Windsor Framework

Britain is an aggregate of 4 nations, about 300 years ago the kingdom of Scotland, England and Wales merged together; they said to themselves we all live on the island of Britain, why don't we have one kingdom for the whole island. We then became the United Kingdom of Britain, one state for one island. 100 years later the island of Ireland joined the union but recently Ireland broke off from the Union except all the Irish that wanted to remain British, the Pro-british unionist communities clumped together on the northeast side of Ireland. Ireland became a two state Island, UK northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. 

When I was a kid in the '90s I saw the Ira fighting to make the whole of Ireland separate from Britain. One Ireland that was independent of the kingdom. The loyalists and Ira were constantly fighting a paramilitary civil war. They were even detonating powerful bombs in Britain itself. 

During Brexit the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland had become the border between the UK and EU because the Republic of Ireland remained a part of the EU trading block. 

The problem is the EU member states don't want products and services from low income, low tax countries to enter the EU trading block without being charged a tariff to make the products less competitive with theirs. For example Britain could buy 12 tonnes of olives from Brazil and send them across the Northern Ireland border and undercut the prices of Spanish and Italian olives. The farmer's incomes in Brazil are less than in Spain and Italy. 

Apparently our government have negotiated a deal with the EU member states that allows Northern Ireland to have full access to UK and EU markets without tariffs and stipulations. They call it the Windsor Framework. Northern Ireland can sell their products and services to the Republic of Ireland and the Republic of Ireland can do the same with the UK. Northern Ireland has become a unique place on the continent. 

Let's see if it works. My local MP is the minister for northern Ireland and he is a Brexiteer, he approves of the new deal. It's a small world. 

Brexit Shambles

In my view, Brexit so far is a mess. The reason I think it is a mess is because we didn't have a clear direction. It took 3 and a half years just to decide what type of exit from the EU we will have. Parliament couldn't decide if we were going to make a clean break or a partial separation. They were treating it like a plunger on a detonator. They were worried pushing the plunger all the way down would blow up Britain. I guess this was never done before. It didn't help that people were taking the government to court when they first tried to make a clean break in the beginning. Being indecisive can be harmful I guess. 

Now we are left with a very basic trade deal. If a business wants to sell goods to the EU, they have to prove that all the parts of their product were made in the UK, otherwise they have to pay an import tariff. Sending goods in and out of the EU is quite slow.  The EU member states don't want us to bring products into the EU market that are from low inflation, low tax countries without paying an import tax. It would make their own products less competitive. 

White Flies and U-turns

During this last week the air was filled with tiny white flies, they are called white flies. They looked like little flecks of dust suspended in the air. 

It was while the air was filled with white flies that I learned the government u-turned on their recent budget change decisions, their temporary budget adjustment backfired, it caused the currency to devalue and all the money based products became more expensive. Mortgages, insurance, loans and things like that. I think the reason it didn't work was because of Brexit. The old ways to make Britain's economy grow won't work in post Brexit Britain. 

I think that Brexit has a self-harm affect on Britain. It is difficult to export products to countries in Europe, before it was very easy. Selling a product to Poland was almost as easy as selling a product to Kent. The same is true of importing goods. In post Brexit Britain, exporting and importing goods are very difficult. If you want the economy to grow in post Brexit Britain, you need to do things differently. I have a few ideas myself. We need to use technology to sell air freight space quickly, when passenger planes fly, they have two compartments a passenger compartment and luggage hold. Sometimes there is empty space in the luggage area that could be used to transport products. In half a day an airplane can travel a huge distance, America, the African continent, all of Europe and large parts of Asia. The other thing I would do is rent out public sector space, the government could raise revenue from renting out halls and empty spaces in public sector buildings like hospitals and schools. The revenue raised would be used to shrink VAT tax and help public sector workers get a pay rise. It's just a few ideas, many ordinary people have many ideas in their head to help the wellbeing of Britain. 

5 Strange Years

In 2016 a lot of strange things were happening, firstly many celebrities started dying; George Michael, David Bowie, David Guest and Prince to name a few. Then we had a referendum in the UK to choose if we leave the EU. The United Kingdom as a whole voted to leave. Later that year, Donald Trump was elected in America, he was also against trading blocks, political unions, and soft borders.  

