Brexit - The UK and the EU

This is the poisoned ''comedy'' they are feeding the kids on the BBC:


Meanwhile, I got my letter from the Dutch Immigration. As there is a deal, I don't need to carry the letter of good character and residency in my passport. I do need to reapply for residency though and at Euros 58.00, but I appear to meet all the criteria. And if I didn't, they tell you exactly what you need to do e.g. open a bank account, get a job, etc.
 
It was a bit muddy underfoot at the Leave celebrations in Parliament Square last night. The previous gathering was on firmer ground and in daylight.

The shows timings were a bit off sometimes and some of the singers on stage were poor. Also the choice of songs. Tom Jones ‘it’s not unusual’ and Wham have little relevance to Brexit. The Queen songs ‘We are the Champions’ plus ‘The Final Countdown’ were possibly to be expected. Dominic Frisby was best - but he had to remove the ‘industrial language’ and change the word to ‘fudge’.
 
What's the decision on the border in Northern Ireland?
 
What's the decision on the border in Northern Ireland?

Just wait to the trade deal is done with the USA, there will be no NE border, they'll be too busy itching and scratching to get a taste and piece of the UK-USA trade action, the EU be damned. Which will not please Varadkar as he will be on a nice little cushy number tossing it off in Brussels.
 
Again two Brits today were trying to justify taking Dutch citizenship with tales of being at the back of the queue for medical treatment despite having medical insurance, then tales about being stranded overseas as the Dutch embassy will desert you but look after your kids, having to pay Euros 900+ for the residency. They must think I am as thick as I look, a quick search of the Dutch information website for the 45,000 Brit families over here will debunk all of that, to transfer your permanent residency, or lesser ones, in all cases will cost Euros 58.

Then the Scots one was telling me it was all those dastardly white settlers in Scotland that swung the referendum on staying in the UK and that the EU will liberate them from the darkness of Boris and his chums.

Anyway, I did my party piece: I would never give up my Brit nationality, as it would be like selling my soul, or betraying Jesus for six pieces of silver.

Generally has the desired effect, a nervous twitch as they've been rumbled as mere hirelings and sell-outs!
 
Again two Brits today were trying to justify taking Dutch citizenship with tales of being at the back of the queue for medical treatment despite having medical insurance, then tales about being stranded overseas as the Dutch embassy will desert you but look after your kids, having to pay Euros 900+ for the residency. They must think I am as thick as I look, a quick search of the Dutch information website for the 45,000 Brit families over here will debunk all of that, to transfer your permanent residency, or lesser ones, in all cases will cost Euros 58.

Then the Scots one was telling me it was all those dastardly white settlers in Scotland that swung the referendum on staying in the UK and that the EU will liberate them from the darkness of Boris and his chums.

Anyway, I did my party piece: I would never give up my Brit nationality, as it would be like selling my soul, or betraying Jesus for six pieces of silver.

Generally has the desired effect, a nervous twitch as they've been rumbled as mere hirelings and sell-outs!

I was wondering if you would trade in to become Dutch since you have already accumulated enough time to qualify right away.

Then again you are working and have supplementary insurance from your job. And I'm not sure Britain is home to your family should you choose to return.

Now Gibraltar...
 
Even though the spaniards will push their claim, quite a few go over the border onto the island each day, to work there.
So some sort of arrangement will be worked out in the end.
 
Again two Brits today were trying to justify taking Dutch citizenship with tales of being at the back of the queue for medical treatment despite having medical insurance, then tales about being stranded overseas as the Dutch embassy will desert you but look after your kids, having to pay Euros 900+ for the residency. They must think I am as thick as I look, a quick search of the Dutch information website for the 45,000 Brit families over here will debunk all of that, to transfer your permanent residency, or lesser ones, in all cases will cost Euros 58.

Then the Scots one was telling me it was all those dastardly white settlers in Scotland that swung the referendum on staying in the UK and that the EU will liberate them from the darkness of Boris and his chums.

