January.  Fireworks at midnight. An inauspicious start to `Brexit Year`. Millions of taxpayers` pounds go up in smoke as Mayor Khan nails his euro-credentials to the London Eye. Not exactly an armada but The Home Secretary`s over-reaction to a trickle of trans-Manche illegal migrants in rubber dinghies is to send a gunboat. Or three. “The Saj”, as the Tory leadership contender now likes to refer to himself, recalls mercy-cutters from the Mediterranean. Justin Cantua uses his New Year Message to stress the need to `heal Britain` and Her Maj tells Sandringham WI that people need to return to traditional recipes that include respect and kindness to each other. Small hope as Brexit continues to tear the nation and both major political parties into small pieces. The lunatics now believing that they are running the asylum inflict a historic defeat upon the Government`s Withdrawal Agreement. If Mogg`s champagne-swilling European Reform Group believe that voting against Brexit will deliver “what the people voted for” then my name is Mao Tse Tung. If we end up remaining in the European Union then it may still be largely as a result of the warped efforts of the ERG – although they, of course, will not see it that way. Peace, however, breaks out fleetingly at the month`s end. Only time and negotiation will tell if the truce will hold. Red Jerry faces growing demands for a second referendum that is ripping the Comrades to shreds. Government Departments are now ramping up expenditure and wasting millions on futile gestures designed to alleviate the potentially devastating consequences of the “No Deal” departure from the EU that is the at present legal default position that Britain will face on March 29th. Back at Sandringham Prince Philip, the Country`s much-loved nonagenarian, engages in a little stunt driving. A good advert for the safety of the Range Rovers that will soon be made overseas but apologies and red faces all round. Fortunately, all those involved in this unhappy accident survived.  Sir James Dyson, arch-Brexiteer, demonstrates his faith in a standalone Britain by moving part of his empire to Singapore.  No hypocrisy, you understand, just a long-nosed business decision.  Saving the planet costs hard profits so The Davos Greed-Fest pays lip-service to climate-change. Again. Sun-Prince Macron describes the activities of Les Gilets Jaunes as `the negation of France` and rushes off to Aachen to plant the seeds of a European Army with Frau Merkel. The Tramp claims that `Every living President` supports his plans for a Mexican Border wall. Apart from O`Bama, Clinton, Bush, and Carter that is. US Congress also declines to fund his Lego construction kit and America shuts down for thirty days before `The Wimp`, as one of his few supportive correspondents now describes him, runs up the white flag for three weeks at least. Tumbling poll ratings matter more than what passes for principle in The Tramp`s White House. Chaos in Venezuela as Hugo Chavez` Marxist heir faces the consequences of the economic policies, also espoused by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, that have reduced one of the wealthiest nations in South America to penury and starvation. This, at least, fleetingly re-kindles the transatlantic alliance while in the Kremlin Vlad `The Disruptor` Putin surveys the chaos that he has sown and plots the replacement of failed GRU agents in the United Kingdom with a new improved spy network, the SPV. As Flanders and Swann one famously sang “It`s Bloody January again”. 

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It is now, it seems, de rigeur for any location that seeks to command itself as a capital city or significant tourist destination to start the New Year with a pyrotechnic display costing rather more than the GDP of many nations. It commences while the Old World is still asleep in the antipodes and by the time the festivities get under way in the UK we are watching the televised images of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House going up in smoke followed by Mumbai, Dubai, Moscow and Paris consumed by incendiary devices. We in London have, of course, to do it better.  Few will forget the year when my colleague Mark Lancaster, an ex-forces bomb disposal officer and professional pyrotechnician before he came into the House, not only lighted up the Thames but exploded the clock face on the Elizabeth Tower of the Palace of Westminster for good measure as well. How he got that one past `elf `n safety is a closely guarded secret to which I am privy (Ian and Huw, who lovingly wind my King George the Fifth office clock once a week have a second job looking after the timepiece incorrectly known as `Big Ben`) but the following year high winds prevented a repeat. Since Mark became a Defence Minister the sparklers have been set off by another company so it is unlikely that the clock tower site will burst into carefully controlled detonations again during my parliamentary lifetime.  But I digress. This year London`s  Mayor Sadiq ` Kubla` Khan decreed not a stately pleasure dome but that the London Eye should be illuminated in blue with golden stars suitably positioned Euro-flag style, around the perimeter, as a `tribute to our close relationship with Europe` and  thus staking his Europhile claim to re-election for the top job in a remain-voting City.(As an aside somebody ought to remind Sadiq Whittington that the EU nicked both the flag and the `Ode to Joy` anthem from a Council of Europe that got there first and will very probably be there long after the Unholy Brussels Empire has elected  Dauphin Macron`s horse as a Commissioner and collapsed.). It is indubitably the case that Khan`s £2.5 million taxpayer-funded two-fingered gesture towards Brexit made a point but quite how that will have been received in throughout a nation that beyond the City Walls voted Leave is another matter.  

