Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: News and politics

  • Brexit as Greek Tragedy

    I’m currently about halfway through Chris Grey’s magisterial flensing of Brexit in his book: Brexit Unfolded.

    He takes us through the events of the five years since the fateful referendum, recording who said what, and whether what was said made any sense, either at the time or since. Disingenuousness, or downright deception, particularly from the Brexiteers, reaches stratospheric levels time and time again.

    I remain convinced that leaving the Single Market and ending Freedom of Movement for citizens was a huge mistake, one that began with the fluttering of Cameron’s butterfly wings and his ill-judged referendum, and that has ended with the ongoing catastrophe that is Brexit.

    I’ve been following Chris Grey’s Brexit Blog for some time, where he does a weekly analysis of the current events related to Brexit. This book is, in large part, a distillation of the contents of his blog, and is eminently readable, if depressing in its message.

    Highly recommended.

  • The UK’s Home Office Does It Again…

    Are they incompetent, malign, or both?

    Acclaimed British cellist has passport cancelled by Home Office

    Judging by their past performance: both is probably the closest to the truth.

  • Oops…

    Nicholas Wade has written a long analysis of the question: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?

    As he writes:

    I’ll describe the two theories, explain why each is plausible, and then ask which provides the better explanation of the available facts. It’s important to note that so far there is no direct evidence for either theory. Each depends on a set of reasonable conjectures but so far lacks proof. So I have only clues, not conclusions, to offer. But those clues point in a specific direction.

    What I find worrying in his analysis is the early strenuous denial by researchers that the COVID-19 pandemic could possibly have been the result of a laboratory accident because of a conflict of interests.

    The conflict of interest point about Peter Daszak seems pretty damning to me. And what is also worrying is that the WHO team visiting the Wuhan lab had others who could potentially fall prey to this. e.g. Marion Koopmans from the Netherlands who heads (with Ron Fouchier) the Dutch lab that has been doing gain-of-function research for many years. She’s been on Dutch TV talkshows regularly over the past year.

    Until now, I had never thought about whether GOF studies had any real benefit in combatting pandemics. Now I’m more inclined to view them as playing with fire, because we can…

  • “Let Them Eat Cake”

    While Boris Johnson has claimed that the post-Brexit trade deal allows Britain to “have one’s cake and eating it“, it is becoming abundantly clear that this is not the case.

    The latest twist is that British exporters to the EU are being encouraged by the UK government’s Department for International Trade to set up companies in the EU to circumvent border issues and VAT problems.

    Far from having one’s cake and eating it, this sounds more like Marie Antoinette’s apocryphal response to the news that starving peasants could not afford to buy bread.

  • Putin’s Shell Game and Navalny’s Gamble

    This is quite an extraordinary video. Alexei Navalny documents Putin’s elaborate arrangement of shell companies and what the money is being spent on.

    Navalny must be a very brave man, deliberately walking into the lion’s den by returning to Russia, and then releasing this video.

  • America’s Kristallnacht

    I have to say, I am rather impressed by this video of Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s Governor, addressing recent events in the USA. I didn’t think he had it in him, but I am happy to stand corrected.

    Perhaps the events in the Capitol on the 6th January will prove to be a turning-point, and bring about a return to building democracy instead of tearing it down.

    However, I share the fears of Francine Prose when she writes that anyone shocked by the events has ignored a lot of warning signs. As she says:

    Throughout the 6 January attack on the US Capitol, as journalists and politicians expressed their stunned astonishment, one couldn’t help wondering: hadn’t they heard about the hundreds of people, some of them armed, who stormed the Michigan state capitol building in April, objecting to Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order? Had they forgotten that a young woman was killed during the August 2017 Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, Virginia – a neo-Nazi event that Donald Trump declined to unequivocally condemn? Had their interns not been keeping up with – and informing their bosses about – the popular Twitter feeds and Facebook pages of far-right hate groups and extremist conspiracy theorists? Had no one explained that the Proud Boys’ T-shirt insignia – 6MWE – means “Six Million [Jews] Weren’t Enough”?

