24th July, 2018. Remember that date.

Well, it is happening.  The UK and EU have formally started splitting WTO membership agreements.    

So, what happened?  First of all, a reminder that the WTO has 164 nations as members.  Virtually the whole world. 

In two confidential draft membership agreements they began the processes of  separating Britain’s rights and obligations in merchandise trade from the EU’s.    A separate split of services trade is expected to follow.   

Have you heard about this?  Did you hear the British Ambassador Julian Braithwaite talk about it when he said: “It seeks to replicate the concessions and commitments applicable to the UK as part of the EU today.  An important milestone as we prepare for our departure from the EU”.       

So, where does it go from here?  Well, “WTO members will have three months to review the schedule, which will be considered to be approved if there are no objections from other members”.  So said the WTO.      

What does that mean? Well, until now the EU has represented Britain at the WTO, and Britain’s membership rights were not set out distinctly, even though Britain was always a WTO member in its own right. The UKs June 2016 decision to leave the EU meant disentangling their trade rules to allow Britain to act independently. That is now what is happening.   Officially.  At the WTO level.  And, unlike the tortuous conversations with the EU, this will be pretty simple.   And yet it’s more important than the negotiations with the EU as this is about our global opportunities, not our involvement in a declining EU.    

So when key WTO members including the United States, Canada and Australia pour scorn on Chequers they are reminding Mrs May that in the real world over 60% of our trade already goes outside the EU.      

This will force Britain into a wider negotiation, said David Henig, a former British trade official who now leads the UK Trade Policy Project at the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE).     

So Mrs Mays dilemma is simple.  Does she do a restrictive trade deal with the EU and be tied into the ECJ rulings or find opportunities on the growing world stage.    

“As the UK’s first serious trade negotiation in years, many will be watching to see how the UK government performs in negotiating at the WTO, and how they handle the debate domestically,” said Mr Henig.      

“At this stage we see a stuttering start, but this could ironically be the opportunity needed to get on the right track and set a positive path for our future trade policy.”      

My question is, why has this far more important set of negotiations not being talked about in the main stream media?

Glasgow Airport warns of grounded flights.

I have to say, Glasgow Airport are spinning a total scare story.  Even pro remain people must be embarrassed.   

The UK controls all the airspace through which virtually all the air traffic from the EU has to pass through to get to the USA.   

UK Airspace is divided into three FIRs; London, Scottish and Shanwick Oceanic.   The London FIR covers England and Wales. The Scottish FIR covers Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Shanwick Oceanic FIR covers a region of airspace totalling 700,000 square miles over the North East Atlantic.   

Ireland is totally surrounded by UK controlled airspace.      

So, if the EU decided to break international agreements or play a game of obstructing flights from the UK, they could find themselves instantly excluded from UK controlled airspace.   

Yet another scare story from the pro EU lobby that want the thwart the democratic vote of the people of the UK.

Don't forget.....

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That "lightbulb" moment.

Did you know that next week sees the great day when the EU will at last bring sense to the lightbulb marker place?  Yes, the sale of halogen lightbulbs will be banned by the EU.   

Now we all know that LED bulbs use less energy.  That’s why many of us, including businesses, long ago decided it was time to change bulbs.  In other words, most people who want to have already changed bulbs, and it’s highly likely that those who need a bulb in the future would buy the one that cost them less to run.  Why wouldn’t they?  

The thing is, given most already have made the switch based on the availability of a new product on the market, why is the EU passing legislation to force something to be done that the market has already dealt with.   

This is just another case of Big State knows best, following what businesses and people already are doing, spending our taxpayers money introducing legislation for something that has already happened, then taking the credit.

The more you think about it......

Canada +++ will do just fine and will benefit the people and businesses of the UK and the EU. 

But it won’t happen because the EU leaders won’t let it happen as it would mean the UK, like Japan, the USA and Australia, would have a trade deal but would be outside the ECJ. 

