Funny if it wasn't so unfunny.

Isn’t it ironic that those who are calling the prorogation undemocratic are the same ones who are seeking to have the result of a democratic referendum overturned?  Hey ho!

Prorogation? It's been done before, by John Major.

So the government has asked the Queen to suspend Parliament just days after MPs return to work in September - and only a few weeks before the Brexit deadline.   

You would have though the world was about to end given the hysterical reaction by bitter Remainers who seem to be focused on nothing else than the overturning of the biggest democratic vote the country has ever seen.  “Calm yourself” as Speaker Bercow would say.  

In the interests of balance, it may be helpful to remind everyone that John Major’s prorogation, yip he who threatens to take the government to court over prorogation, which he used to cover up the cash for questions scandal, lasted from the March 21 until the 1997 General Election: a period of 6 weeks.   Compare this to today’s announced prorogation that will result in Parliament losing only 4 sitting days. 

Rather than condemn the Government for seeking to deliver what MPs themselves actually voted for when they passed into the law of the nation when they approved Article 50, wouldn’t Ms Sturgeon, Ms Swinson and Mr Grieve be better training their fire on the EU which so far has steadfastly refused to negotiate?   Their characterisation of the government undermining democracy is utterly laughable when you consider it is they who wish to break the laws that they themselves set and overturn the votes of the majority, the 17,410,742.    

They clearly only believe in democracy when it suits them.

Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear....

Let’s try and work this out. 

Hard core Remainers say they will not let us leave the EU without a deal.    

But Parliament has voted three times to reject the only treaty that the EU offered Mrs May.   

The EU say that treaty is the only one on the table that it will accept.   

The EU says it will not re-open negotiations.   

And Remainers then say they won’t let us leave without a deal.  But Parliament…..  .   

Round and round we go.   

Now, love or loathe Mr Johnson, he has been perfectly clear.  He wants a deal.  He wants to re-open negotiations.  But the EU are saying no, they won’t.   

So I do wish these hard core bitter Remainers would focus their fire on the EU.  It is the EU that is not willing to negotiate. 

The EU already treats us a foreign country.

UK companies were blocked from further contracts on Galileo after the triggering of Article 50.  If that’s how they treat people that want to stay friendly with them, pity their enemies! The EU therefore has already made us a foreign country.    

This is the organisation that bitter Remainers want us to stay part of.  Well, dear Remainers, the EUs behaviour clearly shouts out they don’t want us to be part of them.   

Yet you still want to go grovelling to them for a so called deal?

Government of National Unity. Having a laugh are we?

The big problem is how is this government of national unity going to explain to the 17,410,742 people, the majority, that in fact national unity is all about ditching the majority and imposing the minority view.   

Is that not how revolutions start?  

By the way, notice that none of the majority, the Leave MPs, are part of their plans?

Polls.

It sometimes feels we are constantly being fed, through Main Stream Media, the narrative that we live in a divided country that is divided in almost everything and the government is out of touch and seeking not do what the people don't want them to do.  But when you look at some of the polls that have come out in the last week or two, you see that, yes there is division, but not as the media would portray.  A couple of graphs from recent polls illustrate the point.

For example, stop and search.  Contraversial?  Well MSM would say so.  But it seems that the current government is more in touch with what people think is needed than the Labour, the Liberal Democrats (if we can still call them democrats) and outgoing prime minister, Mrs May, who basically cut back on S and S powers.  The faux outrage of people of the left would be amusing if it wasn't so serious.  Maybe they don't live in the streets where people are walking around with knives and machetes under their jackets.  Maybe none of their children have been stabbed.  Right now it is Boris and his Home Secretary, Priti Patel, that have managed to capture teh mood of teh nation and find a policy that dramatically bucks the trend. My goodness, even 65% of Remainers support it with only 21% opposed.

But it is this second one that I find very worrying.  Because it goes to the heart of the relationship between an MP and their constituents. The commitment made on polling night that they, in the words of the Returning Office, the named person will represent their constituents.  Not just use them as a vehicle for getting them into the corridors of power.