    Turning a blind eye to the transgressions of Trump and his supporters during the past four years made the events of the 6th January inevitable. That particular horse bolted the stable a long time ago.

  • Sedition

    With the recent events in Washington, I needed to laugh to stop crying. Thank you Randy Rainbow.

  • Taking Back Control?

    So the Brexit deal has now been approved by both the UK Parliament and Brussels. True to form, Boris Johnson is claiming it as a great deal: “Having your cake and eating it“. This is, of course, a shameless lie – but when did we ever expect anything else from Mr. Johnson?

    Far from “taking back control” as the Brexiteers have long espoused as their goal, what we appear to have got in its place is the EU-UK Partnership Council and its raft of committees.

    credit: Anton Spisak

    So far from being “free from the yoke of unelected bureaucrats and the tyranny of red tape”, it would seem that even the post-Brexit world requires proper management of the EU-UK relations and trade. What a surprise. Oh well, it will give the Brexiteers the opportunity to continue to moan endlessly about the vicissitudes of Brussels.

    The draft agreement requires careful analysis, which I am certainly not competent to do. For that, I point you towards Chris Grey’s excellent blog as a starting point on what will be a long and frustrating journey. And those frustrations will not be felt in trade alone, but affect politics and society in both the UK and EU. This is not a cause for celebration.

    Addendum: from where we stand, it seems to us far from “taking back control”, Britain has been taken over by gamblers, liars, clowns, and their cheerleaders.

  • “All We Ever Wanted Was Our Freedom…”

    So it comes down to this, Boris Johnson. After years of concocting lies over the EU as a journalist in Brussels, and then as a third-rate politician exemplifying the Peter Principle, you have to recognise that you have failed utterly.

    Pathetic on all counts.

    Over to you, Marina…

  • Held To Account? No More, It Seems.

    Nick Cohen writes of his despair that UK politicians are no longer held to account for their actions.

    I wonder whether the UK (or the US) will ever be able to claw itself back out of the cesspit into which it has fallen?

    Things have not come to the same pass here in the Netherlands as in the UK – thank heavens.

    We do have to be watchful though.

    The shameful episode over Childcare Benefits (where 26,000 parents have been falsely accused of benefit fraud) still rumbles on, with politicians now at last agreeing that it was wrong, but still apparently without full repayment to all those falsely accused.

  • Good Riddance, Dominic Cummings

    The key sentences from the Guardian’s analysis:

    It is a mark of the tragicomic nature of Mr Johnson’s government that a week of infighting within No 10 dominates the news at a time of national emergency when hundreds are dying every day from a dangerous disease. Mr Cummings gets to walk away while Britain is stuck with the damage he has wrought.

  • A Small Sigh of Relief

    So Trump has been defeated. A good day for democracy.

    However, I fear that, with 70 million people having voted for him, the US remains deeply divided, and the next four years are not going to be easy. At least we will be spared the torrent of rancid tweets and lies that have been flowing from the White House these last four horrendous years.

    Many Americans will be breathing a huge sigh of relief, and will be feeling the same emotions as this CNN commentator:

    As Carol Anderson writes, in the end, millions of Americans were not prepared to let democracy die on their watch.

  • Vote!

    Dear US citizens, for all our sakes make the change happen on November 3rd.

  • If Donald Got Fired…

    A little balm for the soul at this moment of crisis…

    And to my American readers… Vote! All our futures depend on it!

  • The Masque of the Red Death

    It all seems so inevitable that Donald Trump would succumb because of hubris, and his blatant disregard of the facts.

    And it remains difficult not to feel schadenfreude and not to laugh at the Covid Joker himself. As Marina Hyde says:

    God knows, it’s excruciatingly hard to chirp “Get well soon!” to this particular patient, but … get well soonish. Those of us who want to escape the cesspool Trump has helped drag the world into will wish him a better time with the virus than the one to which he blithely condemned so many of those he was elected to serve. Each to their own, but I’m against all forms of the death penalty, karmic or otherwise.

    But still, it is what it is, eh, Donald?

