Morally superior.

Why does the word progressive, when used by politicians, always sound a bit like they are hiding something.  It’s because they are using it to hide something, their ability to convince people of their policies by normal argument.  They, less than subtly, are trying to suggest they are morally superior.  Sort of “We are progressive, so you must be dinosaurs”.   

You see progressive used all the time in many areas of social and economic policy.   

So “progressive taxation” in Scotland really means the SNP will be taking more money out of our collective pockets for them to decided how to spend.   Yes, you and I will have less money to spend in local shops keeping private business in business creating wealth.  Evey pound a government takes away from you is a pound you no longer can spend in your local shop. Keeping somone in a job.

Which brings me nicely to Derek Mackay, the Scottish Finance Minister, who said the Scottish Government's “progressive tax system” would mean 70 per cent of people in Scotland were paying less tax this year than they did last year.  Like £20 less if you are a private in the UK Army.  Very nice.  £0.06 a day.   

In real terms the tax hikes will mean a staff sergeant paying an extra £117 a year in Scotland.  An army major would pay £660 more while a lieutenant colonel would pay £863 extra, and a full colonel £1,013.   

Mr Mackay, in typical "progressive" mode, then tries to shift the blame: “It is disappointing that, despite making an offer to discuss the differential taxation of military personnel, the Scottish Government has not been consulted on the proposal announced by the MoD.”   

Actually, there was no need for a discussion Derek, you should simply have emailed the MoD and said, "we’ll cover the difference".

Guilty till proved innocent.

In his analysis, 'Dark day for news reporting', BBC legal correspondent Clive Coleman suggested that today's judgement is very significant.    And indeed it was.  But not in the way he is portraying.    

Basically the BBC has been found out.  And they don’t like it as their PR machine swings into full drive to shift the focus from their culpability.    Anyone who recalls the reporter who covered the early morning event will no doubt remember his seemingly gleeful, I’ve got you Cliff, you goodie goodie, tone as he announced what was happening.  It really was exhibiting broadcasting standards at the lowest of low, certainly not award winning material.     

Before the broadcast, didn't anyone ask the question, "if this is not true, what permanent damage will it leave on reputation of the person being investigated?".  If  no one did ask that question, then there really is something rotten, even wicked, at the heart of BBC editorial policy given the subject of the investigation and knowing that the person they were reporting on would be smeared for life.  

Or maybe they just didn't care.

What is worrying about Mr Coleman’s article is, he is assuming his view is the correct one.  He’s not giving a balanced opinion, not a tone one would expect of the BBC.   He is making a political statement that the judgement brings about dark days for the freedom of the press.  Many of us would think that it’s about time tittle tattle was taken off our news media feeds.  And that is exactly what this whole Sir Cliff episode ended up as.  A judge decided it was indeed tittle tattle not worthy of the intrusion and permanent damage it caused to his reputation.    It certainly wasn't in the national interest.

You know Mr Colemans argument is weak when he notes that the BBC points out that naming the suspects has sometimes resulted in additional complainants coming forward.  But that would happen once they are charged anyway.   

The courts decision came just before questions to the Prime Minister and featured in the session.  Never thought I would agree with Ms Anna Soubry!  

The Society of Editors said that the judgement "threatens the ability of the media as a whole to police the police".  Ian Murray, its executive director, said: "The ruling to make it unlawful that anyone under investigation can be named is a major step and one that has worrying consequences for press freedom and the public's right to know."   He said making it unlawful to name someone under investigation is "extreme".  And he is right.   

But the people to point the finger of blame at for getting us to this position are the ones who crossed the common-sense line.  The BBC.  Their behaviour has brought this down on the head of every respectable, responsible journalist.

Trade deals can be done.

“We are sending a clear message that we stand against protectionism. The EU and Japan remain open for cooperation.” So said European Council President Donald Tusk, who speaks for the EU.    

And the trade deal between the EU and Japan is struck. 

Now, I know Mr Tusks words on protectionism do sound a bit hollow given how they EU treat African farmers, but the words are a step in the right direction.  And as for the deal itself, it just that, a deal.  Each side comes away with many of the things it wanted, but lost a few.  That's negotiations.  So all round a good deal.   