They spitefully are willing to damage not just the UK but the EU with their regressive and protectionist United States of Europe.

USA, Canada, New Zealand. They say Chequers is dead in the water too.

Talking of countries that are not in the EU that have successful trade deals with the EU but are not subservient to EU law, the US Ambassador to London Woody Johnson has said that a UK-US Free Trade Agreement is now “up in the air” because of the White Paper. 

New Zealand’s former High Commissioner to the UK Sir Lockwood Smith has said that if we follow the White Paper, we “can forget global Britain”. 

On not making our own rules, a Canadian former ambassador to the WTO has stated: ‘either you have the freedom to strike trade deals and manage an independent trade and regulatory policy, or you don’t.’     

The letter does not acknowledge that there is a better alternative.   The UK could negotiate a free trade deal similar to that between the EU and Canada, but with the addition of special rules that would allow British financial firms to retain their automatic access to European markets. Such a deal has been labelled ‘Canada +++’. 

Leaving the EU on WTO terms would allow the UK to make its own laws, agree trade deals with the world outside the EU, and set our own course for a brighter future. It would also prevent undue retaliation from the EU.   

Despite the Prime Minister’s claims that ‘we would still be able to make a competitive offer to new trading partners’, the Chequers plan would actually deny the UK the freedom to do independent trade deals, because regulations need to be on the table in negotiations, and we would not have control over these.   

The White Paper deal is also unnecessary to avoid a ‘hard border’ for Northern Ireland. Both the UK and Republic of Ireland customs authorities have stated that the necessary technological solutions exist without one. Irish PM Leo Varadkar and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker have both said that even in the event of no deal, there need be no hard border in Ireland. 

The White Paper would see Britain unrepresented in the EU’s law-making institutions but forced to abide by its rules. This means Britain would be governed, to a great extent, by someone other than the British people. So the White Paper is not what anyone would recognise as Brexit – but it is also completely unnecessary. Moving to WTO terms would be a perfectly normal relationship between the two sides.   

The 2017 Conservative manifesto bound the Conservative Party (and the Labour manifesto was also clearly binding to its party) to fully leave the European Union.   

This is not where we are now.

The Government’s White Paper will maintain EU control over Britain

The Prime Minister says the White Paper is driven by the need to ‘put forward proposals they find credible’. But this is the wrong approach. The UK has done nothing wrong by leaving – the point of Brexit is to restore our independent democracy, not to propose things that satisfy the EU.  

The Prime Minister states that the plan takes ‘differing voices’ into account and is a ‘compromise’. However, the White Paper is a compromise simply because in many ways it means we will remain under the EU.   A couple of specific points in this. 

The White paper will prevent independent trade deals and the ‘common rulebook’ is unnecessary.  

The Government has admitted that we will keep single market regulation in goods, but this will also mean other regulations too. When the Prime Minister says we would not want to ‘drop’ standards anyway, she does not mention that we would not be able to improve them either.     

The Prime Minister writes that Britain would be in a ‘free trade area’ in goods with the EU. But free trade does not need harmonised regulations. She claims that this ‘common rulebook’ is needed to ‘move goods without checks’, and that ‘businesses would not need to complete costly customs declarations’. But this also does not need require common rules. Any small border frictions that remain will also be outweighed by the tremendous opportunities for growth out of the EU.     

This EU regulation is getting more burdensome, so it is particularly urgent that we make our own rules and laws again. This plan would prevent that.    

Chequers will tie our economy and our future to the EU indefinitely.   

The White Paper admits that if Parliament tries to make other rules, it will face ‘consequences’. Britain would be under EU rules but without representation in its institutions. We would be handing the EU power over large parts of a major competitor’s economy – our own – and its entire manufacturing sector.   

