Me

You may be wondering where I’ve been for the last few days. Well, let me say it hasn’t been great. I picked up a stomach bug on Monday and in between trying to vomit, alternately shivering and sweating, and sitting on the loo, I managed to get to see the doctor on Wednesday when I didn’t seem to be getting better quickly. I got an appointment in two hours (Well done to Selby NHS) and was given a thorough examination by a very nice doctor (30 minutes at least) and now I’m on antibiotics and other stuff. I’m not right but I think I’ve started to turn the corner. Yesterday evening marked the third day that I've eaten barely anything solid and I wasn’t that hungry! 

Unleashed is unhinged

Johnson’s book, Unleashed, has now been reviewed and I think it’s fair to say it has not been greeted as anything other than a sick joke. It perhaps should have been titled, Unhinged. I used to borrow autobiographies from our local library and the political ones were usually self-justificatory but contained serious reflections about the issues and crises faced during their terms of office. Most could be relied upon by historians trying to understand the human relationships behind the key decisions to have a few grains of truth. I don’t think this applies to his 772-page effort.

Starmer returns from Brussels

Kier Starmer’s visit to Brussels and his meeting with Ursula Von der Leyen apparently went well but the press release afterward was bland, to say the least. They “agreed to strengthen the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union” and a few other anodyne things but not much more. The statement also said they “agreed to take forward this agenda of strengthened cooperation at pace over the coming months, starting with defining together the areas in which strengthened cooperation would be mutually beneficial, such as the economy, energy, security, and resilience, in full respect of their internal procedures and institutional prerogatives."

Boris Johnson - I was bluffing on no-deal Brexit

In Boris Johnson's new book, Unleashed, he admits that he was bluffing in 2019 when threatening to leave the EU without a deal. Anyone who is surprised by this wasn't paying attention at the time. I remember having many conversations with desperately worried remainers who believed he would actually do it, as many Brexiteers, some inside parliament, would have preferred. It was always obvious it was just a bluff. You only had to listen to trade experts to realise it, and I never doubted for a second that their voices were coming through loud and clear in Downing Street and across Whitehall, regardless of what Dominic Cummings was saying to the lobby. 

The Rejoin Campaign

The National Rejoin March went ahead as planned on Saturday although I didn’t attend because I’m getting a bit too old for that kind of thing. I was there in spirit let’s say. This was the third year of what has now become an annual event. Only the organisers will know if the numbers are increasing or decreasing but the march didn’t receive any national coverage in the media as far as I could see. One report talked of “several hundred people” being in London on an anti-Brexit protest. This sparked a lot of mocking comments on social media from Brexiteers to the effect that Brexit was ‘over,’ as you might expect.

Starmer, freebies and gifts

You can't escape from the negative media coverage about Starmer’s declarations of gifts and donations. I still think he is probably one of the least corrupt politicians we have in this country, but he’s still guilty of naivety if he thought the right-wing press would give him an easy ride over the things he listed in his register of interests. I don’t have much sympathy for him claiming that he was somehow forced to sit in Arsenal's director’s box over security issues. He could have bought a Sky Sports subscription and watched the matches live on TV. We all have to make small compromises. Is it really so essential to physically be at every game?

The US election. Trump must lose

Thanks to Kamala Harris, Trump’s chance of winning the presidency for a second time has fallen, but it remains a distinct possibility. The polls have the VP narrowly ahead and we should all pray that she trounces him and the Republicans in November so the party can rebuild and shake free from the grip that Putin and the Russians have on it. America needs to look at itself seriously and begin to investigate how it got where it is. One important area they need to check is the Supreme Court (SC) and the whole issue of the politicisation of the legal system.

Britain's productivity problem misidentified again

Someone has produced what on the surface looks like a compelling paper on why Britain is stagnating economically. I say someone because it’s not immediately clear who is behind it. The paper is HERE, from the website www.foundations.co. It is genuinely interesting and seems well-researched. The first named author is Ben Southwood who appears to be a senior fellow at Policy Exchange (described by The Telegraph as the most influential think tank on the right). He is also connected to the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) both right-wing organisations.

UK-EU relations reset

David Henig’s ECIPE (European Centre for International Political Economy) has published a report about the ‘reset’ in UK-EU relations being sought by Kier Starmer. It’s a comprehensive effort and puts into perspective the present state of things and the potential for improvement in the future. He points out that the trade relationship between the UK and the EU is the joint second largest in the world (US - EU being the biggest) alongside the US-Canada one and that simply by dint of geography alone something beyond the basic TCA is required and will almost certainly happen over time.

Russian election interference is being laid bare

The full extent of Russia's brazen interference in electoral systems globally is becoming clearer by the day. After the 277-page FBI affidavit setting out the way the Kremlin system worked, newly leaked files reveal examples of how fake news is manufactured and amplified in Russian troll factories to meddle in US and European elections. You can see this in a report published by VSquare, a website set up by a group of independent investigative journalists from the four Visegrád countries, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia.  The files show how employees of the Russian firm SDA were instructed to create false narratives by making comments on fake stories.