But here’s the thing.  Nowhere in the deal do we see the ECJ as being the final arbiter.  Nowhere do we see freedom of movement.  Nowhere do we see a common rule book that is in essence the EU rule book.   

So if the EU can do a deal with Japan, why not the same structure for one with the UK?

The Electoral Commission are "guilty".

It wasn’t a court of law that found the Leave camp guilty of breaking electoral law.  It was the Electoral Commission.  And if you read any articles the cries of guilty are always to be found in parenthesis.  A tactic always used to give the impression of truth while hiding behind fact it is nothing of the sort.  

So the Electoral Commission, the whiter than white body that is supposed to look after our democratic processes in the ballot box, has found itself in a little bit of bother.  Well, two bits actually.   

First the Electoral Commission are claiming that officials from the Brexit campaign refused to attend interviews. Really?  This email from Louise Edwards, the Electoral Commission boss, to lawyers for the Vote Leave officials says otherwise:    

Bit odd that.  They can’t both be right can they?   

And second?  They have, as far as I can see, failed, to take up and investigate the far more serious charges that are levelled at the Remain campaign. When, one wonders, will they do that?  Are they "guilty" of favouring Remain over Leave?

To Leave or not to Leave, that is the question.

At the heart of the European Union theology are four key principles: the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour.  Where did they come from?   

Well, basically someone decided to make these up.  Like a modern day cult.  And they are now enshrined almost as a religious belief.  The EU’s prescription for salvation of the nations.  Which when you think about it for more than a few Nano seconds, it’s frankly absurd.  Laughable really when you think of what they have done to Greece.  Laughable because they force nations like Ireland to vote again because they voted “the wrong way”.   Laughable because none of the 150 nations outwith the EU have to agree to them if they want to trade with the EU.  And as we won't be in the EU so why are we even talking about them?

The moment it went from an economic community where goods could flow freely to become the European Union, a super State that makes laws, has its own currency, domestic, foreign policy, military, security and taxation, it was no longer a laughing matter.  That is effectively what happened when John Major signed the Maastricht treaty.   

So, as we approach yet another away day for the UK cabinet, we should be reminded of one thing.    

Given the EU’s stated position is there is no negotiation on the so called “four freedoms” of the EU, if they agree to Mrs Mays latest concessionary offering, we know we have lost.  We won’t be leaving.

At least someone knows what they are talking about, Mrs May.

Most people don't read the Financial Times.  I don’t normally.  But this letter in today’s edition requires wide dissemination:   This is what the letter says.

"We are a 95 per cent export manufacturer of high tech instrumentation, so we have a lot of experience in overseas trade.  On May 24 the head of HM Revenue & Customs estimated that post-Brexit, import-export may cost industry £20bn extra at UK borders. With £10m of exports, 75 per cent outside the EU, and £1.5m of imports, 85% non-EU, we are in a good position to give a realistic figure for these costs.  

All imports enter under Inward Processing Relief, and no taxes are paid at the border.  Goods may remain in the UK for up to nine months free of duty and value added tax. Duty and VAT become payable if the goods are sold within the EU, but not if they are exported outside. When we sell our equipment to a Japanese company, we invoice free of VAT as an export.  It collects ex-works and delivers worldwide, sometimes direct to a customer within the EU.  It will invoice without VAT as, being based in Japan, it is not VAT registered.  It is that company’s customer who must record and pay VAT, on the basis that it is an import even though the goods may have crossed no frontiers.   

Our VAT and tax returns are made on a monthly and quarterly basis, with payment by direct debit. Every two to three years, HMRC audits our record-keeping.  Maintaining this system requires a skilled person for one or two days a week — at a £50 hourly rate for 500 hours per year, the annual cost is £25,000. We also employ shipping agents at a £70,000 annual cost, of which over 90 per cent is transport charges. Our cost for import-export paperwork is about £32,000.   

Our largest tax is the 20 per cent VAT charged on importing goods from the EU, just as from the US or Japan.  This will not change after Brexit, although there may be a 3-5 per cent duty if no deal is done.  The cost in additional paperwork will therefore be no more than 10 per cent of the present £32,000.  We will incur an average 4 per cent duty on our £225,000 of EU imports, but will recover 95 per cent of this on exporting, so duties will cost the company about £500.  Assuming we do business with the EU on terms no worse than the rest of the world, the cost will be around £3,700, or 0.04 per cent of our £10m turnover.  Compared to currency exposure where rates can change by 1 per cent daily, this is a negligible figure, so Brexit on any terms will not change our business.   

