Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

The Chancellor has to finish tackling Covid, secure a recovery, then fix the public finances, in a blizzard of tough decisions. Source - Daily Telegraph 28/02/21 Link The Chancellor will stand up to deliver the next Budget on Wednesday, March 3, with a mind-boggling array of problems before him.  After 10 years campaigning for financial discipline in the wake of the financial crisis, the Conservatives have suddenly found themselves presiding over the biggest borrowing binge since the Second World War. So far Rishi Sunak’s rhetoric has remained cautious, indicating that the long battle against the deficit of the credit crunch has left its mark on the occupant of 11 Downing Street. In his spending review in November – before the latest wave of Covid really took off – the Chancellor warned this year’s bumper borrowing was only possible “because we came into this crisis with strong public finances”. “We have a responsibility, once the economy recovers, to return to a sustainable fiscal...

 Polished, professional Macron is trying to brazen out the vaccine crisis. And will probably succeed. Source - Daily Telegraph 26/02/21 Link Listening to Emmanuel Macron yesterday night only a few hours after the Queen’s Zoom conference with NHS senior vaccine officers, was like stepping into Star Trek’s Mirror Universe. On one side of the Channel, at their desks, four civil servants, tired-looking and practical; and one aged lady giving advice and comfort in simple words and a clear voice.  On the other, a dramatically-lit, sharply-suited man, alone for a virtual press conference following an equally virtual “extraordinary” European Council,  yet with all the usual staging and props — the French and EU flags, a raised podium with the tricolour and the Élysée logo, the elegant backdrop of the recently redecorated Élysée Palace. In short, it looked as if, instead of one cameraman and a technical crew, Emmanuel Macron was still about to lecture the serried ranks of  jo...

 The Salmond affair exposes the SNP's corruption of the institutions of government. Source - Spiked - 26/02/21 Link Given the Scottish National Party’s political monopoly north of the border, and the lack of scrutiny to which the SNP’s petty authoritarian rule is subject in the national media, perhaps it was always going to take a vengeful SNP insider to expose the rot in the state of Sturgeon-land. Enter former SNP leader and Scottish first minister Alex Salmond. This week he claimed, as he has done for the past couple of years, that there has been ‘a deliberate, prolonged, malicious and concerted effort among a range of individuals within the Scottish government and the SNP to damage my reputation, even to the extent of having me imprisoned’. He doesn’t say ‘conspiracy’, but that’s certainly what he’s implying. This would be explosive if it were true. It’s the equivalent of Theresa May claiming Boris Johnson had used the apparatus of the British state to try to frame her as a pae...

Chancellor says AstraZeneca vaccine is not recommended for her age group as her country struggles with trust. Source - Daily Telegraph 26/02/21 Link Angela Merkel dismissed suggestions she should ignore her government's guidelines and take the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. There had been calls for Mrs Merkel to "lead by example" and be vaccinated on camera in order to dispel German public fears over the jab. "I do not belong to the recommended age group for AstraZeneca," Mrs Merkel told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. The AstraZeneca vaccine is currently only approved for under-65s in Germany, and Mrs Merkel is 66. Germany is one of a number of European countries where the AstraZeneca vaccine is not currently approved for the over-65s because regulators said there was not enough clinical data on its effectiveness in older people. Emmanuel Macron, who claimed the AstraZeneca vaccine was only "quasi-effectual" in the over-65s, said  at a press co...

Even the latest shameful farce in Edinburgh is unlikely to stop the march of the Scottish Nationalists. Source - Daily Telegraph 25/02/21 Link Is it all over? Is Scotland’s independence now merely a matter of time, the passions too intense, the hatreds overly deep, the bad blood inexpungible? Will Boris Johnson’s greatest legacy be the dissolution of the most successful political union in modern history, rather than the triumph of Brexit and the recovery from Covid?  I very much hope not. Despite the indefensible subsidies, the anti-English propaganda, the entrenched Left-wing voting bloc in Westminster, I’m still – just – a unionist, for personal, emotional, philosophical and strategic reasons. I love the United Kingdom, a beautiful, living construct, in so many ways a beacon to the world since 1707.  I dread the consequences for Scotland of absorption into a declining EU, and for England of a fraught, troublesome land, monetary and regulatory border with Europe. The end of t...

Although the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is only 100 miles from completion, the transformation of world energy markets since construction began implies that the project no longer makes economic sense. So why is German Chancellor Angela Merkel determined to see it through to the end? Source - Project syndicate 19/02/21 Link HAMBURG – Nord Stream 2, the almost-finished pipeline running directly from Russia to Germany, is not really about securing cheap natural gas. It is about personal gain and these two countries’ national interest. The pipeline across the Baltic has pitted the United States and the European Union against Germany, and a swelling chorus of domestic critics against Chancellor Angela Merkel. If it were just a matter of gas molecules, the project might never have seen the light of day. So, why did it? Go back to 2005, when Gerhard Schröder and Russian President Vladimir Putin sealed the deal just before Schröder stepped down as chancellor. Shortly after handing power over to...

Former SNP leader says evidence 'supports a deliberate, prolonged, malicious and concerted effort amongst a range of individuals' Source - Daily Telegraph - 22/02/21 Link Alex Salmond has alleged there was a conspiracy to remove him from public life and even imprison him involving a series of senior SNP figures including Nicola Sturgeon's husband and chief of staff. In an extraordinary submission to a Holyrood inquiry, the former First Minister said the evidence "supports a deliberate, prolonged, malicious and concerted effort amongst a range of individuals within the Scottish Government and the SNP." Mr Salmond, who will appear before the inquiry on Wednesday, said the "inescapable conclusion" was that they had tried to remove him from public life and claimed they would have succeeded if not for the court system. Among those he named were Peter Murrell, the SNP's chief executive and Ms Sturgeon's husband, and Liz Lloyd, her chief of staff. They ...