The EU would have every opportunity to make regulations that discriminate against our companies, and in favour of their own. Even within the EU, Sir James Dyson has described how EU standards discriminate against his innovative products. The Prime Minister claims that ‘the last substantial change’ to these regulations was in 1987, but this is inaccurate. The framework remains the same, but the EU has created thousands of goods-related regulations since then.   

The Prime Minister writes: ‘We will leave the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy’, but we will not escape EU agriculture regulation, and the White Paper admits that we ‘will continue to work with our European partners to regulate fishing’. As the EU negotiation guidelines link a trade deal to ‘maintaining existing reciprocal access on fish’, this is likely to mean giving foreign boats access to British waters.   

The White Paper admits our country will have to ‘respect the remit’ of the ECJ. Britons may be subject to European Investigation Orders, and UK participation in Europol means being in a body that is expanding, under ECJ jurisdiction, and which the EU can use to request Member States start police investigations.  

Does that happen under the new trade deals with Japan and Canada?  No, of course it doesn't.

The UK will not be in control of its own destiny under the Chequers agreement

On 3rd August, the Prime Minister wrote a letter to all members of the Conservative Party defending the Government’s White Paper aka "Chequers".   Almost everyone, from all parties it would seem, is agreed the letter fails to address several key points and shows that the Government’s plan does not implement the will of the British people.   

So lets take one point.  Why will the UK not be back in control?    

Well,simply, the White Paper does not ‘respect the result of the referendum’ and does not give us control of our borders, laws and money. Ultimately everything depends on our democratic self-government. This means making all our laws, political and economic, in our sovereign parliament and adjudicating and interpreting them in our courts – as the Prime Minister proposed in her Lancaster House speech of January 2017. Tragically, this is not where we are now.   

This deal would prevent taking back control of our borders. Instead, free movement will be replaced by ‘reciprocal mobility arrangements… with other defined provisions’ and ‘the principle of non-discrimination between existing Member States’. This is dangerously close to free movement in new words. Non-discrimination may also allow migrants to claim benefits for their families at UK rates.   

When the Prime Minister writes that ‘EU citizens will no longer have the unfettered ability to come to the UK to seek work’ [our italics], this means they will generally still be able to come to the UK to seek work.   

The deal would prevent control over laws, because it will mean a ‘common rulebook’ for goods, with ‘consequences’ if we diverge. It includes threats of ‘action’ that may result if we do anything to gain an ‘undue competitive advantage’ – in other words what any normal independent nation should be able to do.     

This rulebook means being under all EU laws for goods. But in reality, it means rules for much more, because these rules will cover areas like competition too. It will be decided by majority vote of the other 27 Member States, behind closed doors and with no written record. The UK will not be at the table. The Prime Minister promises a ‘parliamentary lock’ so that our parliament can veto rule changes. But in practise this will be impossible. Norway received a similar promise but cannot diverge from the EU due to threats of consequences.    

And on money?  The Prime Minister writes there will be ‘no more vast annual sums paid to the EU’. But there will still be very considerable annual sums.     

The ‘Brexit bill’ alone would be around £35 billion (four years’ worth of net budget contributions). But this depends on the EU agreeing a deal: so that means being made to pay for a bad deal.      

Afterwards, the deal would prevent control over money because it commits us to continuing annual contributions to things like EU aid, and contributing to defence funding and coordination, which even Jean-Claude Juncker admits are intended to create an EU ‘common army’. 

This is what the Prime Minister means by ‘we will continue to cooperate on security matters’ in her letter. This is an attempt to mollify the EU.  

I thought we lived in a democracy.

In the UK we have jury trials.  Why?  Because we believe that it is the people who decide if the state has proved, or not proved, its case.  There is a reason for that.  It holds the power of the state in control.  No one is literally above the law.  

In the UK we have elections, and on occasion, referenda.  Why?  Because we believe that it is the people who decide who should be given the authority to create law.  There is a reason for that.  We entrust the people we elect.   

So it was in the EU referendum.  We, the people, gave parliament the power that allowed them to call and hold a referendum.  Parliament set up the terms, backed by 90% of the MPs.   

