Category Archives: Politics

No bregrets?

02 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by in Brexit, Local elections, Politics, UKIP

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As the shambles that is Brexit stumbles on from one train crash to another, more and more evidence is emerging that the British people are starting to wake up to the fact that the promised Brexit unicorns don’t actually exist – and never will.

The latest evidence may come from the result of a local council election in Sunderland’s Pallion ward yesterday, where the Liberal Democrats took the seat from Labour with a very sizeable swing.

bregret

Pallion is on the South bank of the River Wear and used to be known for its shipbuilding but the last yard closed in 1988. There’s still one yard which carries out ship repairs, but that’s all. Nowadays the Pallion’s a mixture of industrial estates and residential, bounded by a road ironically named European Way. It’s known as a very deprived ward with high unemployment. You can learn more about the ward from the ‘Britain Elects’ website.

Of course nowaday’s Sunderland’s known for its Nissan car plant rather than shipbuilding.

In the Brexit referendum Sunderland voted to leave the EU by 61% to 39% remain. UKIP had a strong presence in the area, even if they had no Councillors. In the 2014 local elections UKIP made their first appearance, putting up candidates in almost every ward. The election results left them in 2nd place in the vote after the Labour party  – including in Pallion. UKIP played on Sunderland’s shipbuilding past, pretending that they could somehow recreate those days.

pallion

UKIP also came second in 2015 and 2016. But that was then. This is now…

The fact that the ‘will of the people’ was swinging against Brexit was picked up by the local paper as long ago as December 2016 when they ran a poll that demonstrated people had changed their minds (link). Of course, newspaper polls are notorious for their inaccuracy, most are little better than clickbait. But that’s what makes the Pallion ward vote so interesting as it’s a genuine expression of the democratic vote.  Pallion had the same Labour member since 1997, so for the Lib-Dems to go from last in 2014 , leapfrogging UKIP to snatch the seat is amazing. That UKIP are a car-crash nowadays doesn’t account for the massive swing to the Lib-Dems, as Labour and the Tories have lost vote share too. Could a factor be Brexit? Why did both former UKIP and Tory voters switch to the Lib-Dems?

Is anyone in Conservative Central Office or Labour headquarters listening? Both parties are seemingly hell-bent on pursuing Brexit, whatever the cost, but they would be foolish in the extreme to ignore results like this. This is the Brexit heartlands remember, so where’s their support gone? To the one party that’s made it absolutely clear it opposes Brexit!

I wonder how many more results like this we’ll be seeing as the Brexit shambles continues and the consequences can no longer be ignored or denied?

 

 

UKIP. Schadenfreude’s such a lovely word!

21 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in Politics, StopHs2, The Green Party, UKIP

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I can’t help but look upon the imminent demise of UKIP without a certain frisson of pleasure. A party that’s done more to ruin the UK’s reputation abroad and helped deliver the shambles that is Brexit is about to get its come-uppance – as blogger Tim Fenton mentioned today.

Ukip’s most recent accounts show it was £380,630 in debt before the 2017 election which weakened the party’s finances even further. The party’s so skint it can’t even put up candidates in local elections. The parlous state of the party’s finance have been the subject of infighting in the past and an open secret amongst members (link).

Now UKIP can’t afford another leadership election, which might save the skin of the latest temprorary Leader (the 4th in 15 months), Henry Boulton, despite the revelations about his openly racist girlfriend – Jo Marney. Jo’s provided social media with an open goal, so I make no apologies for sharing this pic of the couple caught together on the London Underground after their supposed ‘split’. Oh, and the Twitter commentary from Scott Ballantyne is inspired!

human

Meanwhile, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has got himself embroiled in the murky world of American politics, Trump, Assange and Russia…(link). There’s no chance of him riding to UKIPs rescue as there no money in it for him anymore which leaves the party stuffed. Even MEPs and some of the remaining local Councillors are jumping ship. John Arnott, the MEP  for the North East of England, said he had lost confidence in Mr Bolton but thought no better of those “jockeying” to replace him.

Here’s a list of recent desertions, with links. Arnott

All 3 Plymouth Cllrs quit

All 5 Hartlepool Cllrs quit

Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights?

Of course, UKIPs collapse spells even more trouble for another bête noire of mine, the Stop Hs2 campaign!

