Parliament rightly has adjourned to pay respects to our late Queen and to allow the use of the Palace of Westminster for the solemn proceedings before the funeral around the lying in state. On current plans the House of Commons will not meet again until October 17th. We need to get back to Parliamentary work sooner than mid October given the shortened September session and given the urgent tasks that await the new government.
There is a need to produce a detailed scheme of help to businesses facing impossible fuel bills. We need to debate and legislate the full package of energy measures to increase supply and ease the cost of living and cost of doing business crises. We want to hear the Chancellor’s Financial Statement and cut the taxes as promised.
MPs will want to hear from the new Home Secretary how she will defeat the dangerous people trafficking across the Channel, and develop the points based migration system. We wish to learn more of the new Health Secretary’s plans to get waiting times down and cut waiting lists. How will a range of Ministers unite to produce a growth strategy?
It is right we show our respects to the late Queen and right Palace and government are united to organise the State funeral. We must then pick up the pace of changing things for the better.
I have put these points to Ministers
September 12, 2022
‘On current plans the House of Commons will not meet again until October 17th. ‘
That is just ridiculous, especially after weeks wasted with an unwanted Prime Minister but no successor in place.
This government has a very short time span before the next general election.An eighty seat majority will not be repeated. A narrow victory would be the best realistic hope, but even that would require a radical change of course and actions to rectify the damage that has already taken place.
What happened to ‘keep calm and carry on’ ?
September 12, 2022
‘Keep calm and carry on’ does not fit the ‘modern Britain’ or ‘cool Britannia’.
I’m sure we’ll be hearing much more about our modernity and its wonders in the coming days.
No doubt we’ll be seeing it to during the Queen’s funeral.
September 12, 2022
Indeed we need to hear what the plans are to sort out all the problems we now suffer from. Especially as these problems were nearly all created by the recent fake “Conservative” governments of Cameron, May and Boris.
Particularly the policies of :-
1. tax, borrow, print, debase the currency, manifesto rat and piss the proceed down the drain.
2. The deluded net zero religion with vast damaging market rigging & the expensive/unreliable energy agenda.
3. The Vaccination (certainly of the young and children) with what is now clear were ineffective and dangerous vaccines has surely done far more harm than good.
4. The failure to take advantage of Brexit to deregulate and in many other ways.
5. The failure to to anything about the manifesto promises on immigration both legal and illegal.
6. The failure to cut the size of the largely parasitic state.
7. The appalling failures of the NHS and ambulance service which is failing millions.
8. The failure to cancel the basket case HS2
9. The failure to allow the building of sufficient houses and flats.
10. The appalling hugely damaging attacks on the self employed, small businesses and landlords.
11. The moronic road blocking, the wars against the motorist and the generally deluded transport policies.
12. The very poor education provision and millions of worthless degrees with £50k of student debt attached.
Farage gets it about right in his recent “l despise what the Tories have done to the country” video.
September 12, 2022
I forgot the long and clearly net harmful (in both economic and health terms) Covid lockdown.
September 12, 2022
You also forgot to mention the Northern Ireland BETRAYAL. I see that the EU is now suggesting that they are willing to be a little more “flexible”, but ONLY IF they are given “real-time access to data on goods” moving between GB and NI, so that the EU can vet these and grant their gracious approval. But hang on – HOW can they be given such information UNLESS detailed forms are completed by anyone wanting to move goods between these two parts of the UK? And THAT is the problem. Why the hell should UK companies, moving goods WITHIN the UK, have to complete forms and gain EU approval in order to do so? This is what is so COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.
Northern Ireland is part of the UK, just like Cornwall and Yorkshire. There are ZERO checks or forms on the movement of goods between these counties, and there should therefore be an equally ZERO number of checks or forms on the movement of goods between GB and the six counties in Northern Ireland. I really don’t see what is so difficult to either understand or accept about the fact that there should be NO INTERNAL BORDER of ANY kind within the UK. No other country has such a border, and if Liz Truss agrees to this EU demand she will be continuing the BETRAYAL which Boris the Traitor started. How can the former ERG members now in Cabinet tolerate this betrayal? Do they have no morals whatsoever?
September 12, 2022
+1
September 12, 2022
+100
September 12, 2022
Perhaps our new PM and Cabinet will start to do their jobs and earn a living? The country faces so many problems and failures that need urgent action to remedy or allay panic about the onset of winter. Our beloved Queen should have the proper mourning, but life must go on and there is much to be done.
September 12, 2022
Another tedious list
September 12, 2022
Depressing and even tedious perhaps but surely perfectly correct.
September 12, 2022
Perfectly correct LL.
September 12, 2022
…but we could do with somebody like that in parliament in place of the pathetic opposition we currently experience many of whom seem to want to simply enhance their own reputation.
September 12, 2022
I support your criticisms. The Tories have abandoned us. They have been following orders from outside our country which lays them open to true accusations of betrayal.
We must have restoration of our cultural base and its promotion, particularly that of England and its singularity. We cannot any longer tolerate promotion of foreign ideals and contrary beliefs.
September 12, 2022
LL, why do you persists in using Johnson’s christian name ?
September 13, 2022
Because Johnson is a common name in public life and Boris is not. It was much the same with Enoch and Winston.
September 13, 2022
Exactly.
September 12, 2022
Lifelogic,
I note your famous drain reference is back in at number one and Top of the Pops.
Farage gets a lot right. He is a good speaker and never lost for words.
September 12, 2022
@Peter; “Farage gets a lot right.
In my opinion he got many things right once upon a time, but like anyone with just one basic message, he now gets far more totally wrong, his continued support for the PPOTUS for example. As such his current political discord will never reach that enjoyed by UKIP prior to June 2016, for one thing he has few within the political establishment willing to give him the same (passive) support, never mind be willing to cross the floor for him.
“[Farage] is a good speaker and never lost for words.”
Well yes, he is very good telling his various audiences what they want to hear, be it at the hustings or a one-to-one chance meeting on the street, in the pub or even at the airport check-in!
September 13, 2022
Would you prefer politicians that tell people what they don’t want to hear Jerry?
How does that work?
September 14, 2022
@Peter2; “tell people what they don’t want to hear”
Yes, why ever not! Why shouldn’t politicos tell us what we might not want to hear, after all Mrs Thatcher did just that -and became PM in 1979…
Your comment is most telling though, Peter2 you seem to be admitting your dislike of being taken out of your comfort zone, being told things you do not want to hear or read, it explains why you are so hostile towards some for no apparent reason, myself and @hefner for example.
September 14, 2022
Though they actually need to be popular to get elected Jerry.
But you know best.
PS
Your amateur psychology analysis is absolutely hilarious.
Stick to your day job.
September 15, 2022
@Peter2; “Though they actually need to be popular to get elected Jerry.”
No, they just need to be despised less than the alternative(s)! 😛
Mrs Thatcher might have been venerated by her own supporters, but was she ever ‘popular’, being more akin to a doctor making patients take a foul tasting potion for their own good, most hate it but understand the necessity. If Mrs Thatcher was so ‘popular’ why did she have to implore “There is no alternative” as early as May 1980, having to do so at a Conservative woman’s conference, followed by her “The lady’s not for turning” speech later the same year at full conference?