I got Married in November 2016. 

For five years the UK couldn't decide how they will leave, some leaders wanted a second referendum. Others wanted to cancel Brexit, some wanted us to be part of the common market and leave the political union, some of them wanted a clean break with a follow up deal later. Parliament was pulling itself in different directions for 4 years. It got particularly bad in 2019, they were rejecting all the exit deals and amendments and no party had full control of the house of commons. The Conservatives were in a coalition with the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) to keep control of Parliament, a big compromise in my view. Then a New group of conservative leaders stepped up with a very clear agenda and gained a majority in parliament with a snap election in Christmas 2019. 

Then a Pandemic came along and caused chaos to the whole world. Supply chains were disrupted during that time and many people couldn't work or trade. Inflation and civil unrest became the norm during that time. Many people were killed by the virus itself. 

What will happen now? I don't know. 

1000 days of tosh

There are 1095 days in 3 years and at least 1000 of them were full of Tosh. The news was repetitive, it was very boring after the second year really. Going on and on about the same thing every single day. I won't say what it was going on about. 

Some left wing radio presenters would talk about the same thing every day, so they were neglecting other interesting topics. Talk based radio is a big part of my life. 

The good thing is that I was inspired to seek other media. For instance, the last 3 years I have been reading e books about afterlife and paranormal stuff and Wikipedia articles more than ever before. The other day I was reading about Triton, the largest moon of the Planet Neptune. The moon is similar size to our own moon but it goes around the planet in the opposite direction to the planet's spin, this means it was originally an independent Dwarf planet that had an orbit the was too close to the gas giant and got trapped by the planet's huge gravity field. 

It is strange to think that our own moon is also actually a Dwarf planet. It is so big that it has crushed itself into a sphere shape and has enough gravity to harbour a small atmosphere, although the sun's solar wind has removed that atmosphere because it is outside Earth's magnetic field but that is another story. 

Christmas election

Here in the UK, we are going to have an early general election during Christmas. There seems to be a party for everything.

If you want a second referendum or a soft Brexit, you could vote for Labour. Also they want to renationalise a lot of the infrastructure that was sold off during the eighties and nineties, Railways, utilities and things like that.

If you want to cancel brexit then you could vote for the Liberal Democrats. They made it very clear they would revoke article 50 as soon as they were elected.

If you want a hard clean break brexit then you can vote for the Brexit party. They will leave first and negotiate later.

If you want a hard brexit preceded by a transition exit deal then you could vote conservative. They want to keep all the taxes low because they think the growth created would more than compensate for the loss in public revenue and add some on top.

The outcome of the vote would be very revealing. I wouldn't be surprised if the result was hung all around because the Brexit vote would be split between two parties and those that want a soft Brexit won't vote lib dem. Well, we will see.

Sing poop

Ahh, Sing pooop, sing poop, sing poop. Once again you are trying to block a deal with the EU. Have you forgotten what it means to wear that red tie?

Have you read the stipulations of the deal? Do you know it is just a temporary phase towards leaving because we need to leave in an orderly way? They won't give us a sweet deal because they would be compromising too much. Read the deal, and remember that it is just a phase, a step and the stairs to our destination.

Do you know that making us vote again is a slap in the face. You're basically telling us we didn't know what we were doing the first time. It is not the people's vote, it is the people's slap in the face.

Referendum tosh

If there was a referendum to choose whether we electrify the existing railways or build a high speed railway to the west country, I wouldn't respect it. I would think that what ever I choose, parliament will do what it wants.

If I choose to electrify the existing networks, the wife of the diesel engine corporation's director would take the government to court for neglecting the Cornish and the MPs that want more high speed tracks built would try to block any  electrification contracts being signed.

If I chose to build the high speed railway then the Welsh would claim that is not fair because they are more important than the Cornish and people of Devon yet don't have a high speed railway. Anyway, there would be a deadlock and some MPs would try to make a second referendum because they think I didn't know what I was doing the first time. Even if they promise to implement my vote in writing.

