Tag Archives: England.

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. BRITISH DEMOCRACY IS AILING. 

21 Friday Oct 2022

Posted by in England in five years., England's future., England., English General Election., Uncategorized

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( Three minute read)

Liz Truss was just the last in line. For the past dozen years, each leader has left the country poorer, weaker, and more divided than the last.

In her departure, Truss offered little defence and no apology, confirming her unfitness for office. The fact that she got there at all only reveals the smallness of the regime that awarded her the role.

So now Britain is once again looking for a new prime minister. Johnson is said to be flying home from the Caribbean to enter the fray, dreaming of a Churchillian redemption. The two men who declared him unfit for office—Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove—now also have another shot at power.

The genesis of Britain’s misfortunes could be dated to 1929, when the world economy imploded and a monstrous regime of little men took over in London.

The next prime minister, whoever that may be, will face an extraordinary set of challenges largely of their Conservative Party’s own making.

But when did this era of the small people begin? What was its genesis?

Calamities are always seeded by events that came before.

Some will argue it was the 2016 vote for Brexit, but that lets off the hook those who legislated for it without any plan to enact it.

Major’s European compromise left Britain inside the European Union but outside its single currency.

Tony Blair came to power. Blair proved unable to change Major’s compromise and pursued instead a series of radical constitutional changes that slowly undermined the unity of the country he thought he was building.

Gordon Brown, Blair’s replacement, watched everything explode in the great financial crisis.

For the past 12 years, Britain has been led by a succession of Conservative prime ministers—each, like Russian dolls, somehow smaller than the last—who have contrived to leave the country in a worse state than it was when they took over. By the time Liz Truss assumed office last month, she evidently had no conception of the damage done by this period of Tory rule, how exposed Britain had become, how fragile, how vulnerable. Without Truss realizing it, Britain had become too weak to cope with a leader so small.

Britain is now permanently under the threat of breakup.

Cameron had to keep his promise of a referendum on Europe, lost, and resigned. As with the Scottish case, he had refused to countenance any preparations for the possibility of a winning Leave vote. Cameron left behind a country divided and a Parliament that did not want Brexit but was tasked with delivering it without any idea how. By any estimation, it was a catastrophic miscarriage of statecraft.

Brexit became Theresa May’s. May was a serious, qualified, thoughtful Conservative who had opposed Brexit but now assumed responsibility for it. But she was simply not up to the job. Being prime minister requires not just diligence and seriousness but political acumen and an ability to lead. She had too little of either.

In 2019, Boris Johnson finally grabbed the long-sought crown—only to find a way to lose it in disgrace three years later. Despite his brief tenure, Johnson remains one of the most influential—and notorious—figures in post-war British history. Without him, the country likely would not have voted for Brexit in the first place, let alone seen it pushed through Parliament.

Now, surely, it is time for the CONSERVIT party that enabled the guilty of today to heed advice:

In the name of God, go!

Diagnosing the problem is one thing, and finding a way to deal with it is another.

Misperceive the views of one’s rival  political identity is formed more by despising the other side than by any particular affinity for the views of one’s own party.

What is now evident beyond doubt is the need for a leader to acting on his beliefs, rather than talking about them to get out of schizophrenia of announcements while nothing moves at the level of the means.

The White Saviour Industrial Complex of London allows white people of privilege to brush aside systemic racism, injustice, and corruption in favour of individual acts of charity..

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. THIS IS WHY ENGLAND IS IN SUCH A MESS.

21 Friday Oct 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., British Culture., England in five years., England's future., ENGLAND'S SNAP ELECTION, England., English General Election., English parliamentary proceedings., Uncategorized

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It lack a culture of consensus, and has now lost the means of building and developing one.

Why?

Because it has a democracy that is managed by a narrow elite who for centuries have put power and wealth before its people.

The Brexit referendum and the increasing ideological polarisation in both main political parties are a sign of this.

Britain is about the only country in Europe with a primitive ‘first past the post’ electoral system rather than a proportional electoral system.

Why has this mess developed only now?

I am sure that few people in England are now really nostalgic for empire, although a great many don’t realise just what a hideous mess it often left behind.

Nationalism and sectarian politics feed on nostalgia like vampires feed on blood.

One outcome of the inability to compromise in Britain, has been the ‘austerity’ economics practised over the last eight years. More than anything else this is what is driving so many people into poverty (20% now below the official poverty line) It degraded health and education services, shutting museums and libraries, causing physical infrastructure to break up and much much more.

Britain does not have a constitution.

It is therefore ruled by antiquated institutions such a the Crown.

The set of laws, rules and yes, that great British favourite, the ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’, that make up what amounts to a constitution has evolved organically over time, but has not developed to reflect a world driven by theological data or a country that is populated by immigration on low wages and benefits.

The system does not cope when politicians that are intransigent and ideological as they are now.

The system is now essentially ‘presidential’, i.e. the Prime Minister has the power and Members of Parliament follow the party line.

There is no expectation that Parliament takes the initiative, so when they have done, as now, there are no rules to call a general election, the ship of state is left drifting and rudderless without the voice of the people been heard, so the elite consensus that managed the binary oppositions starts to fall apart.

Its a country where anyone can call themselves a builder and start selling themselves as such, there are no identity cards so the government does not know who the **** we are.

There is no list of citizens. In fact the citizens are not really citizens at all they are surfs.

There is an electoral register (i.e. who can vote), passports (but if you didn’t travel you wouldn’t have one) and National Insurance numbers, which are about working and tax payments. There has never been a register of British citizens as such so in fact, government does not (or did not) really know who had a right to be here, and who didn’t.

Every country and ethnic identity is racist, that’s part of the human condition, but what is odd about a lot of English racism is that it is not directed so much at black or brown people but at other Europeans .

The ‘wogs begin at Calais’ attitudes, send them to Rwanda.

The EU is seen as a Franco-German plot, targeting Britain.

History shows that It made its wealth on the back of an navy that circumnavigated oceans and seas, which created an empire on the backs of slaves and sugar – a sad truth.

Who owns England?

Behind this simple question lies England’s oldest and best-kept secret.

It’s a secret that goes back to the Domesday Book – and an issue that goes to the heart of many of the biggest problems the country has – affordability of housing, unable to grow enough of its food, not much space left aside for nature. 

