Hypocrisy?

On the one hand, the BBC reports:

The government has ramped up efforts to "stamp out illegal unpaid internships".

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has written to more than 500 firms over the last three months reminding them that interns classed as workers must be paid the minimum wage.

The government also says it will ask HMRC to focus minimum wage enforcement work on firms using unpaid interns.

The details were contained in the government's response to a review of working practices.

The Taylor Review into working practices, published last year, concentrated particularly on the so-called gig economy of part time and flexible workers.

However, it also highlighted the issue of unpaid internships.

It said the government should ensure that "exploitative unpaid internships which damage social mobility in the UK, are stamped out".

On the other hand, The Guardian reports:

A prominent Conservative minister advertised an unpaid internship to support his constituency work just hours before the government published its plan to tackle unfair working practices, the Guardian can reveal.

The housing minister Dominic Raab, who has been regularly touted as a future Tory leader, advertised the position on the W4MP website, which has a jobs board for roles with politicians. It is the only position advertised by a sitting MP that is unpaid.

The ad says the role would be based in Westminster and would “ideally suit a gap-year student or recent school leaver” to help with research and casework from Raab’s Esher and Walton constituency.

     

Likely to cause serious offence?

Maybe, maybe not?  A marginal decision.  The BBC reports:

An advert featuring a female tennis player holding a Tunnock's Tea Cake at the top of her thigh has been banned.

The Tea Cake, in place of a tennis ball, was visible with the player's skirt raised at the hip along with the text "Where do you keep yours?" and "Serve up a treat".

One person complained that the ad was sexist and objectified women.

The Advertising Standards Authority upheld the complaint because of its likelihood to cause serious offence.

 

Wipeout

StockMarketWire reports:

The FTSE 100 is expected to open around 250 points lower, according to financial spread betting firms, after the Dow registered the largest one day fall in over six years.

The Dow fell 1,175 points, or 4.6%, to end the session at 24,345.75 as inflation concerns continued to impact sentiment.

The S&P 500 fell 113.19 points, or 4.1%, to close at 2,684.94 and NASDAQ finished the day 273.42 points weaker at 6,967.53.

The global sell-off continued into Asia this morning, with the Nikkei 225 shedding 1,124.99 points, or 4.96%, at 21,557.09 heading into the close.

The Hang Seng was down 1,298.1 points at 30,947.12 and the Shanghai Composite by 95.83 points at 3,391.67.

 If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, then chances are that they know something you don't.

  

Clarification

Let us be clear about the customs union.  The Guardian explains:

In the last week alone, some bits of Britain – no one was clear exactly which – were first going to stay in the customs union, then they were going to stay in a customs union and finally they were going to be in a customs arrangement that would be in some unspecified way different to either the or a customs union, which we would be definitely be leaving while retaining whatever rights of being in a customs union we thought we might want.

No wonder Michel Barnier appeared totally bewildered by David Davis’s assertion that the UK position was “totally clear” during their televised interview after their working lunch at No 10.

Glad to have cleared this up ...

 

Quote of the day

Is the Prime Minister telling it like it isn't?  The Independent goes all literary:

They say that when you feel sorry for a politician, then they are doomed. But May is fortunate in this regard, in that there is something about her that congenitally repels sympathy. It might simply be that she is the leader of the most toxic organisation in Britain. But it might also be her freakish ability to say nothing at all (thus pleasing no one) while saying it in that patronising, irritated, hectoring, categorical way (thus allowing everyone to locate their own particular note of displeasure). It’s quantum doublespeak. She is the political embodiment of Samuel Beckett’s famous remark about art: “The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.”

 

It's the Hokey-Cokey!

In?  Out?  Shaking it all about?  No 10 shows a bit of leg.  The Guardian reports:

Downing Street has ruled out involvement in a customs union with the European Union amid confusion over government policy as Theresa May prepares for a crucial week of talks.

After the exposure of divisions between ministers over the UK’s future relationship with the EU, an official source said: “It is not our policy to be in the customs union. It is not our policy to be in a customs union.” The statement went further than May who, on Friday, refused to rule out involvement in a customs union when questioned during her visit to China.

The development will anger remainers who have clung to hope that Britain will strike a deal with the EU that allows a close relationship with the EU after Brexit. But it will soothe the fears of Conservative Brexiters who have been threatening a leadership challenge if May moves towards an agreement with the EU that restricts the trade deals the UK can seek with third parties.

The clarification came on the eve of a visit to Downing Street by the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, and as officials in Brussels prepared to begin talks on the transitional arrangements. Key cabinet colleagues will meet on Wednesday and Thursday to decide the details of the government’s policy regarding a customs union.

