Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

There will be no legal requirement to show Covid jab status at large events, as ministers go cool on proposals. Source - Daily Telegraph 30/05/21 Link Plans to make Covid-19 passports a legal requirement for large events are set to be dropped, The Telegraph understands.  Officials working on the review into Covid-19 status certification believe there is no chance the law will be changed to mandate their use within the UK. “It’s not a case of ‘it’s finely balanced’. It’s not going to happen,” said one well-placed government source close to the review. “Everyone says it’s dead.”   It comes as ministers examine data to determine whether the lifting of restrictions can continue as planned from June 21 in England, when it was hoped that the public would be able to return in greater numbers to mass events such as football matches and concerts. The Government first expressed interest in Covid passports in February, when a review into their use domestically was launched as part o...

Oil and salmon industries fear they could be sacrificial lambs in pact between two parties Source Daily Telegraph 28/05/21 Link The head of Glasgow’s Chamber of Commerce did not hold back when he warned of a crisis in trust between businesses and the Scottish Government. “At times it seems like the Government is lecturing the business community on fair work, the green economy, as if the business community are a bunch of naughty schoolchildren who need to be brought to heel,” Stuart Patrick told The Herald in December.   “Fundamentally, the challenges of fair work and the green economy are largely going to be resolved by innovation in the private sector.” That outburst was triggered by Covid restrictions - but it is symptomatic of an uneasy relationship with the corporate which veers from mistrust of the SNP's left-wing agenda to outright disgust that it is seemingly willing to put independence ahead of any economic considerations. Now, the mettle of Scottish firms is about to ...

 PLUS: Alan Cochrane says few Scots will be surprised that the English are fed up with us and the perpetual clamour about independence. Source - Daily Telegraph - 28/05/21 Link The scale of apathy towards Scottish independence by English voters has been revealed by an exclusive Telegraph poll, which found only 20 per cent “strongly oppose” separation. Aside from Covid, it has become the most pressing issue of Boris Johnson’s premiership. With Nicola Sturgeon insisting it is a case of “when not if” the SNP holds a second independence referendum, the Prime Minister knows the future of the UK lies in his hands. Despite Scotland’s First Minister failing to win an outright majority at Holyrood earlier this month, she appears hell-bent on Scottish separatism. This week, she even went so far as to suggest that she would consider ministerial posts for the radical Left-wing Scottish Greens to shore up her mandate for another ballot. The SNP won 64 seats in the election - one short of a majo...

A  laid-back promo video for Andrew Neil's TV news alternative pledges to 'show all parts of the UK to all parts of the UK'. Take note, W1A Source Daily telegraph - 27/05/21 Link After months of teasing and vaguely worded Twitter statements, Andrew Neil’s 24-hours news channel, GB News, has finally added some meat to its bones ahead of its launch on June 13. Today the channel uploaded, on YouTube and social media, two five-minute videos inviting us to “meet the family”, ie its roster of keen-bean presenters, all dutifully lined up to sing GB News’s praises. No one utters the word “BBC” during the videos, but W1A be warned - they’re coming for you. The lavishly-shot segments are clearly intended to set out the channel’s stall: “PC culture”, being told your opinion is wrong, and metropolitan elitism is out. “Ground-up reporting”, celebrating Great Britain, and giving a voice to those who feel ignored are firmly in. GB News wants to assure those who feel censured by the media ...

Shades of Brexit negotiations as Swiss government rejects European Union overtures following seven years of diplomatic wrangling. Source - Daily Telegraph - 26/05/21 Link Switzerland said "no deal" to Brussels’ freedom of movement demands and pulled out of seven years of tortured trade negotiations with the European Union on Wednesday. Bern pulled the plug after years of difficult talks over Single Market access that are reminiscent of the European Commission’s Brexit negotiations with the UK over the past four years.  "The Federal Council today took the decision not to sign the agreement, and communicated this decision to the EU. This brings the negotiations [...] to a close," the Swiss government said.  “There remain substantial differences between Switzerland and the EU on key aspects of the agreement. The conditions are thus not met for the signing of the agreement," it said after a cabinet meeting. The commission, which negotiates on behalf of the 27 EU me...

