The Owen Paterson Affair (November 2021)

I thought I could retire but this is just too much. Failures of intelligence, common sense and decency!

I can’t help feeling that nobody in our Parliamentary Democracy comes out of this smelling other than like a cow shed before cleaning! I must say at the outset that “paid advocacy” is an extreme danger to our democracy and certainly that is what Owen Paterson did! But what about the Lobbying Industry! However how will history look at this minor matter. There is a very difficult question about natural justice and the agreed procedure whereby these matters are considered and disposed of! First, how can the procedure be fair if the Adjudicator states, prior to full investigation, that the “defendant” is guilty! I state this in the positive as the Adjudicator has not sort to deny it! Second, how is it that the “defendant” is prevented from cross examining the testaments/evidence. Third, where is the right of Appeal? Without these provisions (safeguards) justice will tend to be arbitrary and capricious! Now these are not excuses for Paterson’s behaviour but as those who have only a passing acquaintance with Justice will know any one of those failures would lead to acquittal in most British Courts. So how did the “mother” of parliamentary democracies get itself into this mire? This is a rhetorical question as we know the corrupting influence of sharp elbowed Politicians and Journalists together with Social Media and 24 hour rolling news like to give the impression that there are straightforward answers – there are not!

There is also the question of what the appropriate punishment should be?

So Owen Paterson has resigned. The New Statesman and various others – BBC, Sky News etc. will not admit their complicity in the corruption of due process. MPs from the Expenses Scandal have been too scared to even speak up for due process and thus the whole thing degenerates into a partisan slanging match (at best). Worst of all from what I have seen Owen Paterson was naive in thinking that what he did was all right when many others MPs, Civil Servants advantaged themselves in more subtle ways – post Public Service – well paid jobs in the private sector!

In many ways it is well that Paterson has resigned and without holding my breath perhaps Parliament will reform the Standards Procedure. But one that does not properly and fully conform to the rules of natural justice will mean it is only a matter of time before another case will arise!

It is now clear the EU is Hostile to anything the UK does

 First they wanted us to reverse the referendum decision of 2016 as others had done previously (see Ireland - twice). Then they discovered there was some backbone (Except Teresa May et al). To deliver the democratic decision (a concept completely alien to the EU) an unsatisfactory Withdrawal Agreement (remember the name Sabine Weyend it will re-appear - as an unaccountable bureaucrat she famously said the price of Brexit was Northern Ireland - words that will, I hope and expect will haunt her to her dying day. Then we have the Covid19 pandemic. The EU wants transparency they said. Then they said we will invoke regulations to prevent vaccine exports (prohibited under WTO rules). Now they say they want reciprocity - haven't seen much of that in any negotiations with them. What reciprocity means to them is that since they (EU) have made such a mess we should all suffer equally to get them out of the mire!. Talk about stinking fish! Which brings us back to Sabine Weyend - it was, of course, she who prolonged negotiations with Astra Zeneca seeking a better price - which is a bit difficult because it was being sold at cost (the insistence of Oxford University). Now Weyend and von der Lyen are Merkel's placed people - are you getting the message. This has become a cover for the German Empire of Europe where they stay in the background and allow those pompous French to think they are driving the bus! In the meantime many thousands of Europeans will die because of the EU's incompetence. The UK is being asked to share those deaths for the same reason. Saving the face of EU bureaucrats is apparently more important than the lives of ordinary people. And going back to the Withdrawal/Trade Agreement could someone explain to me how if you are in perfect alignment (as we are) so far as regulations and sanitary conditions are concerned why stuff is finding it so difficult to get into Northern Ireland if it is not for the anality of the EU. What happens to that French truck that has English mud on its wheels? (no need to answer as you know!) Neither agreement can survive under those actions.

Tories revert to type over Cladding of High Rise Flats

Today's announcement of more financial support for people trapped in High Rise Flats with incendiary cladding shows Tory difficulties with wealth and reluctance to tackle vested interests. Most of these properties are Leasehold and the Freeholders and Developers are getting away without paying for their, at least, incompetence and at worst deliberate duping of Leasehold Tenants, i.e. selling something which was/is not safe. However no liability falls (apparently) on them. They should be pursued with the ultimate penalty the extinguishment of their Freehold rights. If Labour was the true supporter of property reform and justice this what they should be saying!

Brexit the NI Protocol and the Free Trade Conundrum

The EU decided to implement the classification of GB as a third country from 1st January but GB will only introduce Customs and Import controls from July 2021.

In GB there would appear to be widespread concern at exports to the EU and to NI. I say appears as without more evidence that these difficulties are actually widespread it is problematic that political noise is drowning out reality!

Questions that need to be objectively assessed are:

1) are checks on goods from GB to NI made deliberately and unduly onerous?

2) are EU Officials in NI strictly abiding by their role as advisory only?

3) with regard to GB exports to the EU are checks on goods made deliberately and unduly onerous?

4) what does an objective and thorough investigation show in relation to EU Customs and Import Controls from other 3rd Countries compared with those applying currently to GB.

All of this has to be seen against the background that there is a Free Trade Agreement between the EU and GB. So before rushing into unilaterally applying Article 16 of the NI Protocol or even repudiating the Withdrawal Agreement it is necessary for evidence and facts!