The Downing Street source claimed that a customs union was entirely different from a customs arrangement, which would allow the government to strike trade deals with countries outside the EU. The source also claimed that there had been no change in policy, saying the statement was a reiteration of policy outlined in a paper published in August.

There is an essential mismatch between the UK's desire to make third party trade deals and its putative customs "arrangement" with the EU.  The two options are incompatible.  You cannot allow goods to flow freely across borders with the EU and, at the same time, allow similar arrangements with third countries.

 

Rugby commentators getting bored

From the France-Ireland match:

Eddie Butler:  "The rain is still falling."

Brian Moore:  "Does it ever do anything else?"

 

It's not a dream; it's a nightmare ...

The Sunday Times invents a horror story:

Theresa May will face a coup that would install a “dream team” of “three Brexiteers” if she persists with plans to keep Britain in a customs union with the European Union, Tory MPs warned last night.

Eurosceptics contacted Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, on Friday and urged him to agree a pact that would see Michael Gove, the environment secretary, become his deputy prime minister and Jacob Rees-Mogg — the shop steward of the backbench Brexiteers — appointed chancellor if the prime minister is forced out.

Even the Tories would not instal that trio in power.  Would they?

   

Quote of the day

Matthew Parris in The Times puts the boot into the Prime Minister (here):

Hard Brexit has its supporters. The soft version does too. We all agree she is going to have to choose. We all suspect she’ll prove temperamentally incapable of doing so. Meanwhile the moment when our government must declare its hand in trade negotiations with Europe cannot be delayed much longer. Pure logic suggests that nothing could then stop irreconcilable internal Tory tension breaking the party. Messy experience suggests that strong leadership sometimes does reconcile the irreconcilable. All observation suggests she cannot provide it.

   

Tory unity

Like ferrets in a sack.  The Guardian reports:

Theresa May has bowed to pressure from Eurosceptic MPs and disowned remarks by the chancellor, Philip Hammond, as she struggled to quell a fresh Tory revolt over Brexit that could threaten her leadership.

Hammond enraged leave MPs in his own party on Thursday by telling business leaders in the Swiss ski resort of Davos that the government would seek only “modest” changes in its relationship with the European Union.

“Instead of doing what we’re normally doing in the trade negotiations – taking two divergent economies with low levels of trade and trying to bring them closer together to enhance that trade, we are taking two completely interconnected and aligned economies with high levels of trade between them, and selectively moving them, hopefully very modestly, apart,” Hammond said.

After pro-Brexit MPs in Westminster reacted furiously, and some ministers privately made their disquiet known to Downing Street, No 10 moved to distance the prime minister from her chancellor’s remarks.

A source said: “Whilst we want a deep and special economic partnership with the EU after we leave, these could not be described as very modest changes.”

The fresh cabinet rift followed Boris Johnson’s open disagreement over NHS funding earlier this week and came at a fragile moment for the prime minister’s leadership as a string of Conservative MPs told the Guardian some of their colleagues were considering another attempt at ousting her if the local elections in May go badly.

Amusing as it is to see the Conservative Party tearing itself apart, it would be preferable in the context of the Brexit negotiations to have a government which knew what it wanted to do, rather than these endless and fruitless attempts to keep happy all factions of the party.  A Prime Minister at odds with her Chancellor, a dilettante Foreign Secretary, a clueless David Davis in nominal charge of the negotiations and the backbenches in open revolt:  how long can this go on?

 

Theresa May goes to Davos ...

... but why is she wearing a tracksuit?

     

A fishy business

So, just possibly, President Trump can inadvertently do some good.  The Independent reports:

More than a decade ago, President Donald Trump allegedly sat around with his mistress watching television while talking about how much he hates sharks and would not mind if they all died.

Now, those comments are coming back to bite him — in the sense that they are helping out the sharks of the world.

Donations have reportedly surged to shark conservation charities since Mr Trump’s hate of sharks were unearthed in a previously unpublished interview conducted between the magazine In Touch and adult film actress Stormy Daniels — who claims she had an affair with Mr Trump in 2006, just a year after he married his current wife.

Now, we need him to say that he also hates red squirrels, bees, elephants and rhinos ...

 

Does he care about the NHS or is he just a media attention seeker?

You might argue that, either way, it's none of his business.  The Times reports:

Boris Johnson will seize the floor at a meeting of the cabinet today and demand a £5 billion annual cash injection for the health service beginning next year.

