Between a rock and a hard place

A little sympathy for Mrs May's travails on trade in aircraft?  The Independent reports:

Theresa May is "bitterly disappointed'' by the US government's decision to impose a 219 per cent tariff on a new model of passenger jet built by one of Northern Ireland's biggest employers, Downing Street has said, despite the Prime Minister personally lobbying Donald Trump on the matter.

Unions accused Ms May of being "asleep at the wheel" and said the US Department of Commerce's decision risked thousands of jobs at Bombardier.

The Canadian multinational employs more than 4,000 people in Belfast with many more jobs in Northern Ireland are supported through the manufacturer's supply chain.

So Mrs May's buttering up of President Trump has had little effect on the hard reality of "America First".  And her chums in the DUP will be less than pleased with her fruitless efforts.  Furthermore, Defence Secretary Fallon's toothless threats are likely to wash off Boeing's back, bearing in mind that it employs some 16000 British workers.

Furthermore, if the Tory government cannot sort out a such single-issue trade dispute, what hope for the more complex Brexit trade negotiations when they eventually take place?

 

Unjustified boasting?

The Times gets carried away:

No league in the world can say they have got the strikers of the quality that we have in the Premier League, where there is Harry Kane, Sergio Agüero and Álvaro Morata. La Liga may have Luis Suàrez and Cristiano Ronaldo, but I would argue we have four of the top ten centre forwards in the world — Alexis Sànchez too, if he played more. We are really blessed. In the past, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Thierry Henry were sensational, but if you can pick a top goalscorer this season out of those four, you are a pretty good judge. They are all different types of centre forward, and a case could be made for every one of them. They are predators. We are very fortunate in the Premier League.

Really?  Spain has Ronaldo,  Benzema, Bale, Messi, Suarez, Griezmann, while France has Neymar, Cavani, Mbappe, Falcao, and Germany has Lewandoski, Rodriguez, Muller, Aubameyang.

Just as good as England ...

 

Sturm und Drang?

The German elections are not entirely conclusive.  The Guardian reports:

The country faces weeks of drawn-out coalition talks between the parties, about who will form a government with the CDU/CSU.

A repeat of the so-called “grand coalition” between Merkel’s conservative alliance and the SPD would amount to 354 seats – 316 are required to form a government – but was vehemently ruled out by Schulz, who in Sunday night’s post-result TV debate called Merkel’s election tactics “scandalous” and accused her of creating the political vacuum that was filled by AfD.

A second option is a “Jamaica alliance” – so called because the parties’ colours make up the Jamaican flag – between the CDU/CSU, the resurrected Free Democratic party (FDP) and the Greens, which would have 356 seats. But the constellation has never been tried in the national parliament before and is fraught with potential difficulty, not least a clash over environmental issues between the FDP and Greens and resistance in the FDP towards eurozone changes proposed by France’s president, Emmanuelle Macron, to which Merkel has given her backing.

In such circumstances, Frau Merkel is unlikely - for the next month or two - to be in a position to make any commitments on Brexit.  So negotiations on the exit requirements (the divorce bill, the position of EU residents in the UK and the Northern Ireland border) are likely to drag on interminably, while the initiation of discussions on future trading arrangements seems further away than ever.  All of which must increase the likelihood of a cliff-edge, no deal, catastrophic Brexit.

 

Quote of the day (2)

Parris in The Times (here):

So we’ve put it all off for another two years or more. Well two cheers for that. And I do mean two cheers, and hearty ones. As with the Arabian Nights, so long as these bedtime stories can be prolonged, the planned beheading remains only a plan. Britain’s businesses can move from a period of anxiety about where we were headed, to . . . a second period of anxiety about where we are headed. This latter she called an “implementation” period, meaning a non-implementation period. What we shall be preparing to implement remains, as it always has been, a wish list.

   

Quote of the day

From The Times (here):

Our relationship with the EU has become like a failed marriage where one partner wants to leave but can’t afford to do so. Mrs May’s speech was the equivalent of suggesting that we sleep in separate bedrooms and make our own meal plans. The slogan on her lectern said “shared history, shared challenges, shared future” but at some point we will need to divide the CDs and decide who is responsible for the dog.

It was a generous speech in many ways. An “it’s me, not you” explanation for the impending divorce. “The United Kingdom has never totally felt at home in the European Union,” she admitted. A bit later she added that the EU didn’t want this divorce at all.

