Freight industry trade bodies have written a joint letter to cabinet office minister Michael Gove calling for an “urgent roundtable meeting” to express growing concern about the state of nation’s preparedness to deliver a “functional operating border” for traders next year. In a Tweet, the FT’s Peter Foster characterises it as the industry sending up […]
One thing we have all learned in lockdown is that where you live really matters. Being told to stay at home in a lovely house in the country is not the same as being told to confine yourself in a shared damp flat at the top of a high rise in an inner city. So […]
Something stinks and it’s not just the fish. Britain is rotting from its heart, as its democratic institutions and processes are eroded from within. It’s not just individual things, like cutting the number of days parliament sits, and thereby cutting the time available for MPs to make the government publicly accountable (we know that if […]
By consensus, even among right-wing commentators, the prime minister was systematically dismantled by Keir Starmer at yesterday’s prime minister’s questions (PMQs). It was his worst performance in a series where he has consistently struggled against the new Labour leader and former barrister. John Crace, in an excoriating piece for The Guardian, says many Conservative MPs […]
In 2016, many people voted for Brexit in the hope of “taking back control” of their lives. It was an impulse I understood and continue to understand. Politics has been done to the people of the UK, rather than being something they’ve been able to do, and by the date of the Brexit referendum, the […]
The Brexit clock is ticking and the Home Office and Priti Patel are in a hurry to return asylum seekers to EU countries of entry, before the Dublin III provisions end on 31 December. On 26 August, the Home Office cancelled a flight, due to depart the next day and destined to return 23 asylum […]
You can tell it’s the start of a new term for the rich kids when they turn up in smart new uniforms at the gates. Dominic Cummings’ first day back saw him enter HQ in a suit; something of a first, which makes you wonder if he finished last term with a note to his […]
As part of the check, change, go campaign to alert citizens and businesses about the huge adjustments coming down the track in just four months’ time, the Cabinet Office proudly tweeted last week about being “committed to growing the customs sector” as part of the preparations. We are committed to growing the customs sector for […]
The UK’s voting system, like many other elements of its democracy, is stuck well and truly in the past. The first past the post (FPTP) system currently used in Westminster and local council elections in England is profoundly undemocratic and the calls for it to be reformed and updated are growing louder and louder by […]
On 19 August 2020 the BBC’s Today programme introduced an item about driverless cars with a 2016 recording of Justin Webb describing how he tried out such a vehicle on the M4. His breathlessly account was, more or less, “I’ve got my feet on nothing, my hands are on the steering wheel, but it has […]
Scotland’s a small country, both in terms of its economy and population, though it’s big in ambition and vision. The country’s economic numbers are hard to bear for all those with independence ambitions. The journalist and broadcaster Andrew Neil recently become embroiled in the independence debate following a response to a tweet from an independence […]
In a political climate awash with polarisation and populist anger, it is big ideas that are the most likely ticket to electoral success. However, leaders elected on the basis of their ‘charisma’ and promises of big structural change have a tendency to neglect the finer details of governance and policy-making. In the UK, preoccupation with […]
The debate about returning to school continues in England, while Scotland’s schools have already returned. Boris Johnson claims that there is a “moral duty” for schools to fully re-open in September, but as ever, appears to be covering a lack of detail with his familiar, flowery rhetoric. Some media sources cite psychological problems in children […]
You have to hand it to International Trade Secretary Liz Truss. She can voice two contradictory ideas in one speech better than almost anyone else in the Cabinet. Even when speaking to Yorkshire farmers. So the front page of the Yorkshire Post on 28 August reported her giving an absolute re-assurance to farmers and consumers […]
Might the resignation of the chief regulator, Sally Collier – followed swiftly by the sacking of Jonathan Slater, permanent secretary to the Department for Education – draw a line under the exams debacle of recent weeks? I very much doubt it, nor do I believe they should have been the ones to take the hit. […]
On Thursday 30 July, Nigel Farage, having broken the rules of lockdown several times in preceding months to whip up anti-refugee hysteria on the south coast, turned up at the Bromsgrove Hotel in Birmingham to shoot his latest propaganda video in a desperate cry for attention. To date, the video has been seen by several million people […]
The future relationship talks are “reaching the end of the road” and a moment of truth is looming for the prime minister. The Times claims Johnson has been told that he has just two weeks to save the future relationship talks, with the EU refusing to “move forward” until Britain sets out its state aid […]
The Conservative government’s proposals in the business and planning bill have been justly criticised for being far too developer-friendly, to the detriment of the local environment, climate change, housing standards and local democracy. The bill panders to the interests of big builders and not those of millions of people who need low cost, secure housing […]
Just how well placed are UK businesses for Brexit on 1 January 2021? A Brexit readiness survey conducted among supply chain managers and published today has revealed a disturbing picture, with just 18 percent of UK businesses said to be prepared for a no-deal Brexit. The survey, with work carried out in July for Descartes […]
Many may find it surprising to find out that over 50 percent of Amazon’s sales come from third-party sellers who use Amazon’s marketplaces to list and sell their products. Changes coming to Amazon’s European fulfilment services when the Brexit transition period ends on 31 December will have a significant impact on many UK and EU sellers. […]
On the surface there is little to connect the son of a school caretaker from Goole with an old Etonian and former president of the Oxford Union. Yet Nigel Adams is one of the loyal band of lickspittles MPs who have stuck close to the prime minister through thick and thin. Johnson I assume, regards […]
Just like that! Magic! Now you see it, now you don’t. The sleight of hand of this government probably knows no equal. Our prime minister can even make himself disappear for long periods at a time – or indeed be in several places or states at a time, like a Schrödinger’s PM. Note the regular […]
Part two of a three part series on social change. Part one – Decade of dissonance – is available HERE. One hundred years ago, there was World War One and the Spanish Flu that killed over 50 million people and infected a third of the world population. In 2020, we have a global pandemic with Covid-19 […]
Tim Shipman, political editor at The Sunday Times wrote last weekend that many people in Johnson’s team see the downsides of red tape and potential tariffs as “a thimble of spit in a tsunami” when compared to what he terms “the worst recession in living memory”. The macho impression the government tries to give is […]
One of the most important pieces of legislation we are considering presently in the House of Lords is the agriculture bill. During its passage through the House of Commons it was argued that this bill needed to include a ban on food products which were imported to the UK – but didn’t meet our strict […]
Isn’t it amazing how simple many things appear until you really start to look into them? I remember my first time playing on a full-sized snooker table, confidently expecting to saunter round the baize dispatching the perky spheres into the hungry pockets. Maybe, just maybe, my opponent wouldn’t even get a chance to come to […]
The Sun’s ‘exclusive’ yesterday on the “Doomsday Dossier” is suspiciously similar to the leaking of Operation Yellowhammer details last August by another Murdoch-owned newspaper, the Sunday Times, but with added coronavirus issues. I assume it was done for the same purpose: as a signal to try and convince the EU that the government is serious […]
With a US trade deal, the UK faces the doubly damaging prospect of the arrival of both American food and American healthcare products and services. The combination threatens the nation’s health and the NHS’s wellbeing. This is a variation of the good old American win-win, but while America wins both ways, we lose twice. The […]
So, after three days of insistence that their algorithm was appropriate, and following its enthusiastic endorsement by Michael Gove, the Department for Education capitulated and agreed to let Centre Assessed Grades (CAGs) stand as A-level and GCSE students’ final grades. However, many questions are left to ponder. The shadow attorney general maintains that in allocating […]