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While Kubla was lighting the red touch papers our Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, was trying to take a Christmas recess break up the jungle on a safari holiday in Africa. That was unceremoniously cut short when the ripple – you can hardly glorify it by calling it a wave – of illegal migrants began arriving on the South Coast of England having crossed the channel from France in rubber dinghies.  This Yuletide phenomenon was chronicled in the December edition of the Westminster View but Britain was clearly ill-prepared for the `crisis` that the self-styled `The Saj` (when will they ever learn? `The Donald` was ludicrous enough) declared to be confronting us.  Those who have had cause to study the tsunami of migration from Syria and all points East into Europe via Turkey and Greece and from North Africa into Lampedusa and Southern Italy have some modest grasp of the enormity of the impact of refugees upon receiving countries. The idea that a few rubber boats full of illegals washing up at St Margaret`s Bay or Folkestone is in any way comparable is risible.  A serious matter of life and death for the men, women and children who are encouraged by people-traffickers to risk their lives to cross the twenty or so miles from France to the United Kingdom certainly. Nobody, but nobody, wants to see the corpses of lifeless infants washed up upon our shores following failed and desperate attempts to make the crossing in craft that are not seaworthy and wholly unsuited to the purpose. But as a crisis it is hardly on the richter scale of catastrophes. More have almost certainly already lost their lives trying to illegally board trains or to stow away in trucks than will ever perish in our coastal waters.  Nevertheless, Action Must Be Taken And Be Seen To Be Being Taken. So we have recalled our two cutters from the Mediterranean where they were arguably genuinely helping to save lives. At the time of writing these two little ships are still tied up in Valetta Harbour but take comfort because HMS Merseyside, one of our minor warships, has sailed from Pompey (Portsmouth Harbour) and at a cost of only about £20,000 per day is doing Her Majesty`s duty as The Dover Patrol in a task known appropriately as `Operation Figleaf`.  Initially the French response to this `crisis`, because of course the French are responsible for controlling those that they admit as immigrants, has been `pitifully inadequate` with no organised sea patrols to intercept the cargoes of trafficked misery that the Home Secretary has charitably described as `bogus refugees`.  “Watch what `the Saj` is doing” was the thrust of the press release. We are not only watching `The Saj`. We are also counting the cost. 

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Notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s premature assertion - it is easy to be wise after the event but politics is an unforgiving business- that “No Deal is Better Than. A Bad Deal “it has been clear for many weeks that there is no parliamentary appetite for a “No Deal” departure from the European Union. The Withdrawal Agreement is by no means perfect but it is likely to prove to have offered the best prospect of damage- limitation that is available. The alternatives, as we have spelled out previously, are No Deal or No Brexit with that dark horse coming up fast on the rails and threatening to pip the expressed wish of the British people at the post. That being so it might seem perverse that so many Members of Parliament, including the obsessives of the European Reform Group and many northern Labour MPs with seriously ‘Vote Leave’ constituencies, chose, on the night, to effectively vote against leaving the EU.  I shall be told, of course, that the hammering of the Withdrawal Agreement by 432 votes to 230 (118 Tories voted against their own Government) was no such vote against Brexit but rather a vote against an unacceptable ‘Northern Ireland Backstop’ and all that went with it. The net result, though, may yet prove to be the same: in rejecting the agreement, and therefore preventing further progress on or trade and future relationship with Europe in the greatest government defeat since Labour lost a vote by a mere 166 back in 1924, the House of Commons may well have nudged closer to the accusation that ‘Parliament is stealing Brexit from the people’. 

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The writing was on the wall, of course. That 209 Members of Parliament had signed a “No no deal” letter to Downing Street was significant but when the Speaker, against `centuries of precedent’ and the advice of the Chief Clerk of The House, Sir David Natzler, allowed, to the delight of his supporters on the Opposition benches, time to debate a ‘wrecking amendment ‘to the Finance Bill tabled by the former Tory Attorney General and Remain campaigner Dominic Grieve, alarm klaxons sounded big time. A ‘Speaker’s Direction’ takes precedence over the advice of even the most senior and Learned of Clerks and while many espoused the view that ‘the referee is no longer neutral’ Mr. Speaker Bercow opined that ‘I am clear in my mind that I have taken the right course’. 

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Inviting MPs and their partners to Number 10 for drinks was a kind and collegiate but in the event unrequited gesture. The ‘colleagues’ came, drank, departed and then resumed their internecine warfare against The Prime Minister and attempts to woo Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party back into the tent also failed. In the event twenty Tories, led by Grieve and including Sir Oliver Letwin, Sir Michael Fallon, Kenneth Clarke, Justine Greening and Nicky Morgan, joined with Mrs. Ed Balls (Yvette Cooper) as Labour’s back- bench cheerleader to inflict the first defeat on a Finance Bill amendment, by 308 votes to 297, for forty years. This declaration of ‘guerrilla war’, with threatened further amendments to future Government bills (Trade, Agriculture, Healthcare, Financial Services, Fisheries and Immigration) paved the way for the massive Leave/ Remain pincer movement that crushed the Darling Bud’s hopes of getting anything other than a thrashing in the voting lobby when we finally got around to voting on the Withdrawal Agreement that was pulled out of the schedule just before the Christmas recess. Under the terms of the Grieve amendment the Prime Minister then has just three days, following the defeat of the Withdrawal Agreement, to return to the House of Commons with a statement on her ‘Plan B’. Mr Mogg’s sanguine observation at the time was “It’s par for the course for a (minority) Government to lose votes’. It will not be overlooked or forgotten that after the vote and while the Prime Minister was licking her wounds in Downing Street leading members of the European Reform Group, including Johnson and Davis, were swilling champagne in Mogg’s Westminster home. These people, remember, are ‘loyal Tories’. 

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The role of Mr Speaker Bercow in all of this has also been called into question. Custom and hitherto practice has dictated that from whatever party he or she hails those occupying the Speaker’s chair shall cast off their party- political allegiance and maintain strict impartiality. From my own fleeting experience in the big chair acting as a Deputy Speaker during the debate on the 2015 Queen’s Speech and from rather more substantial service over twenty years as a member of the Speaker’s Panel of Chairmen (the body of men and women who chair legislative committees, Westminster Hall debates and Committees of the Whole House in the chamber) I can say that that even- handedness is rigidly adhered to.  Speaker Bercow has taken a view that his task has been to protect and promote the interests of Parliament, by which he means the back benches, against the Government of the day and I would not personally quarrel with that stand. He has, though, chosen to chair the entirety of the Brexit process, that most toxic and partisan of issues, himself and has found it necessary to confront and contradict senior Clerks of the House who are usually regarded as the final arbiters of procedure and fair play. It is also a fact that the car that bears his personalised number plate, although frequently driven by his wife, bears a “Bollocks to Brexit” bumper sticker which to the uninitiated might give a hint of his personal direction of travel. As a result, there are mutterings that Bercow could become the first Speaker for two hundred and thirty years to be denied a. Cross- bench peerage when he finally leaves the chair. In riposte the “European of the Week” who has been trailing his retirement with a greater frequency that Mr. Elton John has held farewell and comeback concerts, has hinted that he will therefore carry on, presumably for ever. While the sisterhood in particular are jockeying for the right to succeed Bercow his own Conservative Association are, it is rumoured, seeking another candidate to replace him at the next General Election. Traditionally, of course, a Speaker standing for re-Election, although of necessity a Member of Parliament, is not contested but when the rule book of tradition is torn up anything can happen and without a seat to fight a person cannot continue in the exalted role as Speaker of the House of Commons. Ho hum! 

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Although a clear majority of the House is opposed to the concept a No Deal Brexit is looming over the horizon and there is a growing realisation that Britain ( and probably the European Union also) is lamentably ill- prepared for such an eventuality The Secretary of State for DEFRA  , The Gover , has indicated in no uncertain terms that a no deal exit would spell massive disruption for the food and fishing and farming industries with lamb exported to Europe, for example, facing the prospect of a crippling  40%  tariff. On the EU side of the at present non- existent border, in Dublin`s fair city, the Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, while wedded to a deal- breaking ‘backstop provision that opponents say could lock the UK into EU regulation for ever, has suggested that Ireland will require hundreds of millions of euros from Brussels to bail out its farmers and fishermen if there is no deal because of dependence on the UK market. 

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The potential impact of a No Deal Brexit has, for some time, been highlighted by business and, particularly, a motor industry that relies heavily on ‘just- in-time` delivery of car parts from mainland Europe for its survival. Jaguar Land Rover are already cutting production of vehicles and five thousand jobs in the Midlands, partly certainly because of a fall in the sales of diesel cars and also a slump in the Chinese market but also because of the uncertainty generated by the Brexit process. Although a visiting Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, offers warm words on the steps of Downing Street in saying that ‘the World does not want a no deal Brexit’ and offering ‘total support’ for a Withdrawal Agreement that will offer” legal stability for businesses that have invested in the UK’ there are alarming signs that in the heavily Leave- voting North East of England Japanese car manufacturers are reviewing their job-sustaining investment and production programmes. 

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This month the London First Group, which includes Starbucks, Capita, Virgin, Deloittes and Legal and General have called for the Brexit clock to be stopped while the process is reviewed. The arch Leave campaigner Sir James Dyson is shifting business to Singapore - for commercial reasons only that have nothing, of course, to do with the impact of the decision that he has so vigorously supported. Sony is reported to be contemplating moving some of its business from the U.K. to Amsterdam while the Dutch are said to be to be targeting two hundred and fifty UK companies in a bid to lure them to relocation in the Netherlands and CEO of Airbus, Thomas Enders, is talking of moving his company out of Britain post- Brexit -  a threat that the Secretary of State, Steve Barclay, describes as “serious”. The CBI is, simultaneously, warning of an eight per cent fall in GDP and a loss of £193 billion to the U.K. economy  following a no deal departure that is already costing Britain £17 billion a year - which is rather more than a lot of promised ‘side of a bus’ hospitals. EU air carriers will be required to be more than 50% EU owned and controlled in order to retain flying rights after a brief post- Brexit period of adjustment which may not cause many problems for low-cost airlines like Ryanair (just voted the worst short- haul airline for a sixth year running!)   that have a strong European base but could well pose difficulties for British Airways/ Iberia.  The leading cross- channel ferry and cruise liner operator, P&O, is to be “flagged out” to another European island nation, Cyprus, and from Wales comes the news that Hitachi has cancelled plans for investment in a new nuclear power station although that may have more to do with the fact that the proposed technology is already out of date than with Brexit.

 

The Department for Transport has gone into hyperdrive in its preparation for a No Deal Brexit. Ludicrous proposals to turn Manston airport, which is miles from the port of Dover and the Channel Tunnel, into an ‘Operation Brock’ lorry park to try to prevent West Kent from becoming congested with articulated lorries on All Fools day are followed by a trial convoy of about 90 lorries driving from Manston to Dover on a Monday morning. This was designed to demonstrate that it was possible to drive ninety lorries from Manston to Dover, a seaport that normally handles up to ten thousand lorries a day. There should have been 190 HGVs but most did not take the £500 bribe to participate in this charade. Not surprisingly the West Kent dominated County Council declared the trial run a great success. Local people in East Kent were quick to point out that the lorry route had been so widely publicised that domestic drivers avoided the main road and clogged up all of the side roads between Manston, Sandwich, Deal and Dover instead. 

The DfT has also offered a company called Seaborne deal worth about £17 million to run a ferry service to carry medicines and other vital freight between Ramsgate and Ostend in the event of delays caused by customs checks on the Calais- Dover route. The Maire of Calais, Marc Puissessau, has accused our Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, of creating a rival service” to take business from his port while asserting that” there will be no delays on the Calais Dover route”. He is probably right because faced with a choice between traffic jams in Britain and hassle-free business on the mainland, Europe’s logistics companies, faced with a desperate shortage of long- haul lorry drivers, will choose to drive goods from Berlin to Barcelona rather than to Birmingham and the likelihood is that far from their being too many HGVs there might be too few to supply our businesses. 

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There is another reason why M. Puissessau need lose little sleep over the threat to his market domination: Seaborne seems to have no experience in handling cross-Channel freight, may well not have any Ro-Ro vessels capable of carrying the potential traffic and are contemplating a route that has been shown to be at best marginal and probably not economically viable at all. Never mind.  Port Ramsgate will benefit from £ 4.5 million of taxpayer- funded dredging which may make its ultimate attraction for alternative purposes more marketable.  

