Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

A merged Foreign & International Trade Office could start carving out a role for the UK as a free trade champion Source - Daily Telegraph - 18/09/21 Link Trade deals were wrapped up in record time. New partnerships were forged. And the UK started finally making the case for free trade with force, clarity and self-confidence. During her time at the Department for International Trade, Liz Truss proved herself one of the most capable ministers in the Johnson administration.  And while it is great to see one of the dwindling number of supporters of free markets in the Conservative Party promoted, anyone who cares about the progress of the British economy will have been slightly sorry to see her move to the Foreign Office. However, there is a simple solution to that: we should let her keep her old job, as well as taking on her new one. The time has surely come to merge the Foreign Office with the Department for International Trade to create a super-ministry charged both with boostin...

Our current housing model means SMEs and small builders are squeezed out   Under this scheme housing costs on a £300,000 home would be just over £1,000  This is a great way to build more affordable housing at no additional cost to the Treasury Source - CAPX - 16/09/21 Link   Less than two weeks after signing the Armistice in 1918, David Lloyd George gave a speech promising a country ‘fit for the heroes who have won the war’. He identified housing as key to fulfilling this promise and just months after winning re-election the house-building began in earnest. By the mid-30s, some 3 million houses had been built across the UK: Homes for Heroes. We too have heroes to whom we owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude – primarily, frontline workers within the NHS, but also the care workers, public transport workers, and private sector delivery drivers, supermarket staff and so many others who kept our society going. And we too have seen a similar desire to pull together and sh...

 ‘AUKUS’ partnership will work to protect our people and support a peaceful and rules-based international order. Source - gov.uk Link AUKUS’ partnership will work to protect our people and support a peaceful and rules-based international order First initiative will be collaboration on future nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy New alliance will bolster the Integrated Review commitment to strengthen alliances with like-minded allies and deepen ties in the Indo-Pacific landmark defence and security partnership has been agreed by the leaders of the UK, the United States and Australia today which will protect and defend our shared interests in the Indo-Pacific. Under the ‘AUKUS’ alliance, we will enhance the development of joint capabilities and technology sharing, ensuring our people are kept safe from harm and reinforcing our shared goals. AUKUS will foster deeper integration of security and defence-related science, technology, industrial bases and supply chains....

 Rising blue-collar pay will boost spending and home ownership – helping to fix unhealthy inequalities Source - Daily Telegraph - 14/09/21 Link The baristas at Costa Coffee are getting a 5pc pay rise. At Wincanton, the largest UK logistics firm, some drivers are seeing their pay bumped up by almost 30pc. At building sites, restaurant chains, factories and warehouses, blue-collar pay packets are rising at an unprecedented rate. We can all debate the reasons for it, from Brexit to the pandemic and demographic changes that are just starting to play out. But there is a more interesting question. How is it going to affect the economy? After all, we have not been in this situation for a long time. Blue-collar wages have stagnated over the last 20 years, even as professional earnings have grown. In reality, it will lead to four big trends. We will see a boom in consumer spending; an increase in home ownership; a decline in university education; and the rise of the labour-lite corporation....

Valneva's contract to supply the UK with Covid vaccine lies in tatters, along with the company’s share price Source - daily Telegraph - 13/09/21 Link Europe’s vaccine wars were a low point in the fight against Covid. Politicians from the trading bloc completely lost the plot with draconian threats to seize factories and implement export bans.  A vicious and sustained EU campaign to rubbish the heroic efforts of AstraZeneca was the most damaging act of all. Worse, it was driven by spite and jealousy. European politicians desperate to distract from the failure of their own vaccine programmes were determined to trash the interests of a country, fresh from delivering a humiliating Brexit victory, that had led the way on corona inoculation.  Even the blessing of the World Health Organisation and the European Medicines Agency wasn’t enough to stop the flow of misinformation. Of all the Continent’s leaders, it is Emmanuel Macron who behaved the most outrageously, throwing around base...

 If you could design an economy that is Covid resistant and future proof, it would be India’s   No country has more English-speaking coders, designers and engineers than India   India’s tech sector could become the digital equivalent of the City of London Souce -CAPX 09/09/21 Right now, India is defined, for many, by its brutal second wave of Covid. In the long-term, however, India will be one of the pandemic’s winners as the global economy becomes more digital-focussed and remote work becomes the norm, creating opportunities for India’s young tech-savvy workforce. As digital disruption is pushed further, India is poised to lead. The rest of the world’s ‘new normal’ is India’s old normal – the country’s IT sector has been a leading force for digital transformation globally for several years. Post-pandemic, India may become the world’s leading digital economy. Many Indian companies already lead digital transformations for global companies. If Britain wants a slice of India...

The liberal-Left are angry with the people for voting the wrong way, and now can’t help taking the EU’s side Source - Daily Telegraph  Link VERNON BOGDANOR 28 August 2021  Our politics is likely to be transformed both by Covid and Afghanistan. But it has already been transformed by Brexit and in unexpected ways – or at least in ways unexpected by a Remainer such as myself. We were told that Brexit would turn us into an insular if not racist country. In fact, Britain is more welcoming to immigrants than almost every EU member state. A Pew Global Attitudes Survey published in September 2020 showed just 37 per cent in favour of admitting fewer immigrants or none at all, a lower figure than anywhere in the EU except Spain. In supposedly liberal Germany and Sweden, the figures were 58 per cent and 52 per cent respectively, and in Italy 71 per cent.  When Britain left the European Parliament, she took with her more non-white MEPs than any other member state, 19 of which had non...