Allies of the foreign secretary say that he has a “track record of winning” and will not relent on demands for a £100-million-a-week Brexit dividend until it is secured.

Britain is expected to keep making contributions to the EU during a two-year transition period until 2021, but Mr Johnson believes that the extra NHS cash should be spent from March next year, when Britain formally leaves the bloc. There is no indication of how the money could be counted as a “dividend” from contributions yet to return.

Some might unkindly suggest that the only thing that Boris cares about is his overweening ambition to  occupy No 10.


 

Historically ignorant?

They should read more books.  But The Times reports:

Britain would struggle to withstand Russian forces on the battlefield and ministers must invest in defence or further erode the country’s ability to combat threats, the head of the army will say today.

General Sir Nick Carter will point to President Putin’s ability to launch long-range missiles and deploy large numbers of combat troops swiftly, as well as the threat posed by cyber-warfare, as he uses a rare speech to warn that Britain “cannot afford to sit back”.

Is there any time during the last two centuries that Britain would not have struggled to withstand Russian forces on the battlefield?  The Crimean War was not an outstanding success; and Napoleon and Hitler found that taking on the Russian Bear did not lead to triumph.

   
 

Quote of the day

From The Sunday Times (here):

Nick Boles [Conservative MP] broke cover on Friday night to condemn May’s “timidity and lack of ambition”.

In a fresh attack last night, he accused her of appointing “wet ministers” and failing to support others, such as the housing secretary, Sajid Javid, who wants to launch radical reforms to build more homes.

“I’ve just had it,” Boles told The Sunday Times. “Either she has wet ministers who won’t do anything or in the case of Sajid, she has a would-be radical who is desperate to get on and do something major and proper and she just blunts everything.

“There’s a wonderful George Orwell essay about Englishness. He talks about the boiled rabbits of the left. We have a government full of boiled rabbits. She needs to give her ministers their head and she needs to tell them to be brave. She needs to tell them to follow their convictions and ideally she needs to have a few convictions herself.”

With such friends on her backbenches, the Prime Minister has no need of enemies ...

   

Where the priorities lie

It's the same the whole world over

It's the poor what gets the blame

It's the rich what gets the pleasure

Ain't it all a bloody shame

The Times reports:

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has prosecuted eight cases of insider trading in the past five years and secured 12 convictions. By comparison, the Department for Work and Pensions prosecuted or penalised more than 10,000 benefit fraudsters last year. Yet large numbers of investors appear to be receiving and benefiting from confidential information from inside FTSE-listed companies.

This newspaper analysed share price movements on the day before every major profit warning and every merger or acquisition announcement over the past two years. On the day before a profit warning, the share price of the company that issued the warning fell in 67 per cent of cases, suggesting that a number of investors were offloading shares in advance of the bad news, potentially saving tens of millions of pounds.

On the day before a takeover announcement, however, the share price increased in 70 per cent of cases, suggesting that investors were buying in advance of good news.

Hardly a surprise, given the Tories' links with those and such as those ...

   

The dubious benefits of free trade with the US

Does anybody (apart from Liam Fox of course) want a free trade deal with the USA?  The Guardian reports:

Chlorinated chicken, hormone-fed beef and bacon produced with additives strong enough to cripple pigs have been listed by British campaigners as three of the top 10 food safety risks posed by a free-trade deal with the US.

American use of the pork additive ractopamine alongside the more publicised practices of washing chicken in chlorine and feeding cattle growth hormones are highlighted in a report by the Soil Association as chief among its concerns about a post-Brexit era.

“Some of the key differences between UK and US production – hormone-treated beef, GM crops and chlorinated chicken – are becoming increasingly understood by British consumers,” the report says.

But there are “other areas where products imported from the US could be produced under significantly different standards to our own”, it adds.

The report was published to coincide with the second reading of the trade bill, which will provide a framework for post-Brexit trade deals.

Ractopamine, which can add three kilos of extra meat to a pig, is banned by almost every country except the US. The EU has outlawed its use since 1996.

It is fed to an estimated 60-90% of pigs in the US in the weeks before slaughter and has been found to cause disability in animals including trembling, broken bones and an inability to walk, according to the Soil Association.

I would prefer it if the contents of my bacon sandwich adhered to EU standards.

   

Boys' toys

The Ministry of Defence sets out the stark choices on future military spending.  The Times reports:

Military chiefs have drawn up a plan to cut the armed forces by more than 14,000 and combine elite units of paratroopers and Royal Marines to save money, The Times has learnt.

The three sets of proposed cuts presented to Gavin Williamson when he took over as defence secretary from Sir Michael Fallon can be revealed today.