I’ve not seen any evidence that UKIP helped the campaign financially or practically, other then lending it support via social media & having members who had a foot in both camps. But UKIP did help draw attention to the campaign. Their opposition to Hs2 was nothing more than a cynical ploy to attract votes from disaffected Tories who lived on the HS2 route. The problem was that the Stop Hs2 campaign had always exaggerated how much support it had, so the avalanche of votes UKIP hoped for never materialised – even in the Chilterns, which was the ‘hotbed’ of anti Hs2 activity. They gained (and then lost) a couple of Council seats but never seriously threatened to unseat any MPs.

UKIPs demise will leave the Greens as the only party opposing Hs2 – and they’ve got their own problems as their standing in the polls and share of the vote in recent local elections has fallen dramatically. As an illustration of both parties troubles, here’s three local election results from Thursday.

green results

We live in interesting times…

Update: 22 Jan.

UKIPs National Executive Committee met yesterday and passed a motion of no-confidence in Bolton. Bolton refuses to resign, so now a ballot of the (remaining)members will take place. Meanwhile, social media has been kept amused by today’s antics as a series of UKIP ‘Front Benchers’ no-one’s ever heard of have resigned. Ds anyone even *know* UKIP had a spokesperson on Culture? Or Intelligence?  But the biggest ‘pot calling kettle black’ moment came from Neil Hamilton, disgraced former Tory MP, ex-jailbird & now UKIPs leader in Wales, who told the BBC;

“He’s made himself into a ludicrous figure by his own poor judgement and he should get out of the way and allow us to get on with rebuilding the party.”

They’re beyond parody!

The winter blues…

06 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by in Donald Trump, Doomed, Politics

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“I woke up this morning” – is the opening line of many a blues song – only in my case this morning was more like being wrenched into wakefulness by a paroxysm of coughing and spluttering. Like many people, Dawn and I have gone down with the traditional post-Christmas bug so it’s been a much more laid back Saturday then I intended. The pair of us have been coughing and hacking so much anyone walking past the house would be forgiven for mistaking it for a TB clinic.

The winter blues are one of the reasons I normally go abroad this time of the year. Everything seems subdued and miserable after the festive season, many people rein their horns in and count the pennies they haven’t got after overspending on Christmas so towns and pubs seem quiet. Even the weather has done it’s best to contribute to the general air of doom and gloom by pissing down for most of the 2018 we’ve had so far. A brief break in London helped lift my spirits but I’ll be glad when this damned cold’s buggered off – for both of us.

Meanwhile, in the spirit of a surreal age, when an American President takes to Twitter to assure everyone he’s not nuts but one of the smartest people on the planet – I’m heading for the drinks cabinet – whilst it and I still exist. Because, when this is the infantile level of the President of the United States – and supposedly the leader of the free world, we are all, deeply, deeply f****d.

trump 1trump 2

 

Is it any wonder the Green party are bombing in the polls?

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Green Party, Hs2, Mark Keir, Politics

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I’ve just come across this load of nonsense about Hs2 from the Green Party’s Mark Kier in Hillingdon, North London. It’s been posted on YouTube by ‘Occupy News Network’, a ragbag of leftists and anarchists. It’s straight from the ‘make it up as you go along’ school of political commentary.

These are the people who’re backing the futile protest in Harvil Rd, which is hardly ‘Swampy’ or Twyford Down! Apart from occupying a stretch of pavement they appear to have been unable to even delay the HS2 preparation work in the area, never mind actually stop anything!

In his YouTube diatribe, Kier claims (amongst other things) that Hs2 costs £110bn (it doesn’t), it’s funded by Chinese loans (it isn’t) and that it’s “wiped out democracy” (that’ll be why Parliament passed the Hs2 bill by a vote of 452 MPS to 41 then!). He also trots out some tired old canards such as the ‘fact’ Hs2 will be wider than a motorway (it won’t) and that the time saving between London-Birmingham is 20 minutes (it isn’t).

The pointless Harvil Rd protest has attracted several Green Party leaders, who’ve trotted along to grandstand and have their photos taken in ‘solidarity’ with the protesters. They’ve all parroted similar nonsense to Kier, which shows that the problems with the party being both dishonest and ill-informed is systemic. It also suggest that the Green party has retreated back to its protest/pressure group roots rather than trying to maintain the fiction that it has any credibility as a serious political party.