Well, they might if they have to listen to any more of her tedious speeches.

   

Florence and The Machine

A long way to go for not a lot.  The Independent summarises the MayBot's oratorical intervention in the Brexit negotiations:

Transitional deal til 2021. That’s what she wants. That’s all it is. Up to the EU now to see if they’ll let her have it. 

I suppose it's progress, Jim, but not as we know it ...

 

Quote of the day

Theresa goes to the UN:

The world can breathe easily when Mrs May is at the podium. In fact, many of those delegates in the hall seemed to be relaxed to the point of catalepsy. Her speech coincided nicely with their post-lunch nap. The timetabling for this general debate at the UN was optimistic, as ever. Technically, four hours were set aside before lunch for 19 speeches, but it was 2.40pm before Mrs May, who had drawn ticket No 18, took to the stage. As a result, the hall was rather empty. Perhaps the UN canteen shuts at 2.30pm sharp.

...

In the front row of the British section, Boris Johnson was looking thoroughly fed up. For all his manifest flaws, the foreign secretary gives a good speech, even if you disagree with what he says.

It must be painful for him to sit through a plodding 20 minutes from the woman who bores for Britain.

He was probably contemplating the six hours that he was going to have to spend in the boss’s company on the flight home, when he would rather order a triple scotch and watch that new film about Churchill than listen to Mrs May seek assurances about his loyalty on Brexit. He clapped when he needed to, which wasn’t often, but sluggishly, as if his arms were trapped in a giant rubber band and he found it hard to pull them apart.

 

Black September

After Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, we also have earthquakes in Mexico, off Japan, in New Zealand and in Vanuatu.

Is there something going on?  I think we should be told ...

   

Headline of the day

From BuzzFeedNews (here):

It's Four Days Until Theresa May's Big Brexit Speech And It's All Going Really Well

Perhaps a little on the optimistic side?

   

Holier than thou?

The Guardian reports on Cyprus' selling EU passports:

The government of Cyprus has raised more than €4bn since 2013 by providing citizenship to the super rich, granting them the right to live and work throughout Europe in exchange for cash investment. More than 400 passports are understood to have been issued through this scheme last year alone.

Prior to 2013, Cypriot citizenship was granted on a discretionary basis by ministers, in a less formal version of the current arrangement.

A leaked list of the names of hundreds of those who have benefited from these schemes, seen by the Guardian, includes prominent businesspeople and individuals with considerable political influence.

The leak marks the first time a list of the super rich granted Cypriot citizenship has been revealed. A former member of Russia’s parliament, the founders of Ukraine’s largest commercial bank and a gambling billionaire are among the new names.

The list sheds light on the little-known but highly profitable industry and raises questions about the security checks carried out on applicants by Cyprus.

But wait a minute!  Does the UK not do much the same sort of thing?  Again from The Guardian last July (here):

Officially called a “Tier 1 investor” visa in the UK, the scheme gives individuals residency in exchange for investing £2m in UK bonds or shares through a bank, with applicants eligible for indefinite leave to remain, and even full citizenship, after five years. That is, unless they can stump up more cash: those offering £5m can settle after three years, and those with £10m after just two.

Because the original investment is returned to the applicant along with any interest accrued, the state technically makes a loss on each visa. But supporters of the scheme argue that as well as an investment in gilts – effectively a loan to the government – the country attracts people with substantial sums of money to spend on goods, hire workers or pay taxes. 

It's a dirty business all round.

Quote of the day

From The Guardian (here):

“Do you think the foreign secretary’s intervention was helpful?” asked Marr towards the end of his interview with [Amber] Rudd on his Sunday morning BBC1 politics show. Rudd looked stoney faced. Probably because she was doing her best not to laugh. Since when had Boris done anything that might be described as helpful?

“Boris has an irrepressible enthusiasm,” she replied, choosing her words carefully. She must have felt like one of Prince Andrew’s teachers trying to find something nice to say about him in a school report. You could hardly tell the Queen that her favourite son was a bit thick, rude and badly behaved, so irrepressible enthusiasm would have to do as code.

Thus neatly hitting two birds with one stone.
  
And there is more:

Really, though, there is no mystery to the foreign secretary’s outburst. What defeats most politicians, in common with boxers, is time. For years, Johnson has been described as the Young Turk. Now, aged 53, he is merely part-Turkish.