The proposals — described by a Whitehall source as “ugly, ugly or ugly” — include cutting the army by 11,000 soldiers and losing 2,000 Royal Marines and sailors and 1,250 airmen. The total size of the regular armed forces is about 137,000. The army has a target size of 82,000 but at present it numbers fewer than 78,000. Reducing this to 71,000 or fewer would make it the smallest since before the Napoleonic wars more than 200 years ago.

Nine Royal Navy warships are under threat, including seven Type 23 frigates. More than 100 helicopters were identified as vulnerable including an entire fleet of Wildcat aircraft and a reduction in the size of the Apache force, the gunships flown by Prince Harry in Afghanistan. In a particularly controversial cost-saving move, included in two of the three lists of options, 3 Commando Brigade, which uses Royal Marines, and 16 Air Assault Brigade, which uses the Parachute Regiment, would operate as more of a combined force. Such a merger would trigger an outcry within the military, with sources warning that it would erode their fighting capabilities. It would also reduce the capacity to deploy elite forces on a lengthy operation.

There is of course a simple answer to the problem.  The MOD could save many billions by:

1.  flogging off the two aircraft carriers, for which in any case we cannot afford to fit out with aircraft and which are white elephants (sitting ducks, if you prefer) without adequate naval shipping to protect them (which we also cannot afford); and

2.  abandoning the replacement/renewal of Trident, which we will never use, whose deterrent effect is minimal and which is vulnerable to cyber attack and underwater drone (as well as being immoral).

And if you are looking for a few extra savings, you might sack a few admirals, as the Navy has more of them than it does ships.

 

It's not urgent, then?

How much damage will be done in the next 25 years?  Still, in a way, it's progress, even if desperately slow.  The BBC reports:

Theresa May will pledge to eradicate all avoidable plastic waste in the UK by 2042.

The commitment is part of a 25-year plan to improve the natural environment being launched on Thursday.

In her speech to launch the plan the prime minister will say: "I think people will be shocked at how today we allow so much plastic to be produced needlessly."

But green groups are angry the proposals will have no legal force.

They say the plans could simply be shelved if they become inconvenient and the promise to stop "avoidable" plastic waste is too vague.

Basically, pathetic.

   

Quote of the day

From The Guardian (here):

As the Four Pot Plants continued to wait anxiously by the phone to see if they were going to be offered a ministerial job in the reshuffle, Boris Johnson got ready for his first departmental questions of the new year. Having already established the previous day that whoever else may be in charge of the government it isn’t the prime minister, the foreign secretary was in an unusually expansive and relaxed mood. He’d told Theresa May that he would kick up rough if she tried to move him and Theresa had listened. All was well with the world.

...

Just as the foreign secretary was winding things up with an unconvincing defence of the importance of Donald Trump’s state visit – there are limits even to Boris’s insincerity, the junior minister Rory Stewart excused himself from the front bench and left the chamber. He had just got a message from Number 10 saying he was being reshuffled sideways from a job in which he had shown great judgment and expertise to one for which he had no qualifications whatsoever. The Four Pot Plants clutched their leaves in despair.

 

The reshuffle re-visited

All shall have prizes.  The Times records the Main Event:

Larry the Cat refused to budge. Theresa May had wanted to move the Downing Street old-timer from his perch on the radiator beside the front door. His kill rate is below target and most of the day he just wants to sleep. It was time to bring in some fresh fur, perhaps Jacob Rees-Mogg, if only for the name. But Larry would not shift. In the battle of PM and puss, there would be only one winner.

So Larry clung on, but lest anyone think that Mrs May had spent an hour fruitlessly trying to sack a grumpy feline, she gave him a new title: minister for social mousing. Larry spent the rest of the day ordering new business cards; the Downing Street mice threw a party.

 
   

Successful reshuffle?

Apparently not:





 

Looking at the problem from the wrong end?

Holiday flights are horrid enough, but there are plans to make them more horrid.  The I-news reports:

The Home Office is planning to close a loophole that allows airports to sidestep alcohol licensing laws and open 24 hours a day.

The move comes after the International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported a 50 percent rise in in the numbers of passengers forcibly detained for bad behaviour.

A review by the House of Lords has recommended an end to 24-hour drinking in airports, according to The Times.

The Home Office is planning to extend the Licensing Act 2003 to cover alcohol being sold to passengers just before they board flights.

It would give councils the power to license and inspect bars, pubs and restaurants inside airports.

If the problem is drunkenness on aeroplanes, why do the airlines continue to sell alcohol on board?  As far as I am aware, there is no law which requires them to do so.