Anyway, I did my party piece: I would never give up my Brit nationality, as it would be like selling my soul, or betraying Jesus for six pieces of silver.

Generally has the desired effect, a nervous twitch as they've been rumbled as mere hirelings and sell-outs!

Scotland's going nowhere and wee Jimmy Krankie knows it.

To join the EU she'd have to lower Scotland's fiscal deficit below 3% its currently above 7%. The bulk of Scotland's trade is with rUK so a hard border would seriously damage her economy. Plus if she decided to adopt/use/shadow the pound, rUK would practically control her economic policy too.

With Brexit, its over.
 
Even though the spaniards will push their claim, quite a few go over the border onto the island each day, to work there.
So some sort of arrangement will be worked out in the end.

The Spanish have no legal case with regards Gibraltar.
 
So much better when competent adults are in charge:


As someone in the comments section noted: no mention of Galileo. I can tell you, that all the Brits on the project have been placed in quarantine and have been languishing there for several months. They haven't been made redundant, but are being slowly sickened.

Some right carrying-ons over there, as to the Patent Office. Wish I could divulge more, but alas can't.
 
So much better when competent adults are in charge:


As someone in the comments section noted: no mention of Galileo. I can tell you, that all the Brits on the project have been placed in quarantine and have been languishing there for several months. They haven't been made redundant, but are being slowly sickened.

Some right carrying-ons over there, as to the Patent Office. Wish I could divulge more, but alas can't.
All talk so far. Gove has said the right things and arguably taken the initiative, but May also made various fine statements ‘No Deal is better than a bad deal’.

We will see how it all pans out in due course.
 
All talk so far. Gove has said the right things and arguably taken the initiative, but May also made various fine statements ‘No Deal is better than a bad deal’.

We will see how it all pans out in due course.

It's a long road ahead. At least they fear us now.

For 73 minutes, Dr David Starkey grapples with the constitutional issues and the unique position of the UK in escaping the continental system:

 
Dealing with the French: Frost versus Barnier, Bacon versus Descartes
27/02/2020
by Robert Tombs

Over the centuries, the British and French have found each other particularly difficult to negotiate with, whether as enemies or friends—or something in between. There are deep intellectual and cultural differences that go back centuries and show little sign of changing.
If Michel Barnier and David Frost seem to be inhabiting different mental universes, that is because they are. In a recent speech, Frost described Brexit as ‘above all a revolt against … an “authorised version” of European politics …in which there is only one way to do politics and one policy choice.’ But Barnier’s view is that ‘Not one single person has ever convinced me of the added value of Brexit.’The British and French have often found each other particularly difficult to negotiate with. Of course, Barnier represents not France but the EU, which agrees a formal negotiating position. But it seems that the French government are insisting on rigidity in the negotiations, and Barnier is an effective exponent of that stern quality. The British understand negotiation to mean bargaining, give-and-take. But that is not how the French understand negotiation. The written text is sacred. In Barnier’s words ‘in the text of the political declaration … there are some very clear words … [Boris Johnson] and his team paid attention to every word and comma in the text that commits us on both sides.’ David Frost has described EU texts as being ‘as hard to read for the average citizen as the Latin Bible was at the time of Charles the Bold.’ But this very opacity enhances their power.
We have been meeting this problem of ‘every word and comma’ now for at least two centuries. The most damaging occasion was when the British encountered a far more formidable duo than Barnier and Mrs von der Leyen: Napoleon Bonaparte and his foreign minister Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, atheist bishop turned tricky politician. In 1802, to end a long and indecisive war, the two sides had signed the Treaty of Amiens, best remembered for Gillray’s cartoon showing William Pitt and Bonaparte helping themselves to slices of the globe. This compromise could have given Europe a generation of peace and made world history significantly different. But after a few months of wrangling and bad temper, relations broke down, and there ensued thirteen years of bloody and devastating conflict. Napoleon tried to destroy the British economy by stopping its trade with Europe. Britain retaliated, evaded the restrictions, and hugely increased its global trade. The saga ended at Waterloo, and the defeated Napoleon lamented that ‘all my wars came from England’.
The disaster came about because the two sides had very different conceptions of what signing a peace treaty meant. The British took it to be a first step towards acceptable coexistence, implying future concessions and confidence building measures on both sides. George III aptly called it ‘an experimental peace’. But the French took it as a rigid text which the British must execute to the letter—the end, not the beginning, of a process, with no other issues on the table. The French moved troops into Holland, expanded their power in Switzerland and Italy, took measures to damage British trade and began unconcealed preparations to invade the Ottoman empire. When the British objected, Talleyrand insisted that these matters were not covered by the Treaty of Amiens, and persistently delayed discussion of them. The final break came over Malta, which the British had liberated but were due to evacuate under the Treaty. They delayed both for practical reasons and as a precaution against the French threat to Turkey. This caused the French angrily to insist, with Napoleon shouting publicly at the British ambassador, that Britain must fulfil its treaty obligations in full and at once. The British, deciding that no deal was better than a bad deal, gave France an ultimatum and then declared war.
Misunderstandings continued over the generations, even when the two countries were on good terms. The British wanted a broad but undefined relationship based on practical cooperation. The French wanted binding written agreements based on defined principles. The great Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston stated that ‘it is not usual for England to enter into engagements with reference to cases which have not wholly arisen’, and his successor Lord Granville a generation later echoed that British practice was to ‘avoid prospective understandings to meet contingencies, which seldom occur in the way which has been anticipated.’ Lord Curzon was less stoical: after a long and fruitless meeting with the obdurate French prime minister Raymond Poincaré, he staggered out of the room in tears repeating ‘I can’t stand that horrible little man. I can’t stand him!’
The French for their part repeatedly complained that the British could not think logically. In the 1920s, André Tardieu, a future prime minister, deplored the ‘repugnance of the Anglo-Saxon to the systematic constructions of the Latin mind’. Nothing had changed by 2003, when a British diplomat commented that ‘the French are most comfortable when they can define a set of principles … The British shy away from principles.’ Principles such as a level playing field or dynamic alignment.
This difference has deep roots. Roman Law, going back to Emperor Justinian and in its modern form to the Code Napoleon, works by applying unchanging general principles. Common Law seeks practical outcomes; indeed, judges may begin by finding a solution and then seek legal justification on which to base it. As the celebrated American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes expressed it, ‘the life of the Common Law has not been logic, it has been experience.’ British ways of thinking are also shaped by the empiricism propagated by Sir Francis Bacon, a pioneer of modern scientific method. He was suspicious of ‘men of theory’ or ‘reasoners’ who put theories before practical experience: ‘the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance’, whereas ‘men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use.’ A contrasting influence in France was the rationalism of René Descartes. For Cartesians (which educated French people proverbially regard themselves as being), understanding begins with ideas in the mind. Hence theory comes first, applications follow.
These basic differences are deeply inculcated by British and French education systems from primary school to university. The British are encouraged to try to find things out for themselves, to come up with practical answers, and to be original even if they make mistakes. The French, from tiny tots copying teacher’s handwriting on the blackboard to the erudite authors of multi-volume doctoral theses, are required to accept and apply the correct models and ideas. Moreover, arguments have to be expressed in a set form: if the ideas are good but the form is bad, you fail. Every leading French official and most politicians have gone through the most intense form of this disciplined training, which at every stage eliminates those who fail to meet its standards. Those who win through are what the French call bêtes à concours – ‘examination animals’ to whom this system has become second nature. Few are more brilliant than Michel Barnier, graduate of a leading Parisian grande école.
All this makes the British and French approach negotiation in a very different spirit. The British are reluctant to define à priori aims, because for them negotiation is an experimental process to discover a mutually acceptable deal. As a senior British official has described it, ‘The British put themselves in the position of the person they are negotiating with … The French are not interested in getting inside the thought of others.’ Rather, the French adopt what seem to them a logically coherent set of principles and then defend them rigidly. In the words of one French diplomat, ‘When one is right, one does not compromise.’ As poor Harold Macmillan found with General de Gaulle, ‘he does not apparently listen to argument. He merely repeats over and over again what he has said before.’ The British find this inflexible and arrogant, if not deliberately obstructive. But the French consider the British reluctance to define principles proof of lack of preparation or, worse still, an attempt by perfide Albion to pull the wool over their eyes and get an unfair advantage.
The situation is not helped by further cultural differences. The British try to be relaxed and friendly, and to lighten the atmosphere with humour—Boris Johnson’s natural style. The French are much more formal and hierarchical: they like titles, and often take back-slapping and jokes as a sign of disrespect and superficiality. Moreover, they are willing to show anger, be confrontational and exaggerate – none of this being intended personally, but seen as a display both of authority and conviction. As de Gaulle told his subordinates, in dealing with the British ‘you have to bang the table, and they back down.’
These frictions extend into business relations too, and having learned about them the hard way the French Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain published in 2014 an admirably concise handbook to oil the wheels of Franco-British trade, optimistically entitled Light at the End of the Tunnel. It notes that the British ‘prefer a faster pace’, while the French ‘dislike being hurried’. The British ‘emphasise solutions’, the French ‘emphasis problems’. For the British, ‘compromise is viewed positively and is linked to pragmatism’; for the French ‘compromise can be viewed negatively, as it implies that a position was not well reasoned’. To crown it all, while the British are ‘proponents of “win-win”, and will compromise in an effort to build long term relationships that benefit both parties’, the French are ‘proponents of “I win-you-lose”, appearing not to care if it risks the breakdown of the relationship.’ Napoleon, Talleyrand, de Gaulle and Barnier would surely agree. David Frost has expressed the hope of persuading Michel Barnier ‘to see things differently – and maybe even think that a Britain doing things differently might be good for Europe as well as for Britain.’ Good luck with that one.
However, if they find that their interlocutors refuse to accept their impeccable logic, as the UK now appears to be doing, the French, in a different application of logic, will often cut a last-minute deal. But If M. Barnier’s Cartesian cobweb-spinning exhausts the patience of our Baconian ants, perhaps we should give up fruitless bargaining over the future relationship and propose a Cartesian solution: that we will trade under WTO rules until the EU proposes something better.
 