I actually believe it should be the left hand one, we should be able to trust our politicians to make the right judgements.  But the extraordinary disparity between voters and the MPs shows the reality.  Putting it simply, voters don't trust their MPs anymore to make the right calls.  

So when people disdainfully dismiss the rise of the BREXIT party as being populist, ask them why people need to vote for a so called populist party?  The answer is in plain sight.  It is because the MPs have disconnected themselves from the people.

You are not dreaming. Honest.

It’s an odd one this.  Back in time there were a group of people who said that the UK parliament had to have a say in whether the government could trigger Article 50.  They went to UK's Supreme Court in 2017 where they argued that it was parliament that had to trigger it because of the implications of triggering it.   

One of these implications, they argued, was that once triggered the clock was ticking and we would leave the European Union on a specific date with or without a deal.  It was MPs that should decide if we should set the clock ticking.  MPs then, by an overwhelming majority, backed the triggering of Article 50.    

Fast forward.  That’s same group of MPs are now saying we should force parliament, MPs, themselves, to revoke Article 50.  Yes, the very thing they demanded a say in approving, they are now saying, in effect, we want to overturn what we overwhelmingly backed a short while ago.   

What are the people of the UK meant to think?  On one hand MPs say, let’s trigger Article 50, and then now they say, let’s stop Article 50.   

Couldn’t make it up

Use your mobile device while driving? Think again!

What do MPs do?  Well, there is the obvious.  They talk about leaving the EU.  A lot.   I just wish they would use their creative thinking and get on and actually deliver what 17,410,742 voted for.  But they do much more than that.  They spend time in their constituencies dealing with problems and issues for constituents that no one else will touch.  And I take my hat off to them.  It’s not just a short term working in Westminster then a long holiday over the summer.  Far from it.  MPs get very little time for themselves.

So it was good to read about one of their many Committees, in this case the Commons Transport Select Committee, doing some impressive behind the scenes work.  And some of the facts they have uncovered are pretty sobering to say the least.   For example, an expert told the committee that taking a hands-free phone call caused "essentially the same" amount of distraction as being at the legal limit for alcohol blood level in England and Wales.   You read that correctly.   

Another fact.  Did you know that there were 773 casualties on Britain's roads in 2017, including 43 deaths and 135 serious injuries, in crashes where a driver using any kind of mobile device was a contributory factor?  Yes, 43 deaths because people couldn’t leave their mobile devices alone for a car journey.   43 bereaved families.  Were you one of them?

Incredibly, such is the lack of care and understanding of the fact that a car is a lethal weapon and it only takes a moments inattention to result in devastating consequences, that one in four people actually feel it is safe to use a mobile phone when behind the wheel in stationary traffic.  Being illegal doesn’t seem to bother people.  A 2016 study by scientists at the University of Sussex found conversations via hands-free devices caused some drivers to visually imagine what was being discussed.  Their focus was no longer on the road.   That incidentally doesn’t mean actually holding a mobile device.  It means using a mobile device.  Hands free included.   

As Joshua Harris of road safety charity Brake points out research and evidence shows clearly that using a hands-free phone is stupid at best and can lead to you committing a criminal act.  "It can impair a driver in the same way as a hand-held device and so it makes sense that the law treats these acts equally.  One moment's distraction from a phone can cause a lifetime of suffering so our advice to drivers is simple - when you're driving, make sure your phone is on silent and placed out of sight and out of reach" he said.    

A Department for Transport spokeswoman said: "Being distracted by a mobile phone while driving is dangerous and puts people's lives at risk. The law is clear that anyone driving dangerously is committing a criminal offence."   

Now these numbers and facts may just go over the top of your head.  They are not big.  But if it was your daughter or son that was the victim of such a crime would you not be raging that Parliament was allowing such an avoidable crime to happen?    

Well, the encouraging news is this Committee is now proposing, among other recommendations, that a hands-free phone ban for drivers 'should be considered'.  Sadly too late for some families.   