Besides, a stiff g&t before departure makes the whole process of flying marginally more tolerable.

 

Irony-free

I guess that The Donald is not someone given to self-analysis.  The Independent reports:

President Donald Trump has hit out at “very weak” libel laws in the US as he branded an explosive new book detailing the inner workings of the White House as “fiction”.

Suggesting he would like to see tougher laws on speech, Mr Trump said that if libel laws “were strong... you wouldn’t have things like that happen where you can say whatever comes into your head” – referring to Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

Trump's tweets are of course a prime example of him saying whatever comes into his head, regardless of consequences, legal or political.

 

Genius?

Well, maybe.  But he may be alone in his estimation of his intellectual capabilities.  The Independent reports:

Donald Trump has claimed his two greatest assets are his mental stability and “being, like, really smart”.

In a series of early-morning tweets, the President hit back at questions about his capacity for office after revelations in Michael Wolff’s explosive new book renewed scrutiny of his mental health.

“The Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence,” Mr Trump wrote.

He added: “Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.

“Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top TV Star to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius... and a very stable genius at that!”

He's a modest little flower ...

     

Daft as a brush?

Now look, just because a man wants to eat a cheeseburger in bed at 6.30 pm while watching three televisions, does not make him a bad person. A trifle eccentric, perhaps.  (I wonder, however, about how to keep the sheets free from crumbs.)  The Guardian reports on more revelations of life in the Trumpian White House:

Trump also reportedly harangued domestic staff who would try to clear his floor of laundry, yelling: “If my shirt is on the floor, it’s because I want it on the floor.” He would also strip his own bed, according to Wolff, when he decided his sheets needed a change.

Then Trump imposed a set of new rules, Wolff writes: “Nobody touch anything, especially not his toothbrush.”

Trump is a self-described germophobe: by Wolff’s account he has also long been afraid of being poisoned. This, Wolff writes, is “one reason why he liked to eat at McDonald’s – nobody knew he was coming and the food was safely pre-made”.

Wolff also writes that Trump requested two television sets be added to his bedroom, which already had one in place. Most days, Wolff writes, Trump preferred to be in bed by 6.30pm, watching his three televisions, eating a cheeseburger and making telephone calls to friends and confidants.

Not totally surprising that Melania had a separate bedroom.

 

Quote of the day

From Fire and Fury the new book on Trump by Michael Wolff (here):

The US first daughter poked fun at her father's alleged "scalp-reduction surgery", according to the book.

"She treated her father with a degree of detachment, even irony, going so far as to make fun of his comb-over to others. She often described the mechanics behind it to friends: an absolutely clean pate - a contained island after scalp-reduction -surgery - surrounded by a furry circle of hair around the sides and front, from which all ends are drawn up to meet in the center and then swept back and secured by a stiffening spray. The color, she would point out to comical effect, was from a product called Just for Men - the longer it was left on, the darker it got. Impatience resulted in Trump's orange-blond hair color."

Mine is bigger than yours

Trump reduces geo-politics to the level of the school playground.  The Independent reports:

Donald Trump has threatened North Korea with a nuclear strike, boasting of America’s superior capabilities. 

“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.’ Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” Mr Trump wrote on Twitter.

Unnecessary and childish.

 

It's a new year

Scottish Labour looks on the optimistic side.  The Guardian reports:

Young people now see Labour as the radicals in Scotland, according to the party’s new leader, Richard Leonard.

...

Scottish Labour activists reported a significant change on the doorstep during their general election campaigning, in particular among younger voters who they might formerly have expected to be supporting the SNP. “Over the past few months we’ve started to win back lost Labour voters, people who voted SNP, Green in recent elections, there’s a definite shift taking place. There’s a buzz amongst young people. They are seeing the Labour party as the radical party.”

It would be nice to think so.  But I fear that it will not be so easy to dispel its reputation for promoting jumped-up, hidebound, municipal time-servers with an extremely limited capacity for radical thought.  But we can always hope ...

 

Christmas wishes

Bullying? Intimidation?

Is Trump behaving like a Mafia boss?   Here is his caporegime at the United Nations, berating the General Assembly about his decision on Jerusalem:

In the letter sent by Ms Haley, she said: “The US is simply asking that you acknowledge the historical friendship, partnership, and support we have extended and respect our decision about our own embassy.”

She added: “The President will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those countries who voted against us. We will take note of each and every vote on this issue.”