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Back to the Commons. Following the trashing of the Withdrawal Agreement Red Jeremy found himself having to call a vote of No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government. His own side demanded it of him and the Prime Minister as good as said from the despatch box that if he didn’t have the balls to do it she would instigate the procedure herself. Turkeys do not often vote for Christmas. The DUP rejoined their `confidence and supply` support for the Conservative party, our own rebels toed the line and the Government survived with its majority intact. Having come through this choppy water and with the Opposition still tearing itself apart over its People’s Vote/ Second Referendum/ General Election/ Customs Union/ No Brexit/ internal divisions the Government, with the help of a compromise between Tory Leavers and Remainers and the DUP brokered, it is said, by Ministers Kit Malthouse and Jake Berry, backed an amendment to a withdrawal motion tabled by the Chairman of the 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady. This ploy, a masterpiece of kicking the can down the road, was won by a comfortable margin. True, the House also carried a non-binding motion opposing a No- Deal Brexit and in so doing idiotically weakened still further the Prime Minster’s negotiating position but The Darling Bud now has a little more time in which to try to persuade an intransigent Brussels to vary its position on the backstop. The chances are that whatever she comes home with will not be acceptable to the head banging right and the Corbynista left but while some of the ERG peel off it is just possible that a tweaked agreement will attract sufficient to support to get it over the line and avoid either the predicted civil unrest (No Brexit) or economic Armageddon (No Deal).

 

An early General Election is still on the cards although the Fixed Term Parliament Act might deny the majority necessary to trigger the process. With Mrs. May still the preferred Prime Minister leaving Comrade Corbyn trailing the polls and with a scarcely credible but significant Tory advantage over Labour (40%/34%) and a number of Labour MPs facing the loss of seats to a hard- left Unite/ Momentum takeover of local grass-roots selection proceedings, the appetite for self- immolation on the part of those seated behind Mr. Corbyn might not be as great as he would wish. A Party Leader who has lost a quarter of his members over his stand on Brexit, not enhanced by his petulant refusal to take up the Prime Minister’s offer to meet to discuss the issue, might not relish the prospect of a General Election quite as much as he publicly avers. 

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In other news the Health Department has announced the latest long- term plans for the service. Within minutes the proposals were criticised for lacking in provision for additional nurses and with Home Secretary “The Saj” determined to clamp down on any immigrant earning less than £30 K a year it’s hard to see how the shortfall in lower paid nursing and ancillary staff is going to get anything other than worse. Nevertheless, Secretary of State Matt Hancock is rightly determined to shift the clinical priority from cure to prevention through the use of genomics and artificial intelligence and to address the issue of unhealthy lifestyles that ‘breed irresponsibility and leave the NHS to pick up the pieces ‘. Hancock believes that over a ten year period it will be possible to prevent one hundred and fifty thousand heart attacks and strokes and to ‘help everyone from premature babies to older people’. The use of ‘digital GP consultations ‘and Skype for hospital appointments will result in a ‘wholesale transformation ‘that is expected to avoid the need for thirty million hospital and GP visits a year. Better deployment of practice nurses and the skills of community pharmacists are not new ideas- some of us have been saying since God was a boy that there are ways of taking the pressure off GPs and A& E units that ought to be introduced- but we can live in hope that this Health Minister will deliver his plan for ‘an NHS fit for the 21st Century ‘. The ‘historic moment for patients across the nation’ is admirable but the recruitment of ‘several thousand extra foreign nurses’ is at odds with the Home Secretary’s recently introduced Immigration Bill. 

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There is one other fly in this Germolene. Unless there is an agreement that makes proper healthcare provision for about 190 thousand elderly ex- pat UK citizens dispersed throughout the EU then many of those people will be compelled to return to the U.K. to seek urgent medical care and that will exacerbate the pressures on the service. The Health Department website cautions that travellers and residents will need to make alternative provision through insurance for health cover but of course pre- conditions are not insurable and the Overseas Healthcare bill currently before the House appears to depend upon bilateral reciprocal agreements to offer cover. France and Spain and Italy may agree to reciprocate but ‘may’ does not offer much reassurance and what about those resident in countries where no reciprocal agreement can be reached? 

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It’s been a bit of a landroller coaster month on the Queen’s Sandringham estate. It started well enough with Prince Philip cropping truffles from ‘truffle trees’ that he planted twelve years ago. The trees, impregnated with the appropriate fungus, were given small chance of success but against the odds they have delivered the goods worth one thousand pounds per kilo at current market prices.

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The nation’s much-loved no-nonsense 98-year old then decided to take his Land Rover Discovery off the Royal estate without either his security detail or a seat belt. Blinded by low sunlight while pulling out onto a main road he was in collision with a private car carrying two adults and a baby. The Landrover rolled over leaving the HRH trapped and the other car was a write-off. Miraculously only minor injuries were sustained and passing motorists extricated the casualties before the ambulances and a red faced Royal Protection Unit arrived on the scene. The Duke of Edinburgh was interviewed by the Norfolk constabulary and apologised to the unfortunate occupants of the other car. One can only surmise at the conversation that may have taken place between Prince Phil and his wife but it’s likely that some fairly nautical language was involved. 

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Her Maj, also, made some headlines for ‘intervening in Brexit’ if you choose to believe anything that you read in the tabloid press. Addressing the Sandringham Branch of the Women’s Institute of which she is a Member the Queen ventured to opine that it would be good if ‘people were respectful of differing points of view’. This earth- shattering utterance which pretty much reflected the view expressed in her Christmas broadcast, was immediately jumped upon as being a ‘thinly- veiled’ message about the effect of the Brexit debate upon her United Kingdom. Mr. Mogg, fount of little wisdom in such matters but good at generating conspiracy theories, felt obliged to comment that The Queen had intervened ‘on the advice of Downing Street’. I would respectfully suggest that having seen more summers and more Ministers come and go than just about anyone else on the planet Her Maj does not need advice from Number Ten or even Mr Mogg before deciding what not to say! 

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I am reliably informed that there is no truth in the suggestion that Her Majesty will exercise her prerogative and, for the first time since Queen Anne vetoed the Scottish Militia Act in 1707, seek to prevent backbench legislation designed to frustrate Brexit from reaching the statute book.  

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Talking of royalty Sun Prince Emmanuel ‘Le Dauphin’ Macron has described ‘hateful men attacking elected representatives ‘assuming that his tormentors are all male and for good measure adding ‘security forces, journalists, Jews, foreigners and homosexuals ‘as ‘the negation of France.’ Welcome to the wild and wonderful world of politics little Manny! Anyone who has braved the short journey from the Palace of Westminster to the media shanty town on Parliament Green in recent weeks knows what it is like to run the gauntlet of abuse from, indiscriminately, pro- leave and pro-  remain activists. The Gilets Jaunes may be far greater in number but the creative capacity for invective of the Brexit Barmy Army, fresh, one suspects, from the home stands of some of London’s more vociferous football clubs, would make Guy de Maupassant blush. The hijackers of France’s fuel- tax protest movement have shredded The Dauphin’s political poll ratings and exposed En Marche for what it is - a protest movement rather than a mature political party without a considered agenda. Macron is learning the hard way that in Opposition you can say what you like and promise what you like and as woolly liberals know that you will never have to deliver. The challenge of the reality of Government requires more than posturing to feed the beast that you have unleashed. Signing an agreement with the fading German Chancellor Mutti Merkel in Aachen, described by Le Figaro as a triumphant first step towards the creation of a European Army, may have made the Young Pretender feel statesmanlike but my guess is that if he lasts until Anneget Kramer- Karzenbauuer ( in future to be known as AKK) seizes the reins of power in Germany , provided that  she is not beaten to the post by the ascendant AfD , then she will have him as an aperitif before moving on to serious business. 

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For thirty days and thirty nights America has been in the Wilderness. And shut. Well, not completely of course but the standoff between The Tramp and the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has led to many government departments and agency staff working without knowing if or when their bills will get paid. Just about okay if you are, say, an Ambassador with an official residence (I don’t suppose that the US representative in the United Kingdom felt too much pain) but not so hot if you are a dog- catcher with a mortgage and medical insurance to pay. The source of this grief was the refusal, by one Nancy Pelosi and her team, to sign off The Tramp’s funding for the Mexican border wall that during the election campaign he promised to build. He also promised, you may recall, that the Mexicans would pay for his wall so it seems not unreasonable that Ms Pelosi should balk at the idea that the American Taxpayer should foot the bill. 

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The Republicans used to dish out to newly-elected Congressmen and women a framed greenback with the slogan “Remember that every dollar that you spend comes from the pocket of a working American ‘printed beneath it. That sense of fiscal prudence seems to have been abandoned by the Grand Old Party, or at least its standard bearer, somewhere along Pennsylvania Avenue.

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With tumbling poll- ratings amongst, for the first time, his core voters The Tramp blinked first and then tried to tweet “victory”, claiming that he was protecting the livelihoods and security of government employees. The American electorate are, by Old World standards, naive and gullible but they are not that stupid. At the end of the three- week truce The Tramp will presumably be back with his begging bowl again if he is not otherwise distracted by the net of impeachment that is beginning to close around the White House. 

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When you are in trouble at home a little foreign affairs diversion can deflect attention from the elephant in the room. In that sense the rise of Juan Guaido in Venezuela has offered a perfect opportunity to formally recognise ‘the good guy`, condemn `the bad guy’ and take up a position firmly on the side of the angels and, more importantly, of much international opinion. Hugo Chavez’ successor, Nicolas Maduro, the rigged-elected dictator, has almost completed the task that Chavez started and reduced a once wealthy and oil- rich nation to starvation and penury floating on a sea of corruption, greed and brutality. It should come as no surprise that this regime has been applauded by Jeremy Corbyn and John MacDonnell for its socialism or that Red Jerry should have chosen this moment to welcome Rocio del Valle Maniero Gonzalez, a Venezuelan diplomat and Maduro apparatchik, to the Palace if Westminster while our Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has recognised Juan Guaido as interim President pending fresh elections Mr Corbyn has said that “we don’t support outside interference “. 

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And it is suggested that the President of the United States may make a State Visit to the United Kingdom following his attendance at events to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-day landings. So that`s something to look forward to.  

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Ballswatch

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Post-Novichok the neo-Soviet Union intends to establish a new spy network, the SVR, in Britain to replace expelled `diplomats` and the failed spooks of the GRU. Britain`s Security Minister, Ben Wallace, comments “Spies will be spies”! 

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Under a No-Deal Brexit Britain will be expelled from membership of Europol. This will involve the removal of some forty UK staff, including twenty liaison officers, from the organisation that helps to combat terrorism, organised crime and cyber attacks. 

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More `fake news`? Brexit now poses a threat to Britain`s most famous steeplechase, the Grand National held annually in Liverpool.  The tripartite agreement that facilitates the running of horses from Britain, Ireland and France is said to be under threat. And according to Facebook posts `endangered animals will be threatened by Brexit`. Does that, also, refer to the horses that run at Aintree? 

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Contrary to the view traditionally peddled by the populist view that Grammar Schools are elitist and `middle class` current research has revealed that 45% of students originate from poorer families. That is unlikely to satisfy those opposed to the social mobility generated by selective education.

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Mr. Farridge is alleged to be planning the formation of a new post-Brexit political party after March 29th.Mr. Mogg, meanwhile, apparently believes that Farridge should be invited to join the Conservative Party.

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Parliament is to sit later and the early half-term recess has been cancelled to facilitate a backlog of necessary pre-Brexit legislation consisting, mostly, of a plethora of secondary measures known as Statutory Instruments.  Following reports that Government and Opposition whips are seeking to accommodate a week`s pre-planned and paid-for family skiing vacations The Bourgoise Womens` Tabloid screams that Members are “Sloping Off on holiday”. Members of Parliament, like everyone else, may only take their children away out of school time, The Daily Mail presumably believes that kids should learn to ski during the summer holidays in August when snow is in short supply. 

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Breaking the consensus of opposition to land-based wind farms it is suggested that the land equivalent to nineteen thousand football fields bordering the route of the planned High Speed Two railway line should be put to use to site wind turbines.  

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Following a row over the necessity for Tulip Siddiq, the MP due to give birth by caesarean section on the day of the Withdrawal Agreement vote, to participate in the voting lobby in a wheelchair the Leader of the House introduced a `pilot scheme` to allow ladies in such a condition to be allowed to vote by proxy and in a subsequent vote Ms. Siddiq, now happily on maternity leave, became the first lady so to do. It is widely anticipated that men sharing maternity/paternity may now follow suit. Which begs the question, says a tearoom wag, as to whether or not, given the clamour for Prisoners` Voting Rights, the lady Member of Parliament currently detained at Her Majesty`s Pleasure for three months following a conviction should also be permitted to vote by proxy. 

To celebrate `Veganuary` Waitrose have marketed a fishless vegan `fish finger` made of breaded seaweed tofu. The delicacy may be accompanied by vegan- friendly tartare sauce. Don`t say you were not warned. 

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Vegan pasties may not be described as `Cornish`. Authorities have determined that Cornish Pasties must be made from potato, onion, swede, and 12%of steak. The seltan meat substitute does not qualify. 

