When a patient suffers a mental breakdown gradualism is often a key part of the treatment. You don’t overnight make a mad person sane, you work gradually building their confidence and step by sometimes painful step normality returns. And so it is with Britain. On one baleful day in 2016 the English Patient committed a near fatal act of self harm. The consequences of this horror are very much with us, but so are the signs of cure – albeit shining dimly for now.

For Britain to be the only country in Europe without a trade deal in Europe and via this with the rest of the world is clearly preposterous. The modern world is interdependent and relationships have to be covered by rules. Even some of the most strident Brexiteers didn’t want to leave the single market or the customs union – let’s not do it. We should be able to cobble together an arrangement based on those of Norway or Iceland or Switzerland that does this. It would be a start and the Patient would start to show signs of recovery. The eyes dulled by confusion would brighten and recognition would return.

The next step might be to remove the annoyances of petty Apartheid – we can have separate development but that does not mean we shouldn’t be able to take our dog with us when we travel. Or not be covered by reciprocal healthcare arrangements. That’s negotiable as well. Freedom of Movement might be more difficult but it can be covered by some new (also reciprocal) “right of work and residence” concession which nominally falls short of a Migration Free-for-all but means that our fruit and vegetables get picked and our young people could continue to live, study, travel and work across thirty countries. Now the Patient is sitting up and taking sustenance. Cure is in sight.

The headbangers will complain that this is “BRINO” – Brexit in Name Only , and they will be right. But, frankly, to coin another acronym TINA. Unless all of us in Britain want to head for the funny farm there is no alternative.

“…the EU is on its way to becoming something akin to a state, with a flag, a parliament, a currency and, now, common debt. While one wishes our friends and neighbours the very best with this questionable continent-wide enterprise, it is terrific not to be involved.” Iain Martin in The Times today.

Well it’s taken a while for Winston Churchill’s “United States of Europe” to come close to reality and despite Mr Martin’s optimism and sarcastic good wishes I’m not sure that they are there yet. Nor that it’s “terrific” for Britain not to be involved. WSC didn’t see us being involved either, but the times have rather changed since 1948 haven’t they? The main change is that unlike immediately after WW2 Britain cannot remotely be considered to be a great power.

Not that all this would matter a fig of course if we had followed Dean Aitchison’s later advice that in our post imperial world we should turn to Europe. Actually of course we did and for forty years we played a not insignificant part in Europe’s economic and political union. The blindingly obvious fact that in the modern world Britain is a European nation or it is nothing became ever clearer. Then in 2016 we chose “nothing”. Odd thing to do!

Until Boris Johnson’s 2019 Election victory there was still a chance that we would see sense – perhaps by the mechanism of a second Referendum. (We would not have been the first Nation to back away from constitutional disaster given a second chance to do so.). But the 2019 election scuppered that.

It was a curious alliance that gave us the Johnson Government. Hard Right Neo-Conservative Eurosceptics had taken over the Tory Party but there were still a few good men and women of the “One Nation” persuasion to frustrate the Headbangers. They had to be got rid of, and were. Johnson’s forces In Parliament were reinforced by political novices from some very odd places. The red wall was breached.

Boris Johnson was not elected by Conservatives but by the same motley crew that gave us “Leave” in 2016. Suffice to say this alliance was not driven by reason – to this day no reasoned argument for Brexit has been put forward. It was and is a combination of motivations of which xenophobia, islamophobia and in some cases outright racism were significant drivers. Not for the likes of Iain Martin of course. They invented the utterly spurious issue of “Sovereignty” to rationalise their anti-Europe choice.

The quote at the head of this response shows that Sovereignty it is still the Brexiteers only (and weak and wrong) argument. That membership of the EU marginally affects a member nation’s sovereignty is true. That the positive benefits of being in the Union are immense is true as well. To argue that as an EU member a country significantly and damagingly surrenders independence is frankly nonsense. I don’t like what the current governments of Poland and Hungary are doing one bit. But despite being EU members they are sufficiently independent and sovereign to do it.

Mr Martin is a flag-waver of the “intellectual” wing of the Brexiteer Movement. I read him every day and he is thoughtful and articulate on most things even if I disagree with him his logic is usually impressive. Except on Brexit, where logic doesn’t feature. Quite why he wandered into the dark and dim World of Euroscepticism I’ve often wondered. Most of his equally bright fellow Times columnists keep well away from those unpleasant and intellectually impoverished shores.