Reply She was popular enough to win three successive large majorities, something which escaped all her successors until Boris.
September 15, 2022
@JR reply; But did Mrs Thatcher win three successive elections, or did Labour loose three successive elections. Nor does being “popular” = success, Churchill was enormously popular in 1945, a national Hero no less, yet lost both the 1945 and 1950 elections to Attlee.
Reply Yes she won them. Other parties also tried to win besides Labour
September 12, 2022
Most likely the next election will be early May 2024 which gives Truss only circa 600 days and only circa 400 working day to make her mark on all the above list and save us from the dire prospect of a Starmer/Sturgeon government.
Can Truss afford for the public to think she is wasting five weeks of this?
September 12, 2022
@Lifeloogic; The job before the Tory party and its leader is quite simple, to appeal to as many red & blue wall voters as possible, not just the minority of voters who seem to believe Mrs Thatcher was far to ‘wet’.
Five weeks you bleat, yet Boris largely wasted two and half years of parliaments time, and prorogued parliament (just as you and other commentators to this site wanted) for five weeks to frustrate democracy, at the height of the Brexit crisis, with wars in the Middle East to. Mr Life, you bleat and forget far to much!
Curtailing parliament due to the death of the Queen, and then the usual party conferences, will not be seen by most people as a problem, most will see it as the living, breathing, definition of our democracy.
September 13, 2022
“Bleat” equals saying what Jerry disagrees with Lifelogic.
Best ignored.
September 12, 2022
@Peter; “That is just ridiculous,”
Why, some of us remember the time when parliament went into summer recess in mid July and did not return until mid Oct, after the political conferences, but then that was in an era when politics was for the mostly part far less polarized on basic issues, dare I say because we had a post war consensus, the solution to current energy crisis for example would have been the relevant Minister(s) making decisions using clearly understood consensus and established cross-party policies.
As I said the other day, Government never stops, other than perhaps for the very short time between the previous PM and the new PM being appointed.
“This government has a very short time span before the next general election.An eighty seat majority will not be repeated.”
All the more reason then to keep the necessarily adjusted timetable and have a successful party conference!
“What happened to ‘keep calm and carry on’ ?”
One might ask you that… The country is carrying on, as it has done for centuries, whenever a reigning monarch dies. Some things are higher than PARTISAN politics.
September 13, 2022
What’s wrong with PARTISAN politics Jerry?
Isn’t that how the system works?
Parties with different policies vying for votes?
September 14, 2022
@Peter2, Once again you are either trolling or or you simply can not understand context. I was talking about during a period of (supposed) national mourning, on an Crown Estate were the late Queen will be lying in State. Is that so difficult to understand?
September 14, 2022
Well you are failing to explain yourself then Jerry.
Communication is about writing words with a meaning others can understand.
It seems you often say one thing then tell us that’s not what you actually mean to say.
September 15, 2022
Peter2; “Communication is about writing words with a meaning others can understand.”
Duh! So why criticize me, elsewhere, when I asked others to use Roman numerals correctly?
September 15, 2022
You don’t understand the difference between communication and pedantry Jerry.
September 12, 2022
Cromwell might have pleaded: ‘You have not sat long enough for any good you might have been doing. Come back, I say, and let us have done with your time-wasting. In the name of God, return.’
September 12, 2022
@mancunius; I assume Cromwell was talking about either Attlee, Churchill, Macmillan or Wilson, depending on what side of the political fence one sits? 😛
September 12, 2022
Another Bank Holiday is a kick in the teeth for the private sector. HM’s funeral should have been held on the prior Sunday to prevent disruption. Sunday would also have been a far more culturally appropriate day on which to hold such a solemn occasion. But no, not the British government. They have to impose, again, maximum inconvenience and max cost on the private sector
As an aside. Why did the government conniving with the footie authorities cancel football and allowed all other sports to continue? Is it because football fans are seen as un-woke and unpatriotic? It is OFFENSIVE to every football fan that this woke government should treat millions of people in this manner. Footie fans are by and large the most patriotic and intensely pro-Queen. They would have welcomed an opportunity to come together and express their respects for the Queen. It isn’t the footie fans that embrace Anti-Monarchist, Neo-Marxist Woke barbarism, it was the British political class
September 12, 2022
DOM
I am a football fan a season ticket holder. I originally did not mind and still do not. But when I found out that horse racing, rugby and cricket, all toff sports, were t be still played I was not too best pleased. I have long noticed that football has been used as a vehicle for all manner of things and the latest of those was the bending of the knee crap. I have to say I am getting sick of this crap and the double standards being played.
September 12, 2022
Much truth in this. It always amused me that top cricketers, horse riders, tennis players and rugby union players always seemed to get awarded rather higher honours through the honours system than mere footballers or rugby league players & often for rather less achievements. As of course did senior people working for the state sector rather than the private sector that largely carried them.
September 12, 2022
Yes, echo that also as a season ticket holder. I think it was the sweet FA’s decision primarily, otherwise the sport ban would have been blanket. FA see themselves as some sort of trailblazers in these things, until they realise nobody else is following them. Like the bended knee business. Twits.
The Bank holiday business sounds as though this was HRH idea. Were I Liz Truss, I would certainly have let him make the decision. For every big corporate/public sector worker taking this as bunce, SMEs have yet another unexpected wages, business rates, rent and power costs bill to pay. I doubt our competitors overseas will take a Bank holiday in parallel. It’s just the thoughtlessness of it that bugs me. When SME companies are struggling, along comes another regulation just to screw them one more time.
September 12, 2022
@ Mark B – the reason your “toff sports” were played is that they are run by toffs who know when faced with a prevaricating, uncertain, hesitant, mealy-mouthed DCMS that will not say outright it wants postponement but clearly hints it does then they just do instead what they have known for generations is appropriate. Football recall is run by the sweet FA and the Premier League, both frightened of people they should ignore.
September 12, 2022
They cannot run a big football game without authorities & the police’s say so.
September 12, 2022
@LL; Yes, and for very good reasons! 🙁
September 12, 2022
Seen from an establishment point of view, Mark, football crowds are unpredictable and you never know what they’ll start chanting. Could it be that their love for the late Queen might have shown itself as a lack of respect for her successor, in some way? Too much of a risk. Spectators at toff sports can be relied upon to be docile, undemonstrative, and definitely not ‘populist’, so they’re OK.
September 12, 2022
Dom, perhaps the idea is to reduce energy consumption in the economy? The first of a lot of moves in that direction over the coming autumn and winter, probably.
Did anyone say ‘lockdown’?
September 12, 2022
I just posted that I see this as a “lockdown” + news blackout.
Great minds…
I was also going to put that footie fans travel (buses, trains not private jets) and go to pubs and cafés?
So has that got something to do with the typically bizarre ruling?
September 12, 2022
+1
September 12, 2022
Indeed bank holidays are yet another tax on businesses and business owners. A wage bill with no production or sales. We have had one extra Bank Hol. this year already. Each one cost me about £8000. So this years profits will be reduced by ~ £16,000 so this will also cost the government about £3,200 in loss of Corp. Tax too and the business will have £12,800 less to reinvest in the business & better productivity. Then then some halfwitted minister will complain about low productivity. Low productivity in the UK is largely caused by over taxation, moronic energy policies, daft employments laws and OTT red tape everywhere you care to look.