Rural landowners, meanwhile, are rewarded by the taxpayer for simply owning land through farm subsidies. The Common Agricultural Policy has paid landowners according to the area of land they farm, rather than the public goods they deliver, thereby propping up a system of intensive agriculture that has decimated wildlife and natural habitats.

For most of the 20th century, the aristocracy showed itself remarkably indifferent to the welfare of the nation, After democracy finally shunted aside hereditary lords, they found new means to protect their extravagant riches. For all the modern tales of noble poverty and leaking ancestral homes, their private wealth and influence remain phenomenal. 

The British aristocracy’s defining feature is not a noble aspiration to serve the common weal but a desperate desire for self-advancement. They endlessly reinforced their own status and enforced deference on others through ostentatiously exorbitant expenditure on palaces, clothing and jewellery. They laid down a strict set of rules for the rest of society, but lived by a different standard. Such is their sense of entitlement that they believed – and persuaded others to believe – that a hierarchical society with them placed firmly and unassailably at the top was the natural order of things.

The secret of their modern existence is their sheer invisibility.

According to a 2010 report for Country Life, a third of Britain’s land still belongs to the aristocracy.

The financial sector is hailed as the crowning glory of the UK economy. A massive financial sector on the tiny island is making a visible minority filthy rich but as it blooms, everything else withers.

The power of London finance is hurting Britain, to the tune of £4.5tn.

Many people in Britain, it is true, are ambivalent about all this. They rightly fret that the City is a global money-laundering paradise, harming other nations, but (whisper it quietly) they like the hot money and oligarchs it attracts to its shores. There is a trade-off, they think, between doing the right thing and preserving our prosperity.

Underpinning all this is the fallacy of composition, of a trickle down economy, whereby the fortunes of big businesses and big banks are conflated with the fortunes of our whole economy.

This is where the myth of great, finally dies.

As Liza Trust now knows economies, tax systems and cities are nothing like companies, and don’t compete like she might think – scrap TAX ON HIGHT EARNERS.

The finance curse of Quantize Easing shows that too much finance harms your economy, then pursuing more finance through the competitiveness agenda only makes things worse.

There is no trade-off WITH CREDITORS.

Blaming the problems on Brexit and the Ukraine war, or the price of energy, inflation, does not close foodbanks, or stop zero- hours contracts, or attract investment.

Rule of law, a healthy and educated workforce, good infrastructure, access to prosperous, thirsty markets, good inputs and supply chains and economic stability. All these require tax revenues.

The race does not stop when tax rates reach zero.

To prosper, Britain should increase its effective corporate tax rates, at least for financiers and large multinationals, plus a surcharge to cover the roaming members of the billionaire classes who won’t. 

By leaving the EU and joining the “competitive” global race England has not only been beggaring others – it has beggaring its selves, too.

In order not to be stuck in ugly race to the bottom, THE COUNTRY NOW NEEDS A MASSIVE RESET.

A good place to start to create a future of largely harmonious multi-cultural society, would be to abolish students debt and start educating its young for free.

I recently heard a Labour Politician advocate that England should create an sovereign wealth funds, Fund. With what? It’s too late now:

There is only one way forward simply step out of the race, unilaterally by appealing not just to national self-interest, by mobilise the biggest constituency of all its people and put finance back in its rightful place: Serving Britain’s people, not served by them.

Tragically we are watching a country of Plenty turning to poverty for the sake of short-term profit.

That last word, unilaterally, is key.

The land of the few.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHO OWNS ENGLAND AND IS IT GOING DOWN THE PAN?

04 Sunday Sep 2022

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2022: The year we need to change., British Culture., Climate Change., England in five years., England's future., England., English General Election., European Union., EU_UK relations for the foreseeable future., How to do it., Human values., Life., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Money in Politics., Our Common Values., Political Trust, Politics., Privatization, Profiteering., Robot citizenship., Russia / Ukraine ., Stimulus package., The common good., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The UK Class system., Universal values., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH

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( Ten minute read)

This is a country that sold is nations assets to private enterprises – energy, water, rail, etc, (In the ideology of Maggie Thatcher, shop till you drop), believing that the free market would give its citizens the best deal.

The massive privatisations of public assets undertaken by Mrs Thatcher and subsequent Tory governments since the 1980s now with the help of multilabel other world problems have come home to roost.

Below are a few examples of this.

[ARM Holdings, one the key British companies for research and innovation in electronics, was sold off in 2017 for £24bn to the Japanese company Softbank.

Amazon, a US corporation, now dominates retail in the UK.

Apple has shifted its tax liability in the UK to Ireland.

The key national airports in the UK – Heathrow and Gatwick – are both in foreign ownership.

Liverpool, Glasgow and Great Yarmouth ports are owned by Deutsche Bank. Felixstowe, is owned by one of Asia’s richest men and incorporated in the Cayman Islands.

Even Associated British Ports, which manages many UK ports, is owned by the Singapore foreign reserve fund and Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund and registered offshore in Jersey.

Waterstones, the only surviving national book chain in UK, is also Russian owned.

Facebook and Twitter are now the main source of news for most British people despite its biases and its inadequate constraints on the dissemination of fake news. Both of these companies are effectively unregulated despite their critical social media roles, and both make enormous sums of money from advertising that goes untaxed.

The NHS, which is thought of as the great British innovation, is also increasingly being infiltrated by American health providers. Social care Southern Cross purchased by Blackstone, a US company.

Boots, which has 2,500 shops in the UK acquired by private equity in 2007, asset stripped and saw its HQ moved to Switzerland to avoid UK taxes. It is now wholly owned by the giant US pharmacy chain Walgreens.]

What are the common elements in the above?

With London becoming the global centre of such transactions because of weak regulatory systems, especially in respect of privatised utilities, it has been price gouging at the expense of consumers in the UK.

It is now clear that some at least of the purchasers of domestic assets have used the opportunity to launder illegally acquired money.  Russian millionaires had a field day.

We are now looking at a country that recently spent nearly $8 billion building two new large, conventionally-fuelled aircraft carriers, spending between £72.1bn and £80.4bn, on a high-speed rail HS2 to save thirty minutes traveling time, while its people can’t afford their energy bills, to feed themselves, to house themselves, or afford the cost of a rail ticket.

A country that turned its back on the biggest market on its door step the EU with £25bn left to pay by 2057.