In five key areas, the Covid pandemic has irreversibly and fundamentally changed our way of life Source - Daily Telegraph 21/02/21 Link Boris Johnson announces the first cautious steps out of lockdown, the whole country is looking forward to that precious day when normal life can resume. But while schools will soon reopen, friends will meet and families reunite – in open air, at least – there will be no going back to the way things were. The pandemic and our response to it will change our economy and society forever, and the consequences will be profound. Just consider these five big examples. The first concerns our immediate economic choices. Everybody knows that we face a fiscal hangover after the interventions of the past year. But it does not follow that austerity is what must come next. Unlike with the financial crash, which caused a credit crunch that undermined productivity and economic growth and reduced tax receipts, the end of lockdown should see a rebound and strong growth a...

Proposals dubbed 'Water Wars' could see tit-for-tat measures taken, as the UK ends a number of continuity arrangements agreed with the EU Source  _ Daily Telegraph 20/02/21 Link The import of European mineral water and several food products into Britain could be restricted under retaliatory measures being considered by ministers over Brussels' refusal to end its blockade on UK shellfish. The Telegraph can disclose that ministers are looking at proposals dubbed "Water Wars" which could see the UK end a number of continuity arrangements it has agreed with the EU. Senior Government sources pointed to potential restrictions on the import of mineral water and seed potatoes, the latter of which the EU has secured a temporary agreement on until the end of June. In a warning shot to Brussels, a Government source said: “There is thought being given to where we can leverage in other areas. We have continuity arrangements... we can stop these which means they won’t be able t...

19 February 2021, 7:00am Source The Spectator Link Germans are increasingly losing faith in the European Union due to its bungled handling of the vaccine roll-out. Germany and the other member states have assigned Brussels to organise and oversee the procurement and distribution of Covid jabs. But, so far, the roll-out has been a logistic mess. According to a poll by Civey, commissioned by the German newspaper Der Spiegel, more than 60 per cent of German citizens said their view of Brussels had worsened in light of the disastrous vaccination management. Almost 70 per cent laid the blame at the feet of fellow German Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, who admitted last week that ‘mistakes were made’ in the bloc’s approach to the procurement of jabs. ‘The criticism of the EU comes from all political camps,’ Der Spiegel noted. ‘Among supporters of the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left, more than half said that their image of the...

Vaccine uptake in the EU is only poor because their leaders spread misinformation about the jabs. Source - Daily Telegraph - 19/02/21 Link As the EU and its larger member states have just amply demonstrated, there is no problem that cannot be made worse through pig-headed leadership.  Last month, when it became clear that Covid vaccines were being rolled out in Britain much faster than across the EU, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen blamed AstraZeneca for not delivering enough shots, and threatened legal action – as well as potentially blocking all vaccine exports from the EU, thereby punishing Britain as well as AstraZeneca. How is it going now? AstraZeneca has upped production, delivered more doses and announced that it will construct a new factory in Germany to roll out the drug faster. Yet the gap between vaccination in the EU and in Britain grows ever-wider. In Britain, 23.9 per cent of the population has now received at least one dose, with the government ac...

Faulty aircraft was an early scare in operation to make remote British overseas territory the first island to be fully inoculated in one hit. Source - Daily Telegraph - 17/02/21 Link As far as military operations go, it couldn't have had a worse start. The RAF had set itself the challenge of completing a world first by making Ascension Island, a British overseas territory, the first island to be fully vaccinated in one hit. But with just 72 hours to transport the precious cargo containing 2,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from Brize Norton to the remote island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the RAF’s A400M Atlas aircraft failed to start. The multifunctional plane was chosen for the mission – which is part of Operation Broadshare, the British military operation to fight the pandemic overseas – because of its lift capacity and experience of operating tactical landing zones, navigating short strips and conducting air drops. Wing Commander Lee Roberts, Officer Command...

  Starmer seems to understand that he must drop the Metropolitan woke act to win the next election. But the London mayor evidently doesn't. Source _ Daily Telegraph - 17/02/21 LINK The blinkered excitement that surrounded last year’s Black Lives Matter marches at last appears to be fading. At the recent England versus Scotland rugby international many players, including Billy Vunipola, refused to ‘take the knee’. The Crystal Palace striker Wilfried Zaha has also dismissed this gesture as “degrading”. And now, at last, the Home Secretary Priti Patel has said she would never take the knee either. It has taken much longer than it should have done, but the truth is beginning to circulate widely: BLM isn’t just a loose group of well meaning social activists who enjoy a protest - it’s a political organisation which would like to see Western capitalism brought down. Those of us who have tried to explain this since last summer can begin to breathe a sigh of relief. But there is one man who...

Attack comes as France claims British strategy 'has more risks' Source - Daily Telegraph 15/02/20 Link The EU's Covid vaccination efforts have been branded a "fiasco" by Guy Verhofstadt, who called for Brussels to renegotiate its "ill-conceived" contracts with manufacturers. In a video called "the inconvenient truth behind the vaccination fiasco of the EU", former Belgian prime minister Mr Verhofstadt laid the blame for low vaccine rates squarely at the feet of the European Commission and denounced the "diplomatic disaster" Brussels caused when triggering Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol. "If you believe in Europe, if you love Europe, it's your duty to be the most vocal critic, especially when Europe falls short of its potential and our expectations. That's exactly what’s happening now with the vaccinations," the MEP said. "It's a fiasco." Mr Verhofstadt pointed to the fact that only four per...