1. John Major the incorrigible dinosaur…how do we shut him up?
What is this old political ‘war horse’ doing pontificating on our TV screens and the press about a second referendum and trumpeting the virtues of the EU? Did he not know the outcome of the last year’s referendum where the people decided? Lest we forget, this is the man that got us into the ERM, the precursor of the Euro, in the first place, many years ago, at the wrong rate, which we subsequently stumbled out of in the 1992 ignominious devaluation and thank goodness for this country that we did!
What could we possibly learn from this septuagenarian, who is long past his ‘sell-by-date’ and should be sitting with his slippers in front of the fire with the ‘good book’ supping a mug of cocoa and minding his own business?
2. Mr. Trump, the new Emperor of oil or a misguided fool?
Although it is incredibly difficult to understand anything coherent that emanates from the mad 45th President, nevertheless, if you scour his rhetoric for something valuable he just could be nursing an interesting ‘master plan’. A modern day Emperor of oil? Let me explain. He is maneuvering the USA towards being the largest producer of oil on the planet and here’s how!
Some 100 years ago, America was the largest producer of oil in the world and this gave them huge power and wealth at the time. ‘Run the tape forward’ to about 25 years ago, where conventional oil deposits had been depleted and the US became 50% dependent on other world oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia etc. hence the allegiance between these two countries and America’s pre-occupation with Middle Eastern politics.
For judicious reasons Trump has now unbridled the oil industry by infiltrating his cabinet with ex oil men, expanding oil exploration offshore, increasing Fracking and now has accelerated the Alaskan pipeline whilst at the same time ‘gagging’ the ecological lobby.
As a result, America’s oil output will, before too long, allow them to be the biggest oil producer in the world. No attempts by OPEC to control this will be effective and the oil dependant despots of the world such as Putin, Iran and Saudi Arabia will ‘come to heel’ without America needing to raise a weapon in anger. With China wanting a low oil price to fund their industrial revolution, even they may become Trump’s NBF (new best friend). If, for judicious reasons, he wants a $30 world oil price to boost his economy, he will get it simply by lifting the sluice gates and letting it flow and the other oil rich nations will have to suffer the resultant pain.
What an intelligent strategy for the foreign policy of the USA, if it comes off.
3. ‘Give us a job’ Mr. Blair, any one will do!
There is a great skill in knowing when enough is enough and Mr. Blair seems to have been ‘bending down’ when this virtue was handed out by his maker. Look at Cameron. He left the political stage, albeit a little prematurely, but nevertheless it was a quick, relatively painless process, organised with relative dignity in the circumstances. He immediately resigned as an MP and is doing the usual speaking tour circuit whilst writing his proverbial memoirs, and good luck to him!
There is no question that despite the efforts of the Labour Party to airbrush Tony Blair from history, he was nevertheless, the greatest living post-war Labour politician who achieved such a landslide victory for his party in 1997, that the Conservatives needed four elections to break this down. However, as we all know, he ‘blotted his copybook’ with the Iraq War and, what’s more, had it not been for the Presbyterian misery, Mr.Gordon Brown holding him back, he would have led us willingly into the Euro, with all the perils associated with this debacle and Britain would be a substantially smaller country with a much poorer economy than today.
After his retirement from front-line politics he became a hugely ineffective Middle Eastern envoy, which was judiciously used by him as a platform in-order to keep him relevant and to maintain his speech-making fees. He was asked to retire from this and then he tried to become the President of Europe but instead they chose that perfectly qualified, complete buffoon, Mr. Juncker instead.
To keep his ‘top spinning’ he was seen recently, lurking around the White House in order to pick up a job with the Trump regime. Not content with this ignominy he is now joining forces with the other ‘political has-beens’ in the UK, to enlist support for his latest political ‘bone headed’ idea of a second European Referendum. Bless him, what does he have in mind ‘best of three’? He even nurses the idea of a resurrection of his own political fortunes ‘phoenix style’ after the demise of Corbyn in 2020! Good luck with that aspiration Tony. Don’t get any long playing records will you? If he needs a platform – maybe he could find one on the train station to Oblivion?
4. Nicola Sturgeon … the Scottish windbag?
What is this Scottish ‘terrier’ on about? Has the Chihuahua eaten the Alsatian’s food I wonder? She is determined to seize the political moment in-order to embarrass the UK government, at a difficult time for the Brexit negotiations, and gain acclaim for her party. By a recent poll of the Scottish people, 56% do not want another Referendum and feel exactly as they did at the last one three years ago.
She is nevertheless, relentless. Naturally, there is no mention of how the devolved Scottish Nation will fund its 10% budget deficit or its debt, or in fact, what currency it will trade in as an independent country – a Groat? A Scottie?