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Eels in London`s River Thames have become hyper-active. They have been ingesting wastewater cocaine surges carried into the river by the City`s sewage system and the concentration is particularly strong in the area adjacent to the Palace of Westminster. 

Researchers at the Universities of Bristol and Edinburgh have established that bees prefer middle-class gardens. Because of the better choice of flowers. 

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The vastly over-budget new setting for Albert Square upon which the BBC`s popular TV series will now be made will have a place for East Enders first gay bar `to be really true to modern Britain`. As a fully paid-up geriatric I do not share the view of my self-publicising colleague who thinks that everyone over seventy-five should, irrespective of income, receive a `free` television licence. I can see, though, that some of my elderly friends might balk at the idea of funding some of Auntie`s more extravagant adventures. 

BBC journalists have been told that they may no longer use the phrase “The BBC understands that……”. This expression is, of course, a euphemism for saying that “We haven`t checked this story. We nicked it from the press and it was too good not to plagiarise”. 

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Following a ban on the sale of alcohol in the House of Commons Members` Tearoom, the location in which gossip is peddled over early breakfasts and snack suppers my splendid colleague Dame Cheryl Gillan has circumvented this juvenile restriction by purchasing her evening glass of wine from the bar to accompany her on-the-hoof meal. 

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A three-year taxpayer-funded programme is under way to `re-think the architecture` of prisons and to `normalise the environment`. Bar are to be removed from cell windows because they are now regarded as `institutional and punitive`. Punishment for crimes committed and convicted is not, of course, why prisoners are in gaol. 

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And the white woolly roll-neck sweaters worn with pride by submariners since World War One have been reprieved. The sweaters were to have been banned on shore as being `scruffy`. It was hastily pointed out that a submariner`s scruffiness is part of the heritage and the roll-neck is a status symbol for the submarine service. 

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Valete 

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Carol Channing (97) starred as Dolly Levi in all 1272 performances of “Hello Dolly” on Broadway but was passed over in favour of Barbara Streisand in the film of the same name. She also featured in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Thoroughly Modern Millie. 

Colonel the Second Viscount Slim (91) of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the 6th Gurkha Rifles served in Malaya, Borneo, Kenya, Cyprus, Aden and Oman, commanded the 22nd SAS regiment and was one of the peers elected to the House of Lords following Blair`s endeavours to cull the `hereditaries`. 

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Following National Service in Africa and work as a miner Windsor Davies (88) starred as Sergeant Major Williams in `It Ain`t `arf Hot Mum` which ran on television for seven years from 1974 and at its peak attracted seventeen million viewers. 

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Andrew Fairlie (55) was the AAs `Chef`s chef` in 2006 and served Her Majesty at the G8 summit. His restaurant in the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire was the only Scottish eaterie with two Michelin stars. 

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Diana Athill (101) was a Memoirist and Editor. In a business relationship with Andre Deutsch formed in 1943 and formalised as the publishing house Allen Wingate in 1945 she worked, during a forty-year partnership, with VS Naipaul, John Updike, Philip Roth and, on “The Naked and the Dead2 with Norman Mailer. 

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Hugh McIlvanney (84) was regarded as among the very best of British sports journalists. The man who described sport as “A magnificent irrelevance” worked on the Observer from 1963 to 1993 and on the Sunday Times for twenty-three years until his retirement in 2016.  The only sportswriter to be named as Journalist of the Year he was also named as the British Press Awards Sports writer of the year seven times. 

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The French composer Michel Legrand (86) created the music for more than two hundred and fifty television programmes and films including The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and “Windmills of Your Mind”, the theme for the Thomas Crown Affair (1968) for which he won one of his three Oscars.  Maurice Chevalier`s musical director secured five Grammy awards and worked with Edith Piaf, Ray Charles and Johnny Mathis. 

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Sir Reginald Eyre (94) was a Minister in the Heath and Thatcher governments during which time he instigated the programme for the regeneration of inner cities. Following war service in the Royal Navy Reg Eyre was elected to represent Hall Green, the seat that he served for twenty-two years until his retirement in 1987.

 

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And finally…………. 

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Scots Guardsman Private Tom Greenwood was reported missing in action and presumed dead following action in Libya in 1942. Having received the dreaded telegram his family then learned that he had been liberated from Stalag 18a in 1945 after three years as a prisoner of war. Tom “I`m not dead yet” Greenwood has now celebrated his 100th birthday.

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