September 12, 2022
Low productivity also means lower wages, less tax revenue & fewer well paid jobs available.
September 12, 2022
Somebody should call them out on this productivity thing when they can randomly lockdown/offer Bank Holidays/regulate and muck up just about everything. Low productivity is largely down to politician/public sector not thinking and incompetence.
September 12, 2022
+1
September 12, 2022
I think millions around the country will not read your concern about loss of profits, and could have shared sympathy with your plight while they read their energy, council tax and food bills. Some might even manage to pay them like you.
September 12, 2022
@LL; “Indeed bank holidays are yet another tax on businesses and business owners.”
As is widespread and unstoppable absenteeism [1], at least Bank Holidays allow businesses to plan production, have an orderly three day shut down, know that they will not be expected to take delivery of stock they suddenly find they can neither off-load nor house etc.
[1] nor punish afterwards, given the situation, any such action would likely shutdown the company for longer than one day!
September 13, 2022
Absenteeism is not unstoppable Jerry
In well run businesses it is monitored and reigned in by disciplinary processes.
September 14, 2022
@Peter2, Did you read my footnote before your knees jerked out that daft comment, once again you prove your inability to understand context!
What do you not understand, no company will get away with “enacting disciplinary processes” should they try and punish absenteeism on Monday 19th, had there not been a BH. Not only would the affected employees likely gain the full support of their other unaffected colleagues, and perhaps those well beyond the immediate company too, never mind the company being pilloried in the press – one only has to look at the back-peddling a certain holiday company has had to do in the last couple of days after making somewhat crass requests of their paying guests for the 19th.
September 14, 2022
Yes I did Jerry
Your response is that of someone who has never ever run a business.
September 12, 2022
I would like to see someone roll back the Health & Safety regime which adds enormous costs to business. As a starter I’ll give a simple example.
Take routine repair work on buildings. Down the road from me a house was being re-thatched. Scaffolding covered the public path which it fronted. Every verticle pole on the edge of the path adjoining the road was clad in yellow foam. On the road side of the poles, and close to them on the road surface thick red plastic fencing was placed to enclose the poles. This meant the road was narrowed unnecessarily. Going for all this is soft option stuff.
None of this was vital. Any concern about the visibilty of the poles some yellow tape at eye level could have been stuck on them, but even that was not essential in my view. All are perfectly visible.
With tens of thousands of buildings being clad like this every week the cost must run into millions of pounds and we all end up contributing through higher prices in all manner of ways.
Dare anyone change the regulations? Dare an MP take it up?
September 12, 2022
@The Prangwizard; “All are perfectly visible.”
Not to the totally blind, or others with only partial eyesight. Nor perhaps to cyclists with only traditional cycle lights to see their way on a moonless night with no street lighting, at one time such scaffold as you described would have had to have had red warning lights attached.
There are far better examples of H&S regulations gone bonkers, the now universal use of yellow builders hi-vis jacket must be a prime example, they have become so common in general use now that they are bordering being useless in respects their original purpose.
September 12, 2022
+1
September 12, 2022
viz Churchill’s funeral held on Saturday and King George’s held with no Bank Holiday. Office workers on the route apparently stopped work for a few minutes to look out of their windows. Those were the days when people wanted or felt some obligation to work.
September 12, 2022
@SJS; Other than transport workers who DID feel an obligation to work, it is obvious many did not, otherwise please do explain the demographics of the vary large crowds who lined the routes, many from the previous night…
September 13, 2022
Many are retired or semi retired or taking a day off or unemployed or shift workers on free time.
September 14, 2022
@Peterr2; Never mind context, you don’t even seem able to understand past and present tense! Both SJS and myself were talking about 1965, when Saturday was still almost universally a working day (full or half-day), and 1952, when companies would not need to be instructed to observe a day of national mourning for a late Monarch, doing the right thing would have been automatic.
Is trolling, wasting our hosts time, your hobby Peter2?
September 14, 2022
I understand tenses thanks Jerry.
But you carry on with your endless pedantic postings.
September 14, 2022
But yhe real context is the current funeral and pre funeral days of Her Majesty
September 15, 2022
@Peter2; “But yhe real context is the current funeral and pre funeral days of Her Majesty”
Fine, then have a go at SJS then, not me, he brought up those earlier funerals!
But why would you troll SJS, after all his politics you tend to agree with, why would you want to disrupt and drown out his opinion…
Whatever.
September 15, 2022
You use the T word every time your weak arguments are challenged.
You post negatively in response to many on here but fail to self evaluate what you are doing by your own definition.
September 12, 2022
+many
Maybe they see the football fans as less controllable. What might they sing? I love the footie songs…so clever and very revealing.
I saw a bit of some Grand Prix or other and it was all bizarrely extremely nationalistic.
Thought they wanted to do away with nations?
Anyway IMO what we are experiencing is basically a NEWS BLACKOUT.
Another lockdown,
Why?
September 12, 2022
@Cuibono; “Anyway IMO what we are experiencing is basically a NEWS BLACKOUT.”
Nonsense. How do you work there is a news blackout, especially as you obviously do have access to the internet, but even that is not a necessity, given some international television news channels and radio stations are available via the EPG listings, at least via satellite, whilst many others are available unlisted.
Any “news blackout” is only in the minds of those individuals who claim there is a news blackout, not because there is one! But I agree, the BBC has been truly awful of late, thin on hard facts/news, seemingly more interested in giving/allowing opinion (often VoxPox), especially their daily climate scares.
OT; I was actually sorry to see both Shapps and Dorries depart their Cabinet jobs, both were prepared to think the previously unthinkable, I hope their work and thinking will be taken forward.
September 12, 2022
Maybe you don’t ever (try) to find news in the wall-to-wall royalty newspapers?
September 13, 2022
@Cuibono; Haha, do newspapers ever carry real news these days, you don’t even need all your fingers of one hand to count those that do still print hard news. All most have done is swap fake climate news or Celb’ gossip for Royal gossip & some didn’t even need to do the latter, at best all they have done is tone down their constant daily mauling of certain Royals.
The real problem I guess is, in an era of access to 24 hour news on TV, radio and the internet, like any commercial business, these newspaper publishers are simply providing what they believe their remaining readership wants to read (or just look at…), and their certified circulation figures do suggest it is what customers want. 😥
September 12, 2022
If there is a silver lining to the cancellation of football fixtures it’s that we have been spared one weekend of listening to Gary Lineker’s claptrap!
September 13, 2022
Perhaps but I expect he was paid, it will be in his contract.
September 12, 2022
‘Why did the government conniving with the footie authorities cancel football and allowed all other sports to continue?’
It keeps the public bossed around and reinforces the lockdown mentality. I spent a day In Southampton with no football to watch. Meanwhile London Irish were playing rugby at the Brentford stadium!
Now next Saturdays football matches may also be in jeopardy. The excuse is there are insufficient TV wagons to enable matches to be broadcast. Why not let the games go ahead and just let the TV companies take the hit?
There is a never ending supply of excuses.
September 12, 2022
DOM, ++++ , Two excellent paragraphs of comment, thank you.