  • There Are No Adults In The Room

    The room in this case being in Number 10, Downing Street. With the threat to break International Law, the UK Government seems intent on making the UK an international pariah. Chris Grey, over at his Brexit Blog has some choice words on the whole debacle. It’s a must-read.

    And now Boris Johnson is seeking to blame Brussels for an issue of his own making. The man is incompetent, and has no shame whatsoever.

    Addendum: and all praise to Marina Hyde for her satirical evisceration of this bunch of clowns. Thanks for making me laugh, otherwise I would be weeping at what the UK has come to.

  • Adding Insult To Injury

    The news that Tony Abbott has been appointed as a UK Trade Advisor would seem to confirm my suspicion that the UK government is resolutely determined to achieve a no-deal situation with the EU by the end of the year.

    I feel that the phrase “UK Government” is rapidly achieving oxymoronic status. If you want to laugh about this latest turn of events, then I can recommend First Dog on the Moon. If, like me, you feel like crying about the whole Brexit clusterfuck, then I can recommend Chris Grey’s Brexit Blog for a forensic flensing of the whole sorry saga.

  • What I’m Thinking About

    It amazes me that the US has people like this, yet they still manage to pick Trump for President…

  • "He has acted responsibly, legally and with integrity."

    Boris Johnson’s defence of his political adviser Dominic Cummings is, in a word, unfuckingbelievable.

    As John Crace so rightly observes, it is now clear who is running the UK – and it isn’t Boris Johnson.

    One law for the little people, and another law for your boss, eh, Boris?

    Addendum 27 May 2020: the ever-dependable Marina Hyde eviscerates both Cummings and Johnson; whilst Chris Grey, over at his Brexit Blog, makes similar points about the paradox of populism – in less caustic tones, but none the less salient for all that.

  • Messages of Farewell

    It’s the day after Brexit, and I’m still feeling depressed, and angry, about the whole sorry situation. I’ve been reading messages of farewell published in today’s Guardian from my fellow Europeans, and they have put into words the emotions I am experiencing. Two writers in particular capture my feelings, as these extracts may illustrate:

    Carlo Rovelli (theoretical physicist)

    What breaks my heart in Britain leaving the European project is the dark message that Brexit delivers to the entire planet: every nation for itself, instead of collaborating for the common good; everybody making its own rules, instead of searching for common ground; every group competing with the others, instead of solving the common problems together.

    Agnieszka Holland (film director)

    Do you really believe that turning your backs on the continent will hold off ecological catastrophe, the waves of migrants, artificial intelligence, the internet revolution or women’s aspirations? Do you believe that globalisation and unfettered capitalism as conducted by China or Trump’s America will give you more affluence and sovereignty than belonging to a community of Europeans, who can achieve any kind of success only by working together, and who are at least trying their best to maintain the values of freedom, equality, fraternity, solidarity, justice and human rights; the rights of all living creatures; and responsibility for the future of the planet?

    Adhering to these values is the only thing that can save humanity from sliding into an abyss of evil; we became familiar with this in the terrible 20th century, and the European Union was meant to inoculate us against the temptation to return to dark times. And for many years, together, it worked.

    Aren’t you ashamed to be the first to back away from hope? Can you see an alternative? Do you really think that once we’ve broken our voluntary ties things will be just as they were before? No, they will not. So I cannot wish you all the best. I won’t say “Goodbye and good luck.” Because I’m furious with you. I really do like you – your people, landscape, gardens and moorlands; your history, culture and art; your unique British manner, even in its debased form; your humour, eccentricity and bravery. But I am sure you are making a mistake that we’re all going to pay for – you are sure to, but so are we. I am afraid everyone’s going to pay equally for the lies, cowardice and arrogance of the few.

    Also in today’s Guardian is Ian McEwan’s withering summary of Brexit. Well worth reading and reflecting on.

    I sincerely hope that my fellow countrymen reflect on what they have done, and that this ignominious decision will come, in time, to be reversed. It will probably take at least a generation, and I am very likely to be long dead, but we Europeans will be waiting.