Back to the 2019 General Election. Here is a genuine Twitter exchange from yesterday between Mr Martin and me that suggests he might then have been celebrating a bit:

Iain Martin: Everyone needs a holiday. #PMQs

Paddy Briggs: Everyone needs a Government.

Iain Martin: Got one, 80 seat majority. What a night that was…

Well it certainly was a “night” and if you believe that the ends justified the means (the ends were to destroy the anti-Brexit forces as much as they were to defeat Jeremy Corbyn) then you shrug about the means – the banality and dishonesty of Johnson’s vulgar campaign.

Whether you shrug about the aftermath is another matter. The “80 Seat majority” Government has been, and is, the least competent and most venal of modern times. Their main virtue is consistency – they mismanage everything with the same reliable predictability.

I look forward to Iain Martin chronicling the upcoming political events of the rest of 2020 and I’m sure that he’ll bring appropriate intellectual rigour to the task. This includes the final phase of Brexit and what happens in the new year as well as the surely certain second and third phases of COVID-19. If they don’t already seem a long time ago those celebratory “what a night” moments soon will. I’m sure it was a “marvellous party”. For some.

“It is the UK that leads the way”. Says Boris Johnson again with the classic simplistic, mendacious, faux-patriotism that characterises him and his sordid Government. David Aaronovitch summarises well in The Times today why we can’t and mustn’t ever trust this shower.

Personally I’ve never been flag-wavingly patriotic except for British and English sporting teams. My earliest memories include the shameful debacle of Suez and of human rights abuses in the declining Empire from Kenya to Malaya and others. We weren’t very good then – but we are a hell of a sight worse now.

There is much still to admire – our creative arts are of high quality and the BBC is second to none anywhere in the world. Some of the consumables we make we can be proud of – Whisky, Gin, some Cheese, organic Meat. But we don’t make much else and we have long since been overtaken in manufacturing consumer goods of all types.

Our obsession with the past , always a factor in my baby boomer lifetime, is even more present today. I like the White Cliffs as much as anyone but I don’t need a Spitfire flying over them to appreciate them. I admire Tom Moore, a splendid eccentric of a very English type, but his canonisation reeks of opportunism and his knighthood was cringemaking Virtue Signalling by the establishment.

Britain, especially England, is a very divided nation. Disraeli’s “Two Nations” still exist. Look at the incidence of COVID-19. If you’re white, southern, wealthy and well-educated you are much less likely to have been affected than if you’re black, Northern, poor and with limited education. Class mobility is better than it was but we are still one of the most class-ridden societies in the world. I have no doubt that this comes in part from our acceptance of institutionalised privilege. The monarchy and the Royal Family predicates that we ordinary citizens should know our place. The House of Lords that we should accept governance by unelected patronage receivers.

The British “We know best” is indicative of a belief system that leads to boastfulness even when there is little to boast about. The Government that never misses an opportunity to claim that something British is “world-leading” eschews transnational cooperation as if contact with foreigners will pollute us. As it stands at the end of this year we will be the only nation in Europe with no Free Trade arrangements and with the freedoms enjoyed by all thirty of our once partner nations removed. We are being told by Government to “prepare” for this calamity without being told how to do this. To emigrate looks the only rational choice.

As far as the Russia Report is concerned it’s worth repeating what I said yesterday:

“The “intelligence agencies” are an arm of government – they do what the Government of the day tells them to do. In a democracy it couldn’t be otherwise. So if these agencies didn’t investigate this matter it was because government hasn’t asked them and/or authorised them to do so. The buck doesn’t stop on the desks of the top spooks – it stops on the desk in Number 10.”

Our blame culture is another classic component of present day Britishness of which the Government is the leading exponent. It’s never them is it, always someone else? When we fail, and we nearly always fail, we look around for someone to blame. Fool Brittania for putting up with all this.

“It found that the intelligence agencies hadn’t even bothered to investigate what weapons Russia might have been deploying to try to disrupt Britain’s democratic processes, including the 2016 Brexit referendum.” “The Times” on the Russia Report.