Jeremy Good   
Director, Cryogenic Ltd, London W3, UK "  

When someone so knowledgeable can put it in such a simple easy logical to follow way, what doesn’t Number 10 understand?  Business knows what it is doing.  The prime minister, who has never run a business, should listen and learn.

#DespiteBrexit

It really has been a terrible week for the UK.  All this disaster of leaving the EU and how it is damaging our economy.  No one wants to invest here.  It is all going so badly.

I mean, it must be fake news, the U.S. Marine Corps surely can't have awarded BAE Systems a $198 million contract to deliver an initial 30 Amphibious Combat Vehicles (ACV), with options for a total of 204 vehicles which could be worth up to $1.2 billion.  Really?  

New Amphibious Combat Vehicles (ACV),

Then there was JCB.  Them of the big buckets and diggers. Yip, JCB is investing more than £50m in a new plant which will create more than 200 jobs by 2022.   The construction equipment giant is building the new factory next to two existing JCB plants.  It will build cabs to go on its machines and will be able to produce 100,000 cabs a year, double its current production. Ha, who made that one up!   

The new JCB new site in Uttoxeter will open in the summer of 2019

Or BAE Systems again.  Their Land UK business has announced it is investing £10m to build a new 12.7mm production line at its Radway Green facility in Crewe, UK.   Aye, right.     

And news just in from our dear friends in Australia, possibly the biggest #DespiteBrexit yet.  BAE Systems has won the tender to design and manage the construction of nine anti-submarine warships. The deal represents the biggest peacetime building programme in Australian naval history and is worth $35 billion, or £20 billion.  No, that can't be true either.  Britain is in a mess.  It must all be fake news....

Increasing taxation increases austerity for normal people.

Ending austerity?  Well it appears more and more that increasing taxation is the way to stop austerity.  Yes, tax everyone to allow the government to have more money.  Austerity on the government purse will end.    

But hang on a moment, if you take money away from Mr or Mrs Average, that will mean they will actually be poorer.  So the government may have less austerity.  But the people who pay for it will be poorer, hence living in greater austerity.  Funny old world isn’t it.

We already have a deal on the table. It's called WTO.

James McGrory from pressure group Open Britain, said there should be "a choice between leaving with the deal that the government negotiates, or staying in the European Union". 

Sorry, James, it might have escaped you but that vote has already happened.  No matter the deal, we're leaving the EU. 

Anyhow, as anyone who understands business knows, and this is where Gina Millars involvement in Open Britain surprises me because she does understand, we won’t be leaving without a deal.  WTO is already on the table.   

That is the deal we will leave with if the EU continue to refuse to negotiate in good faith. The only question is, if the EU does come up with a deal, will be the deal be better than what we get already from WTO.  If not, no deal with the EU.  It’s not as if we won’t continue trading with EU nations as Remainers try to assert. We will continue to trade, from day one. They can’t stop us. It will just be on WTO rules which 50% of UK international trade already operates under.  Our businesses are well used to trading globally under WTO.

Airbus

So Airbus threatens to stop dealing with the UK after we leave the EU. Hang on a minute.  Is this the same Airbus that has a factory in the USA and since 1990, has spent some $200 billion dollars with hundreds of U.S. suppliers – $48 billion in the last three years alone.    I don’t recall the USA being in the EU.

Airbus opened its first commercial aircraft production site in the United States in 2015.  The U.S. Manufacturing Facility, in Mobile, Alabama, produces A319s, A320s and A321s.  Not only that, Airbus has identified global sourcing as one of its long-term objectives and aims to source 40% outside Western Europe and the U.S. by 2020. 

So the stories about Brexit are laughable at best, or at worst, deliberate industrial sabotage by Remainers.

Where is your ambition?

You know, the longer it goes on, the more scare stories that are produced, the more utterly ridiculous forecasts that are made, it all leaves me sadly coming to conclusion that the most vocal Remainers are people without talent, who cannot do anything for themselves or others.    

For example they think our laws are better made by people we don’t elect, namely the four arms of the European Empire, that is the European Commission, the European Council, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice of the European Union.  

