Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

 Brussels faced a revolt over its scientific alliances Source - Daily telegraph 28/02/23 Link Vladimir Putin is the Godfather of the Windsor Framework. Full-scale war in Europe for the first time since 1945 is what has made it possible to detoxify the Northern Ireland Protocol. Few people are aware that the UK extended its world-class cyberwarfare deterrent to the whole of Eastern and Central Europe at the outset of the conflict, raising the stakes for the Kremlin if it tried to take down their critical infrastructure with cyber attacks. Nor are they aware that the UK extended a solidarity guarantee to Sweden and Finland very early and at a critical juncture, offering de facto Article 5 protection even though they were not in NATO. But the significance of this was not lost on the governments of these countries, and they have a voice in EU affairs through multiple channels. Commission pettifogging over the trade of seed potatoes and sausages from one part of the UK to another had be...

The Windsor Framework finally ends the uncertainty created with the Northern Ireland Protocol, setting us on the path to new opportunities Link STEVE BAKER MINISTER OF STATE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND 27 February 2023 • 9:00pm We were elected on a manifesto pledge to "Get Brexit Done". However, the Northern Ireland Protocol has been – until now – unfinished business, just as we knew it would be when we voted for Boris Johnson’s deal. I passionately believe that our decision to leave the European Union was the right one and I keenly want us to take advantage of the full suite of opportunities open to us as an independent, sovereign nation, including in Northern Ireland as an integral part of our United Kingdom. The Protocol has upset the delicate balance of the Good Friday Agreement and caused the power-sharing institutions to collapse. We must rebalance the Protocol, restore the consent of all communities, and chart a new course for Northern Ireland – and the deal the Prime Ministe...

 Tory revolt brews as Brexit deal nears Source- Telegraph front page 27/02/22 Link The European Commission president will fly to London today to finalise a new Brexit deal with Rishi Sunak, despite warnings from Tory MPs that they will revolt if European judges retain a say over Northern Ireland. The Prime Minister will hold face-to-face talks with Ursula Von der Leyen, and the pair are expected to hold a press conference to announce the deal before it is presented to Parliament. However, Tory Eurosceptics and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) warned last night that they will not back a deal unless EU law is "expunged" from Northern Ireland – something they fear Mr Sunak’s agreement will fail to do. There is also concern over the fact that Downing Street has yet to explicitly confirm that MPs will be given a vote on the deal. Our Home Affairs Editor Charles Hymas writes that frustrations are being fuelled by the fact that Brexiteers feel they have been left in the dark duri...

 PM faces revolt as minister ‘on resignation watch’ after being shut out of negotiations Source - Daily Telegraph 25/02/22 Link Rishi Sunak is set to scrap Boris Johnson’s Northern Ireland Protocol Bill as part of his new deal with Brussels. The Prime Minister believes he has secured fundamental legal changes that render the Bill – designed to give the Government power to rip up parts of the protocol – no longer necessary as a bargaining chip. But in a sign of the growing rebellion against his deal, Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland minister and a leading Brexiteer, was understood on Saturday night to be on resignation watch after being frozen out of negotiations. Allies said he has been unhappy for some time and was prepared to walk if he is not convinced by the deal, expected to be announced as soon as Monday. Meanwhile, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) warned that Mr Sunak’s deal risked leaving Stormont in a permanent state of collapse if they refuse to re-enter power-sharing...

 It is important to stress how unusual and alarming this tax grab is   Axing the idiotic nutrient neutrality rule would be the clearest possible benefit of Brexit   Every single aspect of the housing is now moving in the wrong direction Source - CAPX 24/02/23 Link Imagine you run a company. There you are, quite literally minding your own business. When suddenly, a man from the Government appears on your doorstep. Your industry is full of bad people, he says, who have done bad things. So pay up, right now. Or he’ll shut down your firm. That doesn’t really sound like 21st century Britain, does it? More like Putin’s Russia or Erdogan’s Turkey. But that is what is happening to the housing sector. In the wake of the awful fire that consumed Grenfell Tower, we have all become uncomfortably aware that many high-rise buildings were insulated with material that turned out to be extraordinarily flammable. This needs to be fixed. Doing so is vastly expensive. The solution reached by...