None of this rubbish will stop Hs2 in the slightest of course, but it does help to show why the Green Party has slumped in the polls in recent years. I wouldn’t trust this lot to run a whelk stall, far less a Council or, God forbid – a country.

Stop Hs2 never learn…

25 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2 petitions, Politics, StopHs2

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I’ve not blogged about the anti Hs2 campaign for some time, mainly because their campaign’s collapsed. There’s nothing going on nationally, just a dwindling number of folk moaning about Hs2 on Twitter. Locally, a few campaign groups on Phase 2 continue to make a noise, but their numbers are small and there’s little in the way of co-ordination.

However, last Thursday, Joe Rukin of the sole surviving ‘national’ group (Stop Hs2) decided to start yet another anti Hs2 petition using the Governments template. What a bad idea! I’ve always said that (like social media), these petitions are a double-edged sword. They’re just as likely to show a campaign’s weaknesses as much as its strengths – as is the case here. Regular readers will know I love this petition format as it provided some very interesting numbers to crunch. Signatories are identified by constituency and a total is given as a percentage of resident constituents. So, this morning I crunched the numbers. The petition will run until March 2018, which means Stophs2 have 6 months of embarrassment to come (if they last that long).

Here’s a link to the petition itself. Hs2 petition.PNG

The map that comes with the petition’s the really useful resource as it highlights the constituents with the largest number of signs using different colours. The darker the colour, the more who’ve signed. Now, spot where Hs2 goes!

hs2 petition map

Straight away the map explodes the myth that the Stop Hs2 campaign’s national. It’s clear that it’s anything but. Folk signing the petition are mostly living on the route, with the greatest concentration on Phase 1 around the Chilterns!

Here’s the number crunching, firstly for constituencies on Hs2 Phase 1 – which is a done deal now.

hs2 numbers p1

The first figure is the number of constituents, the second is the number who’ve signed the petition and the final one is the percentage of constituents. The first fact that leaps out is how tiny the percentages are, the largest is just over half 1%! The second fact is that phase 1 signatories make up a third of the grand total of 6229. The other fact is that other constituencies on the phase 1 route aren’t on the spreadsheet as the numbers of signatories are so small.

Now let’s have a look at Phase 2. I’ve divided them between the two legs of Hs2, Manchester and Leeds. Lets look at the Manchester route first.

p2 M'cr

What’s fascinating about this is that so few constituencies Hs2 passes through feature. This proves what I’ve been saying for some time, the stop Hs2 campaign’s always been weak here (there’s never been a single anti Hs2 group in Manchester for example) but now it looks like it’s pretty much collapsed. Despite the presence of a small but noisy Mid-Cheshire ‘action’ group, Congleton constituency only has 25 signs. Stafford has 31.

Now let’s look at the Leeds leg.

hs2 leeds

The numbers show that all the noise that’s come from one or two groups in Yorkshire and elsewhere hasn’t translated into signatures and the percentages for the constituencies are well below what we see on phase 1, which suggests there’s far less outrage about Hs2 here.

It’s worth remembering that these petitions get the greatest number of signs in the first few days. Once the activists have signed, numbers drop off rapidly. To reach it’s target the petition needs over 555 signs every single day for the duration. There’s no chance of that happening. This petition’s utterly pointless. The only thing it’s doing is allowing people to monitor the pulse of the stophs2 ‘campaign’. Judging by these numbers, it won’t be long before someone turns off its life-support machine. I’ll report back monthly, just to monitor what happens.

 

 

Decision day.

08 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by in 2017 General election, Politics

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I have to say, I’ve never known a general election like this. So many people are expressing their confusion and angst over who to vote for. Comment after comment on Facebook is from friends who are clearly torn over which box to put their cross in. “A pox on both your houses” seems to be a common sentiment as the choice between Labour and Tories is seen by many as being between the devil and the deep blue sea.

I went to the dentists this morning. Whilst I was having my teeth checked the hygenist and her assistant started discussing the election. The young assistant admitted she probably wouldn’t vote as she didn’t know who to vote for and didn’t really understand the issues. The hygenist mentioned that she had a Labour MP whom she liked, but may back the Tories as (although she didn’t like Brexit) she wanted it to be sorted out.

I was asked for my opinion, so I pointed out the emptiness in May’s rhetoric and her suicidal willingness to countenance a hard Brexit. I wasn’t much kinder about Labour, but I did mention they may make less of a mess of Brexit. The conversation wasn’t untypical of ones I’ve had elsewhere.