...

It has been argued that Johnson’s long essay is low on substance and evades the gritty drudgery of deal-making. But that is the whole point. No senior British politician in living memory has believed so absolutely in the power of brio, charisma and will. He is the love child of Nietzsche and Wodehouse.

 

A fondness for porkies

There was once a time when a government minister accused of repeatedly telling lies by a reliable, independent and authoritative source would have had to resign.

   

Are we making progress?

A great deal of attention has been paid to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, but little has been said about the other legislative commitments taken on by the government. Yet these other bills are equally necessary to avoid chaos on Exit Day (a mere 18 months ahead), equally controversial and, in some respects, more complicated than the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. Will the government be able to get them through both Houses of Parliament in time?

The commitment was set out in the Queen’s speech:

A bill will be introduced to repeal the European Communities Act and provide certainty for individuals and businesses. This will be complemented by legislation to ensure that the United Kingdom makes a success of Brexit, establishing new national policies on immigration, international sanctions, nuclear safeguards, agriculture, and fisheries.

My government will seek to maintain a deep and special partnership with European allies and to forge new trading relationships across the globe. New bills on trade and customs will help to implement an independent trade policy, and support will be given to help British businesses export to markets around the world.

On immigration, the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, kicked the issue into the long grass by asking the Migration Advisory Committee to carry out a review of the matter and report back by September 2018. Are the six remaining months before Exit Day sufficient to put a bill through parliament and then get the immigration staff and systems in place to cope with whatever arrangements are needed? I rather doubt it.

Or take agriculture. The present support system is set by Brussels through the Common Agricultural Policy. As to what will replace it after Brexit, we have yet to hear a dicky bird from the government. But whatever domestic support systems are put in place, they may not differ one iota in outcomes from the CAP without endangering British agricultural exports to Europe. Does the government have any plans to address this issue? Who knows? The position is further complicated by the fact that whatever system is introduced will have to be administered by the devolved administrations.

We are equally in the dark about fisheries, about nuclear safeguards and about international sanctions. Yet we are promised bills in the next few months on each of these issues.

Perhaps it will all come right on the night. But perhaps not ...

The Blacks take the Boks to the cleaners

Game of Thrones

Petty squabbles.  The Times reports:

The Queen’s most senior courtier was forced out in a power struggle between Buckingham Palace and the Prince of Wales, The Times can reveal.

Sir Christopher Geidt, the Queen’s private secretary, left his post in July after complaints by the prince and his brother, the Duke of York, sources said. The unprecedented ousting — the first time the Queen has got rid of her private secretary — was the climax of increasing tensions between the two royal households.

It came amid differences over how to manage the transition of power between the Queen, who is 91, and her eldest son. Royal sources said that the prince’s staff were keen to “accelerate” plans to increase his involvement in key royal events by the time he reaches 70 in November next year.

And the glittering prize for this egregious coup d'etat?

The plans are referred to in some circles as “Project 70”. Prince Charles’s team is thought to want him to be more involved in occasions such as the Royal Maundy service, when the monarch distributes alms to pensioners on the day before Good Friday, and in Commonwealth events. It would, one source said, be “to show that he is the king in waiting”.

How trivial can you get?  Off with their heads!

   

It's an ill wind that blaws naebody any guid.

On the one hand, shares are down:

which, to quote President Trump, is SAD!

On the other hand, the pound sterling is up against the value of the euro:

which is BEAUTIFUL!

But it all rather messes up financial planning.

    

Quote of the day

Pontification from an attention-seeker.  The Guardian reports:

Charities have reacted angrily after the Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the rapid increase in food banks showed a “rather uplifting” picture of a compassionate country.

There are at least 2,000 food banks in the UK giving out emergency food parcels to people in hardship, according to a survey published in May. In 2010, just a handful existed.

Challenged by a caller to a radio phone-in about the rapid rise in food banks, Rees-Mogg argued on Thursday that they fulfilled a vital function. “I don’t think the state can do everything,” he said. “It tries to provide a base of welfare that should allow people to make ends meet during the course of the week, but on some occasions that will not work.

“And to have charitable support given by people voluntarily to support their fellow citizens, I think is rather uplifting and shows what a good, compassionate country we are.”

So, it's alright that people live in poverty, as it allows the better-off to demonstrate their charitable compassion?  The man's a plonker.