Chairman of the Conservative Democratic Organisation says MPs ‘being held to account for plunging the party into crisis’ Source - Daily Telegraph 22/02/23 Link Dozens of sitting Tory MPs could be ousted as part of a “reckoning” by Conservative Party members furious at the way Boris Johnson was forced from office, a grassroots activist has claimed. David Campbell-Bannerman, the chairman of the Conservative Democratic Organisation, which is campaigning for a greater voice for Tory members, said MPs were “being held to account for plunging the party into crisis”. Members are particularly irked that they chose both Mr Johnson and Ms Truss, only for MPs to force out both and eventually appoint Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister. During the Conservative leadership campaign last summer, members voted by 57.4 per cent to 42.6 per cent for Ms Truss over Mr Sunak. Last weekend Damian Green, the former de facto deputy Prime Minister under Theresa May, was not selected to fight the Weald of Kent seat a...

Source - Daily Telegraph 22/02/23 Link Afternoon, Sir Keir Starmer said today that the UK has been stuck in a “crouched position” for too long, lacking the “confidence to move forward” as he set out his five-pronged vision for fixing the UK’s problems. And the Labour leader challenged Rishi Sunak to call a general election so that voters can deliver their verdict on the two leaders’ respective five-point plans for the UK. You can read more about Starmer’s speech in our live blog. What should Sunak’s response be? Many Tories are despairing at what they tell me is a leader who increasingly resembles Theresa May as he gets more and more bogged down by the Brexit talks over Northern Ireland. That came after the Prime Minister told MPs yesterday they would get to “express their view” on any agreement. Anyone remember the ghastly period of May’s “meaningful votes”? What a mess. And dozens of his own MPs are already preparing to block attempts to rip up the Northern Ireland Protocol which giv...

 Even while finding them guilty, a judge described the protestors as 'good people'   Individuals do not get to decide which laws apply to them   The courts should not be a platform for histrionic doom mongering Source - CAPX - 21/02/23 Link ‘You do not get to make up your own rules… And do you – do you – do you think you’re special? A contract means something. It’s the law, and it’s enforceable. Deal with it.’ This monologue, delivered by lawyer Kim Wexler in Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul, came to my mind when I read the remarks made by a judge when sentencing seven Just Stop Oil protestors last week.  The judge stated that the protestors were ‘good people with admirable aims’. He also commented that they were ‘a pleasure throughout to deal with’, that it was ‘unarguable… that we are facing a climate crisis’ and that he was moved by their explanations of their actions. He overlooked the deep anger felt by countless people up and down the country at the selfis...

The French president faces a three-and-a-half-year lame-duck long goodbye, or a flamboyant game of Russian roulette Source - Daily Telegraph 20/02/23 Link It’s the rumour that’s been doing the rounds in Paris for almost three months. Emmanuel Macron has been finding the lack of a majority in the National Assembly frustrating: it’s a climbdown from his first term, when the party of the self-minted “Jupiter” enjoyed a 35-seat majority. The president is said to be toying with the idea of calling an early general (legislative) election. It’s not that Macron believes he could win easily: this has become increasingly unlikely given the response to his botched pensions reform. The idea is that, like General de Gaulle in 1969, he would prefer to resign grandly rather than endure a “cohabitation” with an opposition prime minister, as François Mitterrand did in 1986-88 with Jacques Chirac, and Chirac himself had to between 1997 and 2002 with the Socialist Lionel Jospin. According to the theory, ...

The race to replace Nicola Sturgeon risks condemning the country to relative decline for another generation Source - Daily Telegraph - 20/02/23 Link The contest for the leadership of the Scottish National Party (SNP), and in turn to become First Minister of the second largest nation within the UK, has already become drably predictable. The proposals put forward are unfortunately all too familiar: Put up taxes. Spend more money. Bash the English. Put up taxes again. Spend even more money. Bash the English a bit more, and blame everything on Mrs Thatcher, whilst pointing out that she was English. Repeat as necessary. Even the supposedly “moderate”, fresh-faced Kate Forbes pushed up taxes as finance minister while running up a budget deficit so huge even the Greeks in their heyday would have been embarrassed by it. In truth, the SNP’s tax and spend policies are turning into a disaster for Scotland’s economy. With Westminster pushing taxes up to eye-watering levels, there is a huge opening...

Ashford MP Damian Green rejected as election candidate for new Weald of Kent constituency Source - Kent online 19/02/23 Link The future of MP Damian Green is uncertain after he was rejected as the Conservative Party’s candidate for a new Kent constituency. The 67-year-old, who currently represents Ashford and Tenterden, has not been picked to stand for the newly created Weald of Kent seat in the next general election. Mr Green, who is acting chairman of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, was rejected by the Weald of Kent Conservative Constituency Association. The seat which would include Tenterden, is planned as part of a national redrawing of constituency boundaries in time for the next general election, which has to be by December 2024. Ashford town itself would be in a smaller, separate seat, with its electorate falling from 94,054 to 73,546 voters. Mr Green could still put his name forward to represent the Ashford area, but says he is now considering his futur...