It is well chronicled that the President of Europe has told them that they cannot use the Euro, since at present they are resisting the devolution from Europe of Catalan and Kosovo and the Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney, has warned them that if they want the Pound, it will not be allowed without fiscal/spending control from London.
At what point does this ‘one club golfer’ realise that her time may be coming to an end, sooner than she realises, and that she needs another agenda?
5. Hoorah for Ruth Davidson, ‘batting back’ the case for the opposition.
Will or should Prime Minister May go to the Country prematurely?
Why should she? There is no raging debate about her ‘coronation’. She is a ‘safe pair of hands’ for Brexit and has dismissed the dinosaur re-moaners Heseltine, Major, Clarke and Osborne, with great aplomb. She has skillfully maneuvered the Brexit legislation through the Lords and the Commons, won an historic victory of Copeland, against all odds and still has a reasonably workable majority to power through the Queens Speech agenda.
The boundary changes will be implemented in 2018 which will give the Tories effectively, a 20 seat advantage, so what’s the hurry to go to the people? There is no effective Labour opposition under Corbyn. This ‘has-been-that- never-was’, ‘Worzel Gummage’ character will not be able to lay an ‘electoral glove’ on her so what does she need to prove to anyone? Why should she not be left alone to just get on with the job that we all want her to do?
6. Put the ‘Great’ back into Britain!
All these ‘re-moaners’ make me quite ill. We have the most incredibly robust, dynamic, innovative and creative economy, which has confounded its critics and is destined to do great things in the World. Belief in Britain and its huge potential is the order of the day in the Brexit negotiations. The drop in the Pound is the best thing for exporters and paradoxically, is also serving to save the London Residential Property Market from the tourniquet of Stamp Duty and total collapse.
In contrast, the European countries are in a parlous state, apart from Germany who are doing ‘rather well, danke schoen’ and benefiting from a devalued currency and 27 sycophantic nations buying their consumer goods. We on the other hand are destined to trade with the rest of the world but have been ‘hand-strapped’ by the restrictions of Europe, now all this is about to change and not a moment too soon.
By way of illustration of our prowess, in 1994 we gained one, miserable Gold Olympic Medal and when we ‘pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps’ in the 2016 games, we were the second largest medal earners in the World, exceeding the haul of Germany and France put together! Now this is the kind of meteoric success that we can achieve if we put our minds to it and in the same vain, we will do so with this new Brexit opportunity.
Prime Minister May and the ‘holy trinity’ of negotiators will surprise the ‘doomsayers’ by bringing back a sensible deal. After all, if you ignore the EU rhetoric, it’s in their own interests. Having a ‘no deal’ strategy as a backstop for the negotiation process and relying on the WTO rules is the best way to go into the discussions with our awkward European partners, so that our destiny does not necessarily lie in their hands.
Frankly, I would like to witness the German government justifying to their own car unions why they are prepared to endanger the second largest market in the world for their goods, by punishing the UK for the temerity of having voted Brexit.
Talk about duplicity. Not nine months ago the OECD, OBR, IMF, CBI and the GEO, all predicted a doomsday scenario for the UK economy after the Referendum, but all in unison have now miraculously revised their forecasts upwards for UK growth in the post-Brexit era. They call themselves independent bodies, yet they were so easily coerced by the UK government. Funny that!
Belief in the UK and its future is both patriotic and mandatory in these uncertain times. Instead of ‘woe is me’, ‘fly the flag’ to choruses of ‘Rule Britannia’!
7. At last the Brexit log jam has been freed! Worry not, the benefits will flow, you’ll see.
After much ado, Article 50 can be issued and I feel sure that our European counterparts are storing up a host of obstacles for us to trip over in the forthcoming joust. I hope they are factoring in that if, at the end of an exhausting negotiation process there is no deal, which is highly unlikely, the imposition of tariffs will hurt their domestic industries just as much as they will ours and therefore, ‘What goes around, comes around’. In any event, if tariffs were applied to German cars, for instance, you could find that UK consumers may switch to the purchase of domestic alternatives, such as Jaguar/Honda/Nissan in preference and at the same time will help towards our trade deficit with them.
We are building as many cars in this country as we have ever done in the past, some of these factories such as Jaguar are the most profitable in the world and they are very good products to boot. Maybe a little bit of nationalism is a good thing and we should support our homespun industries more than we do today. You could find that buying British is not only patriotic, but cost-effective and would be a fillip for UK industry and by golly, in the post Brexit era this could be very welcome.
So my message to the European Brexit negotiators is – ‘Be careful what you wish for’.