I'm not voting for a basket case.

I was a supporter of Scotland becoming an independent country at the referendum in 2014.  And I still believe that small is better.  Decisions made at as local a level as possible.   That was espoused in Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered, a collection of essays by German-born British economist E F Schumacher.  Amidst its thinking was the need to empower people more, in contrast with phrases such as "bigger is better", or "small is beautiful, but small".   

However, there was one day during the white-out caused by The Beast from the East in 2019 that made me look afresh at the direction of travel the SNP, led by Ms Sturgeon and her husband, was going.  

There was one incident that stood out for me.  Big articulated trucks were struggling on the roads, particularly on the M80.  Ms Sturgeon criticised the freight industry of being irresponsible for taking their trucks out on the roads in such weather.   

What struck me was, with that one comment, she showed a total lack of understanding of how the economy works.  Anyone who watches the Gregg Wallace series 'The Factory' will know that the raw ingredients that come into a factory to be processed have to go straight from the production line to the lorry that will deliver them across the country that same day or the next  day.  There is no storage.  If the lorries don’t travel there will be no food in your supermarket or local shops tomorrow.  It is as stark as that.   

In other words, to feed the nation the tomorrow the trucks have to be on the road today.   And Ms Sturgeon didn't understand that.  That is worrying.

If that's not concerning, how about the second thing that struck me?   

Her immediate reaction was to blame someone else for the problems on the roads.  The truckers.  And when I reflected more on that behaviour I realised this is a pattern.  Ms Sturgeon always blames someone else.   It's always someone else's fault.  Even in the COVID-19 situation, if anything isn't quite right, it's never her fault.  Always someone else.  Which suggest to me someone who is either very insecure or blind to reality.  Again, either is worrying.

More commonly however it’s Boris and the nasty Tories who are to blame.  But it could equally be one of her own like Joanne Cherry, QC, whom she sacked from a front bench post.  Why?  Because she disagreed with Ms Sturgeons’ somewhat extreme views on Trans issues.  In spite of her saying with COVID-19 we should follow the science, its different for Trans issues.  There Nicola says science in Trans issues is irrelevant. What she was saying was what you feel transcends science.    

That’s is not the independent Scotland I wish for.  An economic basket case that is built on an intolerance of anyone who disagrees with you.  No thanks.   

So while the people who display almost dictatorial attitudes remain in power, I will be voting we Remain in the UK.

The Emperor has no clothes.

So, it is official.  There has been an attempted coup d’etat. 

No, I am not referring to what is happening across the globe this morning in Myanmar where the military is on the move yet again.  I am talking about in the EU where the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission being the equivalent of our UK Civil Service, decided to unilaterally invoke restrictions in both a Member state and a non Member state.   No negotiation.  Just straight in.  And Ms von der Leyen didn’t even have the courtesy to tell the Ireland's Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, what she was doing.  How excruciatingly humiliating for him. The tanks just rolled in. 

Now, imagine if Simon Case, (her equivalent in the UK), as the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the UK Civil Service, had done what Ms von der Leyen did, I think he would be out the door in a pair of handcuffs.       

But why did the EU commit a wild hostile act with no provocation?  Why did she do something that would unite the leaders of Sin Fein and the DUP, and indeed every other mainstream party in the UK? The exception was the SNP who notably kept schtum.  But perhaps Ms Sturgeon is going to have bigger problems on her plate over the next week or two.  

There is no rhyme or reason to Ms von der Leyen's actions.  But the hostile intent towards the UK is clear.  Brussels was threatening to halt the sale of life-saving drugs to a neighbouring country, not in response to any provocation, but simply because it was cross that that country was further advanced in its vaccination programme.    

But it gets worse.  In order to deflect criticism from its hopeless record in ordering vaccines, the European Commission aimed its law expressly at Britain. Its export ban did not apply to other neighbouring states, such as Iceland, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Ukraine or Belarus.  The only country in the vicinity to be targeted was the UK.       

Why has this all occurred?  Some would argue, not without reason, that the blame lies firmly on the doorstep of Ursula von der Leyen.  Clearly she was not the popular choice for the position.  On her elevation to the post Ska Keller, a German MEP and co-leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, had harsh words.  “This backroom stitch-up after days of talks is grotesque.  It satisfies no one but party power games. After such a high turnout in the European elections and a real mandate for change, this is not what European citizens deserve.”       