September 12, 2022
@DOM; Another Bank Holiday is a kick in the teeth for the private sector. HM’s funeral should have been held on the prior Sunday to prevent disruption.
Sorry but the prior Sunday, in fact any weekend, would affect certain businesses too, many of whom are likely far less able to ‘survive’ such “disruption” than most. The Bank Holiday has simply allowed business some certainty, for were it mot a BH absenteeism would (likely) be rife, and that is far more damaging to companies than any extra BH.
September 12, 2022
Jerry, which Sunday opening businesses, that would be then forced to close if the funeral was on a Sunday, do you mean? You said that many of whom are ‘far less able to survive than most’? Most SMEs are going to be struggling to pay for this extra loss of a Monday’s turnover.
I suggest a significant majority of businesses, especially SME’s are closed on a Sunday (other than those that operate seven days per week and are disrupted whatever day is selected, with the majority of those same businesses being open this forthcoming new bank holiday Monday anyway to provide meals and entertainment for the majority now forced not to work).
September 12, 2022
@a-tracy; Hospitality & exhibition (traders) just to name two groups for which there are many weekend only events, and no they are not necessarily events that should be cancelled anyway given the circumstances. Some of those affected will be sole traders, often highly skilled but low turnover cottage industries, quite possibly (semi) retired husband and wife boosting a fixed income and without further opportunity to recoup lost turnover, unlike most Monday to Friday SMEs will be able to over the rest of their accounting year or next.
The UK really does have an issue when it comes to public holidays, both the USA and the EU ‘group of nations’, each typically have many more such days than the UK, yet their economies and productivity tends to out preform that of the UK…
September 13, 2022
I have several people that have had to cancel exhibitions, training courses and meetings next Monday.
I disagree with you. Only 17% of people were regularly working on Sundays. Sole traders I know will take the morning off and make up the lost time in the afternoon and I’m sure they would have done that should the funeral be on the Sunday.
If a small business loses £5000 that Monday and net makes £750, how do they make up the lost £4250, actually its more because of the standing costs? That is a false assumption. If this were possible to win extra business we’d all be doing it every single SME every year, it is lost revenue. Where does this hypothetical get the extra £45,000 worth of business from with the same number of units?
Have you ever run a business Jerry? If sales are so easy to come by then tell us the magic formula, we’re being told the Country is going to go into recession and people are nervous of spending because of rising energy costs. I wish I could be so blasé.
American public holidays are on set dates many of which can fall on a weekend, they don’t get another day off and they aren’t all paid. In fact many Americans grumble they only get 10 to 15 days holiday in TOTAL. Some EU countries likewise have public holidays that aren’t all paid, even with the WTD they only have 20 guaranteed days holiday not the 28 we have in the UK.
September 13, 2022
Dept of Labor in the US “the fair labor standards act does not require payment for time not worked, such as vacations or holidays (federal or otherwise) these benefits are generally a matter of agreement between employer and an employee”.
September 14, 2022
@ a-tracy; “I have several people that have had to cancel exhibitions, training courses and meetings next Monday.”
Which hobby are they… Are you once again talking about the corporate business world, events that WILL no-doubt get re-booked, or were there is further opportunity to accept alternate or additional events? And yes I have run businesses, both my own and others; but have you ever run a micro or small business, dependent on totally discretionary weekend spending?
“If sales are so easy to come by then tell us the magic formula”
That was MY point! How does that small sole trader, perhaps a micro business, whose ONLY source of incomes is at weekends, make up their lost takings; the actual amount is irrelevant, someone loosing £500 at the weekend might also mean they can not pay their bills. The point, which you avoid is the available opportunities to make up such losses. simple mathematics suggest those whose income stream comes from just 104 or so full trading days has less opportunity than those whose income comes from a possible 365 trading days.
If any large company is already working 357 days, flat out, fully booked with no opportunity to re-book or take on additional work, as you seem to suggest, and the lost of just one days income will mean financial problems then that company already has serious problems for which the extra Bank Holiday is not at fault, it might even suggest a company is trading whilst technically insolvent.
As for unpaid holidays, I’m sure if owners/directors of any company who truly has problems with paying wages for this extra BH I’m sure both employees (& trade unions), never mind HMRC and banks will all lend a sympathetic ear.
September 15, 2022
Jerry “which hobby are they”? You ask – Swimming classes, dance classes, dance competitions, dance events, a couple of these were pre-planned events on Sunday, and they have been cancelled anyway!
I have family and friends that run weekend/discretionary micro businesses, a small shop, a cafe, and craft fair traders. With so few people impacted by this on a Sunday perhaps the government could have set up a furlough for their compulsory closure based on their usual tax return. £500 for one Sunday’s work, who gets that, Jerry, not hypothetical WHO? over £20,000 per year for one day of work per week; I hope they’re declaring this properly and paying all their taxes! London is crying out for people to stay open on Monday instead of all closing, we have effectively gone back into lockdown for the day with nothing open until 5 pm.
There are a lot of smaller, and micro businesses now affected by the Monday close down, Jerry, A LOT MORE, not just the 15%-17% you’re talking about, figures from the ONS. Even people that wanted to stay open now can’t, even if half their workforce wants to work on Monday customers aren’t open to provide their service to.
As for your assertion that the lost sales will just be made back up over the remainder of the year, that is a completely misleading statement, from where do they get these new sales over and above their normal business? With their same level of resource. You can’t do twice as much the next day or week on the same number of work units.
September 12, 2022
Needless to say the banks do not loose out – they still charge interest on Bank Holidays.
September 12, 2022
@LL; “[the Banks] still charge interest on Bank Holidays”
Indeed, just as you, no doubt, will still charge your tenants rent for that day too!
How are you you loosing out Mr Life?
September 13, 2022
Will you loose a days pension money for your extra days holiday Jerry?
September 12, 2022
A bank holiday on the day of the funeral is entirely right. And I also completely agree that, in the immediate aftermath of the Queen’s sad death, there should have been 2-3 days of mourning with no sports events or parliamentary business. But it is now both ridiculous and also, frankly, offensive to the memory of our late monarch to suggest that she would have wanted vital business – crucial to the economic wellbeing of her people – to be delayed. If anyone has any doubts on this score then surely the simple solution would be to ask our new King. MPs must sit and debate matters crucial to the national interest.
September 12, 2022
DOM, the ONS in 2015 said 5.2m people worked on a Sunday, just 16.7% of the workforce. Of the people who say they usually work on Sunday, 12.6% worked in sales jobs, 59% of them women and usually part-time.
In 1994 before the 6 hours shop opening allowance for large stores, 8.5% of the workforce worked (2.1m people usually work on a Sunday). 76% of people have moved to online shopping it will be interesting if they closedown on this Bank Holiday Monday.
September 12, 2022
Good morning.
The late Queen rose from her deathbed to perform what was to be her last official duty. You could all honour her better by carrying on with your jobs.
You are turning into a bunch of skivers.
September 12, 2022
+1 Certainly so in the state sector but so many do nothing of much value anyway and many do positive harm.
September 12, 2022
Well said. Not only that, they are virtue-signalling skivers.
September 12, 2022
@Mark B; The Morning Star could not have put it better… In fact they also could not have put the arguments against parliaments suspension better than some I have read on this site from certain Commentators!