But for today, you and I can do one thing.  Don’t use our mobile devices hands free when driving.  You could just stop yourself from killing someone’s daughter or son.  

Are businesses ready to leave the European Union? You bet they are.

Gama Aviation’s Europe Ground division has taken the following steps to safeguard its approval in the event of a WTO alternative to an agreement with the EU.  Should this situation arise then the UK will in effect become what the EU and European Union Aviation Safety Agency terms a “third country” and current approvals granted within the UK would therefore no longer be valid for EU aircraft.    

But like most prudent businesses Gama Aviation have been monitoring this situation and working proactively with both the Civil Aviation Authority, the statutory corporation which oversees and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the United Kingdom and the EASA for some time to ensure continuity of their approvals for EU based aircraft.   

As part of their preparations they took the precaution of applying to EASA for what is termed Third Country Approval (TCA) which Gama confirmed, on 21st January this year, had been accepted by EASA.  This meant that in the event of a WTO alternative to an agreement with the EU, this approval would have been enacted with effect from 30th March 2019.    This arrangement ensured that Gama will, irrespective of the result of the UK/EU negotiations, have had the approvals in place to seamlessly continue providing clients with the same service as they did on 21^st January 2019.  You can read the whole story on their website.

Notice anything there?  Yes, you are right, Gama Aviation, like every other business that is well led, has been for some time ready to leave the European Union, deal or no deal, with very little impact.  Aviation is one of the most technically complex and challenging industries.  And yet Gama managed to be ready to exit the EU even before the first deadline of leaving in March 2019. 

This simple fact is Remainers really have lost the plot.  They really don't understand business. The only thing that is harming businesses now is those who are seeking postpone or cause further uncertainty.  Gama was ready to leave the EU on March 29th 2019.  They had secured their business continuity.

The vast majority of businesses were ready according to the Bank of England which reckons that back in March 2019 80% of UK businesses were ready to leave with the WTO alternative, also known as the cliff edge by Remainers.  Unfortunately though it does look like CBI Members were a bit behind the curve for a few months when their Director General, Carolyn Fairbairn, said only 4% of their Membership were ready.

The only ones not interested in getting ready are hard core anti democracy Remainers who simply don’t want it to happen. In spite of the votes of 17,410,742 people. 

Laugh or cry? You choose.

One is never sure whether to laugh or cry when you hear Jeremy Corbyn.  Apparently he has written to Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill saying leaving the EU on the 31st October would be an "anti-democratic abuse of power".   

Surely the real anti-democratic abuse of power is by him and all the MPs who are refusing to implement the democratic mandate to leave the European Union given to them by 17,410,742 people who voted leave.  

If only these MPs had exercised their thinking as creatively in delivering the result of the referendum we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Do you choose which votes you respect?

"Politicians don't get to choose which votes they respect."  That seems blindingly obvious.   Why it takes Dominic Cummings to have to remind elected politicians like Dominic Grieve MP of this truth is a very sad reflection on the state of our political order today.   

He eloquently sums up in nine words what is really at the heart of it all.  It's no longer about remaining/leaving the EU - it's about whether we live in a democracy or autocracy.    And with the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, in effect calling for regime change by demanding a general election in the UK, we know that the EU is continuing through its apparatchiks with its role as the antithesis to democracy.

It clearly isn’t so obvious to the people named in yesterday’s paperwork lodged at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, all Remainers, and does remind us all that those bitter people who don’t respect the will of the people are still alive and well and are continuing to attempt to thwart the democratic process at every turn.

We don't need to be in a political union to trade freely.

There are now two a clear divides emerging in UK politics.  Those who respect democracy vs those who don’t.   

And the second category, those who want free trade vs those who want to live in a world where free trade is an anathema.   

