13 Comments
Mar 13, 2023Liked by Philip Stephens

Like the traveller, I too look on the works of Ozymandias (the Conservatives) and despair. What country we've become. Pandering to the lowest denominator, race, while still dreaming, deliriously so, that as a country,we matter,that other countries give a damn.

We have a cost of living crisis,sky high fuel costs,food shortages and a shrunken economy all attributable to Brexit. They know it but won't admit it.

I lived under Thatcher and thought that was bad but give her her due she was an intelligent woman surrounded by intelligent people. This lot by a country mile are the worst set of individuals ever to govern the UK.

Incompetence and corruption are rife and faced with a shrug of the shoulder. They've put us in the gutter all the while telling us it's for our own good to regain "our freedom ". Freedom from what and from when?

And the thing that annoys me most that I can't even fulfil the Brexiteer's wishes that if I don't like it "go and live in Europe " I wish I could, even that has been denied to me by the Brexit vote.

Anyway rant over, have read your book and to use the vernacular, it's a belter! Keep fighting the fight.

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Mar 13, 2023Liked by Philip Stephens

A depressing aspect of all this is the crassness of the electioneering - they believe, probably with some confidence, that the voters really are this stupid ...

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Mar 12, 2023Liked by Philip Stephens

Thank you, Philip. This is the key issue pushing Britain further apart from the EU and Sunak's pragmatic EU diplomacy will not work if he continues to encourage the xenophobia members of his party. He either must abide by the rule of law or Britain will become a pariah state. I fear it must get much worse, before it gets better

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Sunak is trying to have his cake and eat it. (Where have I heard that before?) He wants better relations with Europe but he also needs to feed the Pirañas on his backbenches

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Philip may be correct about the desire of the headbangers to exit the ECHR but its terms are incorporated in both the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and the Scotland Act 1998 through the Human Rights Act 1998. Those Acts would have to be amended if the UK withdrew. That would be no easy task and would split the Tories even further. I just don't see it happening in the time this government has left.

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Delay, delay, delay, and hope a GE will wash all these people out of office...

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Mar 12, 2023Liked by Philip Stephens

An excellent piece Philip.

Remember when we were told that the UK’s pre-eminence in defence and security would win significant concessions from the EU? The EU is in the early phases of expanding its remit to cover defence procurement. Given the current state of U.K. defence particularly in the land domain, there is a risk that unless the U.K. builds a positive relationship with the EU, the British Army may not be a combat force for decades.

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