Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

  When such rows blow up, it is tempting to think that there must be a dollop of blame on both sides. But not this time Souce - Daily Telegraph - 31/10/21 Link   You know what? Remainers were right. They always said that Brexit would lead to an upsurge in populism and demagoguery that would undermine international relations, and it has. But it has happened in France, not the UK. The fisheries row follows a familiar pattern, with French ministers blustering and threatening while their British counterparts urge both sides to follow the rules. We saw the same thing over Aukus, over illegal migration and over vaccines. In each case, France threw a tantrum while the UK tried to behave like an adult. Over the past week, British ministers have been appealing both to their French counterparts and to the EU (which controls France’s fisheries agreements) to stick to the deal that the two sides signed on 30 December, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). French ministers, by contras...

The arrival of a hunter-killer vessel in Perth offers Britain a chance to push its case to build similar submarines under the Aukus deal Source - Daily Telegraph - 29/10/21 Link A Royal Navy submarine has visited Australia as Britain pitches to gazump the US and build Canberra a new underwater fleet to counter China in the Pacific. HMS Astute docked in Perth only weeks after Britain and America signed ai security pact with Australia that would see the Asian-Pacific country purchase eight nuclear-powered submarines. The arrival of the 16,000 tonne hunter-killer vessel offers Britain a chance to push its case to build similar submarines against stiff American competition, analysts have said. Ben Wallace, Defence Secretary, said Australia was at the heart of Britain's tilt to project more military power in the Pacific and the two navies “have enjoyed a close and mutually beneficial relationship for over a hundred years”. The head of the Australian navy said the visit was “timely”. It ...

Diplomat to be given formal rebuke after British scallop trawler captain is detained for ‘unlicensed’ fishing   Source - Daily Telegraph 28/10/21 Link The French ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office for a formal rebuke after France detained a British scallop trawler in a dispute over fishing licences. Catherine Colonna, France’s top diplomat in London, will be called in on Friday amid a rapidly escalating row with Paris over post-Brexit fishing rights. Government sources said they believed it was the first time in decades that a French ambassador had been summoned by Britain, one of the nation’s closest allies. It came as the skipper of the Cornelis Gert Jan - a trawler from Scotland - was questioned by police in Le Havre for five hours on Thursday and accused of fishing in French waters without a licence. The boat was held in port while the skipper was interrogated and threatened with a €75,000 fine, despite the owner of the vessel insisting it had been operating leg...

Source  CAPX 27/10/21 If March’s Budget was a rather dour affair, today’s follow-up was altogether jollier. Rishi Sunak bounced to his feet, buoyed not just by his pre-game Twix and Sprite, but by a sunny forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility – higher growth (for a couple of years), lower unemployment, debt finally starting to fall (at least in percentage terms). Even the threat of inflation hitting 4% didn’t seem to dampen Sunak’s enthusiasm.  Those better than expected growth numbers underpinned Sunak’s multi-pronged plan for a ‘stronger economy’ (a phrase he repeated on no fewer than 14 occasions). As his speech went on, however, it became increasingly difficult to distinguish between a stronger economy and a bigger state. As Sunak himself noted, the pandemic response meant that ‘last year, the state grew to be over half the size of the total economy. Taxes are rising to their highest level as a percentage of GDP since the 1950s.’ What’s remarkable is how litt...

 French voters are beginning to see the cracks in the President's Machiavellian politics Source - Daily Telegraph 26/10/21 Link The slippery slope for the last French president began when two journalists at Le Monde published a devastating account: A President Should Not Say That. It showed François Hollande to be a vituperative narcissist, and patently unfit to lead the great nation of France. It crystallised a sense that he was not up to the task, and set in motion the final unravelling of his quinquennat.  Authors Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme have now followed up with an equally subversive book on Emmanuel Macron, this time exposing the fundamental emptiness of the incumbent. Le traître et le néant – the traitor and abyss – draws on over a hundred sources to portray him as a manipulator, willing to betray his mentor, party, and ideals, all for no purpose beyond power. An alarmed Élysée is battening down the hatches for a storm. President Macron wrote his master’s thesis ...

Gallup poll shows 11.3 per cent approval rating fall in the wake of coronavirus, economic woes and America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan Source - Daily Telegraph - 23/10/21 Link Joe Biden's popularity has fallen more in his first nine months than any other US President since the Second World War. An exhaustive study by Gallup showed Mr Biden's approval rating had plummeted by 11.3 per cent, worse than all the other 10 presidents before him It indicated that Mr Biden has dropped further below the US public's expectations than his predecessors, and suggests he has a mountain to climb if he is to win back independent voters who have soured on him. The figures showed that, over the course of his first three months from January 20 to April 19, Mr Biden's approval rating was 56 per cent. But in the last three months, from July 20 to October 19, it had fallen to 44.7 per cent. That slide of 11.3 per cent meant he fared worse than the previous holder of the record, Barack Obama...

Follows claims that PM was prepared to accept a limited role for the court in a bid to reach a new deal with the EU over the protocol Source - Daily Telegraph - 23/10/21 Link Boris Johnson will refuse to allow a compromise with Brussels that would give the European Court of Justice a continuing role in policing the Northern Ireland protocol, it has emerged. A Government source denied speculation that the UK could back down over an insistence by Lord Frost, the Cabinet Office minister, that the role of the Luxembourg court should be eliminated altogether from the agreement over the goods trade on the island of Ireland. The intervention followed claims that Mr Johnson was prepared to accept a limited role for the court in a bid to reach a new deal with the EU over the protocol. But a Government source said: "There’s been plenty of speculation about governance this week but our position remains unchanged: the role of the European Court of Justice in resolving disputes between the UK ...

Country’s ruling party could target EU net zero policy in retaliation for move to punish Warsaw in rule of law spat, claims party official Source - Daily Telegraph 23/10/21 Link Poland could adopt a “dirty Remainer” strategy and bring the European Union’s policy machine to a grinding halt in retaliation for any move to punish Warsaw in the row over the primacy of EU law, according to a senior member of the country’s ruling party. In the latest twist in a long-running spat between Brussels and Warsaw over the rule of law, the move could see the bloc’s drive to become carbon neutral by 2050 brought to its knee Prof Ryszard Legutko, who leads the ruling Law and Justice party’s delegation in the European Parliament, said his bosses in Warsaw were planning potential responses to threats to withhold tens of billions of euros in EU funding The Polish government has been at loggerheads with the European Commission for five years over a number of controversial judicial reforms, including a disc...

 This is the Global Britain agenda coming to fruition SouEve - Daily Telegraph - 21/10/21 Link New Zealand’s economy was damaged more than any other by Britain's ascension to the European Economic Community in 1973. The UK had made up almost half of New Zealand’s exports. But then, practically overnight, substantial trade barriers were introduced. It has long been considered a ‘betrayal’ for Kiwis who had sacrificed for Britain's freedom across world wars and have a shared heritage, a liberal democratic culture and head of state. The turn towards Europe threw Kiwis out onto the garbage heap.  New Zealand responded by pursuing an ambitious free trading economic reform agenda. This led to a difficult adjustment period followed by an immense global trading prosperity. It’s therefore historically fitting that Britain has struck her second new post-Brexit trade deal with the island nation. Anne-Marie Trevelyan is right in saying that it is a win-win for British and Kiwi consumers a...

 A Leeds baker has fallen foul of Trading Standards for using American sprinkles   Pointless EU rules banning red food colouring have been baked into British law   Scrapping red tape on sprinkles would be the icing on the cake of Britain's independence from the EU Source CAPX - 20/10/21 Link Some criticise post-Brexit Britain for wanting to have its cake and eat it, but surely no one would begrudge us a few sprinkles? Except, as Leeds baker Rich Myers, owner of Get Baked, recently found out, if you use quality American sprinkles, Trading Standards might come knocking. Parasitic EU regulations designed to protect the self-serving the EU market have been baked in to British law. As Myers explained in his Facebook post American sprinkles are superior. ‘I am only prepared to use them and no others. If I can’t use them, I won’t use any. I will be on sprinkle strike and won’t budge for no man.; He explained, there is no substitute “sprinkles you can get in this country are tota...

 Strikes by binmen, road-blocking protests and hotel rooms priced at £1,400 a night set to cast shadow over UN Climate Change Conference Source - Daily Telegraph 20/10/21 Link With more than 120 world leaders coming to Glasgow for the UN climate summit, it should have been a once in a generation chance to show off the very best of Britain to the watching world. Instead, Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and others will be greeted by rubbish-strewn streets, gridlocked roads, cancelled trains, glued-down protesters and a plague of rats after a city under SNP leadership became a “midden”. Refuse workers and train drivers have announced they will go on strike during the conference, prompting warnings of “world leaders stepping over bin bags” and a “humiliation on the world stage”. A chronic shortage of accommodation in Glasgow, which has led to a 3,000 per cent increase in the price of hotel rooms, has forced some delegations to book hotels 130 miles away. Two Eastern European cruise liners h...

