Anthony was a sales engineer, now retired and living in North Yorkshire after a long career representing several European manufacturers in the UK. Seeing first hand how continental companies work and how they strive to become world-class businesses makes him fear for Britain's post-Brexit future. He is interested in politics, although not as an active party member, and enjoys reading, gardening and DIY.
Alexander Temerko has been very generous to the Conservative Party, donating a not inconsiderable £1.2m over seven years, after taking British citizenship. In July 2019, a few days before Boris Johnson was elected Tory leader, Reuters carried a special report about his connections to Temerko and the influence Temerko wielded in the leadership campaign. Reuters […]
There is growing curiosity and another potential scandal surrounding the government’s £400m purchase of the bankrupt satellite company OneWeb. Dominic Cummings believes that in the UK we need something like the US DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) where the government pumps money into blue skies projects in the hope of getting a lead in […]
Charles Dickens invented the Circumlocution Office in Little Dorrit, a fictional government paper-shuffling department which never achieved anything but, “in the spirit of national efficiency” gradually led to it having “something to do with everything”. Dickens talked of people “who in slow lapse of time and agony” became lost inside it. It appears from the […]
Last Saturday, The Telegraph carried a report about British international haulage companies facing disaster without a trade agreement at the end of the year: Three quarters of hauliers face loss of permits in no-deal Brexit. This was a reference to the EU’s notice published on 9 July about the coming changes once the transition period […]
Only a government as intellectually incoherent as this one could publish in the same week two important documents with absolutely no consistent philosophy underpinning the policy objectives behind them. Worse, the objectives themselves seem diametrically opposed. On Monday, we got the border operating model setting out all the new barriers to trade the government intends to […]
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) released its latest fiscal sustainability report for July 2020 yesterday. The report was finalised before the chancellor Rishi Sunak announced yet more spending measures, so the figures were out of date even before the report saw the light of day. The OBR was set to forecast that government […]
The long awaited border operating model was published yesterday to coincide with Michael Gove’s statement in the House of Commons. It sets out in gruesome detail how the import and export of goods to and from the EU will take place from 1 January 2021. At 206 pages it’s far longer that Labour’s 1983 manifesto […]
There is a growing sense of disbelief at the revelation by Chancellor Rishi Sunak last week that the government has approved £15bn in 2020 for PPE to protect frontline staff during the coronavirus pandemic. Nobody begrudges health workers being provided with the right PPE to keep them and the patients they are treating safe of […]
Michel Barnier replying to the letter from Mark Francois
For some weeks the British government has been planning a “shock and awe” campaign to warn British businesses that they have less than six months to prepare for Brexit; but the EU has beaten them to it. As the latest round of talks on the future relationship finished in London yesterday, with Barnier tweeting there […]
The government has hit back against Jolyon Maugham’s pre-action protocol letters issued in June against Health Secretary Matt Hancock concerning multi-million pound contracts for personal protective equipment (PPE) awarded to Pest Fix Ltd of Littlehampton and Clandeboye Agencies Ltd, a chocolate wholesaler in Antrim. Maugham challenged their lawfulness on the grounds that there was no […]
The DHSC bypassed normal tendering processes to place a series of single-bidder contracts for PPE with a variety of suppliers, citing “genuine reasons for extreme urgency” caused by “unforeseeable” events …
After revealing two extraordinary £108m contracts placed by the government for personal protective equipment (PPE) with companies that have no apparent experience or history of supplying such items, Jolyon Maugham QC seems to have uncovered two more. Providing PPE is becoming the new Klondike and the scandal appears to be getting dangerously close to the […]
The Northern Ireland protocol is like a ship drifting slowly & silently onto the rocks while the passengers & crew are engaged in a weird meta-physical debate among themselves about what the vessel actually means in reality
We have not yet reached the specification phase, let alone issued tender documents or started detailed design work. It makes the government’s deadline (now set in stone) look extremely challenging.
Barnier sends uncompromising and blunt warning to London’s financial institutions – a stark ‘pack your bags’ message to start moving operations into a member state if firms want to continue to provide services inside the EU.
The letter that Mark Francois sent to Michel Barnier on Friday (see below) looks like a spoof but turns out to be genuine – though it’s difficult to read and keep a straight face at the same time. He describes it as “a missive from a free country.” It was sent just four days before […]
Last week’s virtual session of the future relationship select committee has sparked quite a lot of comment after it was revealed that Britain lacked a system or even a plan to handle trucks arriving at Dover. The amazing revelation came from Tim Reardon, head of EU exit at the port of Dover. He told Barry […]
In what can only be described as a bizarre reversal of leadership, Boris Johnson this week essentially called on the British people to set an example to his most senior adviser Dominic Cummings on how to properly observe government guidance. He told reporters that it was crucial we “get this right” and appealed to the […]
A former vice-president of Cigna, an American health insurance company based in Bloomfield, Connecticut, has launched a stinging attack on the US private healthcare system, comparing its dire performance during the pandemic with that of Canada’s mainly publicly funded and universally available arrangements known as Medicare. Using Twitter, Wendell Potter has admitted that his company previously […]
Michel Barnier gave an interview yesterday to the European Policy Centre (EPC), a Brussels-based think tank, which has Herman Von Rompuy as its president. Some commentators seemed to think Barnier hinted at more flexibility on fishing so it may be that some progress is being made on the substantive matters. The whole 55 minute interview […]
During a visit to the USA in 2018, the former Brexit secretary told a seminar held by the Washington International Trade Association, “If the US and UK can agree a free trade agreement that pulls the UK out of the EU’s regulatory orbit, then this will be enormously beneficial to America’s farmers, businesses and consumers.” […]
Let me begin by saying the United States is our friend and ally. The fact they elected a Trump as president in 2016 shouldn’t blind us to that fact. For all their faults the world would be a very different place if Russia or China had been the dominant post-war super power. We should be […]
The Food and Drink Federation is the latest to come up with a have-cake-and-eat-it plan, this time on rules of origin. They want the EU to change things for this former member, in order to help maintain trade so that British and EU customers can enjoy the same choice and quality as before, as if […]
This week the EU parliament debated and voted on a motion approving a 137-page report setting out their “Recommendations on the negotiations for a new partnership with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. The vote took place yesterday and the motion was given what the EU are calling “unwavering support”, with 572 […]
A week before the fourth anniversary of the referendum, with the arguments about what Brexit actually means having raged across the media virtually every day since 2016, you might think every British company would know all about the the narrowing options rushing up to meet us in just six months’ time. If so, you would […]
How casually the lie came out. The prime minister told the world at his press conference yesterday he only learned about Marcus Rashford’s campaign to get free school meals extended through the summer, earlier in the day. If true he must have been the only person in Britain who didn’t know and I assume therefore that […]
The government is facing legal action over an extraordinary £108m PPE contract awarded to small pest control company with assets of under £20,000 without a formal tendering process and with no competition. Pestfix of Littlehampton were awarded the contract on 10 April this year when the government was under pressure to supply PPE equipment for […]
This weekend the EU parliament officially published the report that was partly leaked to The Guardian recently. It backs Michel Barnier and the EU mandate to the hilt, increasing the pressure on Boris Johnson on the eve of his teleconference today with the three EU presidents. The 137-page report has been drafted by MEPs and […]
As the government tries to “distance itself” from the political declaration and “fix the defects” in the Withdrawal Agreement (WA), Johnson’s next oven-ready deal has all the signs of turning out to be another turkey. The reason the WA is not quite right apparently is that they didn’t have enough time last year, according to […]