Anyway, if you wish to demonstrate your compassion you may do so here.  It is not difficult to do and any donation will be put to good use.

 

Big deal?

Why would the government expect the public sector unions to accept what amounts to a pay cut in real terms?  The Guardian reports:

Theresa May’s government faces months of strife over public sector pay after a decision to lift the 1% annual cap on increases was met with derision from Labour and renewed threats of strikes by trade unions.

Following months of pressure over the issue, Downing Street simultaneously announced above 1% pay rises for police and prison officers in the last of the 2017-18 deals, and a wider commitment to “flexibility” for all public sector workers from next year.

But Jeremy Corbyn accused the Conservatives of trying to divide and rule workers, while unions representing prison officers and police dismissed their pay rises as insufficient, with the former threatening industrial action.

May’s spokesman said a cabinet meeting on Tuesday had approved a recommendation from the independent pay review body for prison officers that they receive an average 1.7% increase, backdated to April.

After years of austerity and with annual inflation running at 2.9%, the government's pay proposals demand that public sector workers accept a lower standard of living.

Perhaps Theresa might shake that old magic money tree once again; she found enough last time to bribe the DUP to keep her in power.

   

Am I smug?

It's a tough old life for UK beer-drinkers.  The Guardian reports:

Surrey has overtaken London as the most expensive place in the UK to buy a pint, according to the latest Good Pub Guide.

Despite the fact that a beer in the capital costs £4.20 on average, drinkers can expect to pay 20p more in the traditionally well-off county, where house prices are twice the UK average.

It is the only time since the guide was first published in 1982 that the average price in London has not been the highest in Britain.

...

The guide found that the average price of a pint of beer in Britain is £3.60, up 13p (3.7%) in a year, compared with a year-on-year rise of 1p in 2016.

Yesterday, I paid €1.30 (roughly £1.15) for a pint in my local hostelry on the Costa del Sol.

Compare and contrast

The Times' review of Mother!:

★☆☆☆☆

First-world problems and phony psychodrama form the basis of Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!, a self-important bum-numbing film masquerading as high-class horror. Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem lead a starry, and mostly wasted, cast (including Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris), in a film that’s set in a fabulous country mansion and purports to be about the pain of creation but is really just a moody version of Risky Business or Project X or any one of those movies where the kids throw a huge party that gets wildly out of control.

The Guardian's review of Mother!:

★★★★★

It’s a powerful enough word at the best of times, but the exclamation mark gives it that edge of delirium and melodrama and despair – just the way Norman Bates yells it at the end of Psycho. Or maybe we’re supposed to hear a second, brutal two-syllable word immediately afterwards. Darren Aronofsky’s toweringly outrageous film leaves no gob unsmacked. It is an event-movie detonation, a phantasmagorical horror and black-comic nightmare that jams the narcosis needle right into your abdomen. Mother! escalates the anxiety and ups the ante of dismay with every scene, every act, every trimester, taking us in short order from WTF to WTAF to SWTAF and beyond.

I guess I'll give it a miss ...

Listicle

Five areas where the BBC World Service gets it wrong: some serious, some trivial.  But for insomniacs such as I am, who rely on the service to get us through the night, they all matter.

• Variability of volume and tone.  BBC sound engineers used to be the best in the world, but nowadays they seem unable to ensure a consistent volume to their output, while different speakers range from admirably clear to intolerably muddy.

• Intrusive music.  It is a mystery to me why programme-makers feel the need to interrupt their programmes with unnecessary bursts of so-called music.  Even more heinous is the playing of background music to accompany speech, thus rendering the latter barely intelligible (at least to those of a certain age whose hearing may not be all it once was).

• Dollarisation.  Is it really necessary to translate all monetary amounts (including Neymar’s transfer fee) into US dollars?

• Devotion to the former British Empire.  Perhaps the service should be re-titled the Africa, Middle-East and India Service because, apart from some obvious tokens, Europe and the Americas are sorely neglected.

• Repetition.  The flagship Newshour programme begins with a statement summarising the programme’s contents; then we get 6 minutes of news; then another statement of the programme’s contents, before the programme proper gets under way.  This is interrupted at a quarter past the hour with a brief statement of the news headlines, until at 25 minutes past the hour we get a trail for some other programme, followed by yet another summary of what is to follow in the next 30 minutes, followed yet again by 3 or 4 minutes of the news, then a further summary of what is yet to come.  And so on, ad infinitum.