We've been freed from membership of a supra-national body whose culture treats innovation as threat rather than opportunity Source - Daily Telegraph - 19/10/21   Link What was that about investment draining away from Britain to the EU after Brexit? That is not quite how things are working out. According to Dealroom, a website which provides data on finance for start-ups, British companies have raised over $30 billion in funding in 2021, more than twice that they raised last year. Our tech companies have raised more finance than any other country in Europe and behind only the US and China. Among the successes are Revolut, a banking app company which is now worth $33 billion and Hopin, which organises online events and is now worth $7.8 billion. Measure investments in start-ups on a per capita basis and two of the top four countries in Europe are outside the EU. First comes Estonia on 1,967 euros per head investment in 2021, followed by Sweden on 1,769 euros, followed by Switzerla...

Mateusz Morawiecki accuses bloc of ‘starving’ Poland with threats to withhold Covid recovery funds in European law row. Source - Daily Telegraph 18/10/21 Link The European Union risks collapse or becoming a dictatorship if it continues to blackmail Warsaw over fears of "Polexit", the Polish prime minister said on Monday. In a letter to EU leaders, Mateusz Morawiecki accused the bloc of "punishing" and "starving" Poland with threats to withhold £48 billion of Covid recovery funds in a row over the supremacy of European law. The Polish Constitutional Court ruled that its rules superseded EU law, which contradicts the bloc's founding treaties, on Oct 8.  EU leaders are set to discuss the crisis at a Brussels summit this week. Mr Morawiecki said Poland remained a "loyal member" of the EU but warned that the bloc was turning into an anti-democratic federal superstate that trampled over national sovereignty. "We ought to be anxious about the g...

Dominic Raab: I’ll overhaul the Human Rights Act to stop Strasbourg dictating to us The Justice Secretary says he is devising a way to allow the Government to introduce legislation to 'correct' court judgments Source - Sunday Telegraph 17/10/21 Link British soldiers and institutions such as the police and health service should not be "dictated to" by judges in Strasbourg, Dominic Raab said, as he unveiled details of a planned overhaul of the Human Rights Act. In an interview with The Telegraph, the Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary suggested that the European Court of Human Rights was imposing too many "obligations on the state" rather than simply defending individuals from "undue interference". He also warned that foreign criminals' use of the Act's "right to family life" remained a "serious issue" that he intended to address, with "somewhere between 100 and 200 cases a year whereby foreign national offen...

 General questions about the economy elicit quite different ones to specific questions about people's circumstances   Output is set to return to pre-Covid levels long before many analysts were suggesting earlier this year   Many commentators have a negative bias, as do businesses seeking to feed at the taxpayer trough Source CAPX - 14/10/21 Link Confidence in the UK economy has tumbled in the last few weeks, driven by fears of a cost of living crisis, reports of empty shelves, fuel shortages, rising taxes, interest rate hikes, and even a Christmas deprived of turkey or presents. The panic at the pumps shows that these fears can sometimes be self-fulfilling. It is therefore time for a reality check. Let’s start with the national mood. The latest survey data on consumer and business confidence are not as dire as many reports suggest. For example, the YouGov/CEBR index of consumer confidence fell further in September, but only to its lowest level since April, which was still...

The Government must hold firm on calls for state bailouts, well-run firms will stand on their own two feet Source - Daily telegraph - 15/10/21 Link In recent weeks, a pattern has emerged in the approach of big business to the various post-pandemic convulsions in the economy. It goes like this: first, warn that the sky is about to fall in; then portray it, falsely, as a uniquely British phenomenon; finally, call for yet more state support, as if the Government hasn’t thrown enough taxpayer money at the economy already.  Do some of these people think that there is a magic money tree in Whitehall to prop up struggling enterprises in perpetuity? At what point do businesses expect to wean themselves off Treasury subsidies, and have they thought about how or when it might be repaid? It is a deeply frustrating habit, enabled as ever, by the big lobby groups such as the CBI, Make UK, and UK Steel. There is no denying that companies face some serious challenges right now. Supply bottlenecks...