Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

  The fee would have to be paid by anyone staying in a hotel, self catered apartment or campsite overnight Source - Wales Online - 10/02/22 Link Plans for a tourism tax for people staying overnight in Wales have taken a step forward. The Welsh Government has confirmed a consultation will be launched this autumn when details will be released. The fee would have to be paid by those staying in a council area overnight and would be up to councils to set. The Welsh Government says a tourism tax would raise money for councils to manage services and infrastructure in tourist hotspots. It is part of Welsh Government policy, agreed through their co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru. Some details had already been detailed by First Minister Mark Drakeford. Finance and local government minister Rebecca Evans said: "Visitor levies are a common feature in tourist destinations internationally. They are an opportunity for visitors to make an investment in local infrastructure and services, whi...

 There's every incentive to make the terms of any second independence vote as tough as possible   Why wouldn't the rest of the UK make demands as outrageous as Scotland's?   Making the conditions of withdrawal clear before a referendum would hoist the SNP by their own petard Source - CAPX - 10/02/21 Link The possibility of an independent Scotland is often framed as a ‘divorce’ but I think of it more like being on bad date. Having ordered the most expensive items on the menu, your love interest spends the entire evening berating you before demanding you foot the bill, the tip, and their taxi home. That’s the implication of Ian Blackford’s claim that after Independence, the UK would carry on paying Scottish pensions. With a straight face, Nicola Sturgeon affirmed this view. This unconditional generosity would come on top of the ‘full fiscal transfer’ – the nationalists’ belief that Scotland can walk away from its share of UK debt, including the vast sums it has run up since...

The Government’s fate could well depend on Jacob Rees-Mogg's ability to stop the drift towards "Brussels on Thames" Source - Daily Telegraph - 09/02/22 Link The Prime Minister’s efforts to shore up his premiership after a rocky few weeks continued today with a mini-reshuffle of his front bench. He followed up the surprise appointment of Steve Barclay, the Cabinet Office minister, to the role of No 10 chief of staff by moving Jacob Rees-Mogg, another of his strongest supporters, to a more hands-on role. He leaves the post of Commons leader, which he seemed to the manner born, to become Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency based in the Cabinet Office. His role as Leader of the House is to be taken by Mark Spencer, the former government chief whip, whose days had seemed numbered after a succession of pratfalls. Mr Rees-Mogg is an ardent Brexiteer who has never wavered in his enthusiasm for the opportunities offered by leaving the EU and will now be res...

 Source - Choppers Politics - Daily Telegraph - 07/02/22 Link Afternoon! Is Boris Johnson getting his act together? It certainly seems so, with the appointment of Steve Barclay, the Cabinet Office minister, to a new role as chief of staff, and Andrew Griffith as head of policy. Both Barclay and Griffith are of course Conservative MPs who have replaced unelected officials, which if nothing else shows that Johnson is listening to his backbenchers in wanting to strengthen links between Downing Street and Parliament. The appointment of Barclay is well-deserved. He became the minister who ‘saved Christmas’ late last year after he successfully took over and quietly defused the row over logistics chains that threatened supplies of turkey over the festive break. His Brexit credentials are without question. He was the only declared Leaver in Theresa May's Whips' Office. And when he became her secretary of state for exiting the European Union, he also voted against his own motion to exte...

  Report finds UK’s net performance with the EU has seen 'significant improvement' Source - Daily Telegraph - 04/02/22 Link Doomsday predictions of a post-Brexit collapse in trade have “failed to materialise” according to a leading Westminster think tank.  A report by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) said there had been a “significant improvement” in the UK’s net trade performance with the EU since the referendum nearly six years ago.  Paul Mortimer-Lee, the report’s author and a deputy director at Niesr, said: “This raises the question of whether analysts have been looking in the right place when searching for economic losses owing to Brexit.”  Mr Mortimer-Lee said the UK should eventually reach a “stable” trade deficit with the EU, with the net difference between exports and imports likely to settle at a third of its pre-referendum levels.  He said the gap between the latest figures and the pre-referendum trend was equivalent to 2...

 The ludicrous pensions claim casts doubt over the wider SNP argument for independence   The SNP is effectively admitting that an independent Scotland can't fully fund people's pensions   Does the SNP really think a 'rest of UK' government would simply go on paying Scottish pensions? Source - CAPX- 04/02/22 Link I doubt Nicola Sturgeon wakes up in the middle of the night desperately missing the guidance of her former friend/mentor/nemesis, Alex Salmond. Nevertheless, there must be times when she wishes she, or the people around her, had the same effortless ability possessed by the former First Minister to control the media agenda, or at least to manipulate it in his favour. Deep down, the current SNP leader must surely be thinking: Alex wouldn’t have fallen into this trap. How on earth did she end up having to defend a claim that, after Scotland gains independence, state pensions will continue to be paid by the state from which Scotland has just broken free? It’s a bold...

 The DUP member is expected to step down this afternoon Source Daily Telegraph - 03/12/22 Link Northern Ireland’s First Minister is set to resign, according to reports, after Brexit border checks on British goods continued despite a DUP order for them to be halted.  Paul Givan, of the DUP, is expected to step down this afternoon, a day after his Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots said Northern Ireland Protocol checks on British agri-food exports to the province must stop.  If Mr Givan does resign, it will force Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill to quit as Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, ahead of elections on May 5. The Belfast Telegraph reported that all other Stomont ministers would stay in their post ahead of the planned elections, which it is feared will become a de facto referendum on the protocol.   The DUP has previously threatened to collapse the Assembly and trigger early elections over their opposition for the protocol, which prevents a...