As a reminder, the facts are, the European Union makes two thirds of UK law if we count EU regulations which, according to the treaties we have signed over the years, we must implement as part of 'UK law'.While it is true EU direct influence on UK-only laws is about 13%, the reality is there is an additional 52% of laws we have to obey that are EU wide and not UK specific.   

So it’s pretty disconcerting that as much as 13%, or indeed any laws or regulations that are UK only laws, should be set by people we have no power to vote out of office.  That certainly is not democratic.   

As Joshua Rozenberg noted back in 2013, a decision by the Employment Appeal Tribunal shows that EU law will trump laws passed by parliament.  The ruling demonstrates once again that EU law trumps laws passed by parliament. Despite all the attention paid to human rights law, EU law is much more powerful. 

But back to Remainers. They seem to believe we won't, as an independent nation, have the wit nor will nor ambition to improve our standard of living, to improve our environmental standards beyond the EU one size fits all belief, or produce better law.   

Where is their self-motivation?  Why do they believe we have to depend on others?   Why do they seriously believe we will be worse off in the medium long term freed from the EU?  

The EU will go down in history as an empire that lasted barely a few generations.  And like most empires that collapse, the root will be they left the people behind because they, the ones at the top, thought they knew best.

Back in Paris in 1849 in Les Guêpes, the Private Eye of its time, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr remarked, with rather bitter wit, “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”.   How true.

It's Anarchy in the UK.

So, another day, another group of non-democrats.  This time a grassroots group of Jeremy Corbyn supporters and trade unions is to launch a major UK speaking tour, billed as the left-wing campaign to remain in the UK.   The Left Against Brexit tour will attempt to persuade Corbyn and his allies of the left-wing case for a pro-EU position and will argue that the party can reap electoral benefits from a shift.     

Maybe they haven't noticed but the time for people to persuade others has passed.  There was ample time before the referendum.  And even with the resources of Government, the EU, and all the pro EU organisations like the CBI, they still could not persuade the people of the UK of its case.  They tried to persuade a majority of their view.  And they failed.   And they didn’t like the answer the people gave.   

What bit of democracy don't these people get?   

Add to the mix the extremists the other side of the left vs right divide, people like George Soros and Nick Clegg and MPs like Kenneth Clarke and Anna Soubry, and it is quite a cast.   

If these people do get their way, we will have kissed goodbye to democracy.  What is the point in voting if the people who have the power simply ignore the will of the people as given in a democratic vote all sides said they would accept. One could argue that they have already, by their actions, introduced anarchy in the UK.  Want to know what that looks like?

Fish is good for you.

Talking of food stuff, Bertie Armstrong of the Scottish Fishing Federation gives us one of the clearest and most sensible analysis of what’s going on in the EU trade negotiations.  

 “We don't ask for a share of French grapes as they sell us wine - so why are they asking the same for fishing?” 

It's bananas.

Typical BBC.   

Nick Triggle, the BBC Health correspondent, states in a headline in an article this morning that “Tax rises needed 'to prevent NHS misery'” makes them a slave to the Labour party.  If they had said, as Laura Kuenssberg, BBC political editor carefully did in a report this morning on the Today programme, that spending needs to rise, that would have been ok.  Subtle but very important difference.

But the BBC has assumed it knows best and says the way to increase spending on the NHS is to increase taxes.  No it is not.  The other ways are, cut out the waste that already exists in the NHS.  And secondly, cut funding to other less important budgets and transfer the moment to the NHS.    

If you or I all of a sudden needed, for example, to eat more bananas than we did before, while continuing to eat the same amount of other food, we would look at all of our other spending and decide what we could cut back on so that we could have the bananas.  It might mean difficult decisions.  But I am sure none of us would take the decision to go out and rob someone for the price of the bananas. 

Only people like Sir Patrick should have the vote.

So actor Sir Patrick Stewart, who backs the campaign to stay in the EU, said that if people voted to reject the exit deal in a second referendum, the UK would "simply stay" in the EU.  For the record, one million, two hundred and sixty nine thousand, five hundred and one more citizens voted leave than voted remain.

If it had been the reverse at the vote in 2016 and we had been asked do you want to join the EU, there would have been no question as to the outcome if the vote had been Yes.  We would have voted to join all the institutions, the single currency and courts of the EU.  No cherry picking.  