The people voted.  They took a decision.  They voted leave.   

Now we have people coming along and saying, know what, the majority shouldn’t have the final say.  It should be put to a new vote.   To take the logic of that just one step further, every time there is jury trial we don’t like the result of, we should re run it.  Every time there is an election and we don’t like the result of we should re run it.    

People who advocate re running or holding a so called Peoples Vote (wasn’t that what we had when we voted in the referendum?) really are setting in place a very dangerous process.  If they have such scant regard for the democratic and legal process, what next will they try to overturn?

There is no cliff edge.

Those who say otherwise aught to be ashamed. But it goes on.  Scare story after scare story.  Project Fear Mk 2.   

I have absolutely no problem with people who advocate staying in the EU for political reasons.  They want a United States of Europe.  If that is their bag, fine.  Let them argue their case.  It’s a legitimate stance to take and argue for.       

What they can’t argue is that leaving the EU is like a cliff edge.  And the more rational pro EU supporters know that.  Nor would such pro political EU people argue that it is a disaster economically to leave the EU.  They know it won’t be.  It is because they take a principled stance on the political argument, i.e., they think we should be part of a political union that controls everything from foreign affairs, our military, our taxation, our immigration policy, from the EU.       

The more desperate anti Leave people are not so cerebral in their argument.  It’s all cliff edge this, black hole that.  That they try this on with a straight face is amazing.       

Let’s look at the facts.         

First of all, any informed and impartial look would show that there is in reality no such thing as a “no deal”, “cliff edge” or “crashing out”.  It simply doesn’t exist.  And people who talk in these terms should consider the damage their words are causing.       

Putting it simply, if the EU rejects a free-trade deal with the UK, what is described as no deal is not in fact a no deal.  It’s a process where we move to a different deal: trading under WTO rules.   

And that deal is already on the table. So next time someone says to you we will leave with no deal, gently remind that that this is not true, it is simply no deal with the EU.   WTO is a deal already in place.       

The protectionist EU is already losing out to countries that are working under WTO whose figures suggest UK exports to 111 countries under WTO rules grew at a compound annual growth rate of 2.9 per cent, three times faster than exports to the 14 other early members of the single market between 1993 and 2015.       

And what of trading with the EU?  Those trading with the EU on WTO terms saw 135 per cent real-terms growth in goods exports - much faster than the exports of the founder EU members to each other. Most importantly, inside the customs union, UK trade has been steadily declining with the EU since the global financial crisis.     

With facts like that, why would anyone argue we there is an economic reason for staying in the EU? There isn't.  As David Davis points out, opportunity is round every corner once we are out of the protectionist EU.

So if there were to be a second referendum the question should be, do you want to be part of a declining economic power or do you want to be a truly global trading nation again.  Given we are the 5th largest economy in the world, I think the future looks rather bright being out of the EU.

Who said what?

Question.

Who said each of these statements:  Go on, guess.

1. “I do think it’s a most peculiar costume for people to adopt in the 21st century, but that’s not to me for decide, when they’re not engaged in some serious issue such as giving evidence. That’s the bit that I think it’s almost impossible to have a proper trial if one of the persons is in a kind of bag.”
2. “I wouldn’t want my four year old looked after by somebody wearing a burka. I wouldn’t want my elderly mum looked after by somebody wearing a burka. They need to be able to show their face. I wouldn’t mind if they worked in records in the hospital.” 
3. “Would you interview me now if I was wearing a crash helmet with the visor down?”
4. “Denmark has got it wrong.  Yes, the burka is oppressive and ridiculous – but that's still no reason to ban it.”

Answers:

1. Conservative Rt Honourable Kenneth Clark speaking about the burka on the BBC in 2013
2. Labours Rt Honourable Emily Thornberry speaking on Question Time in 2013
3. Conservatve Andrew Bridgen, MP, talks burkas on Sky News
4. Rt Honourable Boris Johnson in the Daily Telegraph

The question is, why all the fuss over what Boris said?