A country that in the first year of the pandemic, from April 2020 to 2021,  borrowed £299bn, the highest figure since records began in 1946, to save it economy more than its people with, the cost of Government measures announced so far range from about £310 to £410 billion.

Most of this extra money was spent on public services (such as the NHS), and support for businesses.

In the space of 15 months, from March 2020, the three main Covid loan schemes – bounce back, CBILS and a scheme for larger loans, CLBILS – handed out nearly £80bn to businesses with fraud losses estimated at £4.9bn at the end of March, money the government is unlikely to ever recover.

The UK government wasted hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on poor quality and unusable personal protective equipment (PPE) while leaving frontline workers insufficiently protected from covid-19. The decision to prioritise hospitals meant that social care providers were left exposed by the lack of PPE contributing significantly to deaths in care homes in the first wave.

Among the government deals was a contract with a jeweller worth £70.5m (€80.5m; $97.6m) to buy sterile gowns. It also signed contracts for millions of face masks, which were not usable in the NHS because they had the wrong type of fixing.

The question of whether greater investments in health care in non-crisis times may have reduced the level of emergency funding needed to respond effectively to the pandemic warrants important reflection.


Money

Now with more money going out and less coming in, the English government has only one option – to borrow.

When a government spends more than it collects, it runs an annual budget deficit. The level of the national debt in the UK equates to 108% of national output (GDP) and the average amount of debt owed per person in the UK to day is ten thousand pounds.

This is a country that sold it soul to consumerism,  which is still spending millions on football with millions of lotto funds spent to win medals, with a homicide rate was 11.7 per million population, while small businesses and charities are going bust.

Like most of Europe it is in a downward spiral economically, with inflation and energy cost mounting ( due in part to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine,) and will have to borrow another £200bn by the end of the year.

 Its’ no wonders it is going down the Pan.

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 In the back ground there are other reason for its troubles–  its class system, its colonial history, its antiquated education system, its benefits system, its first past the post election system, to mention a few.

Its colonial past making it a very ethnically diverse nation,( People born outside of the UK account for 10% of the UK’s population.)

It has lost its once dominance as an empirical power in the world.

Once a rich country the crimes of your past are catching-up with you.

Britain was the world’s largest market for transportation of human lives, bowing to the new citadel whose tentacles reached out into great swathes of colonial wealth – and steadily drank it dry until the slave trade was finally banned by an act of parliament.  The arrogance and greed of your masters could not go unnoticed – could not pass-by unatoned for.  Nor could the pacifistic stance taken by the greater populous when confronted with such frequent acts of national and international vandalism.

Like most of us it has now become enslaved to the smart phone.

Now a country of digitalized citizens, with short term ambitions, in desperate need of a written constitution.

Why?

Despite considerable social change, and strong policy intervention, it still have some way to go to address equality of opportunity and racism.

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In the next few days the Conservative party will elect a new leader to take control of the country, without a general election.

He or she is facing social, unrest, as the UK economy is now too weak for sharp spending cuts due to the recent financial crisis, and Covid  pandemic, it is now currently facing serious issues in terms of cutting its unemployment rate and reducing its national debt.

Not to mention other current issues such as immigration, internal ethnic relationship, internal security, economic recovery, and Britain’s relationship with the EU all acting as major blocks to the progress of the British society.

Whatever the next British government may be, these are the issues that party has to address and solve. 

Modern British society has to find ways to deal with these crucial issues in order to move towards a brighter future.

So who owns the country?

Private no right of way sign

Behind this simple question lies England’s oldest and best-kept secret. It’s a secret that goes back to the Domesday Book – and an issue that goes to the heart of many of the biggest problems the country face to day.

Central government owns more than 16 million square metres of property and land across the UK – six times the area of the City of London. There are over 97,000 properties owned by foreign firms in England and Wales.

Collectively, the Royal family owns 180,550 acres of land, or roughly 282 square miles with an elite of less than 1% of the population owning half of England with a few thousand dukes, baronets and City bankers now owning far more land than all of Middle England put together.

As Mark Twain once said, “buy land: they’re not making it anymore” – and in England, its scarcity has made it so sought-after that land values have increased fivefold since 1995.

Just over 400 hectares (1,000 acres) of central London’s super-prime real estate belongs to the Crown, the Church, and four wealthy aristocratic estates.

Over 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of the English uplands are tied up in huge grouse-moor estates owned by around 150 people. The Duke of Northumberland, whose family lineage stretches back to Domesday, owns 40,468 hectares (100,000 acres) – a tenth of his home county.

Corporations own around 18% of England and Wales.

The Crown Estate owns London’s Regent Street, including the freehold for Apple’s flagship UK store, from which the Crown collects more rent than from all its agricultural land.

The National Trust owns around a fifth of the Lake District National Park in Cumbria.

The Duchy of Cornwall owns London’s Oval Cricket Ground, Maiden Castle in Dorset (above) and Ham Hill in Somerset.

Paternoster Square in the City of London, home of the London Stock Exchange, is owned by the Church Commissioners.

The Crown still owns the freehold OF the Houses of Parliament.

The housing crisis hasn’t been caused by a sudden rise in the price of bricks and mortar, but rather in the value of the land on which homes are built.

The vast gap in living standards between the precariat and the executive class are all to some extent the result of increased foreign ownership of almost everything that continue to call ‘British’.

There is hope, however to be fair few countries will escape the fever that’s upon this world – Climate change.

A fever for which the only cure is the unconditional metamorphosis of man himself, washed through and through, cleansed of that reckless hubris which has brought us to this tipping point of all of us having to live without the all gentle arts that nature had so diligently taught us.

The tide is turning upon mankind. Now it is our turn to be on the receiving end.

In the coming years Climate Change will make the cost of living we see to day ingenuous, compared to what is in store.

No man or woman can turn his or hers back for long upon her simmering powers.

When it comes to climate no man can lay claim to having pacified and sold her soul – because passivity was not on her agenda, and her soul was never for sale. And those who sought to profit from her bounty will soon leave empty handed; for that time, prophesied of old, has finally come. And yes, nature it is that once again rises up in defiance of all attempts to bring her under the control of those who would use and abuse her for their private wealth and make of her a platform for staging their profit driven foreign wars.

Not even the vicious technologically engineered destruction of our climate can suppress the rising winds of change that are upon this scarred and battered jewel called Earth. It can only increase their velocity.

