CHAPEL END CHARLIE

So all about oil and nothing to do with 9-11 then

Politically George Osborne has messed up almost every budget he has been responsible for - Indeed I can't remember any former Chancellor of Excequer (in my lifetime anyway) having to back-track over quite significant aspects of the budget plan quite as often as George Osborne has. This failure to judge the mood of his own MPs in the House of Commons, and the country generally, has proved to be deeply damaging to both his reputation and his future career prospects. But with regard to the 'big picture' of how he has managed national macroeconomic policy then I for have never believed for one moment there was any real alternative to austerity given the dire circumstances he found on taking office. Neither nations nor individuals can spend their way out of debt however attractive the prospect may seem. For the record our national debt now measures a almost incomprehensible £1.6 TRILLION - or put another way around £24,900 for every man, women and child in the nation! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/02/19/how-large-is-the-uks-national-debt-and-why-does-it-matter/ Indeed, recent speculation that the first post Bretix budget will signal the abandonment of any sustained attempt to bring this enormous level on indebtedness under control is deeply worrying given that the next recession may already be just over the horizon. If the international money markets ever refuse to fund our vast and growing level of debt anylonger then this country will soon find itself in a crisis of its own making the like of which we haven't seen since that dark day when Denis Healy had to go cap in hand to the IMF to bail us out all those years ago.

Well as I write this the Chilcot Report has yet to be released. However, we don't really need a seven year long umpteen million word report to understand what the PM's real motivation was for taking us into that war. Indeed, this is as obvious as it could possibly be I think - i.e. he was pursuing the central tenent of postwar British foreign policy in maintaining our close alliance with the United States. Many will no doubt say he was wrong in doing that. Others might accept that this is the reality of Britain's place the modern world. But that is the fact of the matter whether we happen to approve of it or not.

Please feel free to point out a single point in my post that is in any way factually incorrect or misleading. As for your blithe assumptions that everything be just fine, you will have to forgive me if I say that I don't find this kind of stuff at all reassuring. The opinions of men such as Mark Carney on the hand are worth listening to I think.

^ This post is akin to jumping off the top of the Empire State Building and claiming that the experience is a painless one. Painless until you hit the ground that is.

Away from the customery internecine squabbling on here and back to what really matters. Amid all the poliical chaos in Westminster a second Scottish Independance referendum is now a racing certainly, with potentially profound consequences for everyone living in these islands. I see that Sterling has just hit a 31 year low vis a vis the US Dollar. The UK's credit rating has been downgraded. The Bank of England has been forced into taking emergency action to prop up our banking system. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has signalled that the government will soon have to more or less adandon its entire economic policy in order to try and head-off a coming recession - what our national debt and inflation rate are going to look like in five years time God only knows. The police report that levels of racist abuse directed at foreign adults and young children (sometimes even black British citizens) have increased. Furthermore, clear signs are already starting to emerge that planed investment projects in the UK have been cancelled or at the very least deferred. Something tells be that had all this stuff been predicted two weeks before the referendum then it would have been glibly dismissed as just more examples of the despicable "Project Fear" in action. Two weeks after the referendum however and it is not quite so easy to bury your head in the sand and ignore is it?

It seems to me the post you are commenting on is entirly on-topic with the subject of this thread. I see no call to re run the referendum or to ignore its outcome. Therefore, what you are complaining about is not at all clear.

Apparently she is not just another hypocritical Tory politician, but rather someone who has been on a "journey" since she said all that stuff back in another lifetime. True story.

Rumours have been around in the press for some time now that Matt Leblanc and Chris Events did not get along very well - rumours perhaps confirmed by this news. As for Top Gear itself, methinks if you liked the old show then you will probably like the new version too. I certainly do.

Farage quits as UKIP supremo - again: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36702468

Yes a thought-provoking piece worth listening to. However I'm not so sure you can really draw some line between the people's need for government to provide them with sense of security and prosperity because the two ideas are closely related - from my own experience I can tell you that there are few more insecure situations than finding yourself being made redundent. As for fears of the UK breaking up being exaggerated, well I can only hope that he is right because it looks to me like we are on the brink of just that happening. Time will tell - it always does.

Compare Wales to England and for me the biggest difference is how the Welsh players appear to relish the opportunity to express themselves at the highest level while our lot looked like they were playing under a weight of expectation that was almost literaly stiffeling them. It's not really about a lack of lack of technical abilty, poor coaching or even too many games being played. They're all paid far too much money of course but there again so are most of the top players in Europe. No, we just need to find a way to get England players to perform with a smile on their face and we might get somewhere for once. The FA abandoning their perennial 'safe pair of hands' policy and appointing a manager who knows what he is doing wouldn't hurt either. Easier said than done I know.