They wiz robbed?

Scotland 2 Malta 0

Aye well, celebrations all round.  But both goals looked dodgy.  Did Berra shove the back of the Maltese defender when leaping to head in the first?  Was Griffiths offside when netting the rebound off the post?

Anyway,, Slovakia up next, then Slovenia.  (Or maybe the other way around ...)

    

Speak softly and carry a big stick?

Where are you, Teddy Roosevelt, when your nation needs you?

No soft speaking here:

America’s top diplomat has warned that North Korea is “begging for war” and urged the UN security council to impose the toughest sanctions possible on the isolated dictatorship.

The blunt statement by Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, came as Donald Trump spoke with South Korean president Moon Jae-in and agreed that the North’s latest nuclear test was an “unprecedented” provocation.

And, although they certainly have a big stick, can they use it without bringing down the world around their ears?

 

What are they thinking of?

The surprise is not that cash ISA investments have declined but that anyone is still prepared to make such investments.  The Guardian reports:

Cash Isa savings accounts have collapsed in popularity, with a £20bn fall in the amount invested in the space of 12 months.

A combination of changes to tax rules and continuing low interest rates have been blamed for the 33% decrease in the amounts being invested in cash Isas during the 2016-17 tax year. Revenue & Customs said the total fell to £39.2bn, down from £58.7bn the previous year.

Financial advisers Salisbury House Wealth said savers were “cottoning on to the fact that cash Isas offer very poor value”. Steve Webb, a former pensions minister and now director of policy at insurer Royal London, said the data showed that “the shine has really come off” the accounts.

The figures do not mean people are not putting money away for the future; they are just doing so in different ways. Since April 2016, the first £1,000 of interest that an individual receives from savings is now tax-free if they are a basic-rate taxpayer. For a higher-rate taxpayer the threshold is £500. This is called the personal savings allowance and means most people no longer pay tax on savings interest, a change the banking body UK Finance said recently had reduced the attraction of cash Isas.

You will be exceedingly lucky if you can get more than 0.5% interest on a cash ISA.  On the other hand, if you put the allowance (of up to £20,000) into a stocks and shares ISA, it is possible to secure an annual return of over 6%.  For example, Shell, BP, Scottish and Southern Electricity, and Centrica are each offering annual dividends of over 6%.  And yes, I have ISA investments in all four.

Of course, there is risk attached in that the value of share investments may go down and that the level of dividends may vary from year to year, but even so ...   And the value of cash ISA holdings will inevitably decline as long as inflation continues to exceed the interest rate.

   

What else can she say?

The BBC reports:

Asked whether she wanted to lead her party into another general election, whenever that takes place, the prime minister told the BBC's Ben Wright in Kyoto that that was her intention.

"Yes, I'm here for the long term. What me and my government are about is not just delivering on Brexit but delivering a brighter future for the UK.

"It is my intention to deliver not just a good Brexit deal for the UK but to ensure 'global Britain' can take its place in the world, trading around the world and we deal with those injustices domestically that we need to do to ensure that strong, more global but also fairer Britain for the future."

If she states anything other than determination to remain in office for the foreseeable future, then the story becomes when will she go and who will replace her.  Ever since Blair promised to step down and dithered, prime ministers have to maintain the fiction that they intend to go on forever.

Sport or business?

In the good old days, football clubs were owned by a local entrepreneur - a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker.  No longer.  Nowadays, it is global business.  The Guardian reports:

Manchester City’s parent company, the City Football Group, has made Girona the sixth club of its widening portfolio, after confirming a deal to purchase a major stake in the newly promoted Spanish side.

The terms give City a 44.3% share and an identical holding to Girona Football Group, the agency owned by the City manager Pep Guardiola’s brother Pere. The remaining stake is owned by a Girona fans’ association.

Girona are playing in La Liga for the first time in their 87-year history after promotion last season, having reached the play-offs in three of the previous four campaigns. The clubs said negotiations began last year and that Girona’s “on- and off-field potential, together with a positive academy track record” played a significant part in bringing the deal to fruition.

...

Since Sheikh Mansour bought City in September 2008 his Abu Dhabi-based CFG has acquired the start-up MLS franchise New York City FC, the Australian A-League side Melbourne City, Japan’s Yokohama F Marinos, Club Atlético Torque in Uruguay, and now Girona.