The result is only too obvious with unstable work, often poorly paid, and increasingly inadequate to support a family. It is unsurprising therefore that there has been a sharp increase in poverty much of it in families in full-time work.

Prepare yourselves for the deluge – a great cleansing is upon the island; a cleansing that will jolt befuddled minds into memories of great stories of other eras, when lands were not swallowed by mighty acts of nature.

You were so proud to turn away from nature and forge your industrial steel into the wheels of the brave new world of mass consumerism  you new face a heavy price for its blinkered, stubborn occupants, who for so long turned a blind eye on deeper truths and refused to look upon the blood encrusted pages of your colonial history.

Oh England, my England, so where is your soul today?

————————

At this point you may well be asking what if anything can be done?

The master Conservative plan is levelling up. The big idea for post – Brexit Britain.

It identifies six capitals: physical capital (i.e. infrastructure and housing), human capital (skills and health), intangible capital (ideas and innovations), financial capital (business finance), social capital (community and public trust), and institutional capital  (local leadership).

The plan comes at a defining moment but it will fail to devolve enough power and money.

Why?

Because the places that have an abundance are now in a virtuous circle, where the different capitals reinforce one another.

Because is not matched by the scale of investment or the proposed solutions. Missing are a clear set of mechanisms that break the vicious cycles in places that are lacking in the six capitals.

Because this work has to be done at the local level because places face different challenges and have different growth potential.

Because if there is going to any levelling up is going to happen centrally from Whitehall.

Because the existing system for distributing money is highly complex  inequality will be aggravated and come to the forefront in the next general election.

Levelling up is a scatter gun approach for votes and it is on this feeling that the Government’s future electoral hopes hang.

IN THE END HERE IS THE BEADY EYE’S ADVICE TO WHO EVER GETS INTO POWER.

APART FROM A WRITTEN CONSTITUTION,  MAKE EDUCATION FREE AND BRING BACK A YEAR OF NATIONAL SERVICE TO TEACH THE VALUES THAT ARE NECESSARY AND FUNDEMENTAL TO THE FONDATIONS OF ANY NATION.  PUT THE PEOPLE FIRST NOT THE GDP.

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Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS: IS ENGLAND APPROACHING ITS OLAUDAH EQUIANO MOMENT?

11 Wednesday May 2022

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2022: The year we need to change., England in five years., England's future.

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(Ten-minute read)

Why? 

Because it is still trying to get over the Empire days that have left it with an ingrained class system of haves and have-nots.

This Ingraining is in its education system to slavery in materialistic capitalism, which is now run by Social media platforms with unregulated untransparent algorithms. (A problem facing most of the developed world)   

The United States was built on a system of racial classification.

England was built on the back of slavery and sugar.

They both bought manual laborers to enrich a few.  

(As many as 10.7 million slaves are thought to have been shipped to the Americas between 1800 and 1867. All but a few people were chattel slaves, which meant that their children and grandchildren were also slaves. Through the 19th century, slaves were overworked, tortured, and not given the same rights as other people.) 

England now has all the INGREDIENTS to brake up, Sleepwalking into oblivion, it’s people need to wake up before it is too late.

Ordinary citizens seem to understand that we are experiencing a revolutionary moment in the world with Technology, Climate Change, and Mass migration, not to mention sustainability, and future pandemics. 

The range of possibilities is very broad, and the eventual outcome is thus highly uncertain.

 If you look beneath the surface of England what do you see?

One in 40 people in London had Covid last week as cases continue to fall

This is a country that voted on the back of lies to leave the largest trading block the EU, that now has an economy rapidly descending into a recession, a pandemic that cost billions, surging energy costs, rampaging inflation, spending 205 billion on Trident and 45 billion on a high-speed rail, with over 3 million people using food banks, 12,000 charity shops with approximately 170 thousand registered charities raising around £300m a year. 

With a Prime Mister that cannot be trusted. It’s no wonder that Scotland and Northern Ireland will soon be holding referendums for independence.

With over 53 million inhabitants, in a moral panic about immigrants and refugees, it needs to build 340,000 homes per year until 2031. The British royals own almost 247,000 acres of land in England, living in 26 different buildings throughout the United Kingdom home over the years possesses an estimated $28 billion in assets, and according to independent reports that the U.K.’s offshore wind farms belong to the crown as well.

A murder a day, with one in seven businesses teetering on the brink of collapse, ruled by a  parliament now only a ‘dignified’ part of the Royal constitution – an obedient (and expensive) rubber-stamp to the all-powerful executive with an antiquated party structure that prevents the popular will from finding proper expression.

These National parties once had some roots in the past, but these alliances are entirely dictated by party leaders’ self-interest, continuing to issue edicts as if they were still relevant.

US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (L) talks with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during a rally with fellow Democrats before voting on H.R. 1, or the People Act, on the East Steps of the US Capitol on March 08, 2019 in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)

No one seems quite sure how much all the diamond jubilee celebrations 

cost – nor who will eventually have to foot the bill. The extra bank holiday

could cost Britain’s ailing economy £1.2bn.

There are 29.7m taxpayers in the UK paying £11.24 per taxpayer for a Queen.

 Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee next year is expected to cost between

£10 Million and £15 Million. 

Remember Quantitive easing: 

The Bank of England….. printing free money out of nothing and lending it to the government with huge interest, while they, in turn, tax too high heaven to pay back the interest in government bonds…..which then, in turn, need to borrow more.

The trickle-down economics has failed along with a parliament that constantly fails to reform itself.  

 It has a national debt amounting to £2.59 trillion increasing to over £5,000 per second, equating to 108% of national output (GDP).

This led to a drop in tax revenue and an increase in cyclical spending (for example on unemployment benefits).

At the same time, the government introduced a range of coronavirus support measures. Amongst others, these included its high profile furlough or job retention scheme whereby it covered 80% of the salaries of eligible employees; a prolonged period of business rates relief; a reduction in VAT for the hospitality sector; a stamp duty holiday; a weekly uplift in the rate of Universal credit; a £500 per person working tax credit payment; and its ‘Eat out to help out scheme’.

In 2019, private debt in the United Kingdom was recorded as being 190% of GDP, twice that of public sector debt.

According to the Treasury’s 2019/20 Debt Management Report, as of September 2018, 32% of government gilts were owned by UK Pension and Insurance companies, 28% were owned by foreign investors, and 24% of the national debt was owned by the government itself through the Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Facility referenced above.

