Theresa May’s chief of staff Nick Timothy lives in a parallel world. He’s once again taken to his column for The Telegraph with an appeal for Britain to start manufacturing more and to re-industrialise so that we are less reliant on foreign suppliers and even foreign investors. It is as if de-industrialisation was an unfortunate accident rather than the continuation of a century or more of decline capped by deliberate policy choices of the Thatcher government. We thought The City fat cats would save us if we only slashed regulation in the financial ‘big-bang’ and paid them a king’s ransom or, in many cases, several Kings' ransoms.
Selby4europe
BREXIT: "No state in the modern era has committed such a senseless act of self-harm"
Thursday 2 May 2024
Tuesday 30 April 2024
Border checks: The laughing stock of Europe
Brexit checks start today amid confusion about how some ports outside the two main ones at Dover and Folkestone are supposed to recover the costs of building inspection facilities and carrying out the checks. The two Channel ports have the Common User Charge but others are still in the dark, not only about charges but how they're supposed to know which cargoes need checking! According to Politico yesterday, Richard Ballantyne, chief executive of the British Ports Association, and Rhett Hatcher, chief executive of the UK Chamber of Shipping, warned it’s not possible to know “how many eligible goods are being transported through ports as well as who to invoice a blanket charge” without the information on the government’s Import of Products, Animals, Food and Feed IT system.
Sunday 28 April 2024
Brexit is about to get real
Friday 26 April 2024
There are no 'opportunities of Brexit'
Wednesday 24 April 2024
The Horizon inquiry
I’ve been dipping in and out of the Post Office Horizon inquiry on YouTube over the past few months. The questioning of the PO staff is fascinating and in phase 5, the inquiry is closing in on the most senior managers at and around board level. In the beginning, I was convinced the inquiry would find the board was largely ignorant of the problems that seemed endemic in the Fujitsu-designed and operated computer system. However, I’ve changed my mind. Senior people knew about the bugs, errors and defects and essentially chose to cover it up.
Monday 22 April 2024
Tim Shipman
Saturday 20 April 2024
New border checks coming sometime never
On Thursday we discovered that the government intends to U-turn on its pledge to introduce the next phase of the Border Target Operating Model. This imposes checks and extra costs on plants and foodstuffs imported into the UK from the EU and was supposed to begin in a couple of weeks on 30 April. We didn’t find out through any official announcement but by a leaked internal presentation from DEFRA seen by the FT which says the checks could create ‘significant disruption’ and therefore the implementation date will remain the same but the number of checks will be “set to zero for all commodity groups,” meaning products will simply continue to be waived through as they are now.
Thursday 18 April 2024
Jessop and his 'workarounds'
There is a dedicated band of Brexiteers who continue to defend their project, not because they can point to some great benefit or even a modest one. They aren’t claiming it's been a success of any sort, nobody would believe that anyway. Neither are they suggesting that it’s made little if any difference. No, they are resting their case at the moment on the fact that it has been bad - but not unbearably so. They’re not like the Hannanites and the Sherelle Jacobites who openly admit it’s all gone horribly wrong, rather they find it hard to accept they were duped.
Tuesday 16 April 2024
Britain's stuttering manufacturing 'juggernaut'
Kemi Badenoch is deliberately gaslighting the nation. The trade secretary is again using The Daily Express to mislead and misinform, I assume this is because no reputable newspaper would parrot the rubbish she comes up with. I know many think we are well down the path of post-truth politics and reading the nonsense Badenoch - a senior cabinet minister and possible future party leader remember- seems to be responsible for, you have to agree. She is quoted by the Express: