If every second car that passed you on the motorway was a BMW, or a Mercedes, where would you assume you were? Germany, perhaps? Or, maybe, even France? I wasn’t in either of those countries, I was in Britain.
In the last three weeks I’ve done a lot of driving on British motorways (Americans read: ‘interstates’) and I’ve been appalled by the sheer numbers of BMWs, Mercs, and occasional top-end Audis, roaring past me at near to one hundred miles per hour, while I was sedately cruising at the speed limit of seventy.
Returning to the place of my birth, and first fifty-six years of life, after an absence of fifteen years proved somewhat traumatic. Certainly, everyone complained about the traffic fifteen years ago. The term ‘grid-lock’ was being used then, but now in many places in the U.K. it’s fast becoming reality. The M25 London ring-road has been near grid-lock for years. It didn’t earn the title of ‘Britain’s biggest car-park’ lightly. But now it’s not so much the motorways that are slowed to a crawl through most of the day. Try driving through any town south of Watford – that’s roughly twenty miles north of London – and walking will seem the quickest way to reach your destination.
Every street in every village or town is riddled with a combination of speed cameras, speed-bumps, and warnings of dire consequences if the 20 mph speed limit is dared to be exceeded. And no-one does dare. Not so much from fear of a traffic fine, but the damage resulting to one’s expensive suspension if one’s BMW or Merc were to attempt a Becher’s Brook* leap over the plethora of merciless undulations known as ‘traffic calming devices’ that rise up from nowhere right under one’s front bumper.
*Look it up in Wikipedia.
It all begs the question as to why people living in these areas bother to spend tens of thousands of their Great Britain Pounds on motor cars that will exceed one hundred miles per hour, when they so rarely manage to grind out of second gear? Would not a Smart car…
…or even one of those ’60’s bubble cars…
…serve just as well?
The answer is, of course, a simple one. It’s all about status, and in Britain right now there’s lots of money to buy status. There’s a large section of the populace doing very nicely, thank you very much. There’s also a large slice of British folk doing very badly. But if you live in Henley-on-Thames, or Kingston-on-Thames, or indeed anywhere else that ends in ‘on-Thames’ you don’t bother thinking about them. After all, you’ve got your own problems: the wife’s BMW’s just been in to have its third gearbox installed in the last three months – bloody speed bumps! – and your Merc got shunted by a double-decker just because you happened to be late for work and nipping down the bus lane.
Which, I suppose, at least helps to explain why they go roaring past me down the M40 at one hundred miles per hour. After spending umpteen frustrating hours extricating themselves from ‘somewhere-on-bloody-Thames’, I guess it helps to relieve the stresses and strains of British middle-class life.
Poor buggers! You really have to feel sorry for them.
30 June 2016 – “There should be no general election until 2020,” said Theresa May when launching her Tory leadership campaign.
4 September 2016 – “I think what’s important, particularly having had the referendum vote, is that we have a period of stability…so I don’t think there’s a – a need for an election. I think the next election will be in 2020.”
“I’m not going to be calling a snap election. I’ve been very clear that I think we need that period of time, that stability to be able to deal with the issues that the country is facing and have that election in 2020.”
1 October 2016 – Theresa May has told The Sunday Times she has ruled out a general election before 2020 as an early vote would cause “instability”.
7 March 2017 – “It’s not going to happen. It’s not something she plans to do or wishes to do,” says the prime minister’s spokesman, after William Hague writes a column suggesting a snap election will give May a mandate for Brexit negotiations.
30 March 2017 – “There isn’t going to be one. It isn’t going to happen. There is not going to be a general election,” said the prime minister’s spokesman.
18 April 2017 (Today) – “Since I became Prime Minister I have said there should be no election until 2020 but now I have concluded that the only way to guarantee certainty and stability for the years ahead is to hold this election and seek your support for the decisions I must take,” said Theresa May this morning.[1]
“This lady’s not for turning,” once quoted Theresa May’s doppelganger, Margaret Thatcher. It seems the present British prime minister has decided to forsake her Thatcher impressions in favour of grasping a leaf from the Trump book of political U-turns. U-turns by national leaders now appear in fashion.
But that’s not all she’s stealing from Mister Trump. Leaked government papers obtained by the Times newspaper indicate that she may be agreeing with America’s ‘Dear Leader’ that climate change is no other than a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.
Civil service documents, photographed on a train, reveal that Britain plans to scale down its concern over climate change and the trade in illegal wildlife to clear the way for post-Brexit trade deals.
Details of the policy change were contained in the papers of a senior civil servant at the Department for International Trade (DIT) photographed by a passenger earlier this month.
They include the speech notes of Tim Hitchens, the director-general of economic and consular affairs at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).
The notes show he will tell diplomats and trade negotiators that they need to change their focus if the UK is to fulfil Theresa May’s vision of Britain as “a great, global trading nation”.
“You have a crucial role to play in posts in implementing our new approach to prosperity against the huge changes stemming from last year’s Brexit vote,” the notes say.
“Trade and growth are now priorities for all posts — you will all need to prioritise developing capability in this area. Some economic security-related work like climate change and illegal wildlife trade will be scaled down.”
Hitchens was unavailable for comment but Whitehall sources said the change of emphasis will make it easier to sign trade deals with countries in Latin America and Africa. At the moment, trade and aid arrangements with these countries can get bogged down with clauses that put environmental protections ahead of economic prosperity.
The document also reveals that Whitehall is still too short-staffed to maximise the opportunities of Brexit.
Hitchens plans to warn that “securing more resource” may be necessary, “particularly in the EU, where we’re already deploying additional officers”.
The notes are for a high-powered conference, Prosperity UK, sponsored by the Legatum Institute and Open Europe think tanks, taking place on April 26.
A second photographed document lays bare tensions between the FCO [Foreign & Commonwealth Office] and the Department for International Trade (DIT), which occupy the same building.
The handwritten note from a private secretary asks a senior figure — understood to be Liam Fox, the international trade secretary — to use his speech to the conference to stress “the need for FCO posts to work closely with DIT”.
It also says there is a need to explain “that trade is not just FTAs” — Whitehall shorthand for free-trade agreements.
Senior civil servants say there is irritation that Fox is heavily focused on tariff-free trade deals and less interested in obstacles to trade, such as standards and regulations. One said: “What is free trade in the 21st century? An awful lot of it is tackling behind-the-border barriers in services and intellectual property and procurement. It’s not about tariffs.”
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, condemned the shift away from climate change: “This government, not satisfied with delivering the greatest act of economic self-harm in history, is now threatening to disregard climate change and threaten the future of our planet. This leaked document shows that the government is now grubbing around for any idea and any principle it seems is up for sale.” [2]
[Reproduced in full due to Times subscription access]
Note the phrase, “… climate change and illegal wildlife trade will be scaled down.”
It seems that under the present U.K. government, economics and trade are far more important than the future of our planet. But perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised by that, given the dark political ejaculations emanating from the United States right now; a nation Theresa May has made no secret of aligning with against Europe.
The general election on June 8th will see Theresa May returned as the British prime minister. There can be no doubt of that. The main opposition party (Labour) is in total disarray and has lost the confidence of the country. No other party is in the running, though the Liberal Democrats may pick up some votes due to the enthusiasm of its new leader, Tim Farron.
Mrs May has picked her time well. A general election so soon after ‘Brexit’ may not suit the country, but it’ll certainly suit her and the Tory far-right she represents.