Some saw her “election” as yet another case of von der Leyen being promoted merely to get her out of the way.  As the German media turned against her, magazine der Spiegel put it succinctly this week of her failed spells at various ministries: “in each instance, von der Leyen’s departure was perfectly timed.  Just as the time had come for evaluations, she had already climbed up to the next rung on her career ladder.”. 

Let’s say it as it is.   The EU threw Ireland and the Taoiseach under a bus last week.  And they tried to do the same to the UK.  Let’s not forget they did it with Greece.   And they will do exactly the same with Scotland should Ms Sturgeon get her way.     

Patrick O'Flynn summed it up well.  "Brussels has absolutely humiliated the Republic of Ireland tonight, treating its government as a third rate colonial outpost - not worthy even of receiving a telegram about new arrangements being imposed in its territory."      

Andrew Neil dryly noted: "After four years of lecturing Great Britain that it could never countenance anything that might lead to a hard border in Ireland, the European Union, in a desperate response to its own vaccine incompetence, introduces a hard border.  Then thinks better of it."      

The EU Commission is beyond inept and has turned itself into a laughing stock. It is not democratic.  It is not fit for purpose.  And the whole world can now see that.   

The emperor has no clothes.

Fire them!

Don’t know about you but I’m fed up with people saying we need more time for businesses to get ready for the end the year when we will finally have left the EU and all its controls.  What have these business leaders been doing for the last four and half years?     

A writer to the Letters Page of the Daily Telegraph hit it on the head.   

“SIR – I am the CEO of a small-to-medium enterprise that trades almost entirely in Europe.  A hard Brexit holds no fears for us.  Indeed, our market share in Europe continues to expand month by month.  So I was astounded by the insipid helplessness of other CEOs (“What would a no-deal Brexit mean for business?”, telegraph.co.uk, December 11).    

Here’s my advice to shareholders. 

Fire your CEO and the board if they haven’t already configured the business for a hard Brexit.    

Fire them if they only offer products and services that are so unremarkable that they can’t withstand ordinary World Trade Organisation tariffs.   

Fire them if they haven’t already developed plans for new markets and found new and better sources of materials to import.   

Fire them if they can’t run a business except in a heavily protected market.    

Fire them for still whinging four years after the vote to leave the EU.”   

I couldn’t agree with John Palmer of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire more.   

Are businesses ready to leave the European Union?   You bet they are.   To see an example of a sensible company, have a look at what I wrote about one last year on Monday 12^th of August 2019.  

Kick down the doors.

After Wednesday evenings dinner in Brussels, the agenda for which would have been an insult to any other nations elected leader, with the UK being told that they would have to follow EU law even though they have left the Community (such a non-threatening word is it not), one wonders if a different tactic is required.   

Perhaps it would be more productive if UK pro EU business leaders, politicians and much of mainstream media that have disgracefully and actively sought to undermine the democratic wishes of the people of the United Kingdom for 5 years, rather than ramping up Project Fear again, went and kicked down the doors of the European Commission and demand that they respect the UK as a sovereign nation?  

Think that will happen?  Me neither.

Doc Martin. Right diagnosis. Wrong solution. Just like for Covid-19.

Remember the series?  Or in particular do you remember the episode when Louisa went for interview for the head teacher post.  She was already a teacher in the school.   (Spoiler, she got it).     

There is an outbreak of a highly contagious skin infection at the school and Martin is initially confounded, until his brilliant diagnostic skills uncover the source.  And his solution?  Apart from the medical treatment, lockdown.  At the interview Louisa was accused of not following Doc Martins advice which was to stop the children coming to school.  She was encouraging people to break the lockdown as it were.  You can watch the whole episode here.    

I could not help thinking that this programme, recorded in 2005, should have been essential viewing for the prime minister, the Scottish first minister et al  before they took the mad decision to virtually bankrupt the UK by going into lockdown.   

Doc Martin (think of him as the current SAGE advisors to the government) said it had to be lockdown.     

Louisa, (think of her as the kind of people the establishment regard as a bit of a loose cannon), argued that half the children had their parents working, and they needed to work to put bread on the table.    

The establishment, (read that as most people working in the taxpayer funded public sector with the notable exception of those on the real front line: nurses, doctors, and all the other essential hospital staff), sniffed at that as an excuse to allow the children into the school to be taught when they really knew better as the establishment that the childen should be in lockdown.  