I understand perfectly well thank you that cross-channel trade is older than recorded history and will doutless continue far into the foreseeable future. The real concern here is whether that trade will go into relative decline, or not, as a result of Brexit. If it takes a 'lost decade' of arguing before we get back to somewhere near where are today vis a vis the EU Single Market then many would say that cannot be a good thing for either UK PLC or the EU.

The idea that we can somehow give up on a market that represents almost half of our total exports does not sound like a especialy reasonable thing to say. Mind you, the British people seem to have entered into one of those periodic episodes when they adandon their hard won reputation for 'reasonableness' and enter into a period of extremism. So let's relocate to the Americas then!

I don't know the first thing about our new manager's assistant Pascal Plancque - but let's face it his name does amuse more than a little. No doubt soon to be known as "Rodney" to all and sundry.

If after reading this story you find yourself unconcerned by its implications ... well then you probably don't understand the gravity of the situation we now face: EU Trade Commissioner: No trade talks until full Brexit - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36678222

List of the three most dangerous occupations in the UK: 1 - Infantry Soldier. 2 - Deep Sea Fisherman. 3 - Friend of Michael Gove.

So it turns out that Michael Gove - sometimes described as 'the nicest man in British politics' ends up kniefing his close friend and Prime Minister in the back and then turns aroundand does much the same to his erstwhile Bretix colleague Bojo the Clown. They do say you should watch out for the quiet ones ...

The CETA trade deal does indeed allow Canada some access to the EU Single Market - but in a more restricted way compared to full EU membership. Like all arrangments of this type it does NOT include financial services. So Canadian banks seeking to trade in the European Union with need to set up in the EU to acquire the vital "passport". Comparing Canada's situation with ours is not very useful as the UK's financial services sector is obviously a far more significant aspect of our economy. Further, immigration between Canada and Europe is not much of a issue (at this time) whereas immigration between the EU and the UK is very much a issue is it not?

Well the current Cancellor repeated only yesterday that taxes will have to rise and government spending be cut further due to our radicaly changed economic circumstances. So be patient because your wait might not be a very long one.

^ I do remember, from way back in the 1980's, people speculating how we would cope in the future - which means now of course - with the vast amounts of lesuire time and wealth we would all enjoy thanks to technological progress. Well needless to say it didn't quite work out like that. Indeed, our everyday lives now are perhaps more pressurized and hectic than they have ever been. Few saw that, thanks to globalisation, in some ways the standard of living would stagnate for so many here in the west instead of continuing to rise inexorably. In other ways we exist today in the best of all possible worlds. But I get the sense that our technology is at last beginning to catch up with the imagination of the better type of science fiction writer and that some really profound change in the way the world is lays awaite for humanity in the coming decades. The question first asked by Mary Shelley in the 19th century, and again at the dawn of the nuclear age, about whether mankind will ultimetly control science - or become its victim - is I think as pressing now as it ever was. But feel free to ignore me because as armchair futureologists go my record is truely appalling - admits the man who once insisted that he'd never have a computer in his home ...

If the FA run to form then they will probably replace Woy with Gareth Southgate I expect. He will fullfill the principle job requirements in being respectable to the big Premier League clubs and is unlikley to do or say anything that will ever land the FA in trouble. He will also fail to win anything significant. So no change there then.

I wonder if those Leave voters who now say that if they'd known the referendum result beforehand then they would have voted differently thought about our nation's future all that deeply? The distingtragation of the UK I warned you about weeks ago will come to pass now I fear - I for one will regret that to my dying day.

Yes the challenge automation will pose for humanity is a profound one that I too have been thinking much about of late - I say "thinking about" without nessesary finding a answer you understand. It is not much of a exaggeration to say that a new generation of increasingly sophisticated machines will just half a century from now (or even sooner perhaps) be capable of undertaking almost all of the economic tasks Human Beings now perform in the world - but much more cheaply, reliably and efficiently than we possibly can. This is not an entirly new challenge for humanity of course - indeed machines have been replacing people since long before the industrial revolution. But in the past people replaced by this process have generaly been able to find other (often more productive) roles for themselves elsewhere in the developing economy. For the first time in history I'm not so sure that process will still apply in the future as I just don't see where the practical limits for robotics and computerisation are. As a Air Force man you will already comprehend the potential UAV's offer to fight our future wars. But that technology will soon be joined by road vehicles that drive themselves, androids to tend to our every need, factories and warehouses than run without any real Human interevention - all not so long ago the stuff of science fiction but now a rapidly approaching reality. Our grandchildren can't all spend their lives writing poetry or doing social-work can they? But all this leads to the next question and it's a huge one: What is the ultimate purpose of the economy if it is not to serve the needs of people? The future needn't be some kind of nightmarish man v machine conflict I hope, indeed it could be a golden age for mankind, but if you seek meaningful answers to these difficult questions then you probably need to seek out someone with a better brain than my poor one. Sorry, I know all this has little to do with the EU question - it is far more interesting and important than that.

Speaking of Farage, what a statesmanlike performance in the European Parliment today ...