I will never respect a referendum again. But I will vote anyway because I value my insight. I will stand and deliver and laugh at any promises concerning my verdict and walk away to continue my daily toils.

Thomas cooked

I considered myself to be a doubting Thomas as I aged but there is no doubt now that Thomas Cook holiday company is gone.

I put some of the blame on the internet and some on poor investment decisions made by the company. The internet certainly played a big role in the destruction of the company.

Blockbuster video rental company went bankrupt because of internet video streaming. When you think about it, you can say that machines are already putting thousands of people out of work throughout the world. Machines create jobs but I think they destroy more jobs than they create. I see many politicians claiming the opposite but they are out of touch with the community. They are good at promoting themselves but fail help anyone.

There are still politicians in my country that don't even think there is a housing crisis. They have 10 houses and a magic bank account in a tax haven with 10 million in it so their privilege blinds them from seeing thousands of people living in their cars and families being buried in debt. I often wonder why they are getting elected? I think people should follow their local mp on Twitter and observe what they are saying. If there is a problem in your community then don't elect someone that doesn't even acknowledge the problem exists.

5 months old

Jacob my son is five months old today. He has changed a lot since he was born. He tries to put his feet in his mouth and dances in his baby chair when he hears music. He is the only baby I know of that dances before he can walk. He also makes flapping farty sounds with his mouth.
I sense he will be a very active boy as he ages.
He grows fast. Can't believe is already nearly six months old, were did all the time go?

I can say that at the time my son was five months old,  Mr Tight Fist published his memoirs, I am very curious about his book but don't want to download it now because I know it will talk about brexit and make me feel more afraid about the near future.

If my ancestors only knew what their island homeland was like in my time! I literally moved out of London, got married and had a family while they were arguing about how to implement brexit. And my son Jacob was born in the thick of it all at the dawn of the twenties decade.

Oh, and a gold toilet was stolen earlier this week. I think some rich people have more brass than sense. What is wrong with using a plastic toilet seat? Really!!

I couldn't make it up... They say the truth sets you free. The truth is more headache right now.

Sent home

Old-me, you have the gift of hindsight and know better about what will happen in the coming months than me. I can't make sense of it all.

Today I learned the prime minister can get the Queen to shut down parliament for a few weeks. It is a loophole in British law called Poroguing, sounds like a dessert but it's not sweet. The law is usually used after the tax year to allow the Queen to prepare her speech and clarify the progress of the islands economy.

The Queen didn't look very happy, she couldn't say no because there is another law that stops her interfering with parliament. I would call that checkmate, she doesn't want to interfere with parliament or politics.

The other day, Boris moved the Poroguing interruption to the middle of the period between now and October, during September and he nested the period near to EU conference leaving the entire cabinet barely a few weeks to debate an legislate.

I'm guessing that he thinks that is the only way to break the deadlock, to shorten their time so they can't block his government and publish laws. To get brexit finished so we can move on.

Theresa May was playing poker with the opposition and they blocked her every move. Now Boris is playing chess. New player new game.

I have no idea what will happen in the next six months. I don't even think about it anymore.

Boris power

Boris Johnson has been voted leader of the conservative party, the Queen has welcomed him to the helm and he has made his speech and summoned his cabinet team.  Therasa May has stepped down, she did well I think.

Why did they take so long? We knew last month that Boris would win, he had more than double the votes as all the other candidates. Why did we wait until there is only 3 months left before the October deadline? I think they should have fast tracked his promotion.

My local MP Steve Barker happens to be the most hard core Brexiteer in the whole house of commons, why did he turn down a cabinet position? He has a clear plan in place. I guess he just wants to remain a back bencher.

Do they know that people like me get nervous when cabinet ministers quit on mass. When people are fleeing in a movie it is because there is danger, they are either running from an explosion or a monster. Yet the cabinet ministers and leaders are stepping down so often that they may as well go to Ikea and get a whole new Cabinet, I know that joke is not funny.

