Yippeeee I've found a way to get the NHS £350 million a week

Yes, I am now a convert to leaving the EU and reasserting our national sovereignty. Let's leave NATO too.

Why should some un-elected American general tell us we should spend 2% of our national budget on defence. That is 38 billion quid a year. Why should Donald Trump tell us we should spend this money? We didn't elect him.

Without NATO we could take back control. I calculate it will be more cost efficient just have a big enough army, navy and air force to protect our national waters, air and land. This should only cost about £20 billion a year. This will free up £18 billion a year or £350 million a week, thereabouts, to invest in our NHS.  Then, we won't need all those nasty foreigners to help cure us, as we could afford to replace them with robot nurses and doctors with a built in human touch.

Leave campaigners from all parties including UKIP should support this idea as it is a matter of principle that we assert our sovereignty and take back control. Perhaps you will join in too.

I wonder what Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin think about this idea? Surely, they would never contemplate invading a fully sovereign country?

Beavers and common sense

At last we have a common sense solution to flooding for some parts of the land. Why not use beavers as natural flood control agents. They do their work for no costs whatsoever. They naturally save people's properties from flooding. They do no harm to the environment, on suitable land; in fact they create an improved environment for other plant and animal species to flourish.

Some of the residents of Lydbrook in the Forest of Dean must be delighted that these harmless creatures will be allowed to manage a flood control scheme.

We should never have extirpated this species just for their fur. I have written about this subject before and never have I been so delighted to say, "I told you so."


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/16/beavers-uk-flood-defences-forest-of-dean

A Bombardier warning for Brexit

Avid advocates of Britain leaving the EU should heed the warnings of the Bombardier crisis.  The US government is slapping a huge tariff on the importation of Bombardier passenger jets. The Bombardier company is Canadian owned but it makes the wings for its jets in Northern Ireland. The imposition of the tariff by the US government is at the behest of the Boeing aircraft company. The imposition of tariffs is subject to a legal appeal. If the Canadian government loses the appeal in the US then the Bombardier company will be seriously affected and production in Northern Ireland will also be affected. The British government has been making appeals to the US but to no avail. It looks as though the British government is now making veiled threats against Boeing sales in the UK.

Entering into a trade war with the US would be dangerous under the best of circumstances . Britain would lose. After Brexit our position will be weaker;  there will be no EU to back us up.

The US is looking after its own companies first. It always does this no matter who is the president. Britain does this too . So does the EU. After we leave the EU we will get no favours from our erstwhile partners. They will tread on us just like the US and China.

When Britain leaves the EU both the EU and Britain will be weakened economically. Even without the UK the EU will still vie with the US to be the world's largest economy. Britain's economy will be dwarfed by the EU as well as by the US and China. We shall be adding to our trading difficulties.

The big boys will protect their economies and Britain will be left to pick up the crumbs. It is not unpatriotic to point out this fact of life and it is delusional to ignore it. 


https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/27/uk-boeing-contracts-bombardier-us

Insults and threats during political discourse.

Why do some people have to been so insulting and threatening on political blogs and such like? The treatment of political campaigners such as Miss Gina Miller is disturbing. There is no need to insult her, traduce or threaten her no matter what her political opinion is. Miss Miller is always graceful and behaves impeccably when disputing Britain's departure from the European Union with advocates of the opposite. She deserves to be treated with the utmost respect.

The use of threats and insults during political debate demeans all of us. If you are tempted to do so please think twice.

This blog will treat any insult with the contempt it deserves; it will go unanswered and it will be deleted.

Fining the Homeless -a pointless waste of time and money

Oxford City council is considering fining homeless people for sleeping in shop doorways and is pinning notices to that effect on homeless peoples' belongings.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/26/oxford-homeless-people-face-fines-belongings-doorways

This is a completely unrealistic approach to tackling the problem of homelessness. Not many people choose to choose to live rough in the outdoors. Most homeless people are very poor and some of them are younger people who have run away from home as well as being broke.

