Threat Of UK Tax Cut Staves Off Hostile EU
This is the headline on an article in the Sunday Times, which suggests that the UK may cut corporate tax rates from 20% to 10% unless the EU grants the UK access to the single market.
I don’t know whether it is speculation on the paper’s part, but it does illustrate how Brexit means that it removes a whole set of rules from the UK Government.
It is an interesting suggestion!
I think it could have these effects.
- Companies like Apple, Starbucks, Google and Amazon would look at the UK favourably.
- If a company was spending fortunes on research, the UK would probably be more attractive, as if say they developed a world-beating drug, they wouldn’t pay as much tax on the large profits.
But I never heard it mentioned in the Referendum.
It probably shows how our politicians all think inside boxes and that those in Europe do even more so!
Now There’s A Thing!
I made a mistake in an Internet search and found there’s an actor called Donald Tripe.
He must be having an interesting time in the run-up to the US Presidential Election
Surely The Labour Party Can Do Better Than This!
Just voted in the Hackney Mayor election.
What is the Labour Party’s logo? It doesn’t reproduce well in black and white on a ballot paper.
It looked like a cartoon version of Mr. Punch.
There was no difficulty with the others, especially the One Love Party, who had a heart!
Incidentally, the candidate for the One Love Party was French and their web site was a .eu one!
She’d probably have got nul votes in some parts of the UK.
The Voters Can Spot A Bullshitter A Mile Away.
According to today’s Standard, this was said by Michael Dugher, MP about Jeremy Corbyn.
He may have said it, but it is a statement that underestimates the intelligence of the average voter. They can spot a bullshitter from a lot further than a mile.
Katrina Pierson
Katrina Pierson is Trump’s spokeswoman.
This article on The Intercept, which is entitled Donald Trump’s Spokeswman says a lot of things that are not true, gives more idea about her competence and how she does her job.
The article starts with these two paragraphs.
Let this news, and the fact that it is news, sink in: Katrina Pierson, the former Tea Party activist who is now Donald Trump’s national spokeswoman, admitted on Wednesday that Barack Obama was not the president of the United States in 2004.
The reason it was considered necessary to extract this concession to reality from Pierson is that she had insisted, during an interview with CNN the night before, that President Obama was responsible for the death of Capt. Humayun Khan, an American soldier who was killed in Iraq five years before he became commander-in-chief.
She obviously didn’t get the job with Trump because of her brains and scientific correctness.
Perhaps, as she came from The Tea Party, she should go back to what she does best and serve tea in the Texan equivalent of Betty’s.
Every Local Politician Should Read This
I have never seen such a powerful argument for improving local transport links and especially trains than this article in the National.
It is written by a train driver turned local politician and he is talked about Glasgow.
But his arguments can be applied to any city in the world.
Read the article.
I Was Always Told It Was Rude To Point
My mother told me it was rude to point, but it seems Donald Trump does it all the time, as this page from Time points out.
This image is typical.
CLEVELAND, OH – JULY 18: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump gestures to his wife Melania after she delivered a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicks off on July 18. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
I can see it on the cover of Private Eye with a very funny caption.
Is This French Punishment For Brexiters?
This article on the BBC web site is entitled Dover ferry port passengers hit by traffic chaos. This is said.
Holidaymakers have been hit by delays of up to 12 hours through Kent to get to the Port of Dover, with many being stuck in traffic overnight.
Port authorities said delays built up due to French border checkpoints being understaffed overnight during heightened security levels.
There’s always some problem with the French and the Channel every summer.
But this summer it appears to be worse!
Could it be that the French are showing Brexiters, that they control the border?
After all, we never seem to get a problem with the Belgians!
The strange thing last night, as I came in from Brussels on Eurostar, was that there was some form of overcrowding in the terminal at St. Pancras.
Are The Railways Of Saxony A Benefit Of Communism?
Saxony is a German State with a lot of railways. This page is a list from Wikipedia.
In the UK, after the Second World War, we needed to modernise our railways and what we did was rather patchy and haphazard.
It finally, led to a lot of costs to no great benefit.
- I can remember taking over five hours on a journey to Liverpool in the 1960s.
- I always in the 1960s and 1970s, used to look at a heavy rail train and say how inferior they were to what the London Underground offered.
- Electrification was very slow to come in. I can remember Trains Illustrated saying Felixstowe will be electrified soon in the 1960s.
- Schemes like the Picc-Vic Tunnel in Manchester never saw the light of day.
Finally, the Beeching Report put a can on it.
But in the former East Germany, there were no such cost pressures in a centralised communist economy, where maintaining employment was a priority.
One thing you notice in the are is lots of signal boxes, often with an associated level crossing. Do they need them?
Whereas we would shut railways enthusiastically to cut costs, the East Germans didn’t, as it was against their politics.
So a lot of railways got preserved, where other countries would have closed them!
Now you can see a lot of railway development, as like the UK, Germany is coming round to the view that railways are what people want and they’re good for the economy.
The Anonymous Widower 