On Twitter, she had written: “At the UN we're always asked to do more & give more. So, when we make a decision, at the will of the American ppl, abt where to locate OUR embassy, we don’t expect those we’ve helped to target us. On Thurs there’ll be a vote criticising our choice. The US will be taking names.”

And, thus, development aid comes with hidden strings attached.  Not so different from the protection offered by Don Vito Corleone.

 

Just an afterthought

Says it all really.  The Guardian reports:

A few hours after the crash, Donald Trump cited it as a reason to support his infrastructure plan, tweeting: “The train accident that just occurred in DuPont, WA shows more than ever why our soon to be submitted infrastructure plan must be approved quickly. Seven trillion dollars spent in the Middle East while our roads, bridges, tunnels, railways (and more) crumble! Not for long!”

Ten minutes later, he tweeted: “Thoughts and prayers are with everyone involved.”

The man is a boor.

   

Slightly over the top

Theresa May's problem with Brexit clarity

It's a bit of a muddle but The Guardian tries manfully to elucidate:

The problem is that clarity is the one thing May dare not provide, because the minute anything is illuminated then it’s a target for someone. Her best hope is generating a sort of permanently confused twilight in which nobody (including her own cabinet, which still hadn’t formally agreed the precise form Brexit should take even as the EU agreed we had made significant progress towards it) is entirely sure what’s going on, and therefore can’t be certain yet that they hate it.

So nothing is agreed until everyone finds out exactly what it is that they’re supposed to be agreeing, at which point it is still perfectly possible that nobody will agree to any of it. But the aim is to push the inevitable moment of truth – the point where both leavers and remainers realise exactly what’s going to happen, and someone goes ballistic – as far down the road as possible.

Probsbly not the best way to run a railway ...

   

Joke of the day

From The Independent (here):

David Davis breezily announced on the radio that “I don’t have to be very clever to do my job, I don’t have to know very much.” 

Just as well.

Or it would be, if he was even half competent.

As The Guardian points out:

Suddenly the whole point of David Davis became clear. After first fantasising he read impact assessments that never existed and then managing to contradict himself within 24 hours on whether the interim deal was legally binding, the Brexit secretary has created the perfect framework for all future negotiations. Thanks to his hopelessness and incompetence, there really is no longer any way of telling what is true and what is not. We have entered a post-modern political world where suspension of both belief and disbelief are one and the same.

   

Weird

The diet coke addict.  The Times reports:

The most talked-about man in the world rises at about 5.30am and sometimes sends his first tweet of the morning while watching television propped up on the pillows of the White House master bedroom.

Television news coverage will continue to shape President Trump’s mood until he goes to sleep some 18 hours later, according to a survey of many of those closest to him.

He will by then have typically spent between four and eight of those hours in front of a television screen, sometimes with the volume muted, stewing over or relishing the portrayal of his actions and those of his administration on channels that he perceives to be either friendly or hostile.

He tends to share his thoughts on the news with anyone in the room, including the household staff who bring him lunch or one of the dozen Diet Cokes that he drinks most days.

A vision of the future

The machines are taking over.  The Guardian reports:

... in San Francisco, delivery robots have quietly taken to the sidewalks of over the past year. Companies including Marble and Starship are developing “robots as a service” business models, whereby food delivery apps contract with the robot companies to perform their deliveries.

At scale, the robots could significantly cut down on delivery vehicles (and labor costs), but they also take up space on sidewalks, where bicycles, Segways, and sitting or lying humans are already banned. Since taking on the issue, Yee said that his office had become something of a repository for photographs taken by angry residents of the robots clogging the sidewalks amid baby strollers, bus stops, street vendors, and pedestrians.

A coalition of residents, pedestrian advocates, and activists for seniors and people with disabilities lambasted the robots as “aggressively entrepreneurial wet dreams” and “the future Ubers of the sidewalk”.

It will end in tears.

   

In praise of millennials

I happened to be in Princes Street last night about 7.30 pm and saw the vast crowds, predominantly young adults, queueing to attend the Sleep in the Park event.

It kinda restores your faith in human nature.  And it was a bitterly cold night.

So well done to all the participants.


 

Music of the week

Quote of the day

The Guardian channels Juncker's thoughts at the presser:

Theresa pressed on. Britain would be meeting its financial obligations. Juncker checked his spreadsheet. Correct. He’d always budgeted for a €40bn payout. Tick. EU citizens rights had been agreed. Well, sort of. Up to a point, at least. It was still desperately unclear just what role the European court of justice would play. Or for how long. But that could wait for another day. As things stood, it could turn out that every woman rushes off to give birth in Northern Ireland just to secure an EU passport for their baby.