Frankly, it’s terrifying that on such a crucial issue as Brexit, the main parties have colluded in keeping voters in the dark about the reality of what we’re facing. It’s clear to me that many more enlightened and educated voters are seeing this, hence their quandry over who to vote for. Equally terrifying is the way the right-wing press are pushing for the Tories and a hard Brexit. It really does feel like the country is rushing headlong over a cliff, egged on by the billionaires and others who will benefit.

Could the election yet throw up a surprise? I believe it might, although I’m pessimistic. I’ve never known so many people willing to ditch old allegiences (including myself). I suspect we’re going to see voter mobility and tactical voting on an unprecedented scale, but I’ve no idea where it will take us.

It’s going to be a long night…

The weekend’s Hs2 media froth explained.

24 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by in 2017 General election, Cheryl Gillan MP, Hs2, Politics

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This weekend some papers were full of a speculative story that Hs2 is to be cancelled. Reports appeared in the Guardian, the Sun and the Express. The Sun’s story was a classic example of the disconnect between the journo writing the copy and the sub-editor writing the headline. Not only  wasn’t HS2 being cancelled, the PM, Teresa May wasn’t even in the loop and certainly didn’t offer any new opinions – far less actually confirm Hs2 was being cancelled.

sun PM

Only May never said any such thing. She’s not even quoted in the article. It’s another sub-editer ’embellishing’ a story (or lying, as it’s more accurately known).

This bit from the same story in the Express gives the game away.

express

Two MPs have asked that scrapping Hs2 is ‘considered’ and spun the story to the media that it IS being scrapped!

So, what do we really know from all this speculative froth? Only that it bares the fingerprints of two long-standing Tory opponents of Hs2 – MPs Andrew Bridgen and Cheryl Gillan, who’re almost certainly the people who’ve fed this stuff to the media to prop up their votes in the forthcoming general election. The massive irony is both MPs are claiming Hs2 should be cancelled to help pay for Brexit. The very same Brexit they both voted for! So much for the promised extra £350m a week for the NHS then!

Ignoring the froth, let’s remember a few things about the Governments stated position on Hs2. PM Teresa May has always been a supporter of Hs2 and voted to build it. Chancellor Philip Hammond has also been supportive. Both know that cancelling the project would destroy the Governments industrial strategy and stop tens of thousands of jobs being created as well as leave us reliant on a Victorian rail network that’s creaking at the seams. It would also leave our former EU friends (and soon to be competitors) with a massive PR coup when it comes to attracting businesses. May has previously stated her intention to put infrastructure investment at the heart of post-Brexit economic policy, so why change now? Let’s not forget that the UK ranks 24th in the world ranks of quality infrastructure (see link) and cancelling Hs2 would only make this worse. There’s nothing to be gained from cancelling Hs2 as the project isn’t a vote loser – as the 2010 and 2015 elections showed. Plus, the anti Hs2 campaign’s collapsed.

Few will remember the cartoon in a French newspaper when the Channel Tunnel opened. It showed French President Francois Mitterand arriving through the tunnel in a high-speed TGV train, whilst Margaret Thatcher met him in an old tram. It was an effective dig on the fact you’d speed through France and the tunnel on a high-speed train which would then crawl to London at 70mph on the normal UK railway as the Brits hadn’t built a high-speed line to match the French!

One can imagine EU nations saying to businessmen “why would you want to set up business in the UK, their infrastructure is crumbling and no match for what we’ve built across the EU – look they’ve even cancelled their last chance to drag their railways up to modern standards!”.

A cynic might ask why two Brexit supporting MPs have inadvertently admitted that – far from turning the UK into the land of milk and honey – Brexit is having serious financial consequences for the country (and don’t even mention that lie on the side of a bus). In Gillan’s case, it may well be because she’s backed the wrong horse. Her constituency is Chesham and Amersham. It voted to stay in the EU by 60% on a huge turn-out. It’s a wealthy area that stands to suffer considerably from Brexit as its residents find their city jobs moving abroad and their weekend trips to holiday homes in France & elsewhere curtailed by the exchange rate and need for visas. Gillan needs to try and prop up her vote as a Lib-Den resurgence & collapse of UKIP could well cause her problems, so keeping Hs2 antis on side is part of that. Planting media stories like this is part of a cynical re-election strategy, nothing more. Bridgen’s constituency voted leave, he doesn’t have the same worries, but keeping his Hs2 Nimbys sweet won’t do him any harm – especially as he’s fallen out with some over the £2m sale of his house to Hs2 Ltd!