Dealing with the French: Frost versus Barnier, Bacon versus Descartes
27/02/2020
by Robert Tombs

Over the centuries, the British and French have found each other particularly difficult to negotiate with, whether as enemies or friends—or something in between. There are deep intellectual and cultural differences that go back centuries and show little sign of changing.
If Michel Barnier and David Frost seem to be inhabiting different mental universes, that is because they are. In a recent speech, Frost described Brexit as ‘above all a revolt against … an “authorised version” of European politics …in which there is only one way to do politics and one policy choice.’ But Barnier’s view is that ‘Not one single person has ever convinced me of the added value of Brexit.’The British and French have often found each other particularly difficult to negotiate with. Of course, Barnier represents not France but the EU, which agrees a formal negotiating position. But it seems that the French government are insisting on rigidity in the negotiations, and Barnier is an effective exponent of that stern quality. The British understand negotiation to mean bargaining, give-and-take. But that is not how the French understand negotiation. The written text is sacred. In Barnier’s words ‘in the text of the political declaration … there are some very clear words … [Boris Johnson] and his team paid attention to every word and comma in the text that commits us on both sides.’ David Frost has described EU texts as being ‘as hard to read for the average citizen as the Latin Bible was at the time of Charles the Bold.’ But this very opacity enhances their power.
We have been meeting this problem of ‘every word and comma’ now for at least two centuries. The most damaging occasion was when the British encountered a far more formidable duo than Barnier and Mrs von der Leyen: Napoleon Bonaparte and his foreign minister Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, atheist bishop turned tricky politician. In 1802, to end a long and indecisive war, the two sides had signed the Treaty of Amiens, best remembered for Gillray’s cartoon showing William Pitt and Bonaparte helping themselves to slices of the globe. This compromise could have given Europe a generation of peace and made world history significantly different. But after a few months of wrangling and bad temper, relations broke down, and there ensued thirteen years of bloody and devastating conflict. Napoleon tried to destroy the British economy by stopping its trade with Europe. Britain retaliated, evaded the restrictions, and hugely increased its global trade. The saga ended at Waterloo, and the defeated Napoleon lamented that ‘all my wars came from England’.
The disaster came about because the two sides had very different conceptions of what signing a peace treaty meant. The British took it to be a first step towards acceptable coexistence, implying future concessions and confidence building measures on both sides. George III aptly called it ‘an experimental peace’. But the French took it as a rigid text which the British must execute to the letter—the end, not the beginning, of a process, with no other issues on the table. The French moved troops into Holland, expanded their power in Switzerland and Italy, took measures to damage British trade and began unconcealed preparations to invade the Ottoman empire. When the British objected, Talleyrand insisted that these matters were not covered by the Treaty of Amiens, and persistently delayed discussion of them. The final break came over Malta, which the British had liberated but were due to evacuate under the Treaty. They delayed both for practical reasons and as a precaution against the French threat to Turkey. This caused the French angrily to insist, with Napoleon shouting publicly at the British ambassador, that Britain must fulfil its treaty obligations in full and at once. The British, deciding that no deal was better than a bad deal, gave France an ultimatum and then declared war.
Misunderstandings continued over the generations, even when the two countries were on good terms. The British wanted a broad but undefined relationship based on practical cooperation. The French wanted binding written agreements based on defined principles. The great Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston stated that ‘it is not usual for England to enter into engagements with reference to cases which have not wholly arisen’, and his successor Lord Granville a generation later echoed that British practice was to ‘avoid prospective understandings to meet contingencies, which seldom occur in the way which has been anticipated.’ Lord Curzon was less stoical: after a long and fruitless meeting with the obdurate French prime minister Raymond Poincaré, he staggered out of the room in tears repeating ‘I can’t stand that horrible little man. I can’t stand him!’
The French for their part repeatedly complained that the British could not think logically. In the 1920s, André Tardieu, a future prime minister, deplored the ‘repugnance of the Anglo-Saxon to the systematic constructions of the Latin mind’. Nothing had changed by 2003, when a British diplomat commented that ‘the French are most comfortable when they can define a set of principles … The British shy away from principles.’ Principles such as a level playing field or dynamic alignment.