It may have escaped his notice but the people of the UK voted to leave the EU.  That vote is over with.  And the two key things that came from that vote are, one we voted to leave the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and two, we voted for our UK parliament to be sovereign over our laws.   

The only thing now to consider is what sort of relationship does the remainder of the EU want with the UK.   

Yes, perhaps people don’t like the result.  I often don’t like the result of elections.  But that doesn’t mean you can over turn it just because you don’t like it.   

People like Sir Patrick simply don’t believe in democracy.  They believe they know better than the majority who voted Leave.   

Putting it simply, they believe people who voted Leave are stupid and didn’t know what they were doing when they voted the wrong way.  On that basis we should only allow people like Sir Patrick to vote in elections and to be on juries at trials.  No one else will understand the complexities of the issues to be decided.

The problem with GPS.

Next week I’m going to a meeting in my local Town Hall to learn what NATS are planning to do to the flightpaths around Glasgow Airport.  Big changes to save fuel and pollution is their headline.  (Will our ticket prices be reduced if less fuel is used?  No, I don’t think so either.) 

Anyway, NATS Holdings, formerly National Air Traffic Services and commonly referred to as NATS, are the business that boasts of being the UK's leading provider of air traffic control services.  Each year they handle 2.4 million flights and 250 million passengers in UK airspace.   In addition to providing services to 14 UK airports, and managing all upper airspace in the UK, they provide services around the world spanning Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America. So a big important business.  And big on keeping our skies safe.

So why is NATS going full steam ahead for GPS based systems?   

Reflect for a momnet back to last June when more than 20 ships on the Black Sea noticed something odd about their satellite-based navigation systems. Instead of being at sea the systems said they were actaully on land.  Instead of their true positions well away from Russia’s south-west border, each ship’s GPS placed it inland at Gelendzhik, a small airport terminal!  

Now, if ships can be miles away from where they thought they were, imagine a plane being disorientated. 

Remember the problems the USA navy has been experiencing with apparently invincible ships hitting commercial ones?  Then there was the US Navy plane that crashed into the ocean southeast of Okinawa, marking at least the sixth apparent accident involving a Navy asset in East Asian waters in 12 months.  

GPS being interfered with? 

One does wonder if our reliance on the ColdWar satellite technology is an accident waiting to happen.

One more thing Sir Vince.....

Too many older people who voted for Brexit were "driven by nostalgia" for a world where "faces were white" Sir Vince Cable also said today at his party conference. 

Maybe it’s just me, but that sounds awfully close to calling 17,410,742 Leave voters racists. 

Sir Vince believes he knows better than 17,410,742 voters.

The Lib Dem leader said today that the votes of the older generation had "crushed the hopes and aspirations of young people for years to come."  Quite hysterical language I dare to suggest. 

17,410,742  million people thought quite the opposite.  That free from the EU they will have greater chances in a bigger world.  His suggestion that because younger people voted to stay is easily countered by the notion that older people are wiser through years more experience and know how bad the EU is to those who transgress it.  See what they did to Greece, Italy and Ireland.

But clearly Sir Vince isn’t really a democrat.  He prefers to think his opinion is more important than a majority of the electorate.  Perhaps that is why his party is in such a state.

Foreign powers

Tony Blair, John Major and Jeremy Corbin.  Two former prime ministers and one who aspires to be pm.   

One does wonder if any are the agents of a foreign power such as the EU.

Does John Major despise the people of the UK? It looks like it.

So John Major thinks British people have “every right” to reverse a democratic vote with further referendum.  No Sir John, they don’t.   That option wasn't on the ballot paper.  

His words are all the more remarkable when you consider that when he thought the Remain camp had it in the bag, he said somthing rather different.   

“There will not be another referendum on Europe. This is it.”  Yip, Sir John Majors own words on 29^th May 2016.   

After he was elected to office I didn’t hear anyone say there should be a right to a second vote to try and oust the Conservatives from power.    

Nor when Tony Blairs government was elected.  What the people do have a right to is, at some time in the future, apply to re-join the EU.  

But that two former prime ministers should be so unwilling to accept the democratic will of the people of the UK is, to put it mildly, unsettling.