Headline of the Day

Theresa May, the Arsène Wenger of politics — but without the wins 

That's an opinion piece by Robert Shrimsley in the Financial Times..

Memories

Donald Trump, in Missouri yesterday, making a sales pitch for a tax cut at a time when Texas is going to need a lot of money --

Fourth and finally, we want to bring back trillions of dollars in wealth that's parked overseas. Because of our high tax rate and horrible, outdated, bureaucratic rules, large companies that do business overseas will often park their profits offshore to avoid paying a high United States tax if the money is brought back home. So they leave the money over there. The amount of money we're talking about is anywhere from $3 trillion to $5 trillion. Can you believe that? By making it less punitive for companies to bring back this money, and by making the process far less bureaucratic and difficult, we can return trillions and trillions of dollars to our economy and spur billions of dollars in new investments in our struggling communities and throughout our nation.

Donald Trump's Scottish spokesman George Sorial, in November 2008 --

DONALD Trump has £1 billion in cash "sitting in the bank and ready to go" to fund the Menie Estate development in Aberdeenshire ... Sorial said: "The money is there, ready to be wired at any time. I am not discussing where it is, whether it is in a Scottish bank or what, but it is earmarked for this project. If we needed to put the development up tomorrow, we have the cash to do that. It is sitting there in the bank and is ready to go."

That quote later became a problem for Trump because he was saying that at the same time that he was suing Deutsche Bank for US$3 billion on the grounds that their loan terms had caused him financial problems on a Chicago development (and that he should be able to get out of the loan because the global financial crisis was force majeure).

Anyway, what ever happened to that £1 billion in cash?

Henhouse finds Fox boring

With the confirmation yesterday (Reuters) that Rupert Murdoch's US operation has dumped the Fox News Channel feed from the Sky platform, the questions are focusing on why it was dropped -- ratings, political awkwardness?

In fact, the ratings numbers (possibly as little 2000 viewers a day) point to the real question: why was it ever on Sky in the first place? It stood out in that lineup not because of the propaganda (RT and Press TV already in that space), but because of the garish red and blue colour scheme and the happy talk format borrowed from its New York City local news foundations. It's as good a time as any to recall that Rupert Murdoch once thought that the problem with the Sky News channel is that it wasn't enough like Fox News; he said that to the House of Lords Communications Committee tour of the USA in 2007 --

He believed that Sky News would be more popular if it were more like the Fox News Channel. Then it would be “a proper alternative to the BBC”. One of the reasons that it is not a proper alternative to the BBC is that no broadcaster or journalist in the UK knows any different. Mr Murdoch stated that Sky News could become more like Fox without a change to the impartiality rules in the UK. For example Sky had not yet made the presentational progress that Fox News had. He stated that the only reason that Sky News was not more like Fox news was that “nobody at Sky listens to me”.

Even in Brexit-crazed Britain, those supposed presentational skills weren't drawing any viewers. So perhaps it was just there as a vanity project, so that when 21st Century Fox executives and affiliated pundits were flicking around the hotel TV channels on their London junkets, they could indulge a sense of conservative clowning as a true Anglosphere project. But it turns out that such things don't easily cross borders. 

The Newry Gate (After Hogarth)

[Original]

The constraining effect of clubs

Another UK position paper for the Brexit negotiations; this one (unlike the trade and Irish border papers), a tad more realistic about the likely continued role of the European Court of Justice. But inconsistencies nonetheless. Here's the discussion of potential frameworks for future international agreements by the UK (paragraph 60) --

In international agreements, final remedies are principally retaliatory in nature and implemented unilaterally by the parties. This includes the ability to take safeguard measures to mitigate any negative effects from the other party’s noncompliance as well as the option to suspend all or part of the agreement (or several linked agreements), or, ultimately, withdraw from the agreement (or several linked agreements). The ability of the European Commission and the CJEU within the EU legal system to impose sanctions, such as fines for non-compliance with EU rules, is exceptional.

This is mentioned without a hint of acknowledgment of the irony that the UK is therefore choosing to leave the most rules-based international agreement in the world, one that operates without self-defeating unilateral punitive and protective measures, into a world where such remedies will be the norm in agreements. And all this in a context where Brexiteers complain that the EU is "punishing us for leaving!"

The details of trade

Influential Brexiteer, Tory MP Bernard Jenkin writing the Financial Times and declaring optimism on Brexit --

The EU has no case for requiring British companies to prove origin if the UK is still applying the EU tariff on all non-EU imports.

This style of breezy assertion is typical. But it reveals deep misunderstanding about how modern international trade works. By referring to companies needing to "prove origin," Jenkin seems to think all trade is like wine and cheese: origin is intrinsic to where the good was produced. But the actual terminology is rules of origin -- an extremely complex set of rules tailored to supply chains where most goods contain materials and processing from different countries.

Jenkin thinks that as long as Britain maintains the EU tariff, it is entitled to tariff-free access to the EU. But that would depend on the preferential rules of origin that the EU would be entitled to impose on any such agreement with Britain. Practical questions such as: would British exports to the EU be allowed to count EU content and processing along the chain as UK origin for the purposes of tariff-free access? Would content and processing from the EFTA or Mediterranean countries that follow the same rules of origin also count? Incidentally, those countries don't apply the EU tariff but do apply the same rules of origin on EU trade, contrary to Jenkin's view of how such trade works. All those issues and many others would have to be negotiated -- declaring that the EU "has no case" is simply irrelevant.

But these people (Ray Bassett is another example) can get platforms in prominent opinion pages with demonstrably incoherent arguments.

Division

Superb analysis from El Pais of the tensions between Catalonia and the central government in Madrid which form a subtext of the response to the atrocities in the region. In particular, it took nearly a full day for Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy and Catalan President Carlos Puigdemont to have their first meeting on the crisis.

Never going to get it

We have read Ray Bassett in the Daily Telegraph so that you don't have to:

In fact, the alternative, involving Ireland leaving the EU, opting out of the EU customs regime and staying in a free trade and customs union with the UK, may well be the better approach. It would allow the Irish to stay in the European Economic Area (EEA), like Norway, and still have free access to the EU market for its products.

That's the core misunderstanding of the West Brexiters; the same mistake appears in Bassett's Policy Exchange report (incidentally, Policy Exchange is now describing him as a Senior Fellow). If Ireland stays in the EEA Single Market while the UK is outside (as the government has said it will be), all the same problems that happen with Brexit still happen: the UK's non-compliance with EEA rules with make an open border with an EEA member, Ireland, incompatible. These are bilateral people bewildered by a multilateral world.

UPDATE: Policy Exchange Senior Fellow Ray Bassett says that Ireland should stay in the single market while leaving the EU. Here's Policy Exchange Chief Economic Adviser Gerard Lyons explaining why the UK will leave the Single Market (FT today) --

The [transition] plan has to be seen in the context of the need to leave both the EU single market and the customs union. This is the best way to maximise the economic benefits of Brexit. Outside the single market, Britain would save its EU contribution, determine its own laws, regulations and migration quotas. Outside the customs union, it can escape EU protectionism, cut trade deals and set its own tariffs.

Policy Exchange needs to have a staff meeting where they clarify internally how a UK-Ireland open border and differing participation in the single market can be reconciled.

From Tricolour to True Colours

Daily Telegraph Opinion Page --

The EU is becoming less hospitable for Ireland – it's time it joined Britain in leaving 
RAY BASSETT 
By setting out its plan for avoiding a “hard border” between the Republic and Northern Ireland, the UK Government has emphasised once again the strength of the UK and Ireland’s common interests. The new Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, had already laid down the maintenance of the present invisible border as a red line in any EU/UK deal.

That's one of three opinion pieces (2, 3) on the same page today all pursuing the strategy signalled in the UK government "position papers" on Brexit released over the last few days -- to present fantasy solutions to the post-Brexit border problem and then blame the EU, and Ireland, for the reality check.

Bassett had in the past had couched his arguments about Ireland leaving the EU as something to be "seriously considered" and complaints that the Irish government was "not doing enough." But no longer. Now it's just plain and simple West Brexit.

Incidentally, each one of the opinion pieces is paywalled, as are all Bassett's contributions on the issue for the Sunday Business Post.

It prompts a question similar to that mechanism by which the European Parliament was a primary funder of UKIP -- how much of West Brexit is just a grift, a money-making stroking of Imperial fantasies?

How did they get this one past Trump?

US State Department report on religious freedom in Australia --

Government Practices 

Four senators from the One Nation Party were elected during the July (2016) federal elections on a platform which included ceasing Muslim immigration, holding a royal commission on Islam, halting construction of mosques, installing surveillance cameras in mosques, banning wearing of the burqa and niqab in public places, and prohibiting members of parliament from being sworn in under the Quran. In her first senate speech, One Nation Party Leader Pauline Hanson said the country was “in danger of being swamped by Muslims.” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull disagreed with her views and said “my commitment is to an inclusive multicultural society which is based on mutual respect. The more we respect each other the more secure we become.”

This negative assessment of One Nation and Pauline Hanson is being mentioned in the Australian media today, in the context of Hanson's stunt of wearing a burqa to the Senate -- a stunt with which the alt-right Trump would presumably applaud!

A free zone in Ulster?