Whitehall officials and legal advisors weigh up whether London Mayor has exceeded his powers Source - Daily Telegraph 18/02/23 Link Whitehall officials and legal advisors are weighing up whether the London Mayor has exceeded his powers under the Greater London Authority (GLA) Act of 1999. Under the act, the Government has the power to veto any proposals by the Mayor that are “inconsistent” with national transport policies and “detrimental” to areas outside Greater London. The powers, under section 143 of the Act, have never been used before. In August, Mr Khan is set to expand the Ulez zone to cover all 32 boroughs in London, with vehicles that fail to meet emissions standards being forced to pay £12.50 every day to travel. In recent months, Mr Khan has met fierce resistance to the plans from councils in London and the Home Counties. Paul Scully, Minister for London, says Ulez ‘affects a whole load of people in Surrey, Kent and Hertfordshire who didn’t get a say on it’ Paul Scully, Min...

 Trying to link tax to the 'moral worth' a company's divisions is absurd   Would those lambasting Centrica prefer the counterfactual of a failing company?   Arbitrary one-off taxes send a terrible message to companies about investing in Britain Source - CAPX - 17/02/23 Link Another day, another set of hysterical headlines about energy company profits. This time Centrica plc, the £30bn owner of British Gas, has achieved record yet relatively unremarkable profits of £3.3bn – triple its results in 2021, but only around 10% of equivalent results for British fossil fuel majors. Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham describes this as ‘obscene’ and ‘rampaging energy profiteering’. Her words are echoed by Mel Evans of Greenpeace, who along with others is calling for a ‘proper windfall tax’. Some have also raised the recent story about a British Gas contractor’s unethical debt collection practices as evidence of Centrica’s malevolence and greed. Nor is this confined to the usual l...

 Her government held ordinary Scots in contempt. Source - Spiked 16/02/23 Link Say what you like about Nicola Sturgeon… or, on second thoughts, don’t. Especially if you’re tempted to say something contentious or offensive. Because during the outgoing first minister’s eight-year rule, Scotland has become the most illiberal nation in the UK. It is now a place where expressing your ‘problematic’ thoughts can land you with a prison sentence – even if you utter them in the privacy of your own home. Under Sturgeon’s rule, Scotland seems to have become a laboratory for new experiments in authoritarianism. Her SNP government has pioneered restrictions on every area of life imaginable – especially on what was once thought of as the private sphere, from how you can raise your children to the thoughts you can hold in your own head. Among the most illiberal of Sturgeon’s measures was the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. This hate-speech law makes it a crime, punishable by up to...

 Independence push and ‘anti-business’ agenda mean Scots are reeling Source ,- Daily Telegraph 15/02/23 Link As Nicola Sturgeon resigns as first minister of Scotland, Scottish businesses are left reeling from nearly a decade of high taxes, low growth and anti-business policies. Uncertainty over an economically damaging push for Scottish independence and punishing taxes have left Scots poorer and businesses in the doldrums. “Business and the economy was the one area where Sturgeon seemed out of her depth,” John Ferry, a contributor to These Islands think tank and finance spokesman for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, says. Earnings in Scotland have declined during Sturgeon’s time in office. Average earnings were 96.7pc of the UK equivalent when she took charge in 2014 but they have declined to just 92.9pc – far below the pre-2014 average of 95.9pc. Wages are now forecast to drop to 92pc of the UK average – the lowest share on record since at least 1988-99. Crucially, Sturgeon’s const...

 It’s inheritance and where you live which are the barriers to retirement Source - Resolution Foundation Link The UK’s state pension age is going up – and perhaps faster than expected. The age at which you can draw the state pension is due to rise from 66 to 67 by 2028. And the Government is now reportedly considering bringing forward the rise to 68 from 2046 to the 2030s, as part of its wider plans to encourage older workers to stay in the labour market. Everyone broadly knows why the pension age is going up: we’re living far longer than we were back in the 1940s when the state pension age for men was set at 65. So, if we want the same level of public services without much higher taxes, we have to work longer. In the UK there’s generally been a fair amount of political consensus around doing this – in marked contrast to France, where workers are busy striking over plans to raise the pension age from 62 to 64. While there was opposition to the increase in the women’s pension age fr...