In 2011/12, the sums being spent on debt repayment (£48.2 billion) were very similar to what the government was spending on schools (£51.1 billion), four times greater than what was being spent on transport, and 30% more than what was being spent on defense.

At its most extreme, it is suggested that this might lead to some kind of sovereign debt crisis.

A Sovereign debt crisis has the potential to have devastating effects on both social inclusion and people’s wider standards of living. After Greece suffered a sovereign debt crisis in 2009, figures from the World Bank show that GDP per head, for people in Greece, fell dramatically from $29,711 in 2009 to $18,168 in 2015.

This begs the question – is England’s debt just too big to handle?

£5,803 every second. That’s 74,720 £ per taxpayer Or £35,793 per citizen.
 
  1. UK Government and The Bank of England continue to ‘print money to pay for the debt – this makes everything continually more expensive (inflation), or
  2. UK Government refuses to pay their interest payments or repay the debt they owe – resulting in a catastrophic economic recession.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Centre-Forward) with an Annual Gross Salary of £26,800,000, or £515,385 per week equating to 54 million for his two years contract.  On average Premier League clubs spend around £55,000 a week per player not to mention Football managers who also reap financial rewards. Add it all up and you see the cost of a goal.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Centre-Forward) with an Annual Gross Salary of £26,800,000, or £515,385 per week equating to 54 million for his two years contract.  On average Premier League clubs spend around £55,000 a week per player not to mention Football managers who also reap financial rewards. Add it all up and you see the cost of a goal.

Britain finished Tokyo 2020 with 65 medals, a funding amount: of £12,084,436.

                                        ——————

To reform its parliament.

On the death of Queen Elizabeth II (which is highly likely in the near future) I would reform the parliament by removing the monarchy from the realms of power to a cultural tourist attraction by replacing it with a written constitution, which would elevate its citizens from subject surfs to people with a genuine voice – from my government to our government.   

I would introduce citizens’ assemblies with proportional representation, while reducing the House of Commons, from 650 seats to 300. The entire Westminster operates on them and us basis, costing billions in taxpayers’ money.   

I would get rid of its gutter press. Ban Porn. Restrict trial by Television. Remove all TV advertising that promotes unhealthy consumption and make University education free.   

I would encourage Scotland independent with a deal on cheap oil and Wales and give back Northern Ireland over a twenty-five-year period.

If I were to do anything to change the direction in England today.

I would reintroduce a year of NATIONAL SERVICE (WITHOUT THE SMARTPHONE) TO TEACH VALUES, RESPECT, AND DISCIPLINE WORTHWHILE HAVING. 

By the way, Equiano was born in Nigeria and was brought to England as an enslaved child. He was bought by Lieutenant Michael Pascal. Equiano learned how to be a seaman so that he could fight in the Seven Years’ War. When there was no more hostility, he bought his freedom for $40 from a Pennsylvanian. 

 This disgusting time still has an effect on our lives today.

Unfortunately, England cannot buy its freedom by leveling up or down. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS DOES LIVING IN ENGLAND NOW SUCK.

02 Saturday Oct 2021

Posted by in England departure from the EU., England.

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(Twelve-minute read) 


It is fair to say that Britain now no longer rules the waves and it is a country on the point of breaking up because it spent most of its past industrial wealth on an image rather than on its people.

Indeed it has been going downhill long before Brexit with Margaret Thatcher’s legacy, which created a society blighted by poverty, wages, and despairs.

For the sake of short-term profit, she crushed the trade unions’ movement marginalizing workers’ voices, sunk an obsolete Argentine Cruiser the General Belgrano, and her growing hostility to Brussels inspired the Euroskeptics, the Brexit delivery machine.

” There is no such thing as Society”

You could say that’s all in the past, but is it really.  According to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, all is well in the sunny uplands of ‘Global Britain’, as he recently told us from a New York rooftop that he “does not believe” that anyone in Britain will struggle to put food on the table this winter.

Instead, he believes that the labor shortages he has engineered, by slamming up the shutters on 40 years of freedom of movement between Britain and the EU, will cause wages to rise, and that people will consequently be fine.

He might be right but at a cost, England cannot afford it in a world that is beginning to resist the catastrophic cult of cash, the export potential of thousands of British companies is now looking more than bleak.

Given the huge Brexit hit there future is now not an opportunity to make a quick buck, but rather an opportunity for the fundamental civil right of organized workers to be heard.

This is now becoming the vital foundation to build back towards a sustainable future

It is increasingly evident, combined with the avalanches of huge and intractable global problems as the story of Brexit unfolds, that he is living in the clouds.

Rather than actively seeking it out, he needs to correct the national addiction to poverty wages, not by clapping the NHS or raising the national insurance stamp or dumping the £20 covid assistance but by shaking off the shackles of an outdated system of surfs versus the monarchy.

Yes, culture-wise the Monacry should be preserved for the sake of history and tourism.

In this day and age to have to ask permission of a person that is only entitled by the accident of birth to be designated royal when a leader who is elected by the people to power has to ask permission to form a government is a joke.

Not to mention that this person owns all of the seabeds up to 12 kilometers of the countries coastline, which was recently discovered by a new seaweed farm when they had to get royal assent to establish a new carbon zero producing farm on the coast of Scotland.        

All of which raises a vital question about what exactly the UK has become, over the last few decades.

England which was once notorious across the planet for its destructive short-termism is trying to live an ideology reverting to its past glory.

Though, its disregard of climate change during the Industrial Age, and its recent departure from the EU it now faces outcomes regardless of its fine words, that are highlighting its inability to value either humanity or nature as highly as money.

In a world that is driven by unregulated technological advancement, nobody will ever persuade me that Brexit was a good choice.  

                                           ————————-

If one takes a look at England from back in the sixties to the present day, the barometer on what is socially unfavorable could not be starker. 

A country that is ranked as the fifth richest in the world now has approximately 2.5 million people using food banks (run by groups of volunteers, churches, and charities) with 14 million ( 4.5 million children) living below the breadline. That is 12% of the total population of the UK and they have been living like this for the last four years with over 4,000 people sleeping rough on the streets and almost a murder a day it’s no wonder that is women folk feel unsafe on the streets.   

While spending nearly $8 billion building two new large, conventionally-fueled aircraft carriers not to mention HS2 which is already billions over budget costing 307 million per mile.