The UK government has released its Ireland Brexit paper, using the same strategy as the customs paper yesterday -- embargoed briefings to the press to manage the coverage ahead of the fantasy proposals. Just one example of the shambles in this paper: different sections were clearly written by different people, with no read-across for consistency. The section on the common travel area essentially proposes that it could be maintained by transaction checks when Irish people are accessing the privileges they have now (employment, voting, etc), which by the way doesn't follow through on its logic that everyone is going to need ID to enforce this. But anyway, the separate section on the border says --

One potential approach that the UK intends to explore further with the EU is a cross-border trade exemption that would recognise the unique economic, social and cultural context of the land border and the fact that many of the movements of goods across it by smaller traders cannot be properly categorised and treated as economically significant international trade. Such an exemption would ensure that smaller traders could continue to operate as they do now, with no new requirements in relation to customs processes. It is important to note that in 2015, over 80 per cent of North to South trade was carried out by micro, small and medium sized businesses. They are, in effect, examples of local trade in local markets.

If they are proposing to treat most cross-border trade as below the radar screen for customs purposes, then what's the practical mechanism for deciding whether a "small trader" in Dundalk, for example, who employs EU nationals not eligible to work in Brexit UK, is actually deploying those workers mostly in Newry? Once that loophole is open, you'll very quickly see exponential growth in "small trader" employment agencies along the border who can then staff firms anywhere in the UK. Local trade in local markets!

Trump blames Ireland for CEO Council resignations

From his tempestuous Manhattan media Q and A:

If you look at Merck as an example, take a look where – excuse me, excuse me – take a look at where their product is made. It is made outside of our country. We want products made in the country, now I have to tell you, some of the folks that will leave, they're leaving out of embarrassment, because they made their products outside, and I have been lecturing them, including the gentleman that you are referring to, about you have to bring it back to this country. You can't do it necessarily in Ireland and all of these other places. You have to bring this work back to this country. That's what I want.

Dublin, we have a problem

Context: The Kevin Myers row.

Consider now --

It was Lionel Barber, Jewish editor of the Financial Times, whose tweet started the ball rolling early that Sunday morning and by the time members of the vocal and powerful American Jewish lobby caught up 5 hours later in New York, the sh*t storm was already under way. As well, there is serious opposition to Murdoch's €13 billion 21st Century Fox bid to take over Sky and there is no greater opinion former in the US than the Jewish lobby.

That's not Myers defending himself, or one of Myers' defenders. That's an ostensibly dispassionate and insiderish analysis of the imbroglio being read in influential circles in Ireland and not triggering any online outrage -- because it's published in the print and paywalled Phoenix magazine (Irish version of Private Eye), not drawing any eyeballs outside Ireland.

Losing control

Hours after having had the advantage of media coverage based on embargoed papers and briefings, the UK Department for Exiting the EU has finally released the much-hyped paper with their proposals for new customs arrangements under Brexit. The paper is a load of rubbish. It actually contains no proposals at all, but is simply a long list of aspirations with a much shorter list of vague indications as to how these could be achieved. A couple of low points --

The Government is keen to explore with the EU a model for an interim period which would ensure that businesses and people in the UK and the EU only have to adjust once to a new customs relationship. This could be delivered through a continued close association with the EU Customs Union for a time-limited period after the UK has left the EU. This could involve a new and time-limited customs union between the UK and the EU Customs Union, based on a shared external tariff and without customs processes and duties between the UK and the EU.

The terminology shared external tariff is very odd. Customs unions usually have a common external tariff. It's not clear whether this is a sensitivity about words (in the same way that deep and special is used instead of deep and comprehensive) or whether there is a technical intent behind it. The paper certainly doesn't explain.

Then:

The UK would seek to recognise the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland and aim to protect individuals and traders by making maximum use of the UK’s flexibility in relation to our own operation of the border. As elsewhere, the processes on the other side of the border would be constrained by the relevant requirements of EU law.

In other words, they are setting up to blame Ireland, as an EU member, for any delays on the Brexit-imposed border. But all those obstacles arise from the UK's departure from the customs union and single market. Everyone else is expected to adjust to them!

Quote of the Day

Janan Ganesh in the Financial Times:

Perversely, the anti-elite movement invests the elite with heroic talents. It sees a world of obvious social improvements waiting to be made if only the negligent masters would snap out of their stupor. The deficit of trust flows from a surplus of faith.

The Queen's Gin

Great detail from Financial Times article on House of Commons drinking culture:

The late SDLP MP Lord (once Gerry) Fitt is remembered in the 1970s waving great glasses of gin and tonic at the passing boats crying: "It's free, it's all free!"

Quote of the Day

Jeremy Paxman in the Financial Times on how the fixation with salmon farms as a rural job creator requires such adaptation of the environment that the farms don't need to be in such locations:

Geography, though, is an insuperable problem. Salmon farming has political appeal because it seems to offer employment in these Highland communities that have a powerful romantic hold over Scottish identity. Once you use land-based systems, with manufactured salt water, why locate them in the Highlands at all? It could be much more economical to build them somewhere near the markets of southern England or the airports supplying export destinations.

Would you buy Loch Hounslow salmon?

Brexit lorries

Financial Times analysis of UK customs union options points out yet another problem given zero consideration in the referendum campaign -- who will drive trucks after they cross the UK EU border? 

It is a different story at the Turkish border. Problems getting permits to drive across Europe regularly contribute to huge tailbacks. At the moment the EU only offers the right to work freely across Europe to truck drivers who are nationals of countries such Norway and Switzerland, which have accepted free movement of people from the EU. The UK has firmly ruled out such an option.

The Trump - Kim reading list Item 1

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan:

So that in the nature of man, we find three principall causes of quarrel. First, Competition; Secondly, Diffidence; Thirdly, Glory. The first, maketh men invade for Gain; the second, for Safety; and the third, for Reputation. The first use Violence, to make themselves Masters of other mens persons, wives, children, and cattell; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other signe of undervalue, either direct in their Persons, or by reflexion in their Kindred, their Friends, their Nation, their Profession, or their Name.

The next phase of West Brexit

The EU in full glory , a tiny flea ( Ireland ) can stop the dog 🐶 time to get tough and just leave .. https://t.co/sXY7KNVAV6

— Arron Banks (@Arron_banks) August 4, 2017

This Tweet from Brexit financier Arron Banks is a good sign of what's coming from his circle in terms of Ireland's position on Brexit. For a while, the Brexiteers have been content with finding useful idiots in the Irish media who will talk up their vision of Ireland leaving the EU with Britain. But with that line of argument at a dead-end -- confirmed by the Irish government's blunt assessment over the last week -- they'll switch very quickly to saying that Ireland is holding up Brexit because of its insistence on a continued soft border with Northern Ireland. This of course completely contradicts the claim of the Irish government's critics that it hasn't been "doing enough" about Brexit, but that won't stop the two lines of argument being made at the same time. The ugliness is only just beginning. 

BDS just got more complicated

This Al-Arabiya story (and yes, they have their anti-Qatar reasons) claims that a major beneficiary of the Neymar Jr to PSG deal is ... the Israeli Treasury, because Israel will collect a hefty income tax take on mystery agent Pini Zahavi's commission on this mysterious deal!

Make Kenya Great Again

Superb Wall Street Journal on the run-up to the Kenyan Presidential election --

Tensions on the street have been aggravated by an explosion of aggressive social media posts and fake news. Some spurious videos have carried the logos of CNN International and BBC World, claiming Mr. Kenyatta is set to win the election. Both organizations said the videos were fabricated. Facebook on Thursday took out a full-page ad in major Kenyan newspapers with guidelines on how to identify fake news. One election ad on social media site Instagram warned: “Kenya needs Uhuru—Violence needs Raila.” Some blame the spike in negative social-media advertising on Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining company hired by Mr. Kenyatta’s party. Cambridge Analytica also assisted in the Trump campaign. Cambridge Analytica declined to comment on the allegations, as did representatives for the government.

After all, it's not like Donald Trump has ever championed the misuse of a CNN logo!

Quote of the Day

Simon Kuper in the Financial Times:

As long as politicians restricted their silly wordgames to Prime Minister's Question Time while letting civil servants run the country, they were relatively harmless. But after the referendum, the Brexiters were tasked with managing Brexit. This was like asking the winners of a debating contest to engineer a spaceship. Results have been predictable. The Brexiters cannot wow Brussels with rhetoric, because the EU's negotiators prefer rules. "That is a cultural difference," notes Catherine de Vries, professor of politics at Essex University.

It's like reading Playboy for the articles

From the Donald Trump Wall Street Journal interview transcript (bizarrely, not published by the Wall Street Journal, but Politico) --

TRUMP: We think we’re going to have tremendous growth. We think money’s going to come pouring into the country. Look, we’re losing companies. People don’t even realize how bad it is, but we’re losing companies every single day where they’re leaving because the taxes are too high. When we do this, we’ll have companies – I know companies that have left. They go to Ireland, they go to other – I own a lot of property in Ireland. They go to Ireland because of these incredible tax rates, and other places, right? We’ll have companies pouring back into our nation. I mean, it’s going to be – you know, it’s going to be beautiful.

So others are investing in Ireland to dodge taxes, but he's there for the golf!

Quote of the Day

In the Financial Times, Jonathan Derbyshire reviews a couple of books about the crisis in western politics --

The emergence over the past few years of a more confrontational style of politics, in which charismatic leadership matters more than policy and the old division between right and left matters less than that between “internationalists and nativists”, leads Krastev to predict that 2017 “may end up being just as consequential” as 1917, the year of the Russian revolution.

The point that there's a stylistic element to populist politics as much as ideological is extremely important.