The “intelligence agencies” are an arm of government – they do what the Government of the day tells them to do. In a democracy it couldn’t be otherwise. So if these agencies didn’t investigate this matter it was because government hasn’t asked them and/or authorised them to do so. The buck doesn’t stop on the desks of the top spooks – it stops on the desk in Number 10.

This is a political failure of major proportions – the evidence of the “disruption” is clearly more than circumstantial. It should have been investigated. So you have to ask why it wasn’t and frankly you can come to only one conclusion – conclusive proof of considerable Russian involvement would have been damaging to those in power.

The months after the 2016 referendum were febrile times in British politics. The establishment had been defeated and could neither work out why nor agree what to do. The majority in the political parties in the House of Commons had aligned themselves with the Prime Minister and the Government in recommending a vote for “Remain” . They had been narrowly but clearly defeated. How had it happened ?

The new Prime Minister felt that politically she had no choice but to press ahead with Brexit. The strong rumours of misbehaviour in the “Leave” campaign were unhelpful to this. To have launched an enquiry by the security services into possible electoral malpractice by “Leave” could have thrown doubt on the referendum result. It would certainty have led to uncomfortable delays for Theresa May. She was in enough trouble anyway from her impatient Hard Eurosceptic Right – the so-called “European Research Group” (ERG).

Allegations of Russian involvement in the referendum were swilling around early in May’s premiership. Leading figures in “Leave” had Russian connections – some of them were Conservative MPs or supporters. And there was the undoubted fact that the Kremlin wanted to politically disrupt Europe – what better way was there to do this than by helping facilitate for a leading EU member to depart the Union?

In 2016/17 and thereafter the drivers of “Leave” began to become clear. The campaign had been dishonest and had used sophisticated, but questionable methods to reach voters – especially on social media. And the rumours of Russian involvement weren’t going away. It was then that Theresa May should have launched a comprehensive security breach investigation , putting Brexit on hold if necessary.

The Theresa May premiership was not about the PM being under pressure from the official Opposition. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour was no threat – May wasn’t going to be brought down by hot air, and wasn’t. She comfortably won the 2017 election. And she wasn’t going to be brought down by Remainers either. No her only threat was the Hard Core Brexiteers (the ERG) in her own Party who did everything they could to frustrate May’s wish for a sensible “Withdrawal Agreement”. For May to have instigated a security services enquiry into aspects of the referendum would have been a red rag to the ERG bull and covered her in its excrement. So she didn’t do it.

Ian Botham got a knighthood for genuine cricketing and charitable achievements. I thought it a bit OTT, but 🤷‍♂️. The Life Peerage is not for achievement at all but for rather incoherently and without any expert knowledge supporting Brexit. Absolutely unbelievable and unprecedented.

To be clear. Sir Ian was generously (some would say over-generously) rewarded with a knighthood for his cricket career and for his long walks which promoted charities and raised money for them. In recent times he has been a cricket commentator and since being sacked by Sky he has spent his time mostly in his house in Spain and played golf. He has also launched the “Botham” range of wines.

Sir Ian has arguably earned the privileges of wealth and fame. I have met him and heard him speak on cricket and he is entertaining and informed. Previous cricketing peers – Learie Constantine, Colin Cowdrey and Rachel Heyhoe-Flint – lived post player lives of distinction. Botham has added little if anything to the achievements for which his knighthood well rewarded him. That he takes a rich man’s view of Brexit is his right – many of his wealthy ex-patriate golf buddies no doubt agree with him.

Sir Ian is not a toady and is his own man – he always has been. But he is not a credible political figure – more a Right Wing Colonel Blimp with no gravitas on Brexit nor any other non cricketing subject. Where’s the Beef? In the past his friendship with the great West Indian Viv Richards made the young Ian Botham a doughty and respected opponent of racism and discrimination. That the older man aligns himself with the xenophobes of Brexit is sad. That he is ennobled for this is a scandal.

Scotland wanted to stay in the European Union but unlike those of us in England who also wanted this the Scots can do something about it – and they will. Scotland is a country of authentic historic status but without being a nation state since 1707. But Boris Johnson’s recent claim that there is “no border” between England and Scotland is far from the truth. Devolution strengthened that very real border and Independence will finish the job.

