I am afraid I owe the prime minister an apology. The La Repubblica story about Johnson flying to Perugia last weekend seems to have been the result of a mistake. The chief of the airport has confirmed that Johnson was somehow mistaken for Tony Blair - who did travel there the week before last. I must say it all seems a bit confusing with the Italian newspapers quoting eye witnesses but they had apparently seen Blair and thought he was Johnson. Is that plausible? Anyway, it seems the story was wrong, so apologies all round I think.
Theresa May got herself on Twitter with a stellar performance during the committee stage of the UK Internal Market bill in the House yesterday. With her usual directness and clarity she put Robin Walker on the spot by asking if the consequences of the deal Johnson negotiated were so bad why did 'the government' sign it. Note she didn't mention Johnson by name, here's the clip:
Theresa May - “If the potential consequences of the Withdrawal Agreement were so bad, why did the Government sign it?” 🔥 pic.twitter.com/ele4cuNr7Y— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) September 21, 2020
His excuse seemed to hinge on two things, firstly that the Joint Committee hadn't made the progress people thought it should have (I wonder whose fault that was?) and there were "some harmful interpretations" being put forward. Why government lawyers didn't see that possibility wasn't explained. I suspect they did and Johnson was told but chose to ignore the warnings that came out immediately afterwards because he never planned to keep to the agreement anyway.
I think the UKIM bill was an attempt to provoke the EU into terminating the trade talks and if that didn't work, to see Brussels set in train legal remedies which would help to drive a wedge between Britain and the EU. This, I think they calculated, would create a bad atmosphere to help them paint the EU as a bad actor with malign intent. It's the sort of thing dictators do to hold on to power.
Sir Bill Cash tried to intervene on Mrs May in the Commons during her speech to suggest that other countries break international law. She was having none of it and said someone else breaking a law isn't an excuse for us to do it. Cash seemed to be making a strong the case for anarchy in his inimitable and stupid way. Mrs May said she will not be supporting the bill.
On other matters, I noted the other day The Telegraph had an article about Britain formally dropping plans to build a rival to the EU's Galileo GPS satellite system. Theresa may committed £92 million to researching the possibility but it seems the plug is about to be pulled. The article says:
"Under a reset of Britain’s space ambitions, the agency is now poised to examine alternatives for a sovereign positioning system, including deploying satellites from OneWeb, the bankrupt space company the Government is paying £400m to rescue.
"Multiple options are understood to be in consideration. Civil servants and parts of the industry have pushed for the reset to revive talks on joining the EU’s Galileo system, which Britain was frozen out of during Brexit negotiations. The Government said participating in Galileo was off the table."
The Telegraph are still clinging to the idea that we can use the low earth orbit satellite array from OneWeb but the Department of Business in a statement said:
"The Government has set a clear ambition for a sovereign space programme which will bring long-term strategic and commercial benefits for the UK. Work is ongoing across Government to determine the UK’s positioning, navigation and timing requirements, and assessing options for meeting them.
"The UK will not participate in the EU’s Galileo programme. Current OneWeb satellites are used to deliver satellite communications services, not satellite navigation."
So, no participation in Galileo and the 'current' OneWeb system isn't suitable. I read elsewhere the OneWeb satellites are simply not big enough to carry the heavy nuclear power units need for high orbit navigation systems. So, we have abandoned our own, ruled out Galileo and OneWeb but the government is "assessing options" to meet the UK's requirements. What on earth could they be?
The word "current" is interesting isn't it? It's doing a lot of work in that sentence. We are apparently now set on redesigning something halfway through and cobbling together a solution which you can bet will work half as well as its rivals and cost twice as much. It's the British way.
This is the problem when ideology takes over from common sense.
I think the UKIM bill was an attempt to provoke the EU into terminating the trade talks and if that didn't work, to see Brussels set in train legal remedies which would help to drive a wedge between Britain and the EU. This, I think they calculated, would create a bad atmosphere to help them paint the EU as a bad actor with malign intent. It's the sort of thing dictators do to hold on to power.
Sir Bill Cash tried to intervene on Mrs May in the Commons during her speech to suggest that other countries break international law. She was having none of it and said someone else breaking a law isn't an excuse for us to do it. Cash seemed to be making a strong the case for anarchy in his inimitable and stupid way. Mrs May said she will not be supporting the bill.
On other matters, I noted the other day The Telegraph had an article about Britain formally dropping plans to build a rival to the EU's Galileo GPS satellite system. Theresa may committed £92 million to researching the possibility but it seems the plug is about to be pulled. The article says:
"Under a reset of Britain’s space ambitions, the agency is now poised to examine alternatives for a sovereign positioning system, including deploying satellites from OneWeb, the bankrupt space company the Government is paying £400m to rescue.
"Multiple options are understood to be in consideration. Civil servants and parts of the industry have pushed for the reset to revive talks on joining the EU’s Galileo system, which Britain was frozen out of during Brexit negotiations. The Government said participating in Galileo was off the table."
The Telegraph are still clinging to the idea that we can use the low earth orbit satellite array from OneWeb but the Department of Business in a statement said:
"The Government has set a clear ambition for a sovereign space programme which will bring long-term strategic and commercial benefits for the UK. Work is ongoing across Government to determine the UK’s positioning, navigation and timing requirements, and assessing options for meeting them.
"The UK will not participate in the EU’s Galileo programme. Current OneWeb satellites are used to deliver satellite communications services, not satellite navigation."
So, no participation in Galileo and the 'current' OneWeb system isn't suitable. I read elsewhere the OneWeb satellites are simply not big enough to carry the heavy nuclear power units need for high orbit navigation systems. So, we have abandoned our own, ruled out Galileo and OneWeb but the government is "assessing options" to meet the UK's requirements. What on earth could they be?
The word "current" is interesting isn't it? It's doing a lot of work in that sentence. We are apparently now set on redesigning something halfway through and cobbling together a solution which you can bet will work half as well as its rivals and cost twice as much. It's the British way.
This is the problem when ideology takes over from common sense.