I’m willing to predict that the last thing you’ll see in the Tories 2017 election manifesto is a commitment to cancel Hs2. Ignore the media froth, this is simply a couple of MPs trying to keep the idea out there to prop up their votes at home. 

Will Hs2 feature in the general election? Will it heck…

19 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in 2017 General election, Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Politics, StopHs2, Uncategorized, YorkshireStopHs2

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As all the parties start getting over their surprise that a general election’s been called and begin to muster their troops I thought it worth looking at the stophs2 campaign and their hope that Hs2 will be an election issue. Of course, the answer is – will it hell.

Since Hs2 appeared on the scene we’ve had two general elections (in 2010 and 2015) and numerous local elections. None of them have seen any serious swing or influence brought about by Hs2 or the people who oppose it.

StopHs2’s ‘Campaign Manager’, Joe Rukin even went as far as to stand for MP in Kenilworth in 2010. He later admitted to the Hs2 petitioning Ctte that it was a con to get a free Stophs2 mailshot out to voters, but even that didn’t do any good. He got all of 327 votes or 0.7% and this was meant to be an anti Hs2 ‘stronghold’! Nowadays Rukin has pretty much given up and spends most of his time ranting about football on Twitter rather than Hs2. (see @JoeRukin). The other umbrella group (Hs2aa) threw in the towel last year, so don’t expect any anti hs2 publicity in local or national media in the run-up to the election as the anti hs2 campaign’s skint.

Another oddball that’s tried to stand on a StopHs2 ticket is Nicholas Ward whom I blogged about here. He stood in Westminster North in 2015 and got 63 votes, then again in David Cameron’s old constituency of Witney in 2016 when he got 92 votes (0.2%)! It’s unknown if he’s going to throw away another deposit by standing again in this election.

Apart from solo players the only political parties that oppose Hs2 on the national stage are the Green Party and UKIP. The Greens claim to support the ‘principle’ of high-speed rail but then wrung their hands and bottled out of it when it actually came to doing so. Mind you, their rail and Hs2 policy is a dishonest mess. I dissected it previously in this blog. The Greens are currently standing at 3-4% in the polls. They have 1 MP and aren’t likely to achieve anything in June.

That leaves UKIP, who’re in such a political and financial mess nowadays it’s unlikely they’ll be fielding many candidates. Their new leader, Paul Nuttall, is such a Walter Mitty character he’d fit right in with the remaining anti Hs2 Nimbys. Despite proposing not one but THREE high-speed rail lines in their bonkers 2010 manifesto, UKIP flipped when they fell for Stophs2 campaign claims that there were plenty of votes to be had in areas like the Chilterns if they opposed Hs2. The problem was – it was a lie. I crunched the numbers in this blog. UKIP famously blustered they’d stop Hs2 with stuff like this:

UKIP Chilterns

UKIP managed to get 2nd place in Aylesbury Vale in the 2015 general election (partly on the back of Hs2) but came nowhere near beating the Tories, who had a majority of 17158, or 31% compared to UKIP’s 19.7%. Since then it’s all been downhill. A by-election was held this month following the resignation of UKIP District Councillor for Elmhurst, Andrew Hetherington. UKIP lost the seat to the Lib-Dems, which suggests Brexit’s more important than Hs2 nowadays. UKIP have lost their solitary MP and the party is in such a mess it’s not going to have any impact on Hs2.

What all these votes have demonstrated is that hs2 is only ever a Nimby issue. The only time it’s had any impact on elections is actually on the route of the line. Even then, it’s never been enough to upset the applecart. Of course, since 2015 things have moved on. Hs2 phase 1 has gained Royal Assent and the ‘national’ Stophs2 campaign’s fallen apart – as well as the Phase 1 campaign.

Now the focus has shifted to Phase 2, where the StopHs2 campaign is hopelessly disorganised, skint and without a coherent strategy. All it does is re-run the failed tactics used by Phase 1 Nimbys. To make matters worse, it has negligible political support. Only 2 out of Yorkshires 51 MPs opposed Hs2 and that figure hasn’t changed. If Labour do badly in the North and lose seats to the Tories, it’ll change nothing as Teresa May has made it plain she’ll build Hs2 (as have the Lib-Dems).