It means CFG is represented in the Premier League and La Liga, Europe’s richest, as well as on four other continents: Oceania, Asia, North America and South America. City are also two years into a five-year agreement with NAC Breda that involves their players being loaned to the Dutch club.

Is this a good thing?  I doubt it.

   

Quote of the day

From Hillary Clinton (here):

“This is not OK, I thought,” Ms Clinton says. “It was the second presidential debate and Donald Trump was looming behind me.”

The debate took place two days after an audiotape emerged in which Mr Trump was heard bragging about groping women.

“We were on a small stage and no matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces. It was incredibly uncomfortable. He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled,” Ms Clinton says in her book.

“It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching: ‘Well, what would you do?’ Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren't repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye and say loudly and clearly: ‘Back up, you creep. Get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women but you can't intimidate me.’”

Ms Clinton says she chose the first option.

“I kept my cool, aided by a lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off,” she says.

But Ms Clinton wonders whether she should have chosen the second option.

“It certainly would have been better TV,” she says. “Maybe I have over-learned the lesson of staying calm, biting my tongue, digging my fingernails into a clenched fist, smiling all the while, determined to present a composed face to the world.”

Did those who voted for Brexit consider the effect it would have on the cost of their holidays?

The pound hits a new low against the euro:

It is now trading at 1.0836 euros to the £, but if you are buying currency for your holidays you will get even less.

My life in Spain becomes daily more expensive.

   

Whither Afghanistan?

Is the military really in control?  The Independent  appears to think so:

Trump has been subject to a military coup behind the scenes – this is the beginning of the end for his presidency

He is now so enfeebled that the Generals and Admirals are not just emboldened to ignore his orders with contempt (not a blind bit of notice was taken of his ban on transgender people in the military). They are dictating foreign policy even when it directly undermines the support of Trump’s base.

On the other hand:

In narrowly military terms, the detail he announced on Monday seems irrelevant gesturing. He gave no firm detail at all, in fact, though it is believed that the current US deployment of some 8,000 troops has been boosted to 12,000. Afghanistan was an anarchic hellhole with 100,000 US soldiers on its soil. An extra 4,000 in a country as large and chaotic is purely symbolic.  

If the generals were truly in charge, we might have expected something more than a symbolic gesture ...

   

Music of the week

It's a stoater!

The Irish border is more than a three-pipe problem.  The Independent explains:

The reason why the Irish border issue hasn’t been sorted out more than a year after the Brexit referendum is that it cannot logically be the same as it is now – frictionless and seamless. When the UK leaves the EU customs union, with or without transition arrangements, some mechanism will be necessary to certify origins, to ensure that goods imported into the UK cannot travel into the European Union, ie Ireland, without some notification of their origin and whether they conform to EU rules and have paid EU duties, and vice versa. Otherwise the EU’s common tariff barrier and [with] the rest of the world cannot work. Modern technology and licences granted to trusted companies can help assist this, but the fact remains that some fresh bureaucracy, even if mostly digital in form, will be required, and human beings will be needed to police it.

Even if the customs union problem could be settled with countless ANPRs (automatic number plate recognition cameras) and CCTV posts, that still leaves the even more fraught issue of the free movement of people. There is nothing today to stop, say, a Lithuanian flying to Dublin, taking a train to Belfast and entering the UK.

...

In other words, David Davis, Michel Barnier, the Irish cabinet and all the other clever people around the capitals of Europe have failed in their quest to make two plus two equal five. It is as if a team of mathematicians had promised to make two plus two equal five because that is what everyone agrees it should be – there is lots of goodwill behind the idea, it would make life a lot easier, and it would be much worse for peace in Ireland if two and two actually made four. Of course they could be locked in a room until the end of time and still not find a way to make two plus two equal five, because it can’t, and no amount of wrangling will make it happen.

The only solution (and it is essentially a non-solution) is for everyone to ignore the problem.  Maintain the status quo on the border and simply accept that there may be leakage of goods into and out of the EU Customs Union and of a modest amount of uncontrolled emigration from the EU into Northern Ireland (and thence into the UK)..  Would that be so bad?

Hypocrites?

Ryanair are being public-spirited?  The Guardain reports:

Ryanair has called for a crackdown on alcohol sales at British airports after claiming that airlines are saddled with the consequences of passengers getting drunk before flights.

