Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

 Euro 2024 elections seen as a battle to end Brussels overreach into national sovereignty Source - Daily Telegraph 31/12/23 Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen, Giorgia Meloni and Viktor Orban will lead their hard-Right parties to victory in next year’s European parliament elections, polls have predicted. Their parties are expected to be the largest in the Netherlands, France, Italy and Hungary after the EU-wide vote in June, which is seen as a battle to end Brussels overreach into national sovereignty. Nationalist parties from Poland, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Slovakia and Cyprus are also expected to return the most, or equal most, MEPs to Brussels and Strasbourg. More than a third of all MEPs are predicted to be at the very least critical of the EU in a European parliament that has long been dominated by pro-EU groups – up from around 25 per cent a decade ago, excluding the UK. Within that group, hard-Right parties, firmly opposed to Brussels and often anti-migration, are predi...

Optimism is currently in short supply – but after a disastrous year, there must be hope for 2024 Source - Daily Telegraph 30/12/23 It is the custom of this column at the turn of each year to make negative predictions. That is, to put forward things that may have been expected to happen but will not. At the end of what has been one of the most depressing twelve month periods that most of us can recall, this lot of anti-predictions is deliberately skewed in the direction of hope and optimism while still, I sincerely believe, remaining credible. First, Joe Biden will not run for a second term in the White House. This cannot be announced – or even admitted to be under consideration – until very late in the day since that would instantly render him a lame duck president. This would be very dangerous in the present global circumstances. With wars currently underway in two critical regions, the leader of the free world cannot become irrelevant and powerless. It will be easy enough when the ri...

High interest rates risk plunging Europe into recession while UK expected to rebound Source - Daily Telegraph 29/12/23 UK growth will outpace Germany and the eurozone for years to come as the Continent faces a deeper recession caused by higher interest rates. While both the German and UK economies shrank in the three months to September, putting both at risk of recession, analysts at UBS expect Britain to bounce back within a year. That is unlike Europe’s largest economy. Berlin is already grappling with a budget crisis after Germany’s top court ruled that the government broke the law by using Covid cash to fund net zero spending. House prices across the country have also suffered double-digit declines. Problems have been compounded by a slow transition away from cheap Russian gas, which analysts believe will continue to hold back Germany’s recovery next year. Economists at UBS anticipate growth of 0.5pc next year for the eurozone’s largest economy, followed by a modest acceleration of...

The upstart station has a loyal and growing audience. But a cabal of politicians, broadcasters and campaigners are determined to see it fail Source - Daily Telegraph 28/12/23 Link The media establishment rather gave the game away back in September when BBC’s Newsnight staged a typically smug one-sided debate about GB News. Caroline Nokes (the strangely leftish Tory MP for Romsey and Southampton North) and Adam Boulton (formerly the political oracle of Sky News) were of one mind: GB News should be closed down by Ofcom as soon as possible. The upstart station, Boulton claimed, was upsetting “the delicate ecology” of the British broadcasting scene. And we couldn’t have that. Mrs Nokes, speaking as the Chair of the Commons Women’s and Equalities select committee, said that GB News hardly mattered because of its “tiny audience” but notwithstanding its supposed insignificance it “should be taken off-air”. GB News’ offence was a decidedly off-colour remark made by one of its presenters – the ...

 Antibody could be included in immunisation programme next year after successful trials Source - Daily Telegraph - 27/12/23 A jab that prevents 80 per cent of children’s hospital admissions for a common winter virus has been hailed as a “game changer” for the NHS. The antibody Nirsevimab could be included in next winter’s immunisation programme after trials showed that it offers immediate protection for children against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). RSV is responsible for about 33,000 NHS hospitalisations of under-fives annually and kills between 20 and 30 children a year. The virus commonly causes a heavy cold and earache in babies but can lead to pneumonia and bronchiolitis, a severe disease that causes feeding difficulties, dehydration, chest infections and breathing failure. Children can catch RSV at any age, but it is particularly serious for those under 12 months and at-risk infants such as premature babies, as well as those who are immunocompromised or children with lun...

 PM hopes spring giveaway will increase chances as Labour prepares for early vote Source - Daily Telegraph 26/12/23 Downing Street is considering axing inheritance tax in three months’ time in a pre-election giveaway to boost Rishi Sunak’s chances of victory. The move is one of a handful of major tax cuts that have been discussed by senior figures in Number 10. The Prime Minister has ordered a “gear change” on tax, having made bringing down inflation, rather than reducing the tax burden, the priority early in his premiership. Other cuts being considered include increasing the threshold at which people start paying the 40 per cent rate of income tax, and reducing the basic 20 per cent rate. But scrapping inheritance tax is the least likely of the three moves to be matched by Labour – potentially creating the tax “dividing line” craved by Tory election strategists. Conservative MPs who have led calls for tax cuts welcomed the news, with one describing inheritance tax as “immoral” bec...

Far right' now includes feminists, Brexiters, elected representatives and nihilistic mobs  Elites use playground insults to express disapproval and shut down further discussion  Being angry about violence against children does not make someone 'far right' Source - Capx 27/11/23 Link   Last Thursday, Dublin city centre resembled a war zone. Violent mobs rioted for over three hours in what’s been described as ‘the worst disorder experienced for decades’. Vehicles, including police cars, were set on fire, and three buses and a tram were destroyed. The ‘huge destruction’ left shops badly damaged and windows broken. Looting followed.  The violence is believed to have been triggered by a knife attack that took place in the city earlier in the day. Three children and two adults were injured, four of whom remain in hospital. Among them is a five-year-old girl, said to be in a ‘critical condition’, and a teaching assistant who ‘used her body as a shield’ to protect children f...

 All the best to you all. 

