Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

SOURCE- The Spectator 29/04/20 https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/now-who-s-cherry-picking-michel-barnier- Donald Tusk just couldn’t resist. It was September 2018, and an informal European Council summit was taking place in Salzburg. As the leaders relaxed after lunch, someone snapped a photo of Tusk offering a tray of small cakes to the then British prime minister, Theresa May. Tusk posted the picture to his Instagram with the caption: ‘A piece of cake, perhaps? Sorry, no cherries.’ The joke/dig (depending on your point of view) worked because everyone knew what was being referred to. Ever since Article 50 had been triggered in March 2017, the British side had been attempting to ‘cherry pick’ – to try and gain the advantages of EU membership (in particular frictionless access to the single market) without the obligations or constraints of membership. The UK’s attempts at cherry picking infuriated the EU. The UK, the EU insisted, would be a third country just like any othe...

SOURCE - Daily Telegraph - 28/04/20 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/inheritance/inheritance-tax-raised-80pc-wwii-could-happen-coronavirus/ The Treasury has already received £2.2bn less in tax receipts this year compared with 2019 Taxes could rise dramatically as the Government attempts to fund unprecedented state spending and make up revenue lost following the economic devastation wrought by coronavirus. It could mean the biggest shake up of the system since the Second World War, tax experts have predicted.Then, as now, Britain was faced with funding huge public debt. It meant increasing duties without burdening the lower paid, who had shouldered a large share of hardship and fighting, and led to wealthier people being taxed like never before.The PAYE system was introduced in 1944, capturing the salaries of lower and middle earners, while levying duties as high as 97.5pc for those earning the very highest incomes. Inheritance tax, then known as estate duty, comprised ...

Source - CAPX - 27 April 20120 https://capx.co/its-too-early-to-sound-the-death-knell-for-the-british-high-street/ An inevitable consequence of the Coronavirus will be the acceleration or magnification of existing trends – be it towards home working or the intensification of the shift from physical to online shopping. Doomsayers who have portended the high street apocalypse in recent years may feel a sense of grim vindication following recent news of Debenhams, Cath Kidson, Laura Ashley, Animal, Oasis and many others closing their doors. There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen, so said someone, but in the pre-lockdown era (five weeks ago) around 14 shops were shutting down every day. Retailers reported that 2019 was the worst year for sales in a quarter of a century. In recent years hundreds of thousands of retail jobs have been lost. Undoubtedly, when businesses fail to adapt and modernise, they are stymied by new technologies with...

I hope you will agree that we are all virtual friends here, and more so in the current adversity. Whilst it would be good to take the calm outlook of the feline illustrated above, this is not humanly possible every day, and in every circumstance. For discussion today and tomorrow, here is an extract with some thoughts on the wisdom of the lockdown, from 'a well-known commentator'. SYA does not necessarily agree with it,  but is still intrigued by Prof Ben-Israel’s theory. When Britain’s closures were announced, they had a clear goal: to buy time for the NHS.  It worked: we were spared the horror that overtook parts of Italy. The government believes that fatalities peaked on 8 April, suggesting that the rate of infection peaked around 18 March – in other words, when Britain was still pursuing a Swedish-style policy of maintaining distance and hand-washing. So why not return to that policy? How did “flattening the curve” morph into “avoiding a second peak”? It is...

Rising borrowing costs for countries such as Italy show that the European Central Bank has a fight on its hands to prevent a new debt crisis, say analysts, even as it goes all out to ease strains caused by coronavirus. Last month the ECB halted an alarming sell-off in the riskier corners of eurozone debt markets with a €750bn bond-buying plan that marked a significant escalation of its “quantitative easing” programme.  But since then those gains have been all but wiped out. This week, Italy’s 10-year government bond yield climbed above 2 per cent for the first time in a month, while the “spread” over German bonds — a closely watched measure of risk within the eurozone — widened to 2.6 percentage points. That is not far short of the peak of 2.8 percentage points during the March sell-off.   Heavily-indebted Italy has long been a bellwether for wider fears over the future of the eurozone. Such concerns have moved to the fore again in spite of the ECB’s radical ea...