Europe’s biggest short-haul airline has proposed a ban on early morning sales of alcohol in bars and restaurants, and limiting the number of drinks sold per boarding pass.

The call comes after figures showed a spike in alcohol-related arrests at airports or in the air, while a major survey of cabin crew found most had witnessed drunken and disruptive behaviour on board.

I have never noticed Ryanair being reluctant to sell booze in-flight, at any time of the day or night.  But, of course they charge a fiver for a miniature of spirits and, presumably, make a handsome profit in doing so.

 

Wishing and hoping

The government's new proposals for a temporary customs union do not take us much further.  The Guardian reports:

Ministers hope to strike a temporary deal with the European Union to retain the key benefits of the customs union for an interim period after Brexit, to avoid cross-border commerce grinding to a halt.

The government will use a position paper published on Tuesday to reveal that, for a brief period, it will seek a deal allowing the transit of goods across borders to continue as now – perhaps by striking a “temporary customs union”.

Ministers hope this will avoid economic disruption by giving businesses and officials time to gear up for a new customs regime; while sidestepping the constraint that full members of the customs union are not allowed to strike independent trade deals with non-EU countries.

The government will say it wants to create “the freest and most frictionless possible trade in goods between the UK and the EU”.

Yeah, and I want to be a billionaire married to Scarlett Johansson.

Why would the EU allow the UK access to a customs union if the latter is simultaneously permitted to negotiate external trade deals?  And how much would the EU expect the UK to pay for the privilege?  And would the ECJ not have to adjudicate disputes?  And, thus, we are back to the same old, same old ...

 

General confusion

When General "Mad-Dog" Mattis, US Defence Secretary met General Kelly, Trump's new Chief of Staff:

John F Kelly is the new chief of staff. He also used to be a general. No special nickname. Today he tells me that Kim’s escalating rhetorical war with POTUS is worrying him enormously.

“The guy is a maniac!” he says. “He’s unpredictable! He could drag the world into war without even meaning to!”

“He’s unstable!” I agree. “His inferiority complex and fragile ego are a danger to us all!”

Then we both suddenly look at each other, and blush.

“Out of interest,” says Kelly, carefully, “who were you actually talking about?”

“You first,” I say.

Something to  do with the hairstyles, probably ...
   

Quote of the day

Trump again (here):

"I will tell you this, if North Korea does anything in terms of even thinking about attack of anybody that we love or we represent or our allies or us they can be very, very nervous.

"I'll tell you why… because things will happen to them like they never thought possible."

 "I will tell you this, North Korea better get their act together or they're gonna be in trouble like few nations have ever been."

He sounds increasingly like some local  mafia enforcer.trying to put the squeeze on the local shopkeepers.  I will tell you this, he is sorely in  need of a better scriptwriter.

 

Quote of the day

President Trump would not appear to be calming matters:

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen," he told reporters, referring to the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. "He has been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said, they will be met with fire and fury and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

Hyperbolic bombast.

 

Kids get it in the neck - again

Now that the silly season is upon us, it is time to whack (metaphorically) the nation's children.  The Observer reports:

The children’s commissioner has warned parents that they must intervene to stop their children overusing social media and consuming time online “like junk food”.

As web use reaches record highs among children, Anne Longfield has attacked the new methods social media giants are using to draw them into spending more time staring at tablets and smartphones. In an interview with the Observer, she said that parents should “step up” and be proactive in stopping their children from bingeing on the internet during the summer holidays.

So the present culprits are the social media.  Before that, it was video games; and, before that, it was watching too much television.  In the days of the caveman, kids were probably spending excessive time chasing baby dinosaurs.

 

Music of the week

Phew!

Getting hotter, maybe.  The Guardian reports:

Eleven southern and central European countries have issued extreme heat warnings amid a brutal heatwave nicknamed Lucifer, with residents and tourists urged to take precautions and scientists warning worse could be still to come.

Authorities in countries including Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia are on red alert, the European forecasters’ network Meteoalarm said, and swaths of southern Spain and France are on amber.

...

Highs in Spain, including in popular holiday resorts on the Costa del Sol and on the island of Majorca, are set to reach 43C this weekend, with extreme conditions also forecast in Seville, Malaga and Granada. Ibiza and Mallorca could hit 42C, Spain’s Aemet meteorological service warned.