What is the point of taking homeless people to court to be fined? Most homeless people have got no money. What are the courts going to do if a homeless person cannot pay a fine? Send them to jail for a couple of weeks to keep them off the streets and then land them back in the position from where they started. What a pointless waste of time and money.

Why create even more difficulties for homeless people? Why not solve the problem by providing them with a home from where they can rebuild their lives? Why not help young people to be reunited with their families if they have run away from home and then support them to live together in some sort of dignity?

We are kept being reminded that the UK has 5th or 6th biggest economy in the world. We have an economy which amounts to 2 trillion pounds. Surely, we have enough resources as a nation to cater for the homeless and provide every one with a decent and safe home.

Japan and EU trade deal

It was announced previous to the G20 2017 meeting in Hamburg that the EU and Japan had agreed a free trade deal  which will probably be ratified in 2019. Britain could have benefited from this new arrangement. But if we leave the EU it will not be possible. Part of the new free trade agreement will be the elimination of a 10% tariff on Japanese car imports to the EU. If Britain leaves the EU without a customs union or single market trade deal then tariffs of 10% will be placed on UK exports to the EU. Further, because Britain imports a considerable proportion of car parts from abroad there will be a tariff imposed on these goods . The combined export and import tariffs will make British made cars more than 10%  expensive for the EU to import. British cars will lose their competitiveness. Why then would the Japanese manufacture cars in the the UK and invest in the the production of new vehicles? This will all be result of falling back on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. Britain can no more ignore these rules than the rules of the EU. Leaving the EU will not increase our sovereignty as far as trade is concerned.

Australia is also about to negotiate a free trade deal with the EU and Australia  is going to prioritise this deal above any free trade deal with the UK. Britain is no longer in a position to tell Australia what to do and Australia will look after its national interest first. The days of colonial preference and commonwealth solidarity are long gone. India maintains the same attitude.

The UK could get free trade access to the whole of the EU, Canada, Japan and Australia if it retained its EU membership. If we leave the EU, we not only have to spend years and years negotiating our way back to square one  but we also have the problem of getting favourable free trade deals with the US, India and China.

The UK has created an almost insurmountable problem for itself. It is leaving a huge trading block and then trying to force its way back in but with unacceptable conditions on immigration. It is like leaving a football club but insisting on being able to rejoin without paying a membership fee. Britain will be told no.

Australia and India want to negotiate greater freedom for their workers to access the EU job markets. Without the UK, the EU will find it easier to allow India to have freer access for its workers and therefore it will be easier for the EU and India to strike a deal. India will prioritise the EU over the UK.

If we leave the EU, Britain will be in a sorry position regarding world trade. This will be a harsh reality; Britain's prosperity could be severely compromised. We are already seeing the signs of the adverse effects of Britain leaving the EU. The rather inconclusive referendum result has lead to division across the geographic, demographic and political horizon of the UK. Political instability will exacerbate economic doubts and uncertainties. A shrinking economy will be blamed on the decision to leave the EU. Many of the 13 million voters who did not use their vote in the second EU referendum could easily be persuaded to support remaining in the EU if there is an economic crisis.

 All the ingredients for an economic and political crisis have been thrown into the melting pot. This is why there should be a two thirds majority in favour of constitutional  change in any referendum. Sensible countries adhere to this principle.

A political and economic crisis could lead to the British people to demand to stay in the EU or the customs union or single market or both.

The other EU 27 would be within their rights to say no to the UK rejoining; they might be glad to be shot of us.

They will let us stay in the customs union and the single market as we will get no say in how anything is run and we will have paid a 50 billion EUR leaving fee and probably a 5 billion or so continuing membership fee.

Don't be fooled into thinking the UK holds all the cards. The EU will lose its trading relationship with the UK but this is easily made up by the free trade deals with Japan, Australia and Canada.

The EU holds all the big economic cards, so do the USA, China and India. Being just the sixth or seventh largest economy in the world leaves the UK in a seriously weakened position. If you voted for self immolation there is still time to change you mind.

We could jeopardise our economic future probably to just reduce immigration by 20,000 a year - if at all. It is not a good trade off.