There’s little pride in being British these days, and even less in being English. But north of the border things are much better. A devolved Government without an effective opposition is a bad thing – but it has allowed Nicola Sturgeon and her team to focus on 2020’s principal task, managing the COVID pandemic. People have stopped dying in Scotland and from the start the Scots have managed things infinitely better than the English.

Scotland is competently governed which in itself is a strong case for independence. Add in history and the case for reestablishing total Sovereignty becomes unarguable. In 2014 the economic case against independence was crucial and it is still strong. But as we saw during the EU Referendum Sovereignty has an emotional gut appeal. To argue, as the Brexiteers did, that in the EU Britain was not a sovereign nation was nonsense. But to argue that in the Union Scotland is not sovereign is a fact. Period.

The potential for Scotland as an independent nation in the EU is enormous. The Irish have prospered in a way that the Scots can match. The EU27 would love that and whilst the Spanish will have to be reassured that there is no precedent for Catalonia Scotland will be welcomed with open arms by all. Ireland has been a positive net recipient of EU funding and Scotland would be the same. Adopting the Euro and abandoning sterling reinforces the legitimacy of the break.

And if the Scots decide that the prospect of King Charles in a kilt is one they prefer to reject (and who could blame them ?) then the “Republic Of Scotland “ has a nice ring to it.

“The official explantion for the U-turn is that Britain’s spooks can no longer vouch for the security of Huawei’s kit now that the US has banned the sale of American chips to the Chinese technology company, forcing it to use domestic components. But there’s little doubt that the real reason is political. It had become clear that opposition from Tory backbenchers had made Mr Johnson’s original approach unsustainable.”

“The Times” leading article today

The idea that there is the slightest likelihood that Britain’s Security services on their own could “vouch for the security of Huawei’s kit” is laughable. They can’t – and nor do they need to. This is all another example of this Government’s preposterous British exceptionalism.

China is very big. It’s very big because the West ensured that it would be. Corporations like Huawei were created by Western demand, western exports, western finance and, initially anyway, Western style management. British companies, British financiers, British diplomats drove and fuelled China’s transformation from a big but backward country into a big and innovative and highly sophisticated one. But not on our own. The world came beating on China’s door. And the Chinese opened it very wide.

The cause of China’s current preeminence is that it was a convenient place for the West to transfer its manufacturing to as well, of course, for it being a massive and lucrative market. But China is also a threat. There is a paradox here. China’s very existence relies on supply to and demand from the West. Most of this is fairly benign and some of it highly beneficial (the manufacture of drugs and medical equipment for example). But with the current leadership of the People’s Republic being so nationalist as well as imperialist the West needs to take care. There is a real and present security threat seen gruesomely in Hong Kong and potentially in Taiwan. It’s more than sabre rattling.

The threat to security does not come from Chinese companies but from the Chinese Government. That they use companies like Huawei is obviously true. But the solution for the West is at a higher level. And it can only be combated by joint action . There is already extensive monitoring of what the Chinese Government is doing using sophisticated intelligence as well as old fashioned Agents on the ground. This is a cooperative effort across Europe and with allies in North America and around the world. Any “vouching” of Huawei takes place in this context – if the company is some sort of security threat it is a threat to all.

Boris Johnson is acting as if Britain on its own matters to the Chinese. But it’s all willy waving. Sending a gunboat will no doubt be welcomed in Peking – if they don’t already have an agent on board the HMS Queen Elizabeth I’m sure they soon will, not to mention electronic surveillance. Really they know Britain is no sort of threat but they’ll keep tabs on the carrier just to be sure.

Nixon in China gave the green light to the beginnings of the growth of the PRC as an economic and commercial force. The financial power this growth has given the Chinese drives their political and military power and ambition as well. Huffing and Puffing over Huawei by Boris Johnson is as comical as it is impotent. The challenge of protecting Britain’s interests will not be met by Virtue Signalling like this. It’s a rather bigger task and one requiring extensive transnational cooperation with allies.

“Long before it became fashionable, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was a dedicated gin drinker.” So says “The Times” today in an article about the Royal Family launching its own brand of Gin.

“ My Grandma (b. 1887) was a prodigious gin drinker especially in the 1930s when she ran a hotel in Cornwall with a busy residents’ bar. Whether quaffing Gin would have been regarded as “fashionable” I don’t know but it was certainly popular. My Nan’s preference was “Gin and French” which had a healthy slug of Gordon’s topped up with Noilly Prat – a French Vermouth. A popular alternative was “Gin and It” which used Italian Vermouth.