This difference has deep roots. Roman Law, going back to Emperor Justinian and in its modern form to the Code Napoleon, works by applying unchanging general principles. Common Law seeks practical outcomes; indeed, judges may begin by finding a solution and then seek legal justification on which to base it. As the celebrated American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes expressed it, ‘the life of the Common Law has not been logic, it has been experience.’ British ways of thinking are also shaped by the empiricism propagated by Sir Francis Bacon, a pioneer of modern scientific method. He was suspicious of ‘men of theory’ or ‘reasoners’ who put theories before practical experience: ‘the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance’, whereas ‘men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use.’ A contrasting influence in France was the rationalism of René Descartes. For Cartesians (which educated French people proverbially regard themselves as being), understanding begins with ideas in the mind. Hence theory comes first, applications follow.
These basic differences are deeply inculcated by British and French education systems from primary school to university. The British are encouraged to try to find things out for themselves, to come up with practical answers, and to be original even if they make mistakes. The French, from tiny tots copying teacher’s handwriting on the blackboard to the erudite authors of multi-volume doctoral theses, are required to accept and apply the correct models and ideas. Moreover, arguments have to be expressed in a set form: if the ideas are good but the form is bad, you fail. Every leading French official and most politicians have gone through the most intense form of this disciplined training, which at every stage eliminates those who fail to meet its standards. Those who win through are what the French call bêtes à concours – ‘examination animals’ to whom this system has become second nature. Few are more brilliant than Michel Barnier, graduate of a leading Parisian grande école.
All this makes the British and French approach negotiation in a very different spirit. The British are reluctant to define à priori aims, because for them negotiation is an experimental process to discover a mutually acceptable deal. As a senior British official has described it, ‘The British put themselves in the position of the person they are negotiating with … The French are not interested in getting inside the thought of others.’ Rather, the French adopt what seem to them a logically coherent set of principles and then defend them rigidly. In the words of one French diplomat, ‘When one is right, one does not compromise.’ As poor Harold Macmillan found with General de Gaulle, ‘he does not apparently listen to argument. He merely repeats over and over again what he has said before.’ The British find this inflexible and arrogant, if not deliberately obstructive. But the French consider the British reluctance to define principles proof of lack of preparation or, worse still, an attempt by perfide Albion to pull the wool over their eyes and get an unfair advantage.
The situation is not helped by further cultural differences. The British try to be relaxed and friendly, and to lighten the atmosphere with humour—Boris Johnson’s natural style. The French are much more formal and hierarchical: they like titles, and often take back-slapping and jokes as a sign of disrespect and superficiality. Moreover, they are willing to show anger, be confrontational and exaggerate – none of this being intended personally, but seen as a display both of authority and conviction. As de Gaulle told his subordinates, in dealing with the British ‘you have to bang the table, and they back down.’
These frictions extend into business relations too, and having learned about them the hard way the French Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain published in 2014 an admirably concise handbook to oil the wheels of Franco-British trade, optimistically entitled Light at the End of the Tunnel. It notes that the British ‘prefer a faster pace’, while the French ‘dislike being hurried’. The British ‘emphasise solutions’, the French ‘emphasis problems’. For the British, ‘compromise is viewed positively and is linked to pragmatism’; for the French ‘compromise can be viewed negatively, as it implies that a position was not well reasoned’. To crown it all, while the British are ‘proponents of “win-win”, and will compromise in an effort to build long term relationships that benefit both parties’, the French are ‘proponents of “I win-you-lose”, appearing not to care if it risks the breakdown of the relationship.’ Napoleon, Talleyrand, de Gaulle and Barnier would surely agree. David Frost has expressed the hope of persuading Michel Barnier ‘to see things differently – and maybe even think that a Britain doing things differently might be good for Europe as well as for Britain.’ Good luck with that one.
However, if they find that their interlocutors refuse to accept their impeccable logic, as the UK now appears to be doing, the French, in a different application of logic, will often cut a last-minute deal. But If M. Barnier’s Cartesian cobweb-spinning exhausts the patience of our Baconian ants, perhaps we should give up fruitless bargaining over the future relationship and propose a Cartesian solution: that we will trade under WTO rules until the EU proposes something better.