High Rise Buildings and Fire

Why doesn't the human race thing again about high rise buildings. Whilst I watched the Grenfell Towers in Kensington London disintegrate before my eyes, my mind went back to the horrors of watching the World Trade Centre disaster. The witness reports were similar.

There is no real need to build skyscrapers and the world could quite easily survive without them. Many tower blocks are built with political and commercial vanity in mind. Many are also built to crowd in the poor to accommodate them in cheap and convenient housing. Some states need to build upwards like Hong Kong but most states do not need to do so.

I have visited many of the great cities of the world and have stayed in some of the highest hotels. I have never felt comfortable sleeping in a room which has sometimes been in the clouds. In one hotel there was a fire and I was on the 18th floor and had to evacuate. I was in the bathroom and had time to get dressed, grab my passport and wallet and make my way down the fire escape. All of the guests in the fire escape could smell smoke but luckily no-one panicked. It took me half an hour to reach the ground and that was without firefighters climbing the stairs because the fire was on the ground floor in the kitchens.

Grenfell Towers had only one fire escape and those evacuating had to rush down against the flow of firefighters running up; the design of the building meant that both the escapees and firefighters were impeded when the fire spread quickly to all floors.

I was witness to a calm and orderly escape from my hotel but afterwards I resolved never to stay  or work in a building above the seventh or eighth floor, as it is easier to escape and easier for the firefighters to reach lowers floors with ladders.

I have no fear  heights and I am able to stand on the edge of a cliff and look over because my feet feel as if they are on solid ground. However, at the top of the Empire State building or the Eiffel Tour I start to feel uncomfortable after admiring the view and I am happy to get my feet back onto the solid ground below. Many of the workers in the twin towers probably felt the same way and many of the residents of Grenfell Towers probably felt the same too.


Whenever there is a disaster in a high rise building we always hear the same response from architects, builders and politicians, that we shall improve things in the future to ensure that such a disaster cannot happen again. It was a one in a million chance. No-one could ever contemplate that the World Trade Centre would ever be attacked in that way or, that even if it was that the buildings would not survive such an attack.

Likewise no-one thought that such a disaster would befall the Grenfell Towers,  all except for the residents whose pleas for the safety of the Towers to be improved were ignored. There are many more residential towers blocks in the UK of the same design so any one living in them is not sleeping so easily. It is time for short term and long term action.

It is time for a change of policy. I am of the view that we should not stop the construction of high rise buildings, but if we do build them then no-one should be forced to live in them as a result of poverty. Equally, no-one should be forced to work in a high rise building. In both cases an alternative home or work situation should be provided. It is a question of human rights -  no-one should be forced to live or work in a high building. If you choose to live or work in a skyscraper, or even visit it, it would then be at your own risk.

Once again, in London, the police, firefighters and ambulance services services rushed to face danger whilst trying to evacuate the public: red hot debris was raining down upon them and the fire fighters had to rush into a  very dangerous building to save people. If, most buildings were no more than seven or eight stories high then the emergency services would not be exposed to such terrible risks.

If we, as a matter of policy, deployed my proposals fewer commercial enterprises would indulge in high rise building vanity projects. The poor would not be ignored and be forced to live in unacceptable tower blocks. Workers would also not be pressurised to to spend a considerable time floating around in mid air. Of course, this will not happen and the world will see further residential tower block disasters. We cannot eliminate the possibility of another terrorist attack on a gigantic skyscraper either. Building lower will save lives.

Steeple jacks love the excitement of working high but there will be a need for more lower rise buildings and the result of falling from one hundred feet is the same as falling from a thousand feet.

My sympathies lie with the poor residents of Grenfell towers. Their articulate and harrowing stories highlighted the terror and anxiety of the disaster. The residents came from a multi-cultural background, some of them were refugees from Syria. Despite their backgrounds they all had one thing in common; they were too poor to move somewhere safer and not powerful enough to have their safety concerns either recognised or acted upon. They all deserve better from a rich society.