September 12, 2022
This sounds like guilt by association, Jerry. You don’t have to be a Communist to believe that something is wrong with the extended recess. I understand Parliament was due to return on 5th and go into recess for conferences on the 23rd September. That’s 14 weekdays Parliament should’ve been sitting if I understand correctly. Take away one for the funeral bank holiday on the 19th – during the remaining 13 days there would’ve been a lot of debate on the energy crisis policies that the Prime Minister started to announce last week, and which urgently require a lot more detail to be put on them. It’s even possible that the Opposition might have started doing its job and asked good questions, you never know. Instead, matters will just drift while a lot of empty speeches are made by Labour and the Tories during their conference season – which strangely is more important than business in the forum of our democratic constitution. I’ve never said a good word for Ed Davey before, but at least he’s consistent: if we’re shutting down politics for weeks, we should shut down political conferences too.
September 13, 2022
@Clough; Indeed one does not have to be a paid up communist to APPEAR anti Royal…
“to believe that something is wrong with the extended recess.”
Yet how many objected to Boris proroguing parliament for five weeks back in 2019?
If it is so urgent that parliament can not adjourn during a period of national mourning (and when, as has been explained, the parliamentary estate is need for constitutional matters) then perhaps you also believe PMs and Peers should also forgo their usual 2022 Christmas break, instead be like most, only have the statuary days off (adjourn at lunchtime on Fri 23rd, return on Wednesday 28th, and who needs the Bank holiday(s) on 2nd Jan, given New Years Eve is on Saturday this year, perhaps MPs should also forgo their 2023 summer holidays too!
I am also at a lost as to how “14 weekdays are lost” to the govt simply because parliament is in recess, I have no doubt the work of drafting forthcoming legislation is ongoing. Even if parliament does not return until mid Oct, with any energy price cap legislation not being enacted until perhaps the end of Oct or early Nov, that does not mean consumers and businesses will lose out, the energy supply industry knows there is going to be a price cap, they will likely know the broad outline of how it will work, they will be fools not to be somewhat circumspect with regards chasing arrears, and know that the law will be retrospective – so at worse there will have to be a rebates given on a later bills, no one will loose out.
Stop panicking, there is still plenty of time for Liz Truss to save the Tory parties own skin at the next GE.
September 12, 2022
We need to see Home Office plans to cut immigration drastically something the new points system doesn’t seem up to.
September 12, 2022
They have no intention of controlling immigration. They need to keep the property ponzi scheme going.
September 12, 2022
+1 they clearly have no intention of even trying to control immigration nor indeed of getting the police and criminal justice system to address, control or deter real crime levels.
September 12, 2022
Last 3 weeks total – 22/8 to 11/9 inclusive: 6650 arrivals / 143 boats – averaging 40 to 50 per vessel. That would have been far higher had we not seen a number of blustery days / poorer Channel conditions, that is 10 days recorded at zero during this period. And this is just ‘the boats’ route. And all that we hear, if anything at all, is the same old, more can kicking, legal decision delays, requirement for more & more funding from the taxpayer for every provision, more accommodations and likely mandatory allocations to most areas, take it or leave it & that’s before the effects of chain migration thereafter & those already en route to reach their chosen departure point and those already at the water’s edge just waiting their turn. Roll on 17 October.
September 13, 2022
Perhaps I will continue to ask – if we had a land border with France would our leaders allow all who wished walk over each day ?
The answer must be ‘yes, we don’t believe in borders any more’. How could it be anything else.
September 13, 2022
We ought to have large letters fixed to the White Cliffs, like ‘HOLLYWOOD’, saying ‘WELCOME’ in many languages…
September 12, 2022
Mr B there is a bigger picture than UK property. It is that the global corporations are gradually turning their back on us and seeking new markets – we need fresh blood and slave labour to become the replacement for Chinese and Indian sweat shops.
September 12, 2022
It is deliberate. The points system watered down as to be virtually useless, and the taxi service and red carpet treatment rolled out to entice illegals. The government even fails to deport violent criminals, so we can safely assume the government doesn’t really want to deport them, or cant be bothered to make the effort. Illegal immigrants are given priority in the UK and the indigenous are just the cash cows who pay for them.
September 12, 2022
Indeed you can get in on points if you have can find a job that pays only circa £25K and in some areas just £20K. People on these wages will rarely pay enough in in taxes to cover the benefits, their pension contributions and the services such or medical care, schools, police, roads, refuse… that they + family all receive directly. Let alone the overall costs of government such as defence… Plus they perhaps will bring over elderly relatives with even more costs for other tax payers to carry.
So the policy depresses wages for existing workers, decreases the overall tax take and thus forces ever higher tax rates to carry these costs too. These higher rates mean more wealthy and higher earners leave the country forcing even higher rates still. A vicious circle of positive feedback I assume Kwasi understands this though clearly he did not remotely understand what a sensible energy policy looks like.
September 12, 2022
Hold on LL.
On earnings of £20,000 pa*.
20% Income Tax above £12570 = £1486.00
13.25% Employee NI above £12570 (from July) = £984.48
15.05% Employer NI above £12570 (from July) = £1118.22 *
5% Employee Workplace pension above £6240 = £688.00 – Defined contribution only
3% Employer Workplace pension above £6240 = £412.80 *
This PAYE worker contributes £2470.48 + £688.00 into their WP pension £3158.48 pa
Their employer adds £1118.22 + £412.80 into their WP pension £1531.02 pa
A total per year of £4689.50 (23%)
How much have you calculated someone needs to contribute per individual per annum? And you worry about IR35 why shouldn’t they pay the missing NI contribution and raise their rates to the customer as companies do that engage PAYE workers?
Statutory Sick Pay is paid by the company of PAYE workers, current maximum exposure 28 weeks @ £99.35 = £2781.80.
Statutory Sick Pay Holiday is paid by the company of PAYE workers maximum exposure 28 days @ £76.92 on £20k pa = £2153.76.
September 13, 2022
You’re not addressing the:
“the services such or medical care, schools, police, roads, refuse… that they + family all receive directly. ”
Plus the fact the incoming workers displace existing workers or deny opportunities to our young, whilst adding pressure to already strained housing and infrastructure.
September 14, 2022
Secret People, I read that working legal migrants aren’t immediately entitled to free healthcare, they have to pay extra. The UK can also bill back their Countries of origin with the European Health Card. If the NHS administration doesn’t do this when other Countries do if UK citizens use their healthcare, then this government should take them up on this as this would increase their spending.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-entitlements-migrant-health-guide.
There are reciprocal arrangements on school placements around the world with migration, and when UK citizens find work abroad, their children are educated, aren’t they?
Our big problems aren’t with working, contributing migrants; the costs and issues are with illegal migration, which isn’t processed quickly enough, people aren’t sent back home when refused entry we don’t even know where they are, and previous EU migration rules that allowed people to move to the UK without work and claim for houses, the trick was to privately rent, lose your job then claim housing benefit and put in for a council house, or expect all your family living abroad to be paid UK benefits packages. A slight adjustment was asked by Cameron, and the EU turned him down even though the EU said it wasn’t that big a problem or issue.