The cost of replacing Trident is estimated at £31 billion. The cost of operating, maintaining, and renewing the nuclear deterrent is substantial. 

The national lottery raises around £8,373.9 million out of which since 2008 a total of £100 million a year has been spent on winning medals in the Olympics/ Para Olympics worth around £540 (Gold). 

                                         ———————-

The ‘Swinging Sixties’ remains the defining decade for Britain.

It was the period that finally allowed people the liberty and individuality people had fought for and what we take for granted nowadays. Indeed it would be fair to say England was only just forgetting the troubles of the Second World War. In just ten short years, London was transformed from the bleak city into the capital of the world, full of freedom, hope, and promise.

By the end of the decade, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin achieved the impossible by becoming the first men on the moon in 1969.

England, on the other hand, had not grasped that people outside London were struggling.

Not everyone lives/wants to live in London.

It has taken all of this time to the present day for recognition of this fact.

Why?

Because Brits are notoriously passive-aggressive and avoid conflict, and this can sometimes come off as very fake and superficial. It can also be very counterproductive and time-consuming to jump around a subject instead of being direct with it.

And people just don’t understand until it’s directly affecting them.

The worst part is that too many British people still don’t realize how their economy is tanking and still refuse to acknowledge it and never talk about it. Which is frustrating in and of itself.

One of the worst legacies in its class system is Council Tax. 

I am not talking about the weather which for the most part is consistently grey and mentally draining and depressing in Britain.

I fundamentally disagree with tax that is not income-based. I think how much tax you pay should always depend on how much money you’re making—otherwise, it’s not fair.

Council tax is a local tax, usually done by the city or county you live in.

The Council is responsible for all of the local things—streetlights, garbage collection, libraries, police and emergency services, etc.

It’s not a normal tax—you have to pay it separately, it’s not automatically deducted from a paycheck. This is because it is not technically income-based—how much council tax you pay depends on where you live and the size of your residence. So even if you aren’t employed and aren’t receiving paychecks, you still have to pay council tax. (Students are exempt from paying council tax, and in theory, if you are on welfare/benefits you won’t have to pay either.

The average person in England needs to earn 20 days’ worth of wages to cover the cost of their council tax bill, while in some areas the average employee would need to work for a full month to pay the bill.

People working or not in England on visas have no access to public funds or the NHS National Health Service through their visas. 

Racists have been emboldened since Brexit, and the attitude to foreigners is appalling. Murdering an Indian” is not a racist act of violence but voraciously eating curry, and cheers is a catch-all phrase that can mean thank you or fuck off depending on the tone of voice.

Most jobs pay monthly, so you just get one lump sum and need to budget it out throughout the month. This is opposed to in the US, where paychecks are generally bi-weekly. Oh, and if you work two jobs, your second job can be taxed nearly 50%. Good luck trying to pay rent with a tax return in April. 

All transportation is insanely, painfully expensive ludicrously expensive. 

The end result has been a mixed-race with diverse skin and hair colors, statues and builds, gastronomy, and cultural habits. Numerous museums, galleries, and parishes testify to Britain’s admirable past.Portrait of Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria ruled Britain for over 60 years. British soldiers in fact fought wars in almost every year of Victoria’s reign.

The country’s often archaic political system and ways of organizing itself are once again coming under immense strain, now in the throes of limited reform thanks to a revolutionary expansion in communications.

England is now once more a society in the grip of more convulsive, complex, and disturbing change than had been experienced by any previous culture in human history. From a blood-soaked glorious empire to a pawn shop. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. IS ENGLAND NOW JUST LACKING ONE MORE INGREDIENT FOR CIVILIANS STRIFE.

13 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., England EU Referendum IN or Out., England., English parliamentary proceedings., European Union., Modern Day Democracy., Nigel Farage., Northern Ireland., Social Media, The common good., The Euro, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH

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(Fifteen-minute read)

Three years of political disarray are now climaxing in a non-democratic election of a new prime minister.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "images of civil unrest"

In the present environment which has little or no social purpose, the fundamental problem is that a hung parliament is electing a new leader for the country without a mandate from the country as a whole.

It is absurd to be able to become a leader of a country just because your party is currently in power. Which can only lead to a General election that is going split the United?

All of this is driven by populous Social Media chatter which is trying to be heard under rules of an unwritten constitution based the Great Charter or Magna Carta libertatum written by a bunch of rich dudes with swords who got mad at their king.

Most of the 63 clauses of the Magna Carta were concerned with guaranteeing feudal law and benefited only the feudal nobility. The Church was granted its traditional freedom and privileges. A few clauses dealt with the rights of the middle class in the towns and relieved some economic inequities. But the ordinary freeman and peasant, who made up the vast bulk of England’s population, were scarcely mentioned.

The Magna Carta was not, therefore, a great democratic document, securing fundamental liberties for all. Instead, it was essentially a feudal charter assuring privileges to the aristocracy.

Since its inception 800 years ago, it has been used several times to restrain the power of the monarch. Although the more dated clauses have since been repealed, some remain enshrined in British law today, in particular, the right to a fair trial for all citizens.

Indeed the core principles of Magna Carta can also be found in a variety of legal documents today and are echoed in the United States Bill of Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.

Not bad for a document that lasted 10 days.

Still considered to be Britain’s “statute number one,” to understand the civil rights it provides and the foundation it laid for future use.

Modified several times over the centuries by ordinary laws issued by the parliament, it is still considered a valuable and fundamental document.

A document which Prime Minister David Cameron said ‘changed the world’.  Indeed! it did.

We feel nothing of the drama and shenanigans of those days of political fever.

I am not advocating here that this the reason that England could see civil unrest but it has set helped to set a class structure that is now divided and will be unable to unite whether England stays in or is attached or leaves the European Union.

That apart the fuse awaiting to be light, is the Northern Ireland backstop.

It is becoming more and more apparent that Brixit is no longer about whether is In or Out of the European Union rather it is about, an out of date voting systems First Past the post, that gives a limited voice to the population as a whole.Image associée

The Eatonmess is now an English breakfast.

Can it be resolved?

Yes and No

It looks more and more like a serious political uprising will erupt when the magic ingredient are in place.

Economic backwardness the Northern Ireland backstop and a deal with Mr Donald Dump, a General election with Nigel Farage, could prove to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

There is only one reasonable course and that is to abort articular 50.

