I spotted two vignettes yesterday that were strong indicators of just how much the Brits have declined since their imperial heyday.
The first one was in Cornwall when world leaders arrived at Carbis Bay for the G7.
Boris ordered up the aircraft carrier that, rather embarrassingly, didn’t have any aircraft on it.
The sister ship of HMS Prince of Wales is HMS Queen Elizabeth, which is currently on a world tour to frighten the natives.
Just as well Uncle Sam is providing the aircraft for that…ahem…show of force.
I suspect that this maritime performance art is an attempt to tell the big boys that Brittania still rules the waves.
In reality, all they can do now is attempt to waive the rules.
Especially when it comes to a legally binding treaty.
The sad truth is that HMS Brexit is banjaxed.
The bottom line is that the Brits are trying to wriggle out of the requirements of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which is a key component of the Withdrawal Agreement.
The latest figleaf is that the EU is being “legally purist”.
Here is James O’Brien on LBC today, utterly nailing this latest Breixteer fiction.
Boris had made much of his friendship with President Biden’s predecessor in the Oval Office.
Thankfully Trump has left the stage, and there is a grown-up in the White House.
Moreover, the 46th President of the United States is rightly proud of his Irish heritage.
For the avoidance of doubt, this is no Saint Patrick’s Day romanticism, and the Brit Prime Minister has found out to his cost.
Now, Boris has been very publicly slapped down by the Irishman in the White House over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Of course, Johnson, being Johnson tried to lie his way out of this rebuke in front of the cameras.
Standing on the beach at Cornwall saying that everything was just peachy between Boris and Biden reminded me of this fella.
A Jambo buddy of mine really nailed it with this.
Philip Stephens, of the Financial Times, was spot on with this observation.
Whisper it, the Brits are hosting the G7, but they’re not that important anymore and certainly not the world power they need to believe that they are.
That grieving for a lost sense of relevance can be found in the northeast of this country.
Yesterday, in Narne Arne, the Ibrox underclass burned a banner.
The poor dears believe that this will stop the European Union from exercising its legal rights under an international treaty.
Oh, dear…
Now, I do not doubt that these folk are genuinely angry.
They certainly are.
I suspect that the root cause of their angst is that they hate being reminded that they live on an island called “Ireland”.
Apparently, that really gets to them.
Oh, and sausages.
They’re angry about sausages too.
Great writing is often prescient.
The brilliant series Yes Minister predicted the current spat over sausages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZZvLVhhjJs
So the Bradaish people of Narne Arne may be prevented from consuming mainland sausages.
I reckon anyone who is getting upset over this is a bit of a banger.
Indeed, what’s the wurst that can happen?
Sorry…
I’m assured that the featured image in this post is not a photoshop creation.
Of course, I can’t be sure about that.
However, given that it is Sammy Wilson of the DUP, then I’m inclined to think that it is genuine.
If Brexit was an own goal of UK PLC, then it is potentially an existential error for Ulster Unionism.
I have just finished this excellent work, and I commend it to you, dear reader.
Now, it’s just a hunch, but the banner burners in Béal Feirste are probably not avid bibliophiles.
However, the immortal quote from Horace is apposite for them:
Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur.
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Go check out the current lending from the ECB to the EU.
Eye watering doesn’t do it justice and if 2008 wasn’t a big enough warning as to what is coming then this will end in tears for many EU Citizens.
Just as it did during the Greek Tragedy that played out.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul was never a great strategy for long term prosperity.
Those Loans have been agreed to be payed back in a specific time frame and whilst the rates on the original agreement were favourable this all changes if anything should alter or affect that agreement.
Like say another recession.
They haven’t stopped borrowing either with plans for further tranches to help take the strain post Covid.
Guess what the answer will be should it go pear shape meanwhile?
Austerity.
Lending by the ECB in the EU in June 2020 was up to €1.31 Trillion
‘The take-up increases the ECB’s balance sheet and bolsters its hopes that banks will continue to lend even as the economy shrinks by almost a tenth, helping firms survive until Europe is ready to fully reopen after the crisis.
Companies drew down their credit lines at the start of the pandemic. This is in sharp contrast with the bloc’s financial and debt crises a decade ago,WHEN BANKS WITHHELD CREDIT TO PROTECT THEIR BALANCE SHEETS,exacerbating the downturn.
The ECB, which also supervises the bloc’s biggest banks, has now allowed lenders to run down their buffers without penalties, also in the hope they inducing lending.’
Skip forward to April this year and the warning signs are beginning to appear…
‘Demand for business loans in the eurozone fell and BANKS TIGHTENED CREDIT STANDARDS in the first quarter of this year, a toxic combination that challenges the bloc’s slow economic recovery from the pandemic.
According to the European Central Bank’s latest lending survey released Tuesday, demand from companies for loans and credit lines fell for the third quarter in a row. The ECB said businesses seem to be postponing investments, as the pandemic triggers fresh lockdowns and other restrictions in many parts of Europe.’
