England and France."
It's not clear if what is about to get the green light is the study or the actual tunnel. I suspect it's the former when The Telegraph gives the impression it's the latter. The point about it being the same length as the Channel tunnel is I assume intended to show that it's feasible.
What it doesn't explain is the economic case and this is assuming the geology will allow it. The Channel tunnel struggled for years with a massive debt pile. It cost £13 billion and took six years to build, opening in 1994. But it wasn't until 2007 that a massive financial restructuring allowed it to become sustainable.
This restructuring involved a debt write-off of £3.4 billion and reduced the shareholder stake to just 13% but it did allow the company to finally generate sufficient operating profits to service its still huge debt burden and since 2009 Eurotunnel has paid out small dividends to shareholders.
But bear in mind this is with a huge amount of traffic, far more than would be generated between GB and NI. The whole population of Ireland is about the same as Greater Manchester and the government has baulked for years at the cost of a tunnel between Sheffield and Manchester to avoid the annual Snake Pass closures.
Even if a tunnel between GB and NI was technically feasible the economic case is just not there.
However, even that isn't the craziest thing because buried in the same article by Christopher Hope, Chief Political Correspondent, is this:
"Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, is now considering an alternate “mutual enforcement” plan which would restore the border to the island of Ireland, and require the UK and EU to apply checks at the same level as each other, The Telegraph has learned.
"The hope is that this would remove friction altogether while respecting the border between the UK and EU, although UK officials concede that the chances of the Northern Ireland Protocol being renegotiated are slim."
If you remember I posted about this a few days ago. The whole mad idea comes from a paper prepared by the CBP (Centre for Brexit Policy) which suggests the government passes a law making it illegal for anyone in NI to export goods to the Republic which don't meet EU regulations. The Republic would pass a similar law covering illegal goods moving the other way. Apparently by this simple, not to say cheap solution, the hated NI protocol could be swept away.
The effect as I said would be to create a legally enforceable border in every retail and business premises on the entire island with everybody becoming a potential suspect. No wonder officials concede the chances of it being adopted are 'slim.' It is a fantasy.
But what does it say (if it's true) about Gove who as spent the better part of two years negotiating the NI protocol who within six weeks of it coming into operation is looking at an entirely different model? Gove is discovering government is slightly different to journalism. One can't just disregard what you said or wrote previously and simply write another column ignoring the fact that a few months before you were arguing the exact opposite.
Perhaps we should invent a new word - goverment - developed from the word 'gove' and like government, but with one 'n' not two, to mean the overseeing of a complete foul up of gigantic proportions. It would be a fitting epitaph to his time in Whitehall.
Finally, Trump was acquitted yesterday. This was not a surprise. What was surprising was the statement afterwards by Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnel who roundly condemned Trump and accused him of having sole responsibility for 'provoking' the events of 6 January by repudiating the election result, the vote in November which Joe Biden clearly and legally won.
But McConnel had just voted to acquit the former president!
He did so on the technicality that the House did not have jurisdiction to impeach Trump even though the House had voted by a majority a few days ago that it did. In other words McConnel was himself guilty of exactly the same 'crime' as Trump, namely ignoring a vote that he didn't like and claiming it had no effect.
Worse, he argued that Trump was not 'in office' when the impeachment papers were served on him conveniently ignoring this was because McConnel, as Senate majority leader before the inauguration, would not allow the Senate to sit in order to make the sure papers were served before Trump left office.
I see he is being labelled a coward this morning and I'm afraid it looks like he is that and a hypocrite too,