In doing so in order to show genuine participation join the Euro.

So can there ever be a morally respectable case for using predictions of civil unrest as an argument against a proposed policy?  Undoubtedly.

I am afraid that Brexit goes much further than leaving the EU it is reverting to Nationalism due to among many other things the lack of Civic Education to impart an Identity, to the tabloid press and social media that is spreading a post-factual society where evidence and truths no longer matter where lie and truth have equal status.

The gaps between perception and reality must be addressed. One can see this when it comes to immigrants not just in the Uk but across Europe. Immigrants that get resident status should be spread throughout the country and not allowed to settle in certain regions.

Everybody must share in the countries wealth by issuing Citizens bonds. ( See the previous post)

More responsible politics, polarized societies are far less tolerant of Globalization.

This requires dropping the language of fear.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHERE NOW FOR ENGLAND.

22 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., England EU Referendum IN or Out., England., English parliamentary proceedings., European Elections 2019

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(Six-minute read)

Great Britain is just a geographical term, not a country, state, or political entity.

England, which means “land of the Angles”.  COULD DO WITH A FEW.

The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages.

I AM NOT TALKING HERE ABOUT ITS FOOTBALL TEAM, ITS CRICKET TEAM, NOR RUBGY.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of england departing from europe"

So answer me this:

Why would you allow a handful of billionaires to poison your national conversation with disinformation—either directly through the tabloids they own, or indirectly, by using those newspapers to intimidate the public broadcaster?

Why would you allow them to use their papers to build up and co-opt politicians peddling those lies? Why would you let them get away with this stuff about “foreign judges” and the need to “take back control” when Britain’s own public opinion is routinely manipulated by five or six unaccountable rich white men, themselves either foreigners or foreign-domiciled?

But what can England learn from Brexit?

Not all is well with the collective psyche—the in-your-face binge drinking, the bookies stoking gambling addiction on every high street, the abject but routine neglect of public housing which went undiscussed until the Grenfell Tower fire.

The class divide and the class fixation, as well as an unhinged press, combine to produce national psychology that makes Britain a country you simply don’t want in your club.

Here are a few suggestions for the future that don’t just apply to England but to the whole of Europe.

One person waiting to see a doctor, one person lying in a hospital corridor, one person sleeping rough, one person relying on food banks, one person receiving hate mail, one person dying without dignity, one person

In the event, the UK leaves the EU in a no deal scenario, here are 7  things England needs to do now.

They all Call for ‘Fundamental action’ not GDP.

One: Get rip of First past the post and let the voice of the people be heard with a written constitution that is not written on parchment back in June 1215. The certainty that everything has already been written annuls us or renders us phantasmal.

Two: Get ride of postcode lottery social care provisions.

Three: Get rid of the tabloids gutter press.

Four: Social housing should be unconditional and social care free at the point of delivery.

Five: Stop spending billions on worthless nuclear arms and power stations.

Six: Stop school lotteries and abolish students debts. It really doesn’t matter for your identity or your prospects exactly which school or university you went to as long as it free. It is quite ironic that a nation that gave the world the term “fair play” sees the fact that rich children receive a better education than poor ones as a perfectly natural thing.

Seven: Grow up the modern world that is entering the 4th Industrial revolution, while climate change that will destroy it requires long-term planning, not eco-driven politics by career politicians.

Nor do I blame working-class people for seething at a system whereby the time you are 11 the die is cast and were—to add insult to injury—you are constantly told that this is a meritocracy where all that counts is hard work and being “aspirational”- bull shit.

There is another, final, side to this class system à l’Anglaise. It seems to breed a perspective on the world that is zero-sum. Your class system is a form of ranking. For one to go up, another must go down. Perhaps this is why sports are such an obsession. This attitude then justifies the enduring ignorance about the EU, its member states and European culture generally. The superiority complex feeds a sense of entitlement.

For example, the EU “needs us more than vice versa.” It’s abject nonsense, as was the presumption that after the Brits voted to leave, other EU countries would follow.

“It might also be worth acknowledging, that, on balance, the EU27 also has more power to protect its interests in these negotiations than Britain does.”

Ever since the referendum, friends from across the world have been enquiring whether it is true that the British have gone mad.

It is extremely difficult to see a scenario in which this whole Brexit saga could end well. Legally, politically and logically the EU cannot give the UK the kind of deal that would draw this chapter to a happy close.

You don’t have to a genius to know that a sweet soft deal, will encourage every EU member state to demand their own special arrangement, and that would be the end of the EU.

While the imagination of many “Leave” voters remain in the grip of the tabloids, any concession to the reality of national interests risks inflaming rage and cries of betrayal.

As for the EU, it is first and foremost a rule-based organisation. If the rules around Article 50 were bent to allow Britain back in on special terms, then the whole edifice is undermined. Scotland should be let in if it wants, and Northern Ireland too. But England is out and must be kept out—at least until it has resolved its deep internal problems. Call it nation building.

While not everything about the British disease harked back to Empire and while most of the above needs a growing economy god forbid the future of England is written or run by a dupe of Donal Trump.

Rember: Before you vote that any deal in or out has to be ratified by all Member States required at least two years. This meant that any deal is not feasible in practice. Vote to stay and fight your quarter. It makes no sense to disengage from our major market where we would still face all the costs of compliance and enjoy none of the influence. We can achieve reform by being an active and leading member from within.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: SINCE SHE ARRIVED AT NUMBER 10 MRS MAY HAS COST ENGLAND BILLIONS.

29 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by in Brexit., European Union., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Politics., Unanswered Questions.

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(A three-minute read)

She has so far defined herself more in words than deeds.Afficher l'image d'origine

She has – at least in words, we will see about the reality – junked the austerity agenda.

Mrs May has had just over 100 unelected days in Number 10, during which she has done a deft job of obscuring her vulnerabilities by projecting herself as a fresh yet solid leader serenely stepping in to take charge.

Lunch with Theresa May?  That will be £3,150.  Value for money.

Let’s look at it using the background of  Britain’s record national debt, which just surpassed £1.8 trillion, (The truth however is much worse, factoring in all liabilities including state and public sector pensions, the real national debt is closer to £4.8 trillion,) some £78,000 for every person in the UK.

If you lay £5 notes on top of each other they would make a pile 253,568 km, or 157,560 miles high!