Perhaps the U.K. could once more help out our neighbours,cousins and Irish friends when the detritus once more hits the proverbial wind generating apparatus 🤷🏻♂️
Longer fuse this time granted but the end result is guaranteed.
Neoliberal Economics at its predictable best.
Oh I forgot to highlight perhaps the most telling bit of the above 👆🏼
“The ECB,Which also supervises 👈🏼the bloc’s biggest banks”
Supervises = CONTROLS 👈🏼
A grownup in the White House. A senile puppet more like it.
I’m surprised that the DUP, who do not believe in evolution, are now looking for the missing link! They are now looking for Lorne!
Let the Europeans do their wurst.
Overly purist stance of the EU. Don’t you just love that sentence,
Boris and his lot sign up to a deal, shouting from the rooftops as to how great and solid it was and hey, ho, a couple of months down the line it’s falling apart and the UK is openly threatening to break international law to get their own way.
Did no one read the full details of the deal and it’s likely impact on NI?
It would appear not, but what would else would you expect from Bojo and the rest of his crew, none of whom could be trusted to go to the shops and return with the bag of messages that they had been sent for.
I love the way you big up a senile geriatric refusing a press conference, the simple true is he can’t be allowed out on his own and will never take unscripted questions. During his own ( belated ) press conference he even had the journalists names number, so he knew who and what would be asked. The man is a serious threat to world peace and most if not all power lies with an unelected vice President.
The man is unfit to hold the title of Potus.
Thanks for your input doctor.
The Vice President is indirectly elected along with the President. The position IS voted on by the Electoral College in the same way that the President is voted in.
Although, to the best of my knowledge though I may be wrong, the Electoral College has never voted against the will of the people as expressed in the November elections, they CAN do so.
Are there LINKS to the sausage story…??
Jeest thought ah’d ask…:0)
So the fake Irishman, who’s direct ancestors come from England comes over and publicy slaps the UK wrist , I missed that bit.
The US and the UK are two of the closest allies on this planet, if you think the US government will let joe Biden jeopardise that because he wants to be Irish, that’s fantasy.
The EU is playing silly buggers again, the deal was never meant to stop goods entering NI for consumption in NI, but to stop goods entering the EU via NI.
This is very all very childish, I voted remain, brexit happened we all have to respect the democratic vote, whitch I have to admit should have been 70% not first over 50% but that also goes for any future Indy ref and United Ireland vote.
Move on Phil, the empire is dead, Britain does not rule the waves, nobody in Britain or the the British government thinks otherwise .
The Irish should not glamourise or praise the EU, which treats them with contempt in return. The recent EU move to close *its* border with the UK in Ireland – completely without reference to the Irish Government – showed both how Brussels operates and the political standing of the Irish in the EU.
The fuss over sausages is absurd, yes, but then this is the EU we are dealing with. Small man Macron wants to get tough over sausages, after being publicly slapped in the face recently. He wishes to reassert his masculinity, much like the French tried to reassert their Empire after WW2. That ended in yet another (protracted series of) humiliation for the French, much like the sausages will for Macron.
Surely the solution is as simple as labelling packets as being “For sale In Northern Ireland Only” (or similar) – much like cigarette packets are labelled “UK Duty paid”, for example.
The idea would provoke mirth, but sincerely – if the Irish want to exist in a Union (as Ireland does in the EU) – it would be much better off in the UK, than the EU. It would be demonstrably more autonomous and also treated more fairly. And as a subsiduary benefit, what better means to tame the obnoxious layalist hordes, on both sides of the Irish sea?
Of course, optics, PR and historical resentment always outweigh reality in the modern day, (see the SNP’s success in Scotland), hence why Ireland will proceed as an EU nation.
That said, with the EU keen to undermine Irelands competitive advantages, (see the recent universal corporation tax agreement), and Ireland becoming an EU net contributor nation, who knows how long the rose-tinted view of Brussels will last in Ireland?
The fake Irish man… funny enough he is the only president of America I have met twice in Ballina Co Mayo Ireland. Makes me wonder what the “Englishman” was doing there!
Honestly stop spouting rubbish you know absolutely nothing about.
Phil, I have a theory, can’t back it up with any facts, do you think that part of the reason for partition was Lloyd George not wanting Belfast’s ship yards to go into “Foreign” hands?
What is undoubtedly the case is that Belfast was the economic powerhouse on the island of Ireland a century ago.
100 years on and the contrasting fortunes of Belfast and Dublin is night and day.
It was the main reason. ALL of the heavy industry in Ireland was based in the North East corner at that time, and heavy industry was king.
Shouldn’t that poster be 2/3 of Ulster is British?
Indeed so…
Actually, less than half of those two thirds identify as British!
Phil, I understand that you are proud of your heritage, but beware of lauding Biden, father and son, they are as corrupt as fuck. Check out their activities in Ukraine. Burisma were paying Hunter a shit load of money for doing fuck all. And ‘sleepy’ Joe was effectively the de jure president of Ukraine for the duration of the murderous Obama regime.
I can’t believe that there is a shortage of British meat products in Northern Ireland. What about all the porky pies they bought from Boris?