This: ''The French are much more formal and hierarchical: they like titles, and often take back-slapping and jokes as a sign of disrespect and superficiality. Moreover, they are willing to show anger, be confrontational and exaggerate – none of this being intended personally, but seen as a display both of authority and conviction. As de Gaulle told his subordinates, in dealing with the British ‘you have to bang the table, and they back down.''

Hence the EU bodies and institutions are full of bullying French and suicides galore.

Amongst some other continental national traits.
 
picdump684_011
 

But it's certainly the most profitable.

Sad we're leaving?

By the way, The Beatles are from Liverpool. Last time I looked, which is in England.

You need England more than you need Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. You need us. The rest you can't afford. Including Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile in Eire the proverbial has hit the fan: now that they're net contributors big time to the slush fund.

It's coming in fast son, doesn't feel good does it?
 

The Brits will be out and you will be in, with the rest of the clowns, including me, left to pick-up the tab.

I have get out clauses, not only to the UK, the Ukraine, Russia and as it happens elsewhere. Those last two just happen to be the closest outside of the EU. Close enough for me to set-up seamlessly.

I'm fully globilista mobile, but are you and your chums?
 
The Telegraph is spinning on the failure of Vote Leave in the Tories along with The Daily Mail. Also that the power behind Boris's thrown is his new girlfriend. It feels like a betrayal of Brexit could be well on the cards.

May well be all MSM BS in the hope of getting rid of Cummings and portraying Boris as weak and dithering.

I always said Boris was the likeable class buffoon, needed on the team for morale, but since his brush with Covid there's a fear about him. He looks frightened. Something is not right.
 

"A No 10 insider told me Mr Cummings 'jumped because otherwise he would be pushed soon', suggesting that, in the last few days, the prime minister saw that the former Vote Leave team was just 'in it for themselves'."

Just in it for himself? I thought he was in it for the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
 
^
Media spin, press switch to 'ignore'.

It is dreadful spin. I cancelled my Telegraph subscription last night. They've invited me back for one quid a week. I dunno' I prefer to get my clickbait for free in the Daily Mail. I'm not going to pay for it, am I? They need to seriously up their game to be taken seriously like the old broadsheet Telegraph.

The Telegraph appears to be what I expected The Times to be behind the paywall. I may give The Times ago, they might be better, also the TLS might also be a good move.
 
It is dreadful spin. I cancelled my Telegraph subscription last night. They've invited me back for one quid a week. I dunno' I prefer to get my clickbait for free in the Daily Mail. I'm not going to pay for it, am I? They need to seriously up their game to be taken seriously like the old broadsheet Telegraph.

The Telegraph appears to be what I expected The Times to be behind the paywall. I may give The Times ago, they might be better, also the TLS might also be a good move.

The Times uesd to be the paper of record. Seems to have gone the way of The New York Times, albeit for different reasons.
 
Oh for the days of The Thunderer!

Where is a man to go? I've got me Spectator subscription, what next, The Fortean Times?

I like the The Speccie not for it politics, but its irreverent tone...

I also used to subscribe to The Staggers for the Leftie view of things but let that lapse quite a while ago. I only read it online now (you're allowed 4 free articles a month) for John Gray's essays and book reviews as I'm a fan of Gray.

The New Left Review was another, but that was back in my student days.

There's several others too.
 
You should start reading The Manchester Guardian.

Pro move is moving offline, and only read The Economist. Honestly, it should be enough for most of us.
 
Oh for the days of The Thunderer!

Where is a man to go? I've got me Spectator subscription, what next, The Fortean Times?
The Spectator man Forsyth is married to the dreadful Allegra, once a reporter on BBC ’Newsnight’ and now ensconced in Number 10 at the expense of two abrasive Leavers with resolve and backbone.

It is promoting the idea that is good that Cummings is gone and now Boris can reinvent himself and heal any rifts in the Party. In other words, back to the same old, same old, cosy establishment policies.
 
The Spectator man Forsyth is married to the dreadful Allegra, once a reporter on BBC ’Newsnight’ and now ensconced in Number 10 at the expense of two abrasive Leavers with resolve and backbone.

It is promoting the idea that is good that Cummings is gone and now Boris can reinvent himself and heal any rifts in the Party. In other words, back to the same old, same old, cosy establishment policies.

People like Cummings don't go away...
 
You should start reading The Manchester Guardian.

Pro move is moving offline, and only read The Economist. Honestly, it should be enough for most of us.

You mean The Guardian. The Manchester Guardian (which it originally was) hasn't existed for 60 odd years. Anyways, the Guardian is a crap paper full of left-wing grifter journalism its twin being The Daily Mail which is a crap newspaper full of right-wing grifter journalism.