Could a change of Labour leadership after a June bloodbath change anything? No. Because the heartlands labour are likely to be reduced to (the metropolitan areas, like London, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and Sheffield) are exactly the cities that Hs2 will serve! They’ll be pushing for Hs2, not to Stop Hs2.

If the remaining Hs2 antis think the general election will somehow stop Hs2, they’re in for a yet another disappointment. Just like they were in 2010, and 2015.

The starting gun’s been fired for a general election

18 Tuesday Apr 2017

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I was going to blog about something entirely different today. However, the immortal words of Harold McMillan (“events dear boy, events”) have got in the way with Prime Minister Teresa May calling a snap general election for June 8th.

Over Easter, May was claiming that the country was ‘coming together’ after the Brexit referendum. The general election is about to prove how hollow that claim was.

If I was a Labour MP, right now I’d be updating my CV, because there’s little doubt the party is facing a bloodbath on June 8th. I can’t help thinking that recent polls showing that support for Labour has reached record lows have had an influence on the Prime Minister’s decision – as well as the way many people treat her ‘coming together’ claims with such derision.

 

There’s no doubt that the Conservatives will win on June 8th, but will this bring the ‘unity’ May talks about? Of course not.

Brexit is the fly in the ointment. Every day that passes it becomes clearer what an utter disaster it is for the UK – and how the country is throwing away much of its influence because of it. One only has to look at the way other nations (including the Europeans) are talking about us – or rebuffing our political and economic overtures.

Whatever way you look at it, I can’t see much good coming out of the election. It will hasten the destruction of the Labour party and see the back of Jeremy Corbyn, but I’m not sure the party is strong enough to rebuild and return to the centre ground. I’ve a nasty feeling the hard-left grip is too strong and they’ll ensure Corbyn’s successor is cut from the same cloth. May’s position may well be strengthened, but a weakened Labour party will be an even more feeble opposition than it is now. This election is like the Brexit referendum. It’s not about the good of the country, it’s about the internal politics of the Conservative party.

My only hope is that enough people rally around the anti-brexit banner. The local elections on May 5th will be a test of that. If the Tory majority is increased in such a way it allows the Brexit fundamentalists influence to be watered down, we may yet see an outbreak of common-sense within the Tories – something that’s been completely lacking recently.

Could we see the Lib-Dems make a political comeback as the only party that opposes Brexit? I sincerely hope so. Right now, we’re entering yet another period of political uncertainty, the ‘interesting times’ of the apocryphal Chinese curse…

Catching up…

12 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Brexit, Politics

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– just not with blogging I’m afraid! I’ve had a busy month working from home. It’s left me little time to write or compose my thoughts but that should change now.

It’s not as if there’s nothing going on. As each day goes by Brexit becomes more and more of a shambles. For example, today, the Guardian highlights a survey of UK retirees who’re now less keen to spend their golden years abroad in the sun. They cite concerns about medical care after the UK leaves the EU. I have to say, this is a bit of a ‘No, shit, Sherlock!’ moment – especially when you consider the fact that it was a majority of elderly people who voted for Brexit! So, as well as crashing the value of their currency, they’ve potentially deprived themselves of access to reciprocal medical care abroad. Of course, for the UK, this is a double whammy. As well as losing economically active EU residents (who’re deserting the NHS in droves) we find they’ll be replaced by the economically inactive who’ll be putting extra strain on the NHS! – and that’s before we take into account the 100s of thousands of pensioners who’re already living abroad and who may be forced to return to the UK.

Meanwhile a House of Commons committee has been rather scathing about the referendum itself – and also alluded to foreign involvement in trying to influence the result. It’s deeply ironic about the ‘patriots’ who’ve been trying to take us out of the EU. The trouble with such ‘patriots’ is they’re so easy to manipulate. All you have to do is pander to their prejudices, wave a flag, tell them they’re patriotic, wind them up and let them go. Most are too blind to see that their ‘patriotism’ hasn’t served the UK or Europe’s interests – just the Russians…

I expect this story to keep running. No-one who was involved in the referendum campaign on the Remain side will be surprised. The huge number of foreign ‘tweetbots’ & fake profiles involved was obvious.

Away from politics, expect to see a blog to appear telling the story of my recent travels around South-East Asia, I’m writing up my trip from Singapore, through Malaysia up to Bangkok in my spare time.