Policy blueprint based on 'fantasy economics', say Tories, with a separate Scotland already facing huge deficit following the pandemic. Source - Daily Telegraph - 25/05/21 Link An independent Scotland would examine decriminalising personal drug use, encouraging immigration and imposing a wealth tax on an1yone with assets worth more than £500,000, an SNP blueprint has said. The Nationalists’ social justice and fairness commission said a one-off tax, possibly imposed at one per cent on holdings of wealth over £500,000, could be used to help close a separate Scotland’s huge deficit following the pandemic. However, the report acknowledged there may be “behavioural responses” by wealthy people moving their assets elsewhere and “practical difficulties” in the state creating an “inventory of all wealth” – such as cars and jewellery – “and revaluing it annually”. It also proposed increasing taxes on higher earners, replacing council tax with a levy based on land value and exploring a u...

Treasury demands crackdown on US tech companies as price for supporting White House threshold. Source - Daily Telegraph - 24/05/21 Link Ministers are refusing to back a global overhaul of corporation tax championed by Joe Biden unless the White House supports their demands to crack down on US tech titans. President Biden is thought to have won round most major Western nations in his bid to impose a global minimum threshold for corporation tax, to prevent companies from sheltering profits offshore. However, sources said that Britain has not yet given the proposal its backing because the Government is pushing for strict rules that specifically target Silicon Valley titans such as Google. It is feared that if Whitehall backs the Biden minimum rate too soon, it will lose leverage for action on big tech. The high-stakes gambit threatens ambitions to agree major changes to the international tax system ahead of next month’s G7 summit, to be hosted in Cornwall. A Treasury source said: “A mini...

Source - John Redwoods Diary 23/05/21 Link Some questions for the BBC. The BBC continues on its long chosen road of opposition to Brexit, hostility to populist movements, veneration of the world of elites and international treaties, and a slavish following to everything wokeish. In interview after interview we have the same tropes and tired questions, nearly always asked from the point of view that the UK government is to blame for the world’s ills and more government and a bigger public sector would solve many of them. All this requires an avalanche of sloppy thinking and a passion for olds over news. It also means a relish for unseen contradictions. Here’s a few questions: Why was it so crucial to have a zero tariffs free trade deal with the EU, yet a similar deal with Australia or the USA would according to recent questions and features be ruinous? If the BBC really is concerned about UK farming, why has it never examined the great damage done by EU policy and EU imports to our ab...

A handful of remainers cannot let go and, like Jacobites, cling to what they know to be a lost cause because it is part of their identity. Source - Daily Telegraph - 22/05/21 Link DANIEL HANNAN 22 May 2021 • 4:00pm Daniel Hannan Something became painfully clear this week. The opposition to Britain’s global trade deals is not driven by concern for hill farmers, or fears for the Union, or any economic calculations whatever. It is driven, rather, by Europhile nostalgia; by the desire, perhaps unconscious, for Brexit to fail so that its opponents might be proved right after all. Most Remainers accepted the referendum result with good grace. But a handful cannot let go and, like Jacobites, cling to what they know to be a lost cause because it has become part of their identity. The paradox is that, in doing so, they have lost touch with the principles that made them support the EU in the first place. The case for free trade is essentially internationalist. It takes as its starting point the ...

 The Chancellor should remove the threat of higher charges on companies and consumers and let the economy roar back from Covid at warp speed Source - Daily Telegraph - 22/05/21 Link The roaring Twenties. The post-pandemic boom. The Covid crash. At this rate even the most imaginative pundits and headline writers are going to exhaust the supplies of synonyms to describe the British economy. Retail sales growing at 9.2pc, the fastest rate on record, are just the start of it. The jobs market is resilient, wages are rising, investment is starting to flow and even our trade with the rest of Europe is recovering. Growth is turning out to be a lot stronger than anyone expected even a few weeks ago. But hold on. The Chancellor is still basing his plans to raise taxes on forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility that are now hopelessly out of date. By the end of the summer, the Treasury is going to be overflowing with unexpected revenues, yet there are still hefty rises in taxes co...

