A good week – fairly quiet at the beginning accelerating to a frenetic climax towards the end of the week. I suppose it’s better than being full-on all the time or sitting twiddling our thumbs with nothing to do. Hmm, now that I think about it, twiddling my thumbs sounds okay to me.
We started the week with lunch for a couple of our lovely neighbours – they had run out of heating oil and were stuck shivering at home with only an open fire in the lounge and a couple of electric fan heaters to keep them warm. They have an electronic device which measures the level of oil in their tank, as do we. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to them, the battery in the transmitter which sits in the tank had expired and their device, therefore, was giving them an erroneous reading. Quelle merde! They only discovered their predicament when the heating failed to turn on one morning. They then couldn’t get an oil delivery for about five days and had to wait another four or five days for the heating engineer to arrive to ensure the boiler hadn’t sucked up a load of grit and grime from the bottom of the tank. Sunday lunch was the least we could do!
All quiet then until Thursday which was another of our lovely Moreton Pinkney Film Nights. Penelope and I debated long and hard whether we would go this time. The film was The Bank of Dave which we had seen before. Was it so good that we should see it again? Were there lots of hidden aspects which we didn’t quite catch last time round? Hmm, not really. But, the draw of a fish and chips supper plus another opportunity to socialise with a collection of our lovely neighbours outweighed our misgivings. And, the film is good fun at least if not really a blockbuster Oscar contender.
Friday evening, we had some friends from our former life as members of the gym in Banbury over for dinner. We don’t see them all that often nowadays so it was good to catch up and enjoy yet another of Ms Playchute’s epicurean delights.
And then, later today, we have a dear friend coming for lunch. She used to live across the road from us in Byfield and it’s always a delight and pleasure when our mutual exhaustive schedules allow us to get together. More fine dining – yum.
This week’s You Could Not Make It Up moment comes courtesy of our (current) Prime Minister’s momentous achievement in finally “getting Brexit done.” Our foreign reader might have spotted that he has successfully negotiated an agreement with the EU to “solve” the knotty problem of Northern Ireland.
A bit of background for those who may not be familiar with the NI issue. Boris, the lying former Prime Minister, negotiated the Northern Ireland Protocol as a “fudge” to solve the issue. Goods moving from the UK to NI would have to continue to meet EU regulations and therefore would need to be inspected. This, in effect, created a border down the middle of the Irish Sea between NI and the rest of the UK in spite of Boris lying that no such border would exist. This was so that the open border between the Republic of Ireland and NI could remain open. Not surprisingly, this created a nightmare of red tape for anyone trading between NI and the rest of the UK and trade plummeted as a result, in the same way that trade between the UK and the EU has been similarly decimated by Brexit.
At the same time, the loonier members of the NI Assembly pointed out this meant that NI would be treated differently than the rest of the UK. Quite right, that was a result of the Protocol in spite of Bojo’s lies. As a consequence, the Unionists in the NI Assembly refused to join with other parties in government leaving NI without a functioning assembly. No bills could be passed, no initiatives could be enacted, nothing!
So, Rishi, the current PM, has negotiated a new agreement with the EU. Goods going to NI from the UK would proceed through one of two channels – a Green channel for goods destined to remain in NI and a Red channel for goods going on to the Republic and therefore into the EU. Goods in the Red channel are checked for EU compliance, goods in the Green channel are not. Hey presto, frictionless trade between NI and the rest of the UK whilst maintaining the integrity of the European single market.
So far so good. Unfortunately, Rishi let the cat out of the bag when he announced the new agreement and outlined the benefits of what he had achieved.
Northern Ireland is in the unbelievably special position, the unique position in the entire world in having privileged access not just to the UK home market, which is the fifth biggest in the world, but also the European Union single market.
Rishi Sunak
In other words, NI is now in essentially the same position the whole of the UK was before Brexit! YCNMIU!
Stella Creasy, the Labour MP who chairs the Labour Movement for Europe, succinctly pointed out the flaw in his announcement:
The prime minister is boasting about the benefits of the single market and customs union for businesses in Northern Ireland, while denying those same benefits to businesses struggling in the rest of the UK with our current economic crisis.
And John Crace, as always, had a marvellous analogy in the Guardian:
Why should [anyone] be grateful to someone who had merely unfucked something he had fucked-up in the first place. Like someone who lets down your tyres wanting thanks for blowing them up.
What next? A similar trading arrangement for the rest of the UK? Hmm, how about re-joining the EU and hailing that as giving the UK a unique and privileged position?
Nope, you could not make it up.
Meanwhile, keep happy, keep smiling, be careful, wear a f**king facemask in crowded places and keep your distance. And keep safe. And be gentle to wasps and bees.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg