No-deal Brexit can’t be ruled out but not in UK’s interest, says French minister June 19, 2020 A senior French official said that she could not rule out the UK’s post-Brexit trade talks with the EU ending without a deal, but said it would be in Britain’s interest to reach an agreement. “I am not ruling out anything,” junior european affairs minister Amelie de Montchalin said, when asked if she could rule [...]
Coronavirus: Boris Johnson ‘plans to return to work on Monday’ April 24, 2020 Boris Johnson is intent on returning to work as soon as Monday to continue tackling the coronavirus crisis, it is reported. Earlier this month, the Prime Minister was discharged from St Thomas’ Hospital following his own battle with coronavirus. He has since been recovering at Chequers, his countryside residence. But Johnson – who spent three [...]
It’s time to self-isolate from social media’s armchair experts March 19, 2020 You can tell whether a news story is really, properly serious by the degree to which people develop instant expertise. Back in 2008, all sorts of people who didn’t know an asset from a debt suddenly started holding forth confidently about balance sheet liabilities and CDO-Squareds. A few years later, in the wake of the [...]
Level up: Boosting the regions might mean levelling down London March 12, 2020 Except for updates on the coronavirus, no ministerial appearance these days is complete without mention of the government’s professed intention to “level up”. This seems to mean a desire to do something — usually something to do with infrastructure spending — for the so-called “left-behind” places that voted Leave in 2016, and especially those “red [...]
Human ingenuity and working together will pull us through the coronavirus crisis March 9, 2020 Last week, Bank of England governor Mark Carney gave his economic view of the possible consequences of coronavirus: he expects it to cause “disruption” and not “destruction”. In saying this, he follows the measured words of the health secretary, Matt Hancock, who made the point that preparing for the worst is the job at hand. [...]
New-look cabinet to meet later after Sajid Javid’s shock exit February 14, 2020 Boris Johnson’s newly reshuffled cabinet will meet for the first time later today after the shock departure of chancellor Sajid Javid. His deputy, Rishi Sunak, is the new Treasury boss after Javid refused to sack his special advisers in order to keep his job. He said “no self-respecting minister” could agree to Prime Minister Boris [...]
Boris Johnson to announce £5bn bus service improvement plan February 10, 2020 Boris Johnson is tomorrow expected to announce £5bn of funding to improve local bus services across the country. The Prime Minister will outline a plan to transform the bus network and cycle links with simpler fares, new vehicles, improved routes and higher frequencies. The five-year funding package will increase the number of services – particularly [...]
Champion of free trade? Prime Minister Boris Johnson must match rhetoric with action February 5, 2020 For believers in free trade, Boris Johnson’s speech in the Painted Hall on Monday was, in many ways, highly encouraging. The Prime Minister emphasised the role that free trade has played in lifting some of the poorest people on the planet out of poverty, name-checked Adam Smith and his invisible hand of the market, and [...]
The PM’s posturing and fighting stance could upset trade talks before they’ve even begun February 4, 2020 The tears of joy and sadness seen on Brexit Day had barely dried before the UK and EU were at each other’s throats again ahead of trade talks set to last until the end of the year. Yesterday, both the UK and EU set out their negotiating positions, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson blithely stating [...]
Boris Johnson’s disastrous Huawei decision is an act of national self-harm February 3, 2020 Powerful US Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas put it best. Letting the state-sponsored Chinese technology firm Huawei build even a portion of Britain’s 5G network — as the Prime Minister nonsensically decided to do last week — is quite a bit like letting the KGB construct the British phone systems in the 1980s. At [...]