September 12, 2022
@Michelle; “We need to see Home Office plans to cut immigration drastically”
Why, when the UK have a drastic shortage of workers in some jobs sectors? So unless you are suggesting either; the UK trashes its balance trade balance even further with ever more imports, or we have wartime style employment laws were people are told what jobs they will do…
But then perhaps your comments were meant to be directed toward illegal migration?
September 12, 2022
No, we don’t really have a “drastic shortage of workers in some sectors”. The low-paid work visas which Boris the Traitor established fall basically in two categories: ‘ethnic’ chefs and farm pickers. With regard to the chefs, it is nonsense to suppose British-born cooks cannot be trained to cook food of any origin, and in any case, there are far too many low-quality restaurants that would be of no loss to anyone if they closed. And as for farm pickers, I have said many times in these columns that the government needs to support the development of robotic pickers. These are already taking many farm jobs in other parts of the world (in California, for instance, there are protests by Luddite farm workers fearing job losses) and we need to roll these out here with genuine URGENCY.
But I think we both agree that illegal migration and bogus asylum seekers (ie. ALL asylum seekers) need to be clamped down on – something the government is simply not willing to do in a genuinely EFFECTIVE way. How many have been sent to Rwanda, for instance? What a LIE that policy was!
September 12, 2022
@X-Tory; Anyone can be trained to do any job they are mentally and/or physically capable of doing, that is how our modern armed forces have always operated after all, but as they found during the days of national service, the best recruits are always those who want to do the job. Guess who is (still) willing to do farm work, yes, Eastern European and other migrants…
“there are far too many low-quality restaurants that would be of no loss to anyone if they closed.”
I agree, along with many pubs too, but when I suggested much the same as you imply, when such business were pleading for an end to lockdowns less they go bust, I was flamed by some on this site to the point of being cremated! Strange old world!
“the government needs to support the development of robotic pickers.”
And in the mean time, assuming such AI is possible? No, our govt just need tofind a clue its self and cut the nonsense careers advice given by the DfE, DWP & schools. Those old style careers advisers, telling some luckless young 15 year old lad or lass that it was the pit, farm or factory work for them was harsh but honest advice. Yes some school leavers progressed, and still do, in to high tech jobs but there has and never will never be enough high tech jobs for all; and of those who did, many gained their higher education qualifications via night or day-release schools, whilst already working in industry, not spend two or three years full time at college or Uni before entering a career path only to find it or their qualifications unsuitable.
“bogus asylum seekers”
No, not all asylum seekers entering the UK are necessarily bogus, under the UN laws that we have agreed to follow. To automatically reject such applicants would be against the spirit of our membership at the very minimum, and make it extremely hard for us to hold other countries to account.
September 12, 2022
I gather from your side comment that this is because of the scheduled party conferences.
If so the obvious answer is to postpone them and get the Commons back much sooner.
September 12, 2022
Why get them back? So they pass more laws – as if we haven’t got too much already?
It’s not as if Parliament has covered itself with glory with the challenges we currently have.
September 12, 2022
I seem to remember the fuss that was made around the same time when Parliament was prorogued.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/sep/24/boris-johnsons-suspension-of-parliament-unlawful-supreme-court-rules-prorogue
I for one cannot seem the difference other than the motive.
September 12, 2022
Actually, I think that party conferences are quite valuable (I used to attend the Tory ones when I was still a member) as they allow new ideas to be debated – especially in the fringes – and the party’s agenda to be presented to the people (as it should be in a democracy). But what needs to be changed is the idea that each party has its conference at a different time. They should all hold their conferences simultaneously, over a set four-day period.
I understand that each party wants to have the nation’s attention all to itself during its conference so that it can put its ideas forward, but as believers in competition Conservatives should actually welcome the idea of all the parties jostling for the public’s attention and approval at the same time. This way, the public can compare and contrast the agendas and proposals of all the parties side-by-side, and decide which is best. Let the beauty contest begin!!
September 12, 2022
Do we really have to witness all this poor productivity? The ‘Commons could meet on 20th., September and work through the succeeding Saturday and Sunday, thereby setting a good example. Shamefully though Chancellor Kwarteng would not be ready, having allowed the Bank to inappropriately delay its rate decision. No of this is what the late Queen would have wanted.
(On productivity, a large number of recommendations come to mind, having watched the Accession Council at work. Far too many people, excessive repetition, only the King himself setting a good example with his one word responses of “agreed” and “approved”.)
September 12, 2022
Poor “productivity” but what do they produce? Hot air, red tape, expensive and intermittent energy, damaging rigged markets, fairly dire public services, road blocking and ever higher taxes in the main.
September 12, 2022
f57, I was almost hoping one response would be “No, I’m not having that” or perhaps “erm (pause) yes OK” and see what the response would be.
September 12, 2022
Your Party has just wasted 2 months choosing a new Prime Minister when it was obvious from the minute the final two candidates were announced that it would be Truss.
Now even more time will be wasted whilst MPs’ virtue-signal their grief at the death of the Queen (a Queen who worked every day of her life, to the very end) and then waste even more time at stage-managed Party Conferences.
The next time any MP – or Prime Minister – complains about the British work ethic they should take a long, hard look in the mirror. We have a marvellous example of slackers in Parliament ….. and perhaps we’ve decided to copy them.
Reply When the party Board decided on the length and style of the campaign in the country they did not know Liz Truss would command such a strong position out of all the possible candidates. You cannot change the rules mid way through the competition. I and other MPs did urge the Board to choose a shorter campaign period when they were planning it but they understandably wanted to give candidates every opportunity to visit all parts of the UK and present themselves in person in each region.
September 12, 2022
The vote turned out to be a lot closer than thought.
September 12, 2022
+1
September 12, 2022
Reply to reply it doesn’t excuse wasting another 6 weeks. Outrageous. Imagine if a commercial enterprise acted like this!
September 12, 2022
That is the point ! A commercial enterprise would never act like this because it knows full well that the void will be filled with another competitor. Alas there is no competitor to the State and it is a take it or leave it attitude.
With this sort of mindset in the political class, no wonder the country is in a mess.
September 12, 2022
You make a good point about the hard-working ethic of the late Queen. It is frankly an INSULT to her memory, her example, her dedication and to her leadership for MPs to skive off and refuse to now work to address the problems that her people are suffering. This is the LAST thing Queen Elizabeth would have wanted! This is the argument that Sir John should put to the Leader of the House to unblock the current stasis.
September 12, 2022
Donna, Wasn’t the Summer Recess from 22nd July 2022 to 4th September 2022 so they actually only took from 7th July to 21st July two sitting weeks and they didn’t shut early Boris was present until the usual summer recess period.
September 12, 2022
[…] “Parliament rightly has adjourned to pay respects to our late Queen and to allow the use of the Palace of Westminster for the solemn proceedings before the funeral around the lying in state. On current plans the House of Commons will not meet again until October 17th.“ (link) […]
September 12, 2022
This, I know will hit the entertainment industry, but the party conferences should be cancelled forthwith and parliament should be recalled on Wednesday 21st September.
The parties can afford to forego their deposits and we don’t need another 4 weeks of political ear-bashing especially after 6 weeks of the party leadership campaign.
There are vital decisions to be taken and we don’t need 3 weeks of party-piss-ups!!!!!!!!!!