Mrs Merkel is right.

Mrs May says “It's up to a woman to decide how to dress; it's not up to other people to tell a woman how to dress.  But obviously these issues are ones that are openly discussed and it's right we have discussions about issues like this.”   

Well, that is a typical Mrs May sentence if ever there was one.  It says nothing.   Vacuous.

On the first point, it’s simply not true that women, or men for that matter, can dress how they want to.   There are laws that forbid certain things.

On the second point, “these issues”, she is clearly out of step with her EU counterparts that she is so enthral with.  What’s happened in France with the burqa?  Banned.  Netherlands?  Banned.  Belgium? Banned.  Spain?  Banned.  Italy? Banned.  Austria?  Banned.  Denmark?  Banned.  Switzerland?  Banned.  Even Turkey?  Banned.   

Former French prime minister Manuel Valls called the burka “the enslavement of women”.  Strong words.

Even in Germany the parliament voted in favour of partial burqa ban with the Interior minister saying it will make "boundaries of our tolerance" clear.  Thomas de Maiziere, the German interior minister, argued that the ban was compatible with integration as debate continues over the arrival of more than a million asylum seekers in the country.  “Integration also means that we should make clear and impart our values and where the boundaries of our tolerance towards other cultures lie,” he said.   

Indeed, Mrs May’s good friend Angela Merkel announced her support for the move saying full-face veils were “not acceptable in Germany” and calling them to be banned “wherever it is legally possible”.   

If you watched BBC news last night, it was virtually inviting the police to have a world with Boris almost, but not quite, suggesting he may have broken the law.    

Which is all very odd.  What has he to apologise for?  He defended people's right to wear the burka which is more than what Mrs Merkel does.  She thinks hiding your face is not appropriate in a free liberal society that prides itself on openness.   

Mrs Merkel has got this one right Mrs May.

Who said it?

Guess who said the following in a speech in 2002?   

"The public are losing faith in politics."   

"Politicians are seen as untrustworthy and hypocritical. We talk a different language. We live in a different world."   
 
"Why has the public become so cynical about politics and politicians?"  

"If we're being honest I think we know the answer. In recent years a number of politicians have behaved disgracefully and then compounded their offences by trying to evade responsibility. We all know who they are."  

"Let's face it some of them have stood on this platform."   

"Promising too much and delivering too little."  

"Spinning and counter spinning."   

"Pursuing our obsessions instead of fighting for the common good."   

"Fewer and fewer people are bothering to vote. Why? Because they think that politicians will do exactly what they like."

I wonder if Mrs May ever reads her old speaches?

Once upon a time..........

Once upon a time, as all good stories begin, in a land and time far far away, there were projections of how many jobs would be lost in the financial services if the people of the UK decided to vote to leave the EU.  It was big numbers.  One widely cited report published in 2016 by Oliver Wyman it was estimated that losses could eventually be as high as 75,000.    Back in these olden days Xavier Rolet, the former chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, predicted job losses of over 200,000.  

Changed days.  Wind forward to 1st August 2018.  It’s a different story now with the much touted scare story of an exodus of bankers and financiers from London has not materialised. One interested observer notes that only 1,600 jobs have been earmarked to move.  That’s quite a different number from 200,000.  

So, what’s happened?  Well, like all the other scare stories and fake news peddled by the then chancellor and a host of others who should have known better, the world simply didn’t believe them.  Neither did the people of the UK who voted to leave the EU.      

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the Evening Standard “Probably the City, as the financier of European business, is the central point to make here.  If it became harder for European businesses to access finance, that is far from trivial.  The City itself would find a way to thrive, whatever the outcome of the Brexit negotiations.”  Interestingly he continued, “If it became a low-tax, low-regulation, offshoot fully outside the EU, it would find a way to thrive in those circumstances. But for European businesses the impact would be profound.”    