 The Government's planned railway reforms simply make the state’s existing role in the system more obvious   Get it right and Great British Railways could become an iconic national institution   There's a reason the SNP have the saltire splashed all over the trains under their control Source CAPX - 20/05/21 Link News that the Government intends to ‘renationalise the railways’ – or at least, overhaul the franchise system for passenger services – is the latest sign that we’re in the middle of a shift towards a new Conservative orthodoxy. This move has caused some distress to free marketeers. And it may indeed turn out to involve some unwise steps, such as trying to end ‘duplication’ on trunk routes. This is what allows different franchises to compete on fares, and should certainly be retained. But there is more to transport policy than simply the economics of the railway – just as there is more to sport regulation than the finances of the Premier League. It seems to be beco...

Instead of setting our face against new trade deals, farmers need to focus on how we can compete. Source - Daily Telegraph - 19/05/21 Link For years now, Britain’s television news market has been broken, its audience in decline and its business model undermined by technology. The BBC’s grip on TV news now faces an even more acute threat: in an era of Brexit, culture wars and the politicisation of everything, the corporation’s soft-Left, technocratic bias no longer satisfies anybody. Centre-Right audiences have run out of patience with broadcasters – the BBC, Sky, ITV and of course the explicitly Left-wing Channel 4 – that no longer understand the cultural conservative majority, that have bought into woke authoritarianism and whose attempts at impartiality are often risible. Left-wing audiences, for their part, have become so extreme that they somehow believe that the BBC is Tory. Mass market, universal news broadcasting is no longer viable: the BBC is going the way of the Labour Party,...

Knowing exactly what they are voting for would let Scots make a realistic choice, stripped of the illusions spun by the Nationalists. Source - Daily Telegraph - 10/05/21 Link It's a democratic right. The Scottish people have spoken. And the will of the electorate shouldn’t be ignored by a Government in Westminster they didn’t vote for. Over the next year we will hear an endless series of arguments from the Scottish Nationalists about why there should be a replay of the 2014 referendum on breaking away from the United Kingdom. And we will hear just as much from the Johnson government about how there’s no mandate, it isn’t necessary, and there are more important things to worry about. The argument looks set to run and run, while investment and confidence will drain out of a country with an uncertain future.  But hold on - there is a simple way out of the impasse. Westminster and Edinburgh should strike a deal. The SNP could have its referendum, but only if the party signs up to a sep...

 Keeping tariffs on food is a classic example of organised producers trumping consumers  The NFU claims opening up our markets risks turning England into a dustbowl  Here's a crazy idea: why not let shoppers decided for themselves what products they prefer Source - CAPX - 27/05/21 Link One of the challenges for free traders is that whenever trade barriers are lowered, while consumers gain from lower prices and wider choice, existing producers, who do not or cannot adapt, lose out due to increased competition. Economists usually describe this as dispersed gains but concentrated losses. Often the producers are better organised and more vocal than the hundreds, thousands or even millions of dispersed consumers who benefit from free trade. We have seen this phenomenon unfold in the UK since we left the EU. When the UK was a member of the EU, we were bound by the EU’s Common External Tariff (CET) under which only 47% of the UK’s trade with the rest of the world was tariff-free...

 Exports to the EU have rebounded in a victory for Brexit optimists   Brexit is not the only explanation for the weakness in UK imports   The long-term hit to trade from leaving the EU will be smaller than many feared Source - CAPX 14/05/21 Link The latest data on the UK’s international trade (published on Wednesday) offered something for everyone. For some, they are further proof of the lasting damage that Brexit will do to our trade with the EU and therefore, by extension, to the UK economy. For others, the recovery in the UK’s exports to the EU confirms that businesses are adapting well to the new rules, while the persistent weakness of imports from the EU is either temporary, or even something to welcome. At least almost everyone accepts that any increase in trade frictions is likely to reduce the amounts that the UK and the EU sell to each other: this is just ‘Economics 101’. But there is still plenty of room for disagreement about the size and duration of this hit –...