I wish Boris good luck, I keep my chin up for my island home. Rule Britania, my island of Hope and glory. May the Island of Great Britain and it's family stay in prosperity.

Jo Brand

I recall a news article about Jo Brand making a Joke about battery acid Being thrown instead of milk shake on politicians. Throwing any fluid on a person is assult according to UK law.

I don't know what people expect when they go to her shows. That is her style, she has dark humor. She tells jokes that are dark and sadistic, I'm not saying she is a bad person. That is the way her shows are.

I don't know why this made it on the news considering there are more serious things like housing problems for the Grenfel fire victims. I mentioned this before, if all the flats in the building we're built along the ground instead of on top of one another, then Grenfel would be called a village and being burnt alive is one of the most painful ways a man can die, over 70 people were killed by that fire.

I mentioned before that we have a half baked austerity Regine in place at moment. The government spends a lot of money on weapons but not much on ordinary people. The Grenfel building is one example of that, using cheap flammable panels on the outside of the building.

What April means to me

I will always remember April 2019 as Jacob's Spring because my son, Jacob was born in the middle of April and April is the middle of Spring.

April is the Month I became a father and I was given my own family, the best gift I have ever been given. I hope to be a good father for Jacob. My wife named our son, I gave him the middle name Curtis, an abbreviation of courteous, which means to be respectful.

My wife's sister and parents accompanied me and my wife while we were waiting for our son to be born. I enjoyed their company however I found it strange to not work for 5 weeks, plus the tension from waiting for Jacob got to my head and I think I looked stressed and angry. I hope they didn't get the wrong impression about me.  I really enjoyed their company and hope they will come again.

The weather in April was very cold and cloudy. Not what we normally get in the middle of spring.

There was a large terrorist attack in Sri Lanka, an Island next to India. I won't say anymore. Only that God won't reward anyone that destroys themselves and others.

Jullian Assange (Wiki leaks co-founder) was arrested inside the Equador embassy and the world was shown a picture of a black hole event horizon the way it actually looks. It looked the way I imagined it would look. It was a hole that is black.

The Brexit deadlock persisted throughout April. Britain may never leave the European Union. I sense that everyone on both sides of the continent are just fed up and want some progress to be made.

Lord Fist4meat

The other day, one of many celebrities came on TV to explain how he thinks Brexiteers are stupid with his big mouth. I won't name him, let's just call him Lord... "Fist for Meat". I read Fist4Meat's books back at the turn of the millennium and got the impression that he was a Eurosceptic himself.

I just wish they would shut up! Being a celebrity doesn't make you an expert economist. I think that Lord Fist4Meat should except the cold meaty facts, that the British people don't want to be part of the EU or get a Microwave and shut up.

If the media keeps having a frenzy about Brexit then they will scare away all the investment and devalue our currency.

Divided Britain and Kingdom

The year 2018 is coming to an end and my island of Great Britain is very divided with odd pairings. From the summer of 2016 the British people divided themselves into three groups. Brexiteers, Remainers and Abstainers. Brexiteers wanted the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. Remainers wanted to stay in the European Union and Abstainers weren't sure or refused to vote.

The divide spanned across the British Island and spilled out to the edge of the Kingdom in northern Ireland and Gibraltar.

There was odd pairings and aliances  throughout the UK. London and Scotland wanted to remain. The rest of England and Wales wanted to leave. Northern Ireland wanted to remain and so did Gibraltar. Ultimately, leaving EU was the final verdict.

I have seen business leaders and politicians that were far from friends working together to achieve their goals. Rival politicians came together and was working as a team. Tony Blair and John Major were working together for the Remain Campaign, they were political rivals in the previous decades. It is a bit like Superman, Batman and Skeletor forming a group. I saw Tim Martin and Robert Dyson on the leave group. A pub chain owner and a vacuum cleaner manufacturer. People I would never see working together were drawn together by this strange situation.

Now the divide is about how we leave and the whether the Kingdom will be intact or if Great Britain will remain Great or be split in half across Hadrian's wall. My Island is filled with uncertainty. I can only hope that we work together and make the final decision work for us. Even a paralyzed man needs both his arms to push the wheels in the same direction, otherwise his wheelchair would just spin around and he would have no hope of getting anywhere.