The Economist has been unwell for several years...
 
The Spectator man Forsyth is married to the dreadful Allegra, once a reporter on BBC ’Newsnight’ and now ensconced in Number 10 at the expense of two abrasive Leavers with resolve and backbone.

It is promoting the idea that is good that Cummings is gone and now Boris can reinvent himself and heal any rifts in the Party. In other words, back to the same old, same old, cosy establishment policies.

Farage reckons a big a sell-out in on the way in.

They're all pushing that narrative and that Boris is ruled by his girlfriend.

People like Cummings don't go away...

He's setting-up a blog, I do hope he dishes the dirt...

You mean The Guardian. The Manchester Guardian (which it originally was) hasn't existed for 60 odd years. Anyways, the Guardian is a crap paper full of left-wing grifter journalism its twin being The Daily Mail which is a crap newspaper full of right-wing grifter journalism.

The Economist has been unwell for several years...

The Daily Mail turns up some good copy every now and again in amongst the turds. The piece on the Ripper in todays edition is a case in point. The Telegraph would be too frightened to publish a piece of that length in case their demographic didn't have the attention span. They've asked me to come back and subscribe for one quid a week. Hmmm.....

The Economist has long gone, well over decade since they embraced progressive ideology.
 
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Farage reckons a big a sell-out in on the way in.

They're all pushing that narrative and that Boris is ruled by his girlfriend.



He's setting-up a blog, I do hope he dishes the dirt...



The Daily Mail turns up some good copy every now and again in amongst the turds. The piece on the Ripper in todays edition is a case in point. The Telegraph would be too frightened to publish a piece of that length in case their demographic didn't have the attention span. They've asked me to come back and subscribe for one quid a week. Hmmm.....

The Economist has long gone, well over decade since they embraced progressive ideology.

Cummings has had a blog for years. He comes across as a bit of a technocrat / Bismarkian Nationalist.

There's some interest posts on there, albeit they could do with editing down. However, you have to bear in mind, running a government is not like running a Silicon Valley Tech Company. A government does many more things than a company does.

Thatcher made a similar mistake when she suggested that running an economy is like running a corner shop. No, it isn't. You would have expected somebody trained in science, like Thatcher (Oxford: Chemistry) would have have known the problems with scaling.
 
You mean The Guardian. The Manchester Guardian (which it originally was) hasn't existed for 60 odd years. Anyways, the Guardian is a crap paper full of left-wing grifter journalism its twin being The Daily Mail which is a crap newspaper full of right-wing grifter journalism.
I know. It was a joke.
As an left leaning on the continent, it gives a good overview. What i'm really missing, is a english language newspaper based on the continent - when Brexit is done, it's more usefull for me, to gain knowledge on Paris, Rome, Berlin and Madrid, than London. In reality, that's been the case for years.

The Economist has been unwell for several years...
The Economist has long gone, well over decade since they embraced progressive ideology.
An alternative weekly magazine suggestion is welcome. Though Economist is likely the only one, I can find on the newsstand here.
 
I know. It was a joke.
As an left leaning on the continent, it gives a good overview. What i'm really missing, is a english language newspaper based on the continent - when Brexit is done, it's more usefull for me, to gain knowledge on Paris, Rome, Berlin and Madrid, than London. In reality, that's been the case for years.



An alternative weekly magazine suggestion is welcome. Though Economist is likely the only one, I can find on the newsstand here.

As someone who doesn't live on the continent, I'm afraid I can't help you.

One interesting phenomenon that the wall to wall coverage of the US elections in Britain highlighted was how little the British media report, or show interest in what is happening politically and culturally on the continent. This from the very same media that screamed and shouted about Brexit and so-called 'anti-europeanism' amongst the hoi polloi.

Fog in Channel, Europe cut off - is as much the mantra of the British MSM as it is the British people.

Our MSM (British) really is shit.
 

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