As for Ireland, all anyone had agreed was to kick the problem a bit further down the road. Juncker shrugged. If that was the way it had to be be for now to keep everyone happy, then so be it. The Brits could call it regulatory alignment if they liked, but for the life of him he couldn’t work out how the prime minister could guarantee there would be no hard border unless Britain to all intents and purposes remained in the single market and the customs union. To him, it seemed like madness. Hand over €40bn and relinquish all rights to influence the regulations just to end up roughly back where you were when you started. It was a curious way of taking back control. But not his problem.

   

Still flummoxed

This is an extract from this morning's written agreement between the EU and the UK:

“The United Kingdom remains committed to protecting North-South cooperation and to its guarantee of avoiding a hard border… In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.”

I find it difficult to interpret this in any way other than that the UK will remain in the single market/customs union.  If it is not an actual member, it will nevertheless faithfully conform ("full alignment") to all the rules and requirements of the single market/customs union.

In these circumstances, the UK cannot possibly negotiate separate trade agreements with, for example, the USA, as these would not be compatible with the single market.  So no chlorinated chicken.

Do the brexiteers realise this?  What happened to "taking back control"?  How will Liam Fox, trade minisiter, spend his time?

I should stress that I am personally entirely content that the UK should remain in the single market/customs union.  But, if that is the outcome, then what is the point in the UK leaving the EU?  The only difference is that the UK no lomger has any say in determining the governing rules.

 Or am I missing something?


Update:

The Independent offers an explanation:

... it was being pointed out that the text that had been agreed merely postponed all the difficult decisions to a later stage. In particular, the bit about the Irish border that caused difficulties with the Irish government on the one hand and the DUP on the other – this was solved by promising to do something implausible at a later date.

...

But that is how international negotiations work. You agree the bits you can agree and put off the difficult bits until later. Again, it is the EU side that has given ground. It refused to move on to the talks about trade until the first three subjects, including the Irish border, had been agreed. This was then downgraded to “until sufficient progress had been made”. There hasn’t really been any progress at all – just a number of mutually contradictory declarations of intent – and yet the EU has agreed to move on. 

    


  

Doesn't work for me

You can follow the blow-by-blow reaction to the magnificent (maybe) success in Brussels here.

I regret to say that I cannot really understand how matters have progressed since last Monday.  Unless the entire UK is to retain membership of the single market/customs union, a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic is inevitable.  Alternatively, if there is no hard border between NI and the Republic, then there has to be a hard border between Ireland as a whole and the rest of the UK.  And, if the UK is to remain in the single market/customs union, the Tory backbenches will go doolally.

I'm flummoxed.

 

"Deal by dawn"?

So it's an early morning dash to Brussels.  (Have these people never discovered telephones?)  The Times rather over-dramatises:

Theresa May negotiated through the night to hammer out an Irish border compromise as Brussels raised hopes of a deal by dawn.

After a day of intense talks involving London, Dublin, Belfast and Brussels, negotiators were said to be moving closer to agreeing a new joint text allowing talks to progress towards a potential trade deal.

In a sign that an agreement may be close, the European Commission said Mrs May was likely to fly to Brussels for meeting at 6am British time with Jean Claude-Juncker, president of the commission. Donald Tusk, head of the European Council, set an effective deadline by saying he would make a statement 50 minutes later.

Earlier in the night the commission said negotiators were “making progress but not yet fully there”. Government sources said that the gap between the sides had narrowed but cautioned that talks could continue into the weekend or beyond. Mrs May repeatedly delayed flying to Brussels this week after the Democratic Unionist Party vetoed a deal at the eleventh hour on Monday amid fears of an effective sea border with the UK.

Under a compromise being worked on, language which drew DUP objections would remain but “interpretation” would be added “to make it more palatable”, a Brussels source said.

That last paragraph suggests a fudge rather than a realistic attempt to square the circle.  Which probably means that, even if a suitable form of words can be cobbled together, any agreement is likely to fall apart sooner rather than later.

Deep fried avocado?

The Guardian reports:

Marks & Spencer has begun selling a stoneless avocado that could help banish the pain of “avocado hand”.

The so-called cocktail avocado is 5cm-8cm (2in-3in) in length and has a smooth, edible skin, meaning it can be sliced or eaten whole.

Earlier this year, the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons identified the problem of increasing numbers of people turning up at A&E after cutting their hands and fingers while trying to remove avocado stones, and called for safety labels to be put on the fruit.
Charlotte Curtis, a food technology specialist at M&S, said: “We’ve had the mini, the giant, ready sliced and we’re now launching the holy grail of avocados – stoneless. This amazing fruit has been on our radar for a couple of years and we’re very excited to have finally been able to get hold of some for our customers to try.”