On the first, democracy, once upon a time, every party respected this.  Now, precious few seem to.  The Labour party and the Conservative Party seem to be in two minds as to whether the will of the people should be respected.  But the Liberal Democrat Party stands out alone in declaring that even if there was a 2^nd referendum, if the vote was the same as the 1^st referendum, they would still not respect the will of the people and would campaign for a 3^rd vote.  And a 4^th till the people got the answer right, as far as they were concerned.  Strikes me that Ms Swinson, the new leader of the party who declared this as her policy a few days ago is neither liberally tolerant nor democratic.   But we shouldn't be surprised. That's the same way as the EU they are so enthral to behaves.  (Have you ever seen anything other than an EU flag at a LibDem rally?  Me neither). And if you think I'm over the top, just remember Ireland being told by the EU, think again.  Keep voting till you get it right.

On the trade issue, I’m really quite staggered by the remain voices that simply haven’t the slightest idea of how trade works.  I make something. You want to buy it.  I sell it to you.  That was what we did before we joined the EEC as it was.  And there is absolutely no reason why we could not just go back to that.   

But of course, in Brussels we have elite that really is not interested in democracy or free trade.  They want any trade to be wrapped up in their political ambitions for a European Super State.  The UK is now being a bit of a spoke in the wheel for progress towards that.  And they don't like it. 

Anyway the facts are the facts.  The UK voted to leave the European Union. That was democracy in action, in spite of the overwhelming desire of the EU elite and the UK institutions and big corporate world to stop us voting as we did. 

Here we go again.....

According to paperwork lodged at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, the parliamentarians bringing the latest action are the MPs Joanna Cherry, Jo Swinson, Ian Murray, Geraint Davies, Hywel Williams, Heidi Allen, Angela Smith, Lord Hain, Baroness Jones of Moulescomb and the Right Honourable Janet Royall, the Baroness Royall of Blaisdon.    

They are joined by Lord Winston, Lord Wood of Anfield, Debbie Abrahams MP, Rushanara Ali MP, Tonia Antoniazzi MP, Hannah Bardell MP and Dr Roberta Blackman Woods MP.   

Other parliamentarians listed as bringing the action include Ben Bradshaw, Tom Brake, Karen Buck, Ruth Cadbury, Marsha Cordova, Ronnie Cowan and Neil Coyle MP.    

Notice anything about them?  Every single one voted Remain.  

So let’s stop this nonsense that they are trying to be all democratic.  They are not.  They are trying to use the courts to overturn a democratic vote on a question the Electoral Commission said was the right one.  I wouldn’t at all be surprised if they all share the views of Ms Swinson who clearly has stated that, even in the event of a second referendum, she wouldn’t accept the result unless it went her way.   

This is the people our nation is up against.  These are the ones who can't accept defeat and instead try to poison the democratic process.  They only believe in democracy when it suits them.

Are you and I bigger contributers to the global carbon footprint than we thought?

Here’s a wee question for you.  Can you tell me one the most destructive industries on the planet in terms of carbon footprint?   I’m sure will come up with many answers.  I bet one of the ones you immediately thought of was air travel.  It’s a real baddie, isn’t it?  Right up there as being a terrible impact on the environment.  Big carbon foot print.  You can understand why many protesters focus on air travel.  They vent their anger on social media.  They use web and cloud based technology to really hammer home their point.

Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish activist who, at age 15, began protesting outside the Swedish parliament in August 2018 about the need for immediate action to combat climate change, is one of the people who makes really good use of channels like Twitter.  

But hang on, it seems when you dig into it, the web industry is really one of the worst of all.  

Yes, it’s true.  The data industry is responsible for more global carbon emissions than the entire aviation industry.   

How on earth do I come up with that idea? Well, turns out that all this data stored on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, YouTube, WhatsApp, is piling up.  Fast.  And the Cloud, or to be more accurate, 6,911 massive data centres located around the globe, are hungry for power. Very hungry.  They need massive cooling systems to keep them cool.  They really do eat up energy.

So next time you go on to Facebook or watch a video on Netflix or YouTube, it turns out you, like Greta, are actually contributing more harm to the environment than air travel.  Not sure young Greta has quite worked that the very medium she uses to promote her message has in fact the biggest carbon footprint of all industries.