Interest per Year  £41,230,597,671

Interest per Second£1,307

Debt as % of GDP 83.49%

The budget deficit already stands at approximately 4% of GDP and, at that level; any fiscal expansion could cause a fall in international confidence.

Hinkley Point:

In 2013 the English Government guaranteeing the EDF it would be paid £92.50 per megawatt-hour for the electricity generated by Hinkley Point over a 35-year contract due to run between 2025 and 2060. This is more than double the current annualised rate for wholesale electricity prices. It means that Hinkley Point should generate between £100bn and £160bn of revenue in cash terms for EDF and CGN over 35 years. The £92.50 figure is based on 2012 prices but it rises each year in line with inflation.

EDF is funding two-thirds of the project, which will create more than 25,000 jobs, with China investing the remaining £6bn for 7% of Britain’s electricity needs.

The government will also take a special or “golden share” in all future new nuclear projects. This will ensure that significant stakes cannot be sold without the government’s knowledge or consent.

The plan to build the two EPR units for £18bn (€21bn, $24bn) at Hinkley Point was hit with an unexpected delay in July as the new UK government decided to hold another review only hours after EDF – the project’s state-owned French developer – had given it the go-ahead.

EDF executives told the British government that it would have to take a stake of up to £6bn in the Hinkley Point nuclear power station to avoid a “disaster” if the Chinese decide to withdraw from the project who warning that if the plug was pulled on Hinkley Point it would damage the relationship between England and China.

If the state-backed company manages to build the power station and get it running by the target date of 2025, EDF and its Chinese partner stand to generate a profit of tens of billions of pounds on the £18bn project when it start operations in 10 years time.

The UK government says it will have control over foreign investment in “critical infrastructure”. So far £2.5bn  has being spent on site preparatory work.

Her first ( G20 summit) changed any doubts she had.

Bonkers.

Replacing Trident:  

Will cost at least £205bn.

£205 billion of public money is a huge amount. Pouring it into a nuclear weapons system that experts say could be rendered obsolete by new technology is hardly a wise choice. Far better to spend it on industrial regeneration, building homes, tackling climate change or meeting our defence needs in usable ways.

The cost of disposing the existing Trident fleet would be at least £13bn in today’s prices.

 Two new aircraft carriers.

HMS Queen Elizabeth was launched in July — are the most expensive items of military kit in the British armoury, at a cost of £3.1bn each, considerably more than originally budgeted for.

Their usefulness will also depend on a host of other additional spending commitments, such as the number of new F35 jets that will be flown off them or the number of other Royal Navy ships that can be deployed to protect them.

So far eight of the F-35B Lightning jets EACH plane costs £100 million have being ordered and if sterling weakens price will go up.

The overall order is for 48 of the jump jet F-35Bs by 2023 and will eventually go on to buy a fleet of 138.

The US-built F35s have spiralled in cost and have been beset by serious technical problems in development.

Bonkers.

Next:

HS2:

The zombie train that refuses to die, a project born of political vanity not rooted in commercial reality or value for tax payers money.

The UK currently has just 113 km of high-speed rail line.

It will mark the start of the most extravagant infrastructure project in Britain’s history: High Speed 2, a railway line running 335 miles from London to Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. The line is budgeted at £55bn, although late last year its cost was widely reported to be closer to £70bn.

The whole concept of HS2 came out of intense political lobbying from the construction industry who want to build it. Those same firms have since been hired to produce the designs and budgets, and this has made sure HS2 has been gold-plated right from the start. HS2 is just one big gravy train for advocates with massive vested interests.

If it is built, HS2 would be the most expensive railway in the history of the world, surely sucking up the entire rail infrastructure budget for decades to come, and squeezing out more deserving, cheaper and cost-effective projects.

The UK’s cost per km is the highest among any of the major high-speed rail countries – with HS1 costing £51.3m per km and HS2 estimated to cost £78.5m per km.

High Speed Two (HS2) Limited is the company responsible for developing and promoting the UK’s new high-speed rail network. It is funded by grant-in-aid from the government.

HS2 ‘abysmal value for money’ at 10 times the cost of high-speed rail in Europe.

HS2 is the most expensive high-speed project in existence, according to new analysis undertaken by The Telegraph.

The current £42.6bn budget makes it more than ten times the cost per kilometre of some global counterparts.

Bonkers. 

Next:

Third runway Heathrow:

£17.6bn

This is how much the airports commission said the new runway would cost, but Heathrow has been asked to reduce it. It is apparently working on revised plans. Gatwick estimates its new runway would cost £7.4bn, while the Airports Commission says it would cost £9.3bn.

A second runway at Gatwick will cost £9.3billion, much lower than the two proposals to expand Heathrow, which cost £13.5billion and £18.6billion respectively.

The Prime Minister’s local council, Windsor and Maidenhead, said it will spend a lot of money to challenge the Heathrow decision. That brings the total for the four councils in the area – Hillingdon, Richmond and Wandsworth – to a whopping £200,000.

It is estimated that ‘between 105 2025 and 2050, airlines would pay £40billion less in aeronautical charges than they would under the Heathrow options,’

£5.7 billion would have to be spent on works such as tunnelling the M25 motorway under the runway and widening the M4.

MPs will take a vote on the airport decision in a year or so.

Last but not least: 

The Sunderland plant has been a point of pride for May’s Conservative Party since then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher lured Nissan to open it in 1986, beginning a recovery in British car making that had nearly collapsed in the 1970s.

Britain’s big carmakers are nearly all foreign-owned and ship more than half of their exports to the other 27 countries in the European Union, making the industry’s future one of the big question marks hanging over Britain’s plan to quit the bloc.

Japanese carmaker Nissan (7201.T) will build two new models in Britain despite the vote to quit the EU, giving Prime Minister Theresa May her most important corporate endorsement since the Brexit referendum in June.

Obviously Nisan was offered reassurances that conditions would remain competitive, but was not given explicit promises to compensate for any tariffs that might be imposed once the country leaves the bloc.

Such a step could potentially open the floodgates to ultimatums from other companies.

No country can develop by itself behind closed doors.

Politicians and civil servants find it hard to reverse poor decisions, even when their initial rationale has slipped into distant memory.Afficher l'image d'origineShe has ruled out an early election. But, where is the public outrage.

Brexit:

It Seems to me that England’s difficulty is the European Union opportunity.

All comments welcome.