Order of events: December 2020: (Honest Boris’) UK Government signs a deal with the EU over trade and Northern Ireland Every minute since: Same government jumps up and down about the deal being unfair and threatens to walk away 08/10/2021: EU announces that on 13/10/2021 it’ll offer ways to make the deal work easier 12/10/2021: …
Tag archives: UK Politics
The Muppet Show
Nadhim Zahawi, UK Minister of Vaccines, was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 this morning about Honest Boris’ two-year delayed promise-breaking promise to bodge together some supposed fix for elderly care. Immediately after him Kermit the Frog was interviewed about Jim Henson. One of them made sense and answered his questions.
Teamwork – UK Foreign Policy
Tobias Ellwood, Conservative chair of the Commons defence committee said after the Afghan debacle “We should be clear that Britain’s leverage is negligible as an individual country”…”The only means of influence we now have is if we pool efforts together with the international community” Quite right. Perhaps he should let his boss know that right …
Got A Light? UK Government and Northern Irish Borders
It’s a shame Brits aren’t taught much of their own history. Any shortened story of Northern Ireland needs to begin four hundred years ago with the Ulster Plantation (when James VI+I was on the throne, a lasting Scottish achievement). It’s complex, and you can’t understand present cultural divisions without knowing their history. But if you …
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Hancock, Lying, More or Less
You can punctuate the title any way you like. Tim Harford’s More or Less is back on BBC Radio 4. Everyone should listen to it. Whether you’re a statistics nerd, enjoy hearing statesmen get caught out fibbing, just like learning facts of the world, or (like me) all of the above it’s worth every minute. …
Northern Ireland Rejuvenated
For those of you who were worried about the sanity of Northern Ireland: relax, they got a flush of youth today. Edwin Poots took office as head of the Democratic Unionist Party, the largest in the NI Assembly. Poots is a Young Earth Creationist who believes the Earth was created about six thousand years ago.
Dominic Cummings told a load of truth. Will it make any difference?
Grima Wormtongue aka Dominic Cummings had his day on camera today. It sounded great fun. Honest Boris is ‘unfit’ to be Prime Minister, ‘tens of thousands’ of people died unnecessarily from Covid due to government incompetence, Hancock the health minister is a liar and a fool. The thing is none of this is news. We’ve …
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Starmer Reaps His Silence
Hartlepool voted for a Conservative MP instead of Labour for the first time since 1959. This is dreadful for Labour. That they lost a by-election to an eleven-year government is appalling. To lose by the landslide they did rubs salt in the wound. The radio has been replete with Labour strategists and pundits expounding on …
Electoral Systems – How Stupid Do They Have to Be?
Fact: The First Past the Post system used in most parts of most elections in the UK is completely rubbish. It is unrepresentative and unfair. Brits seem functionally unable to understand this. I don’t know why. The argument is always about its simplicity: “whoever gets the most votes wins, so it must be right”. No …
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BreYesxit 2 – Where Can My Vote Do The Least Damage?
If I said to you…There was a large group that was successful because of its scale and diversity, but a small part wanted to leave it because of imagined discrimination…might I be talking about Little England Tories and the EU, or the SNP and the UK? Can’t tell them apart really. The Part has done …
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