September 12, 2022
Why can’t MPs work from home? Hours of debates in the HoC, change nothing Downing Street doesn’t want changed; and they cost gross circa £300 k per yacking hour. Votes, for what they are worth, could be phoned in on a secure land line with voice recognition. Vote first and do all the yacking on Twitter afterwards which the voters would have permanent access to. This could save a fortune and speed up the process of government. Westminster productivity gains would be an exemplar to all those lazy buggers Lizzie says are out here.
Reply One of the main points of meeting in person in Parliament is the ability to lobby, discuss and criticise Ministers in person, and to build voting blocs of MPs to change or improve policy. I was very keen to see us all back from covid as our ability to do our jobs was badly restricted by being at home
September 13, 2022
reply to reply ….so when televison shows almost empty debates, that is due to hundreds of MPs elsewhere busy with ‘lobby, discuss and criticise Ministers in person’?
September 12, 2022
George Brooks
Well said pal.
The time for talking has long passed , now is the time for meaningful action, no more no less.
September 12, 2022
Party Conferences
There is no need for any of them.
I think they have embarrassed themselves enough for this year all of them. They should all do some honest to god soul searching to see how they can win back the country’s trust and respect instead of self pontificating preaching to their faithful, promising everything and delivering nothing.
September 12, 2022
Are MPs still getting paid through this enforced break
Reply Yes, and still handling constituency case loads, representing local communities at events etc
September 12, 2022
If Parliament has been adjourned until 17th of October then this gives MPs time to understand better CAGW and the Government’s Net Zero Strategy.
For instance they may like to read :
The impacts of intermittency :
“’Limitation’ of Renewable Energy” written by an electrical engineer :
http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/Renewable%20Energy%20Limitations.pdf
“Costs, Performance and Investment Returns for Wind Power” by Professor Gordon Hughes:
https://ref.org.uk/attachments/article/369/GH20210621.pdf
“Energy and the Hydrogen Economy” by Bossel and Eliasson :
https://afdc.energy.gov/files/pdfs/hyd_economy_bossel_eliasson.pdf
And search the internet for themselves for the evidence for catastrophic global warming or climate breakdown by looking at the data (not reports or modelling) for temperature, extreme weather events, polar ice cover etc..
September 12, 2022
The first one is a decade out of date. The second one says don’t invest in any wind energy system unless it pays back in a couple of months. Scotland now has over 10 GW of wind power, mostly on shore. It can generate twice what Scotland consumes. The third one is two decades out of date, plus, Synthetic Liquid Hydrocarbon fuels are more green washing by the Oil and Gas industry. They are trying to get Formula One cars to promote it for them. (1 litre of synfuel requires around 20 kWh of electricity to produce it.)
September 13, 2022
Your 10gw of wind generated electricity is the maximum capacity acorn.
The average output is a fraction of that figure.
September 13, 2022
If you travelled much around Scotland you would notice how many ugly windmills don’t wave their arms.
Broken, windless, not required – which is it? Certainly not producing 10GW.
September 12, 2022
Parliament needs to adapt to the 21st century ….. preferably before we reach the 22nd century.
September 12, 2022
Off topic
I see the BBC has reported that two former cabinet secretaries have criticised the decision to sack Sir Tom Scholar from the Treasury. Apparently, Lord Butler and Lord O’Donnell said the sacking compromised the independence of the civil service.
I was not aware that the servants had been granted independence.
September 12, 2022
In a sign of the times, over the past week a restaurant, a cafe and a hardware shop that had been trading for 30 years have closed in my locality. They are now boarded up. The energy bills were impossible. The shortage of fossil fuel and reliance on wind and solar was planned and there is no sign of any reversal of government green WEF/ UN policy. Even borrowing £190 bn will not solve the problem. The taxes from bust businesses can be added to the debt.
September 12, 2022
Excellent point about lost taxes as no doubt many of the orders for hardware will go to online companies who are extremely adept at paying the absolute minimum tax.
September 12, 2022
From my local football clubs website:
Why ?
September 12, 2022
Why not? A public demonstration of their patriotism and loyalty to the Crown does no harm. I suggest that they should lead the crowd in a hearty rendition of the ‘new’ national anthem: God save the King!
September 12, 2022
“Parliament rightly has adjourned to pay respects to our late Queen”
I’m sorry, but I just disagree that this was right.
The supermarkets couldn’t just shut for a week, the bakers, the hospitals, transport, so why should you? Other businesses couldn’t just wallow and shut for a week.
The Queen had a tremendous work ethic.
Your government’s weekend decision on an extra public holiday as King Charles decided the funeral should be on a Monday rather than a Sunday, how are your government going to compensate us for this decision? They have taken this out of our hands, we can’t open even if we want to as public sector clients are all shut, and large organisations just followed. These large organisations get the bulk of the training allowances and other R&D grants, so I’m sure they’ll be compensated one way or another.
It is not just a day’s turnover lost (that turnover can’t be made up as businesses can’t do double the work the following day or week) but also the standing costs associated with running the business as these have to be paid whether we have work or not. This comes out of net profit, which often takes 5x more work to pay for it.
September 12, 2022
I feel I ought to put down my marker. I believe King Charles III will interfere beyond his rights in politics.
PM Truss will need to display determination to resist him and ensure the people get their way and she gets hers. He must not for example be allowed to push his environmentalist extremes against us however subtly he tries.
September 12, 2022
We neither need nor want a ‘points based’ immigration system. We do not need an immigration system at all.
The English people never asked for it and it has been wholly damaging to our country in very many ways.
It is time for the Tory party to get some financial backers who do not want a third world invasion as a quid quo pro.
Stop sending our military equipment to Ukraine; the Russians are not our enemy but the enemy of the those that control the USA from behind the curtain and wishes to make it the world hegemon with themselves calling the shots. Our enemies are within the ‘West’.
September 13, 2022
Yes, and they are to be found especially at the UN and the EU, Forthurst. You might be interested in looking at what the UN Network on Migration does. Its first objective, it says, is to ‘ensure effective, timely, coordinated UN system-wide support to Member States in their implementation, follow-up and review of the GCM, for the rights and wellbeing of all migrants…’
https://www.un.org/en/conf/migration/assets/pdf/UN-Network-on-Migration_TOR.pdf
That’s ‘all’ migrants, not just refugees from war-torn countries.
Also, the EU has a Human Rights Commissioner who takes an active role in defending economic migration. In 2018 this person blamed Spain for not properly treating economic migrants trying to break into the Spanish North African enclaves. They had come via Morocco, a country at peace, from countries such as Guinea, where there was no war at the time.
September 13, 2022
The CONs want mass immigration, including the criminal migrants they are ferrying in across the channel.
If they didn’t, they’d stop it.
The Party’s financial backers are getting what THEY want.
We need another Party which isn’t following the Coudenhove Plan/Agenda 2030.
September 12, 2022
Yes Sir John.
Of course Parliament has to adjourn to allow what is appropriate at the death of a Monarch.
But not only have we just changed Monarch, we have also only just changed the Government.
Surely, in the circumstances the ‘time off’ for M.P.s to attend Party Conferences, should be strictly curtailed.
September 12, 2022
I see the planets population falling below 6.5 billion in 22 years time.
