Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau

 

Or, as John Redwood would have it “dum dum dah dum dum…b?”

John Redwood, of Welsh National Anthem fame, keeps banging on about how the border problem on the island of Ireland can be solved by computer technology.

Now, I admit to being a bit of a technophobe. If someone really knowledgeable tells me that it can be done I might well believe them, I guess. But John Redwood doesn’t look like that kind of guy.

He tweeted:

“There’s no need to have an intensified border compared w/ the considerable border we have now. We deal w/ VAT, excise & currency differences electronically as consignments come across. We live in the age of the computer-no need for a person in a kiosk working out a lot of sums.”

To which, the response was:

It seems to me that if there were something that would work between two countries in entirely different jurisdictions, sharing no customs union, and no common market, with no legal commonality and both with trade deals with third nations that were entirely different, then someone serious (not John Redwood) would have proposed it, with detailed plans of how it would work… and what it would cost, both the UK government and the EU. Indeed wouldn’t technology firms be rushing to try to sell their solution to the governments involved before their competitors?

As Dr Mike Galsworthy said: “If your “age of the computer” solutions to the UK-Irish border are so spot on… Then use one: Get on your computer & write a proposal. Just mouthing off on TV won’t prove it. Write a proposal that can be implemented on a stretch of border & thereby proven.”

So, if it is the answer to the biggest issue facing Brexit; the problem which is holding up negotiations, why has no one done this?

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Just a note for those who are calling for a no-deal Brexit.  In that event, there will be a hard border in Ireland. No ifs, no buts. A border like Russia and Poland have.

Still, here’s the Welsh National Anthem to soothe your frayed nerves.

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RANDOM THOUGHTS

John Redwood‏ @johnredwood

Once out of the EU Customs Union the UK could unilaterally cut all tariffs on products we don’t grow for ourselves or could offer to do so in return for some free trade response from those who would benefit. Inside, we can’t do this as the others don’t agree with this strategy.

Yes, that would all be fine, Mr Redwood, but it would involve leaving the World Trade Organisation too. You did know that, didn’t you?

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It appears that Fluffy Muddle wasn’t available for an interview this morning on Radio Scotland to talk about the EU withdrawal economic impact assessments from the British government, y’know, the ones that they had and didn’t have and then had again (or something).

I suspect he must have been on early morning tea duties at Downing Street (tea tray at 6 am, tea, milk, 2 digestives, open curtains). But I wonder where his blue-blooded aristocratic assistant was. Don’t we pay him to be available for occasions on which the Rt Hon blokey is otherwise engaged in beard cleaning …or domestic duties… or whatever it is he does?

And what about the Colonel, who assured us she attends British Cabinet meetings? Was she on manoeuvres somewhere with her rusty troops?

Why does no one want to talk about this stuff?

Murdo, oh Murdo????

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A Fife farmer has had to let crops die in the fields because he can’t get anyone to pick them since so many Europeans have left for home, or somewhere else in the union with more stability.

This is before we have actually left Europe.

It is a bit worrying that we will be bringing back control only to find that it’s all got out of control.

Some quote the unemployment figures and ask why we are so short of people when so many are unemployed. However, government figures (1.4 million) show an unemployment rate of 4.2%, which by common consent, is considered to be more or less full employment.

A substantial section of this is made up of people simply between jobs. Starting a new job in a few weeks but left the present one and needing “NI stamps”. After a few weeks they sign off to be replaced by others in the same situation.

This figure also includes the ever-growing number of people who are over 50 and over 60 (and unless you’ve been used to outdoor, hard physical work all your life it’s unlikely [not impossible] you’d be able to start …and be effective… in that kind of work at that time of life).

Clearly, some older people have no problems landing a job.

 

Having worked in the employment business, I can assure you that it is harder for older folk to get into work. If it’s a physical job, employers are looking for younger people who will still be standing at the end of a hard 8-hour shift. If it’s office work, employers are looking for people whose IT skills are up to the lastest mark. In hospitality and retail, they tend to be overlooked too. When did you last see a barista in Costa Coffee, or an assistant in Next with grey hair

It also includes people who have disabilities but who are able to work if someone gives them the chance, but for some of whom a job bent over in muddy field wouldn’t be appropriate, or even possible.

Unemployment figures also include those who, for other reasons, are pretty much unemployable. (Michael Something of the Night Howard’s “prison works” may have been a cool slogan for the blue rinses and retired colonels, but the truth is it does damage people’s employment prospects in the future, one reason that Scotland’s government has tried to reduce the number of people incarcerated).

Then there are those who have drink and drug issues which render them unemployable. Not a small number.

So if, in the end, 2 million of the 3 million Europeans do leave, from what pool of labour will we recruit?

We need to remember too, that farm labour is a tiny part our problems. Perhaps even more important are the care staff for our old people’s homes, the highly trained medical staff that work in the NHS, doctors, nurses, radiologists, physios, etc, etc.

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Oh and, I won’t tell you again…

 

I’LL JUST LEAVE THIS HERE…

John Redwood‏ @johnredwood

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Mrs Merkel may be able to soldier on at the head of a difficult coalition, but she has lost substantial authority for her EU policies.

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Oh dear, Mr Redwood,

OK, to start off with Angela Merkel has a PhD. And she’s German. So she isn’t “Mrs Merkel”. My best guess at her title is Frau Doktor Merkel. (Ed will correct me, I’m sure, if I got that wrong.)

I can’t help thinking that, although it’s a small point, it would probably help international relations a little if Brits didn’t always assume that their way of doing things was the only way.

Secondly, you may be forgetting that, like the Germans, the Brits just had a General Election.

Unlike the Germans, it was one held by choice rather than legal necessity.

And, as I recall, Mrs May has managed to soldier on at the head of a difficult uneasy coalition with a hard Christian fundamentalist party, thanks to a large wodge of taxpayers money harvested from this elusive magic money tree which could not be persuaded, only weeks before, to fruit for nurses.

Of course, Mrs May’s policies on Europe have to some extent been saved by the fundamentalists (as long as no one refers to anything having happened any more than 6,000 years ago, anything gay, or any kind of abortion plans), but as her policies on Europe have been limited to: “Brexit means Brexit”; “Brexit will be red, white and blue” and “No deal is better than a bad deal”, I’m not sure that that is of any great matter.

Mrs May never really had much in the way of authority, having been the “best of a terrible bunch” candidate when Cameron broke another of his promises and stepped down.

She became a figure of fun during the subsequent unnecessary and disastrous election campaign (which she had promised not to have), playing, in closed factories, to houses little bigger than the crowd that failed to turn up to see her speech in New York, and having doors slammed in her face.

However, since she lost the election she has become an international figure of ridicule. The phrase “strong and stable” will never have quite the same meaning again.

Most leaders have ups and downs. Mrs May only seems to have missed out entirely on the ups, but then you’d really be stretching things to call her a “leader”.