When the Queen did her speech on Christmas, it made a lot of sense to me. We need to be united in the United Kingdom and the sons of Britain need to respect their brothers and sisters.

I can only hope for the best outcome.

Irish back stock

The UK prime minister, Theresa May has made a British exit (Brexit) deal with the EU but the house of commons don't like the deal. The main reason they don't like the deal is because Northern island would be treated like a separate country from the UK. They would have checks made on their products before they enter the British Island.

Let me explain the problem the EU faces. Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are two separate countries. When the UK splits away from the EU, the Republic of Ireland will remain in the EU and Northern Ireland will remain part of the UK. If goods are free to move from UK to the republic of Ireland without paying a tariff then the UK could do a trade deal with a country outside the EU and send goods that are not taxed into the rest of the EU through the republic of Ireland. For example, we could remove the tariff on Oranges from Dominica and then send them to the republic of Ireland and then the Republic of Ireland could send the oranges to Germany. This would mean that Oranges are entering the EU without being taxed.

The Irish in the North and South wanted to keep a soft border because people own assets and trade on both sides of the border. I think the best way out of this is to leave without a deal and pay the tariffs, I recall that the deal involved a £39 billion exit fee. Use the exit fee to reimburse businesses that are taxed for their exports. Isn't that a more straight forward way to solve the problem.

My son is due to be born and like his father is spending his time as a fetus in a country that is consumed by chaos and uncertainty. For me it was the Falklands war, for him it is Brexit.

What November Means to me

November 2018 was about discovery and a huge deal. It was in November 2018 that I discovered that my unborn child was a boy and at the same time I discovered that NASA had landed a probe on the planet Mars called inSight with the intention of peering inside the planet, good luck to them.

I would be happy if my child was a boy or a girl.
It is a boy and we are thinking about possible names to give the child when he is born.

November is also about the Brexit exit deal that was prepared by our prime Minister, Therasa May and leaders of the other European Union member states. I sense that many politicians intend to reject the deal because they think it is a bad deal. They will soon vote on implementation of the deal.

There was wide spread rioting in France because Macron increased fuel tax. This event reminds me of the time I learned of Margret Fatcher's poll tax. If people live a privileged life then they may forget the ordinary people struggle to live in this world. They can increase a tax without thinking about the poorer people.

Scotland and Us

I sense that the Scottish people want to break away from the UK to rejoin the European Union. To be honest, I would be disappointed if they did because it means they are choosing the EU over the UK. The UK is older than the EU and functions better. I will accept their decision and try not to take it personally.

I am proud of the UK and feel that it will out last the EU because they are trying to turn into a federation and the countries don't fit together. They will probably blame the UK exit for the end of the EU but the truth is it was a doomed project.

We did a lot for the Scots , we bailed out RBS and put all gov projects their to increase their employment. If they want to turn their backs on that then I won't hold it against them.

I think that the Scots leaving the UK is bad for them because we buy most there goods and we share their currency.

Disappointment

Today I was filled with disappointment because I saw high level people that were trying to stop brexit. Brexit is British exit from the European union. They think we can't prosper outside the EU. They also think that we need access to the common market. 

If we stay in Europe or Leave I don't mind because I think highly of my country and think it will prosper, what ever happens. The issue I have is the way many people of the UK judge their own country. I believe that the Biggest problem this county has is it's self image.  There are millions of people across the UK that think we are weak. They think way are not strong enough to stand on our own. I hope they move to France, they can prepare their Hindsight speeches. 

In my opinion, the biggest threat to the UK is not Leaving the EU, or the huge Dept we have collected. The biggest threat to our well being is our own minds. If you think you and your country are weak then you are right. Vision is everything. If the Japanese looked down on themselves in the 1940s when their land was in ruins then they would not have become one of the worlds greatest economies in the decades that followed.  

I want to shout out loud. We are strong, we are strong! as loud possible. I feel fire in my belly because have vision for the UK. I know we can prosper no matter what happens. We can do anything unless we don't believe.