...

Curtis said she expected them to sell out quickly, adding: “My top tip is to try them deep fried.”

She must be Scottish.

   

News management?

I suppose it is just a coincidence that these two stories appeared on the same day in The Guardian. This one here:

Security officials believe they have thwarted an alleged plot to assassinate Theresa May by terrorists who would first bomb their way into Downing Street and then kill the prime minister, it has emerged.

Two men were arrested last week following a joint operation by MI5, the UK’s counter-terrorism security service, and police.

Security officials believe the alleged Islamist plot is the ninth to have been thwarted since March this year.

And this one here:

Ministers have vowed to overhaul Britain’s fight against terrorism after a report revealed chances to thwart the Manchester attack were missed and the leader of the London Bridge assault struck while under investigation by MI5 as a threat to national security.

The findings followed this year’s spate of atrocities that killed 36 people, and come as the level of threat is assessed by counter-terrorism experts to have markedly increased, with warnings more attacks will get through Britain’s defences.

Internal reviews by MI5 and the police cleared themselves of making serious mistakes that allowed terrorists to strike. But a summary of the findings revealed that the attack on Manchester Arena that killed 22 people might have been prevented if different decisions had been made by MI5.

I cannot believe that the security services would stoop to bringing up the first story to distract attention from the second.

 

They don 't know wnat they're doing ...

The Independent reports:

For over a year, the Government’s handling of Brexit has reminded us of England teams in recent tournaments. The ones featuring players who, although supposedly top-class professionals, appear to have been randomly selected by computer from the national insurance database of every British 18-35-year-old male, given an hour’s training in a game they never played before and a 90-second lecture on tactics they couldn’t begin to understand, and sent out to represent their country as part of some unusually cretinous reality TV show / pop psychology experiment.

You could no more expect them to compete against Germany, Brazil or mighty Iceland than you would expect the Prime Minister and her allies to hold their own against Michel Barnier, Donald Tusk and the mighty DUP. 

Quite.

Quote of the day

Neatly put, from The Times (here):

Sadiq wants what Nicola wants and Nicola wants what Arlene can have. But Theresa says Sadiq and Nicola cannot have what Arlene has and Arlene says she doesn’t want what Theresa says only she can have. Welcome, people, to the latest Brextucker challenge, where everyone except Kezia Dugdale has to swallow something vilely disagreeable.

Reality comes at you hard and fast, however. For 18 months, UK ministers have insisted that there can be “no return to the borders of the past” on the island of Ireland and that there can be no opt-outs from the greater British Brexit process. “Brexit means Brexit”, remember. For all that time it has been obvious that you can have one of these things but not both. But then, apart from the Leave campaign, who ever thought Brexit would be easy?

   

What did she expect?

Did Theresa May believe that she could bounce the DUP into accepting an arrangement whereby Northern Ireland remained in the customs union/single market while the rest of the UK went a separate way?  If so, she has now been disabused of the position.

Did she not expect any such arrangemnt would immediately evoke "me too" demands from Scotland, Wales and London?

Where does she go from here?

  

Quote of the day

From Nicola (here)

"If one part of UK can retain regulatory alignment with EU and effectively stay in the single market (which is the right solution for Northern Ireland) there is surely no good practical reason why others can’t."

   

Would anybody miss either of them?

Politics is a dirty business.  The Independent reports:

​Brexit Secretary David Davis has reportedly made clear he will quit if his cabinet colleague Damian Green is dismissed over allegations of pornography being found on his work computer almost a decade ago.

...

But Mr Davis’s defence of his cabinet colleague was immediately ridiculed. The Labour MP Jess Phillips posted on Twitter: “David Davis. Don’t let the door hit you on the arse on your way out.”

“David Davis your red line, your hill to die on is really something. ‘What made you want to become an MP?’… ‘Great question, I really wanted to fight hard so people can w*** at work,” she added.

In any case, Davis has left himself a get-out as Green would no doubt be allowed to resign.

   

Quote of the day

From The New Statesman (here):

It was entirely predictable that Brexit would go wrong. It was arguably avoidable, even after the vote. That we are rushing headlong towards the cliff anyway is entirely the fault of a Conservative Brexit elite that long ago began to believe its own deluded, post-imperial bullshit.

None of this is the fault of Remainers, you know. You won, Brexiteers: get over it. This is your mess, now. Own it.

Unfortunately, this is just a movie