And indeed it will, as Lord Mayor Charles Bowman observes in POLITICO, the City’s future will be defined less by Brexit than new developments like the rise of financial technology, or fintech with fintech firms already accounting for around 50,000 jobs in the City out of a total of around 483,000, according to figures from the City of London Corporation.   “If we are to lose some of [the existing] jobs, they are going to be the jobs that probably in five-to-10 years’ time are not going to be around, or are not going to be in the same shape or form as today — because the sort of joining of technology with finance at this moment in time is creating a very different dynamic,” he said.   

So Brexit a big problem for the City?  Well, only if people make it one.   

But as in some stories, sometimes a baddy comes along and tries to destroy everything good.  You can decide who the baddies are this time that want to destroy a democratically voted for Brexit.

BBC editorial department needs to get its act together.

Here we go again.  Fake news from the BBC.  Todays headline Giant M20 Operation Brock lorry park 'could last years'. There it is again, contained in quotation marks.  But quotation marks don't make it any truer.  But to continue, yes, "a giant 13-mile lorry park on the M20 could last for years in a no-deal Brexit situation", they say a council has warned.  

Well that might be true if there was no deal.   But of course, there actually is no such thing as NO DEAL.  There is only currently No Deal with the EU.  There is another deal already on the table.  All the EU needs to do is match it.  Not that the BBC reports that either.   

Where do they get this stuff from?  And more importantly, is the editorial department of the BBC now so poor it can’t properly cover a story?   For example, did they do comparisons with other nations that don’t have a deal with the EU?  I see no such queues on the border of Switzerland into Italy or France or Germany.  I see no such queues on the border of Norway and Sweden or Finland. And no such queues in goods flowing into the EU from the USA, Japan, Australia, and, well, from anywhere actually.  

So why the potential queues in the UK?  Good question.  Ask the scaremongering BBC to go and do a bit of digging and it will find that nations that do trade either with a deal with EU or through WTO, there are no queues.  To accuse the BBC of treachery might be a bit much.  But you have to wonder why they are giving prominence to a story that is clearly fake news.

Mrs May's proposal is worse than Remaining. It's Remaining, but with no voice.

Who said this?  “That means taking control of our own affairs, as those who voted in their millions to leave the European Union demanded we must. So we will take back control of our laws and bring an end to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in Britain. Leaving the European Union will mean that our laws will be made in Westminster, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. And those laws will be interpreted by judges not in Luxembourg but in courts across this country.”   

This passage in the Conservative Manifesto was drawn from a fuller passage in the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech on 17 January 2017.   

Sounds clear.  Unambiguous.  No room for doubt, or manoeuvre.   But the Chequers agreement says totally the opposite.  According to Martin Howe, QC, “we will not have truly left the European Union if we are not in control of our own laws.”  And he should know, being one of the foremost lawyers of his generation when it come to EU law.  You can read Martin Howes report in full.  And, as he clearly points out, we won’t be in control of our laws if the ECJ has rule over us.  This is spelt out starkly in a paper he and his colleagues have written about the implications of what Mrs May has proposed in her Chequers dogs breakfast.  It’s a dogs breakfast because it is self-contradictory, and certainly contradicts the pledges given by Mrs May at the general election.  

My question is, what are democrats, of both the Leave and Remain camps who have accepted the democratic wishes of the people, supposed to do when we find the people elected on a manifesto, both Conservative and Labour, ignore it and do the exact opposite?    

Some more excitable nations would get out on the streets and try to bring down the government.  But us, no, we seem to accept that deception is part and parcel of how Mrs May and Olly Robbins are now ruling us.  And we must ask, what’s the point of Her Majesties Opposition if it connives with all of this?  Labour should be thoroughly ashamed of their behaviour thus far.

And to finish, who said this?  “O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!” Sir Walter Scott, the Scottish historical novelist, playwright, poet and historian.