The mixing of Gin and Vermouth reached its apogee in the United States with the invention in the interwar years of the “Martini” which certainly was “fashionable” . The barman’s challenge for a Dry Martini was to maximise the spirit and minimise the Vermouth. 🍸. The drink is essentially neat Gin with a bit of flavouring – a bit like “Pink Gin” , popular among Naval Officers.

In the 1950s the prewar Vermouth based cocktails were still popular alongside the ubiquitous Gin and Tonic or Gin and Bitter Lemon (the latter seems to have fallen out of fashion). Over these years, pre and post war, the gin brand was relatively unimportant. They were nearly all “London” gins – Gordon’s, Booth’s, Beefeater – and whilst there was some brand preference it was really what you put in the gin that mattered rather than the gin itself.

The development of designer gins is a modern phenomenon which has taken it out of the commodity product category. Gins can be like malt whisky with variations brought in by the blending process and the choice of botanicals etc. This has given the industry a massive boost – helped by improvements in tonics driven by the remarkable “Fever Tree” company. The added value that these initiatives have given the industry is considerable – who can blame “Royal Family Limited” from cashing in ?

As societies progress over the years they generally get healthier, people live longer more fulfilling lives and their choices increase exponentially. But for these advances to happen we have needed to accept the curtailment of some of our freedoms.

In the 1950s my father could drive to the pub, quaff three or four pints, sit in his driver’s seat unprotected by a seat belt and so long as he infringed no road traffic rules he was within the law in doing so. When wearing a seat belt was made compulsory and the breathalyser was introduced a decade later Dad complained vociferously about the curtailment of his freedoms. Barbara Castle really got it in the neck from him and his golf club drinking buddies.

What I do in my own home is within certain limits up to me. But when I venture out into the community rules of behaviour apply. I can’t drink and drive – a couple of half pints aside maybe. And I have to belt up. These restraints on my behaviour are not just to to protect me, though they do, but to protect others. They are uncontroversial (though no doubt on the eccentric fringes of the libertarian Right there are anti breathalyser and anti seatbelt societies).

Which brings us to Michael Gove who would no doubt like to be seen as a libertarian. Freedom of choice as to whether to wear a face mask for example. Gove’s opposition to regulation is as idiotic and selfish as my father’s opposition to the breathalyser was fifty years ago. And as ignorant.

My wearing a mask 😷 doesn’t actually protect me but the collective wearing of masks does protect me and the community as a whole. For this to work there has to be compulsion. If I drink and drive I threaten myself and others. The same with not wearing a face mask. Gove, as ever, is playing politics and seeking the applause of the libertarian cohort in his Party and beyond. Let’s hope most people see it for the populist conceit it is.

“Thanks in part to (Lord) Chris Patten’s governorship of Hong Kong, Britain left Chinese shores on a moral high in 1997.”

The quote above is from an article about China by Matthew Parris in The Times.

I lived in Hong Kong for four years in the 1980s, have revisited it many times since and have many HK friends. These friends liked Patten but they all knew that he had received a hospital pass. The damage had long since been done. He made little difference as the “Last Governor “. His hands were tied by what went before. There was no “moral high” – the abandonment of Hong Kong’s people was an amoral act . Period.

Throughout its long history as a British colony Hong Kong was a benevolent (mostly) dictatorship. Democracy was absent and power was firmly in the hands of an appointed and unelected cabal – mostly British ex-patriates. Knowing that the New Territories would have to be handed to China in 1997 Britain could have changed the governance structure of the colony well in advance – in the 1960s for example. If Hong Kong had become largely self-governing by say) 1970 the negotiations with China that had to take place in the run up to 1997 would have been held in a very different context.

Hong Kong as a clone of Singapore was a very viable proposition. Sovereignty would be in Peking but Hong Kong would have been run by Hong Kong people. Not by the British colonialists but not by China’s authoritarian gerontocracy either.

When you are dealing with dictators it helps to carry a big stick. Militarily of course Britain could not compete with the PRC . But we were not without assets. Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were British in perpetuity under international law. This was a hand played badly in the negotiations and if the colony had been self-governing and effectively independent in the early 1980s the outcome would have been very different.