Politico reported the following yesterday On the EU Recovery Fund and the MFF. EU national leaders on Thursday directed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to draw up plans for a new long-term financial blueprint for the bloc that would also drive an economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis with a combination of loans and grants. The leaders did not agree on a figure for the recovery effort, which some Commission officials have proposed should be up to €2 trillion. The leaders delivered the instructions to von der Leyen at their latest virtual European Council summit — a video conference in which they discussed not just the devastating economic toll of the pandemic, but all aspects of the crisis, including the challenge of when and how to lift containment measures. The effort to reinvent the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) — the EU's regular, seven-year budget — to also serve as an emergency rescue program is a potentially treacherous gambit aim...

Here's what I've been looking out for in recent times, proof if any was needed that trust in TV journalists and Newspapers is at at an all time low. The article below if from Sam Coates from Sky which was on tonight's news which published a joint Sky/Yougov poll on who was most trusted in this pandemic. What is most important is the topic graphic on who's most trusted and most importantly - who's not. The NHS is most trusted, but it doesn't actually have a spokesperson other than Matt Hancock who comes out with a marginal negative rating. Of individuals, Chris Whitty comes out top with Vallence and Boris, whose rating has probably been damaged from not being "about recently" but is still positive. Matt Hancock comes out with a mild negative position but more interestingly Kier Starmer comes out with the most negative individual politician rating, mainly because, as Sam Coates notes, mainly from Corbynista's wanting to take him out for ...

No government is perfect, and no government is going to get away without criticism, what most most people ask is "Are they doing their best given the circumstances" To date, that's probably the case. However, there comes a point after the initial firefighting stages when you need to see some form of a plan emerge, and that time is certainly now. I'm wondering if the PM and special advisers are working on comprehensive strategy behind the scenes while he's out of the daily fray. I sincerely hope so. Ultimately, this requires a restart of the economy whilst at the same time keeping a lid on the virus because a vaccine isn't coming any time soon. If you want to manage something, you need to be able to measure it, and most importantly, measure it accurately. The current test doesn't give you a very good picture of what's happening because:- 1) Its been shown to give between 20-30% false negatives. 2) Its unclear if swab testing is being done...

As the world went into lockdown, Sweden opted for a different approach to tackling coronavirus: cities, schools and restaurants have remained open. This was judged by critics to be utterly foolish: it would allow the virus to spread much faster than elsewhere, we were told, leading to tens of thousands of deaths. Hospitals would become like warzones. As Sweden was two weeks behind the UK on the epidemic curve, most British experts said we’d pay the price for our approach when we were at the peak. Come back in two weeks, I was told. Let's see what you're saying then. So here I am. I'm happy to say that those fears haven’t materialised. But the pressure on Sweden to change tack hasn’t gone away. We haven't u-turned. We’re careful, staying inside a lot more. But schools and shops remain open. Unlike some countries on the continent, no one is asking for ‘our papers’ when we move around in cities. The police don’t stop us and ask why we are spending so much time outdoo...

More than a dozen people are drawing up legal action against Labour, after they were named in an incendiary leaked report that threatens to plunge the party into financial peril. Claims covering the Data Protection Act, invasion of privacy and libel are all being considered and could be submitted to the party as soon as this week. The party, individuals and some media commentators are all said to be the subject of legal complaints as a result of the document’s release and remarks made about its contents. The row caused by the 860-page document has been a huge blow to Keir Starmer’s hopes of uniting Labour under his leadership following years of infighting. It claimed that factional hostility towards Jeremy Corbyn contributed to the party’s ineffective handling of antisemitism complaints and undermined its 2017 election campaign. It also included criticisms of the party and some of its leading figures by staff members in private messages. Since it emerged last weekend, some o...