He may have died in 1832, but his words couldn't be more contemporary.

Humiliation number three.

“The EU cannot and the EU will not delegate the application of its customs policy, of its rules, VAT and excise duty collections to a non-member who would not be subject to the EU’s governance structures,” Mr Barnier said after meeting the new Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab in Brussels following the latest week of Brexit negotiations.  

Basically, Mr Barnier shooting down Mrs May's Brexit Chequers customs plan.

The news from the BBC.

Buried in News:Cambridgeshire there was an interesting little news snippet yesterday.  I never saw it on the tv version of its news.  Or hear it on any of their radio channels.  Or maybe I missed it.

Actually it is, or should be, a major news story because the subject of the story is a Labour MP who has been charged with perverting the course of justice.  Same as what Vicky Price, the former wife of Chris Huhne, ended up being sentenced to eight months at Her Majesty’s pleasure for, though she only served nine weeks. 

But this story, it is buried away.  Not given prominence.  Passed unnoticed if you were relying on the BBC for all you need to know.   

Odd that, given the prominence the BBC gives to non-news stories and stories about people who haven't been  questioned, arrested, never mind charged.

Disaster? Not according to the people who know.

One does wonder where some Remainers get their thinking from.  They keep talking about how trade will suffer.  There will be queues at the customs.  It will be disaster.  

Really?  I was reading of owner an international freight forwarder that has been in business for 35 years.  He can see absolutely no reason whatsoever why trucks and container traffic cannot flow freely between the UK and our EU neighbours under World Trade Organisation rules.   

Why? Simple really, if Remainers would care to check it out.  All that an exporter or importer not familiar with international trading needs is a little advice at the outset from a customs broker.  At a documentation cost of around £40 per consignment their products will just go sailing through. No queues, no problems, no panic at the ports.   

So next time a Remainer like Sir John Major or any of the other Project Fear doom-mongers want to know how it’s done, there’s your answer.

The man who endorses Walkers crisps doesn’t speak for a majority of the nation.

Something is very wrong at the BBC.  Put aside the Sir Cliff story, and yes, the BBC were threatening to use licence payers money to launch an appeal on the spurious view that the judges ruling damages freedom of speech, they clearly are failing to define and understand what news is.   

Greece.  The fires that have killed possibly hundreds.  That’s news.  Gary Lineker backs Brexit referendum campaign.  That is not news.  But you can find it here.  Prominent on the BBC web site.   

It’s as if Mr Linekers view is more important than someone with a different view.  It’s as if his view outweighs the majority that voted in favour of Leave.  He says Brexit feels like it is "going very wrong indeed".  On that he is right.  But not for the reasons he would espouse.  It is people like him that are making it go very wrong.  Constantly trying to undermine democracy.  Constantly seeking to slow down or halt the process.  He thinks he seems to have a trump card over the majority of TV licence fee payers who voted to leave and pay for his £1.75million salary.  And his other work, Lineker's BT salary has not been publicly disclosed but he is thought to “earn” around £1m per year for his endorsement with Walkers crisp giant.   

He uses his fame to virtual signal like this and be given coverage on the same BBC that pays him.  If the BBC is going to continue its push against the wishes of the people of the UK as expressed in a free and fair referendum, those who set its policy need to move on and people who truly represent the nation move in. 

It was Alistair Campbell who asked the gathering of the great and good of television, "how many of you voted to leave the EU?”  No one in the room raised a hand.  Hardly representative of the people of the nation they say they serve.

Humiliation number two.

Poor Dominic Raab.  Two humiliations in the space of a week.  First by Mr Barnier.  The second by Mrs May.    

Labour's Shadow Brexit Minister Jenny Chapman said: "Dominic Raab has been sidelined by the prime minister before he has even had the chance to get his feet under the table."  And she is right.

Why doesn’t he just hand his cards in now.  At least he would be resigning with dignity. And respect.