September 13, 2022
based on what Paul? A decision by China, India, S.America etc to forcibly limit childbirth? Or possibly a willingness to limit families to one child? At worst another pandemic which somehow devastes population or reduces the possibility of conception?
Perhaps you are predicting the numbers of planets out there, and suggest many will be swallowed up by black holes?
September 12, 2022
Dublin and Brussels don’t seem to have got the memo about normal UK politics being suspended.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney had a go at Liz Truss for her “very unhelpful” attitude, so I wrote to him:
“You tell the Irish media that the attitude of our Prime Minister is “very unhelpful” [1], but I suggest that is a bit rich coming from somebody who has spent nearly five years pretending that at present there is no border on the island of Ireland and one must not be allowed to “re-emerge” [2]; and who persisted with that “very unhelpful” false line not only after the UK government had given assurances that it had no intention of fortifying our side of the border but after that guarantee had been enshrined in UK law, and despite the fact that you yourself frankly told the Irish News that the Irish government and the EU also had no intention of fortifying its side of that border which you falsely claimed did not even exist [3], which position was confirmed by your Prime Minister [4]; but nevertheless even now you persist with the nonsensical line that all goods entering Northern Ireland must conform to EU requirements even though only a small fraction of them will go on to cross the border and enter EU territory, and moreover that all goods produced in Northern Ireland must conform to EU requirements even though only a small fraction if them will cross the border and enter EU territory [5]; and that is because according to the ludicrous official position of the Irish government it is impossible to conduct checks at the border, or near the border, or in fact anywhere at all on the island of Ireland, because ” any checks or controls anywhere on the island would constitute a hard border.”[6] and potentially provoke a resurgence of republican terrorism; unless of course that “hard border” has been erected along the coast of Northern Ireland to separate it from the rest of the UK, when it is fine.
I can assure you that if I had had anything to do with the Brexit negotiations I would not have gone along with any of this insulting twaddle which has emanated first from Dublin and then from Brussels, I would have stopped it all in December 2017 [7], but you were extremely lucky with one UK Prime Minister who was on your side at least as much as she was on our side, and then another UK Prime Minister whose paramount concern was to get the pathetic little trade deal that he had promised when he was making his bid to replace her. And it is a pathetic little trade deal, which we could well do without but Ireland needs much more than us [8].”
Meanwhile Maros Sefcovic has also had something to say, and I have sent this letter to various newspapers:
“It is a pity that Maros Sefcovic apparently cannot see that if there are ways to minimise EU checks on the flow of goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain then similar trade facilitation techniques could be applied to the correct flow of goods crossing the correct border, the flow of goods in which the EU actually has a legitimate interest, namely the flow of goods leaving Northern Ireland across the international frontier between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.
Can we hope that one morning he will wake up with the realisation that it was a terrible mistake for the EU to dismiss out of hand the well-developed proposal for collaborative customs controls for that border put forward by the former EU official Sir Jonathan Faull and two professors of law in August 2019? A proposal which they termed “dual autonomy” but others refer to as “mutual enforcement”, and which could be on the table if Brussels and Dublin wished to take it up.”
Just another normal morning, spending my time and effort trying to do what our government should be doing.
September 12, 2022
Look Denis everything has been negotiated agreed and signed off so better to live with what has already been agreed. We cannot just go willy nilly about the place making it up as we go along – we are supposed to be a great power so we should know better how to conduct ourselves. The EU is not going to allow the Protocol or any other part of the agreement be opened up because the DUP and ERG is belatedly unhappy and certainly not without there being serious consequences for trade between the rest of the UK and EU. We don’t want to go and make things worse.
September 13, 2022
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/ni-logistics-boss-gives-cautious-welcome-to-eus-claim-that-protocol-checks-can-be-significantly-reduced-41983676.html
“The head of a national freight organisation has said more detail is needed on EU claims that Northern Ireland Protocol checks could be reduced to “a couple of lorries a day”.”
“Anything that avoids checks at the ports is welcome, but the root of the problem, and the most costly side of things, is in the administration.
“The checks are only there as an enforcement measure, which you’ll only have if there’s something suspicious about a load or if the administration hasn’t been done correctly.
“There’s no point in people saying, ‘They’re not checking lorries in Belfast any more’ if there’s a mountain of red tape.””
There should be no EU mandated red tape, and no EU checks on any lorries, on goods passing between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in either direction. None at all; any EU red tape and checks should be applied to the correct flow of goods, UK exports across the land border into EU territory.
“Meanwhile, the TUV leader Jim Allister criticised the EU.
“With the nation in mourning following the sad passing of HM the Queen, it is disrespectful for the EU to be kite flying like this,” he said. “If the border really can be as seamless as Mr Sefcovic claims then why don’t we put it where it should be — between the EU’s territory in the Republic and Northern Ireland?””
September 13, 2022
From a letter published in the Irish Independent January 11 2022:
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/time-to-check-our-moral-compass-and-overhaul-consent-laws-41227586.html
“I wonder whether you have any idea how ludicrous this claim will sound to anybody who is aware that the trickle of goods crossing the land border into the Republic amounts to about 0.2pc of goods imports into the EU Single Market?
Hardly enough to pose any serious threat to its integrity, and in any case, if the same goods were to enter the Republic by sea instead of by land, only 3pc of the trucks would be inspected.”
September 13, 2022
An excellent letter, Denis. You get it all in.
September 12, 2022
Even the Royal Household ends mourning 7 days after the funeral.
September 12, 2022
MPs craftily feigning condolence for indolence, and ensuring they don’t get to put in any hours of legislative work for five weeks under the cover of ‘mourning’.
Abolish the conference season entirely this year, and Parliament returns on 20 Sep with the King’s Speech.
Let the parties do all their internal powermongering in their own time, not the taxpayer’s.
September 12, 2022
Off topic:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/exposed-the-97-of-scientists-agree-with-manmade-global-warming-lie/
This debunks the claim that 97% of scientists support climate change.
It shows that it was no larger than 8.2% and even then, the “research” was done by non-scientific people with no known science qualifications who were tasked with simply reading the abstracts of scientific papers and making a subjective judgement.
These would all have been people who were part of a group involved in a pro-climate change web site who would be pre-disposed to finding evidence supporting climate change.
September 13, 2022
Isn’t this all a wee bit over the top? What is it with the establishment – and media – in this country. It’s all rather surreal.
September 16, 2022
When the unions are collectively crying for another two bank holidays per year, I hope you keep some of the comments referenced above, John, and ask the government to consider how much money micro businesses and small businesses stand to lose. How many fewer operations, scans, and tests are done? Yet another school day lost yet take a child out of school and you face a fine because of the serious impact on absence days on a school’s results!
A compulsory day off that not everyone wanted and would prefer to use their 28 days holiday allowance per year elsewhere.
Then add to that this article from Owen Jones “https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/16/britain-respects-queen-poor-privileged”. Monday’s shutdown is fine for the privileged but ignores the plight of those who can’t afford to lose work and income. So extra bank holidays for our already well-rewarded public sector workers with their extra holidays usually 35 days and more per year plus full sick pay are finally acknowledged by the left as causing other workers and small and micro businesses problems, lost sales, not to be recovered and extra costs with no revenue against those costs.