Let’s unpick what happened yesterday. The British prime minister travelled to Brussels to have lunch with the president of the European Commission, over which it was planned that they would finalise the wordings that would allow the trade talks between the UK and the EU to move to the next stage. The big issue that […]
The Irish border issue cannot be fudged forever
As of this moment, it looks as if the UK government has got the EU to agree to move the trade talks forward based on an agreement that there will be no regulatory divergence between at least Northern Ireland and Ireland, meaning that there will be no hard border. Except it is a fudge, of […]
How did Morrissey, the Godfather of snowflakes, become a right-wing hero?
“Morrissey’s Brexit love affair makes him the last true rock’n’roll rebel” is a headline from a recent Brendan O’Neill piece; “Morrissey is probably the only remaining music ‘celebrity’ in the world who tells the truth about politics.” tweets Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars. If you worship the very idea of Brexit, hate political correctness in […]
“Go whistle” becomes “we’ve already said we’d pay”: the evolution of the cost of Brexit
Chris Grayling was sent to do Today this morning. It is the kind of gig they used to get Michael Fallon to do, but he was unavailable for obvious reasons (Fallon was better at it). It was to face questions about how the idea of the UK not paying the EU a divorce settlement (“go whistle”) […]
Everyone seems to be taking the current situation with Ireland and the EU very lightly considering what is at stake
Ireland has an effective veto on allowing the EU-UK trade talks to proceed further. The EU has given the UK 10 days (now eight, I suppose) to come up with a solution to the border problem or trade talks will be further stalled. Furthermore, the Irish want a real solution to the problem, not a […]
More guff being spoken about Ireland and Brexit: I’m almost broken by this
The latest round of rubbish regarding Brexit and its relationship with the island of Ireland comes from Arlene Foster, the leader of the DUP. Let’s start with what she’s said: “The Irish government are actually using the negotiations in Europe to put forward their views on what they believe the island of Ireland should look […]
The Ashes could go any which way: a whitewash by England or Australia both seem like possibilities
Noted cricket commentator Jim Maxwell has described the England batting line-up, due to play in the first Ashes test in Brisbane in just under 11 hours time, as the “worst ever” to play in an Ashes Down Under series. He has a point: the top of England’s order is fairly atrocious. Root has been the […]
Shouldn’t “no deal” Brexiteers be celebrating the Irish obstructing the next round of negotiations?
The Irish government has made a bold and daring move. It has said that the next round of EU-UK talks cannot go forward unless the UK guarantees that under no circumstances will there be a hard border on the island of Ireland. In theory, this shouldn’t be tricky given the UK government has assured everyone […]
The Sgt Pepper of the 80’s: The Police’s “Synchronicity” revisited
I hadn’t heard this album in a very long while before yesterday. In fact, I hadn’t really listened to the Police in some time. But I had “Wrapped Around My Finger” pop into my head from nowhere and this gave me a hankering to revisit the album; to see if I would find it stood […]
The strangest thing about our age: most politicians are doing what they think the public wants, not what they think is right
The vote to leave the European Union in June 2016 created a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom; it looks like it will take years if not decades to sort out. The government of the day presented the public with a referendum, not on something they wanted to go ahead with but felt they needed […]