If he brings the NHS to heel, builds more homes and cuts benefits, we may see a recovery. But will he dare? Source - Daily Telegraph 23/12/23 Assume that the opinion polls are right. Suppose that, at some point in 2024, Sir Keir Starmer wins a three-figure majority. What then? The laws of economics are as cold and inexorable as the laws of mathematics. At some point in the next Parliament, Britain seems likely to face a budget crisis. Nearly two years after the lifting of the last Covid restrictions, it is plain that we are never going to return to pre-lockdown spending levels. Government expenditure, which was below 40 per cent of GDP in 2019/20, is now closer to 50 per cent. We spend more on servicing our national debt than on defence. No one thinks this is sustainable; but no one is brave enough to do anything about it. Most MPs, including many Labour MPs, vaguely acknowledge that what were supposed to be emergency spending levels cannot carry on. Yet propose any specific cut and th...

The legislation perversely achieves the opposite of workplace fairness Source - Daily Telegraph - 23/12/23 Those who publicly oppose the Equality Act can swiftly find themselves in hot water.  Brought in under the last Labour government, it consolidated a series of earlier Acts, and was designed to eliminate discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere once and for all. Who could argue against that?  Jacob Rees-Mogg, for one. The former business secretary recently called for it to be repealed, in order that workers could “get on with their jobs, not spend all their time and energy in moralistic progressivism”.  And he’s right to raise concerns. The Equality Act has proved to be a minefield for employers. While its intentions are good, it is perversely achieving the opposite of true equality.  It bites strongly at the hiring of staff, undermining the precious principle that recruitment ought to be meritocratic, but its impact is worse when it comes to dismissal....

 The government now relates to us like a smack-happy father does to an errant child. Source - Spiked 22/12/23 Link I’ve never been sure about the expression ‘nanny state’, whose mildness fails to capture the UK government’s steady slide to social-engineering authoritarianism and inclination to punishment. The term’s implicit infantilising of the public is certainly apt, but nannies are parental employees who tend to cajole and implore, while enticing their unruly charges with the promise of sweeties if the urchins behave. At most, a frustrated minder might resort to a light smack on the bum, more symbolic than painful. Closer to an old-school disciplinarian father who spares not the rod, the British state is increasingly given to an all-out wallop, the kind that sends a kid flying to the opposite wall. Examples of the punitive and coercive nature of UK governance abound. It was once understood that British culture was inherently polite. Now decency is imposed from above through the...

 Jeremy Hunt has handed the City a post-Brexit boost by agreeing a trade deal with Switzerland. Source - Daily Telegraph 20/12/23 Link The Treasury on Wednesday announced a new financial services agreement that will reduce costs for UK businesses accessing the Swiss market and vice versa. The UK-Swiss deal will be signed in Bern on Thursday by Mr Hunt and Karin Keller-Sutter, head of Switzerland’s federal department of finance. It marks a further boost to the City as Mr Hunt slashes red tape in hopes of increasing the competitiveness of Britain’s financial services industry following Brexit. The Bern Financial Services Agreement means each country will recognise the other’s domestic laws and regulations on financial services. It is expected to make it easier for financial companies to offer cross-border services relating to insurance, banking, asset management and capital market infrastructure. The bilateral agreement, which will simplify operations for companies and wealthy client...

Shona Robison has increased Scotland’s top tax rate, imposed a £307m stealth tax and introduced a new 45p band on salaries above £75,000 Source - Daily Telegraph - 19/12/23 Link Scotland’s middle classes are to be forced to pay hundreds of pounds more income tax next year after Humza Yousaf’s government imposed a triple increase during the cost of living crisis. Shona Robison, the SNP finance secretary, used the Scottish Budget to announce a new 45p “advanced” tax rate for higher earners, to be applied to income between £75,000 and £125,140 from next April. Ms Robison also increased the top rate of tax in Scotland by 1p to 48p, applying to all income over £125,140. That is 3p in the pound higher than the top rate south of the border. In addition, she imposed a £307 million stealth tax by freezing the salary threshold for the 42p higher rate at £43,663, rather than increasing it by inflation. The move will affect middle-income workers like teachers, police officers and NHS staff through...

Tories have tiptoed around the big rise in the numbers not working because of mental health problems Source - Daily Telegraph 18/12/23 When it comes to the existential crises facing Britain, there are several contenders for the most troubling. There’s the liberal elite’s inability to control the country’s borders – a failure so unfathomable to most voters that it may yet trigger a second populist wave. There’s the productivity “puzzle” that, 15 years on, still leaves Treasury brains stumped and the average wage closer to that in Krakow than California. There’s the slow collapse of the NHS, as it haemorrhages staff and bleeds money. Still, the explosion in people claiming disability benefits could prove to be the country’s silent assassin. The number of Britons who have been declared too ill to work is now well over two million. The proportion of the working-age population on disability benefits has tripled, from 2 per cent in the early 1990s to around 6 per cent now. Young people are t...

There are no easy solutions in the war between globalisation and nativism JEREMY WARNER 17 December 2023 • 12:00pm “The economy, stupid”. This was the slogan emblazoned on the desk of James Carville, one of Bill Clinton’s strategists, during the 1992 presidential election to remind everyone of the primacy of the economy as a campaigning issue. It’s been a political touchstone ever since; focus on the economy, and you are more likely to win. Only these days, perhaps not so much. With rampant inflation, much higher interest rates and sluggish growth, you’d expect the economy to be everyone’s number one concern. Yet in almost all “high income” countries, it threatens to be eclipsed by a still more potent worry – immigration. Dissatisfaction with incumbent governments is today as much driven by perceived failure on migration as it is on the economy. The electoral pushback is universal. Republicans have voted against more aid to Ukraine not out of sympathy for Putin, but as a way of highlig...