We ended up with an incandescent Louisa telling the interview panel that she wasn’t going to let her pupils suffer and had ensured that each child who was infected was securely isolated in the school and, in that isolation, continued to be taught.  It was quite a performance.    

So why, when it was obvious to a humble primary school teacher in a soap opera set in beautiful Cornwall in 2005 that lockdown of everyone is the wrong answer, have we arrived at the insane situation of billions of pounds being wasted and lives and businesses (yip, the ones that paid the taxes that pays for the public sector) ruined by doing the complete opposite to what Louisa did? 

3.3% vs 3.8%

Here’s an odd one.   

INnthe USA the Democratic Party are demanding that, with an apparent lead of 3.3% over the incumbent president, Mr Trump should do the decent thing and give up the fight.   

I do hope that they will be similarly minded in pushing for the result in the UK EU referendum, which was won by a margin of 3.8%, to be respected by their presidential candidate, Mr Biden.  And the EU.

The 0.1%.

My wider family have recently been seeking to purchase a new home.  Buying a new home is one of life’s great joys.  But it is also one of its great stress points, new job, marriage, and death being the other ones.  

However, when the finish line is in sight, there is a warm feeling.  Almost there.  99.9% certain we will get it over the line.  And emotionally that is a big high.  But as our common sense keeps reminding us, it is not a deal till the papers are signed.  And so it was for us.  Going through the fine print, there it was a problem.  A big problem that was big enough to have to walk away from.  But even though emotionally we want to be over the line, rationally we know we must not simply trust someone’s word, or our emotions, that it will be all right.  We know that there is only thing that matters.  A legal document.  A document that may end up one day in a court.   

Which brings me to ask you an odd question.  If I were to offer you a gun and tell you that I was only 99.9% certain that it was not loaded, then invited you to point the said gun at yourself and pull the trigger, would you?  If like me you would decline the trigger pulling opportunity, you may be also amazed by the number of highly intelligent, otherwise independent, and level headed people who have decided that 99.9% is 100%.  

I am of course alluding to the presidential election in the USA.    Has Biden won?  I suspect he has.  And all the best to him if he has.  The numbers are certainly going that way.  

Has the result been 100% proved?  No, it hasn’t.   Some polls are being contested.  

Now of course those doing the contesting may being nothing more than mischievous.  Seeking to undermine the democratic vote.   But the reality is, main stream media has, almost without exception, decided that 99.9% is good enough for them.  

99.9% equals 100%.  It is a Biden victory.  Say it often enough and people will start to believe it.   And at the extremes, that can have terrible consequences. 

We have all have read about, or even participated in, the experiment where everyone in a room says one thing about an incident they witnessed.  But you know you saw it with our own eyes totally differently.  But as the experiment shows, when up against it, most people accept the narrative of everyone else in the room, even though they know it is wrong.   You go with the flow, the path of least resistance.  And the MSM (the people in the room) narative says 99.9% equals 100%.  Say it often enough and people accept it.

Surely, rather than saying Trump is a bad loser and he should concede, the press in a democratic nation should be encouraging Trump to put any evidence before a court.  There he will be humiliated beyond measure.  Or it be found to be the 0.1% who was right.

The fog of war. The fog of numbers.

What’s happening?  And why?   Who's figures are right?  And who's are wrong?  Is it that simple? 

Let’s start with the data from the Cambridge statistical unit that the Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir Patrick Vallance, relied on.

- The data was three weeks out of date.   More recent data from the same unit is less apocalyptic.  So why didn’t he use that?       

- The PHE/Cambridge model predicted 1,000 people a day would die by November 1st. They’re not. Therefore the model is invalid.     

- Prof Tim Spector’s KCL data is showing infections are “flatlining across the board”.      

- The Government has focused too much on worst case scenarios.     

- Government policy isn’t guided by the evidence; rather, it is massaging the evidence to justify the policy.      

- The Government is ignoring the costs of lockdowns, both economically and in terms of non-Covid deaths.      

- The PCR test identifies people as “positive” if they’ve had the virus three or four weeks ago and are no longer infectious.      

- If we go into a second lockdown, what’s the exit strategy? In Cornwall, for instance, there are only about 40 cases/day (out of a population of ~566,000), yet Cornwall is being forced to go into lockdown. So how low do case numbers have to be before we can come out of the lockdown?      

- Yes, the NHS is running at about 90-95% capacity, but that’s normal for this time of year. Why the panic?     

Not my words but those of Prof Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidenced Based Medicine at University of Oxford.