But the local forecast for my part of the Costa del Sol is 30C for today and 28C for tomorrow, pleasant but tolerable, especially with a cool glass of something.

 

 

Oh dear ...

This will make life a little more complicated for those of us who regularly spend time on foreign shores.  The Independent reports:

Brussels has published the draft legislation for dealing with “visa-exempt third country nationals”, which is what British travellers will become after the UK leaves the EU.

The new regulations will increase the cost and complexity of holidays and business trips to the Schengen Area, which includes 22 EU countries plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Red tape for travellers will be more tangled, with UK passport holders forced to pay for an online permit even for a “booze cruise” to Calais, a weekend in Amsterdam or a Northern Lights trip to the Arctic.

A proposed “EU Travel Information and Authorisation System” (ETIAS) aims to identify anyone thought to pose “a security, or irregular illegal immigration or public health risk”. The scheme aims to reduce risks by obliging prospective visitors to anywhere in the Schengen Area to fill in a detailed online form. They must provide details of “his or her identity, travel document, residence information, contact details, education and current occupation”.

Travellers will also have to answer questions about their state of health, particularly any infectious diseases.

Thus, millions of on-line applications will need to be checked and maintained, while the fees will need to be received and accounted for.  Do you suppose that our masters are remotely capable of effectively administering such a system?

 

 

Poem of the day

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

   If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
   But make allowance for their doubting too;
   If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,   
   Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
   Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, 
   And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

   If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
   If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster   
   And treat those two impostors just the same;   
   If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken  
   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
   Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,    
   And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings   

   And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
   And lose, and start again at your beginnings    
  And never breathe a word about your loss;
  If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew    
  To serve your turn long after they are gone,   
  And so hold on when there is nothing in you    
  Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,      

   Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
   If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,   
   If all men count with you, but none too much;
   If you can fill the unforgiving minute   
   With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   
   Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,      
   And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

   

Concocted panic?

Can it really be true that Europe will be cut off from the UK?*  Mr O'Leary appears to think so:

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary thinks you'd better line up a stay-cation for 2019.

The airline CEO told the BBC that the UK is in denial over Brexit, and that it’s entirely possible that if David Davis and chums don’t pull their fingers out, there might not be any flights between here and the continent during the Brexit summer.
September 2018 - only just over a year away from now - is the cut off date for airlines when it comes to scheduling for when the UK is formally out of the EU.

If there’s no deal on air access by then, there will be no flights, for at least a couple of months and perhaps for longer. That will create problems that go way beyond people not being able to get to Spain for their summer break (assuming things remain gummed up for that long) unless they’re willing to fly via Boston.

I would have thought that the economic consequences for the tourism industries of Spain, Portugal and Greece (and perhaps even France) would be so severe that some kind of arrangement would be patched up.  But - as with so many of the other consequentials of Brexit - who knows?

* A bit like fog in the Channel

   

Empty threats

A government with no teeth used to be known as a gummy wonder.  I rather doubt if the energy companies will be quaking in their boots.  The Guardian reports:

The government has warned energy companies it is still prepared to legislate for an energy price cap, after British Gas announced a 12.5% electricity price rise for more than 3m households.

The increase would add £76 to a typical annual electricity bill, and some experts warned that it could kick start a new round of price rises from the so-called Big Six energy companies.

A senior government source said Ofgem had to act fast to safeguard poorer consumers and had the powers to do so – and repeated warnings that the government would be forced to legislate if the regulator’s proposals were inadequate.

“It’s never been off the table, but Ofgem has the power to make the reforms and can move quicker than legislation. But we will legislate if it comes to it,” the source said.

 Note the "if it comes to it".  How much more justification do they need to implement the price cap promised in the Tory manifesto?

 

RIP Jeanne Moreau

One of the greats.

No fandango for Scaramucci

From Wikipedia (here):

Scaramuccia (literally "little skirmisher"), also known as Scaramouche or Scaramouch, is a stock clown character of the Italian commedia dell'arte (comic theatrical arts). The role combined characteristics of the zanni (servant) and the Capitano (masked henchman). Usually attired in black Spanish dress and burlesquing a don, he was often beaten by Harlequin for his boasting and cowardice.

Seems appropriate, somehow.  But now despatched from the stage, something of a loss to the gaiety of nations.