Archive for the ‘Theresa May’ Tag
What insights can I add?
Filed under: International, Politics, Trump | Tags: Brexit, Donald Trump, Jon Snow, Theresa May
Leave a comment I am observing, like most of us, events in the USA. This time last week, I shivered at that image of Theresa May, the UK Prime Minister, holding the hand of Donald Trump, President of the USA. OK, she held his hand to steady him as they walked down some stairs. He’s 70 after all.
I have struggled with Owen Smith, Labour’s leadership challenger and now rebel. But he has gone up in my estimation relating to the last week’s vote in the UK Parliament sanctioning the trigger for Article 50 – starting the process of exit.
Brexit in the context of Trump is a different proposition to the one at the time of the referendum in June 2016. Especially with UK International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, being linked to Trump’s sinister corporate Dark Money (and notwithstanding Nigel Farage’s recent antics).
More significantly, however, is the realisation that we are all being hoodwinked by the Trump administration. Take, for example, Jon Snow’s tweet this morning where Trump has a go at his successor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, at the Apprentice reality TV show:
Now Jon Snow is a good journalist. Indeed, he will be running next week a series of programmes about fake news (maybe this is why he sent the above tweet). US journalists persist with the White House briefings and are lied to by Sean Spicer, Trump’s media spokesperson. But they persist. It really is the only world they know. But the issue is different: the protagonist has changed. There is plenty of fake news about, for sure. Blatant lies, yes. But these are distractions from what is really happening. The media is being distracted apart from Fox News, the source of news for most Trump’s supporters.
Time to wake up? It seems to me that the EU has woken up. Theresa May’s offer to act as a bridge between the EU and the USA was rejected. I’m undecided whether it was laughable that the British even offered to play this role in light of Brexit, or whether this is a maturing EU. An EU that realises that it will be the bulwark of democracy in the new world. The USA is going to be lost.
Brexit watch – w/c 18 July 2016
Filed under: Brexit, Politics | Tags: ARM Holdings, David Davis, Liam Fox, Theresa May
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Well, the Brexit Minister, David Davis (left) has been on overdrive this weekend. Whilst most of us have been overwhelmed by events in Turkey and Nice, Mr Davis has been busy making trade deals. Or at least feeding the Daily Express – that paragon of truth – some guff about the irrelevance of the EU single market.
I am also reassured that Mr Davis is the right man for the job. Having spent many years and much effort trying to get out of the EU, it is curious how little he understands about negotiating trade deals. He seemingly is of the opinion that it is possible to negotiate individual trade deals with EU members. He does really need to be briefed better before he starts negotiating.
What’s more, it is not even clear if it is his job. He’s minister for Brexit, that is not the same as Minister for Trade (and presumably agreements). That job goes to Liam Fox as Secretary of State for International Trade.
Oh, and then there is ARM, described correctly by ITV’s political correspondent Robert Peston, as Britain’s ONLY world-leading electronic company (sic). Mrs. May, in her Birmingham launch speech on 12 July, said that she would protect firms in strategic industries from foreign takeover. It did not take long for that pledge to be converted into Treasury orthodoxy; namely, that all firms have a price, strategic or otherwise.
The Founder does not think it is such a good thing!
And looking at this graphic above, it really is not good for the UK.
Charles Windsor’s letters
Filed under: Politics, Royal Watching | Tags: Black Spider Memos, Charles Windsor, Freedom of Information, Theresa May
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The ‘black spider memos’ were finally released yesterday. Successive governments have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to stop their release over ten years. Mr Windsor seemingly makes a habit of writing to ministers – including the Prime Minister – giving advice on anything from architecture, quack medicine to the mass slaughter of badgers. The ministers write back in fawning deference, ‘your most humble servant’ etc.
Well, it will not happen again. Seemingly. The Government has already changed the law to guarantee the secrecy surrounding Mr Windsor’s (and no doubt his family’s) communication with what he probably thinks are his mother’s ministers. His communications are now, therefore, exempt from Freedom of Information requests, however banal they may be. On the other hand, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is going to prioritise the return of the ‘Snooper’s Charter’ – legislation to enable the security services to monitor all of our electronic communication. Nice.
Justifying the unjustifiable
Filed under: Politics, Race | Tags: Mediterranean Migrants, Theresa May
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The UK Conservatives now argue that too many people – cast out on to the Mediterranean Sea in unsuitable boats by unscrupulous traffickers – have been saved by benevolent Europeans. So much so that it generates an incentive for more people to try it, safe in the knowledge that they will be rescued when the vessel capsizes.
Even if this were true – and no hard evidence to my knowledge has been presented to back it up – it is immoral. Knowingly ignoring victims of traffickers, fleeing from wars, economic crises and penuary caused largely by us is criminal.
And again, leading the way is the Home Secretary, Theresa May (above left). I used to think that these illiberal and racist policies were a response to UKIP. Now, however, I sense that UKIP is merely an excuse. The Conservatives really do believe in these policies.
Post holiday blues in record time – European Convention on Human Rights
Filed under: International, Politics | Tags: Chris Grayling, European Convention on Human Rights, Theresa May
Leave a comment It does not take long for an awful reality to reassert itself after the summer tandem riding holiday, even if it was un-summerly and not everyone’s idea of a holiday. For example, what on earth happened in Scotland? Why did the Scots vote to stay dependent on the English elite establishment, fronted by David Cameron. One wonders whether the result would have been different had the Tory Party conference occurred before the vote rather than after it.
It was, of course, at that conference that Chris Grayling, the UK (in)Justice Secretary, announced that should the Tories win outright the next UK election, they will knowingly take us out of the European Convention on Human Rights so as to free the country from those pesky European judges who so often tell us to do things that we do not want to do, such as give votes to prisoners, allow foreign criminals into the country, prevent the extradition of undesirables (especially those with hooks as substitutes for hands) and a ban whole-life sentences for grave crimes. It does, of course, none of these things; the Strasbourg Court merely highlights incompatibilities between UK law and the Convention. See: http://www.tinyurl.com/pszhdky
But instead, we will have a UK Bill of Rights, subject to the whim of the Tory elite to decide whether any citizen’s claims of a breach of human rights is valid or not. Not independent judges, but the likes of Grayling himself. Moreover, this elite used their conference to inform us that we have to allow ourselves to be subjugated, monitored and pacified to maintain security against the threat of terrorists that the elite has created for us through innumerable foreign wars, murder, incarceration and expropriation. The Home Secretary, Theresa May (right), told the conference that the ‘snoopers’ charter’ will be reintroduced to Parliament and passed when there is a Tory majority; but of course one has nothing to fear if one has nothing to hide.
The European Convention is not an EU institution, however. The Convention was scripted by European human rights lawyers, many of them British, in the early 1950s in the aftermath of WWII. To withdraw is to align ourselves with some of the least liberal states in the world; for example, Belarus.
Such a move will precipitate a response from the Council of Europe – which is an EU institution. Ultimately, adherence to the Convention is a reasonable condition for membership of the European Union, if not the United Nations. Of course, getting out of the EU is precisely what Tories want and these arguments play well with their illiberal supporters. It is always gratifying to hear that the Prime Minister is generously giving our European partners one more chance to see sense and allow the UK to contravene the founding treaties that enshrine the concept of the free movement of people across European borders. A right that millions of UK citizens have exploited over the years.
Pictures:
Theresa May: ,Wikipedia
European Court Strasbourg: CherryX, Wikipedia
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