LONDON - September 2019

Our Supreme Court and the Queen

Following the 24th September 2019 decision of the Supreme Court in London that the prorogation (suspension) of Parliament for five weeks was unlawful, there was so much commentary from experts and others, hardly any room was left for other news.

There was agreement and disagreement, analysis of the law and of the politics involved, and a lot of talk about the independence of the judiciary - an important principle in any free country. And, if I may add my own small voice to this, how privileged we are, those of us who live in free countries, where any common citizen can take the government to court and challenge its decisions.

But, if you heard any of that commentary, did you spot the deliberate mistake? With all that talk about an independent judiciary, there was zero mention of a related principle, just as much a pillar of freedom and democracy, that of separation of powers.

If the government had tried to interfere in this or any other judicial decision, there would have been an outcry, and rightly so. But here we had the reverse, the judiciary interfering in government executive decisions, yet not one voice in protest.

There is a tradition in Britain that you respect the courts and their decisions, even when you disagree with them. Ways of thinking like this make Britain what it is. But if we are a free people, surely we can rise above such social niceties or conventions and scream out, beyond just expressing our disagreement.

Before we go any deeper, what I would have liked the court to do would have been to say exactly what was said, if that were their reasoned finding, but then to declare, 'However, it is not for the courts to interfere in such matters where political and executive considerations dominate… etc.'

They did not do that. Instead, they went on to order a 'remedy', namely that the Queen should be overruled and humiliated for following the advice of her Prime Minister. It was also the Order in Council, the legal mechanism that the Queen personally approves, that was found to be unlawful, void and of no effect. And, said the Supreme Court, it should be quashed.

One screams in horror. Not so much for the implications in this case, but for the future. Effectively, the court demanded of the Monarch, present or future, that they, personally,evaluate any 'advice' given by their ministers and declare they would like to think about it, perhaps seeking further legal advice from others, before granting the request.

In other words, the Supreme Court, not only abolished our treasured separation of powers between judiciary and executive, but also established the British Monarch as a political and politicised member of the executive, rather than a neutral head of state.

Be it on their heads, each one of them personally, given that this was a unanimous decision, because, trust me, a door of great horrors has been forced open for a long time to come.

As a Greek philosopher I am no respecter of rank, seniority or claim to expertise, I judge through logic and reason. And what I saw, though very British in every way, was not so much a reasoned decision by the best legal brains in the land, but the triumph of emotion over rational thinking. The Supreme Court justices seemed to feel (not think) that this Prime Minister needed cutting down a notch, he was getting a bit too big for his bossy-boots, and needed a lesson. How else can one explain the earlier verdict by the High Court where equally eminent judges had come to the opposite conclusion? And if there were room for the latter to do so, surely there was no room for the Supreme Court to use such strong language condemning a government decision, quite apart from interfering with the executive.

One might add, in any free country, it is not Parliament which is supreme but the people. Furthermore, this particular Parliament had been proven, over three whole years, to have been incapable of resolving the most important issue of a generation for the UK. So, separation of powers here meant it was perfectly proper for the executive to struggle to dominate such an irrational, even stupid, at times, and self-serving legislative body. And the judicial pillar of our democracy would have done better to, maybe, have expressed a view but stayed out of interfering.

As it stands, everyone, whether they agree with the finding or not, whether pleased or displeased, will come to regret it.

LONDON - Spring 2019

Here is to a mini celebration at the resignation of Theresa May (24/5/19), the worst negotiator the world has ever known, and one of the worst Prime Ministers. And this stands regardless of whether you wanted Britain to leave or remain in the EU.

Two things she should never have said while representing the world's fifth biggest economy at the EU during those negotiations.

• When asked what she would do, if the UK could not agree an acceptable deal with the EU: She said, "We WILL reach agreement with our European partners."
• When asked why the UK should pay anything in a divorce settlement, let alone forty billion, given the legal advice that Britain did not have to: She replied, with a patronising grin on her face, "We are a law-abiding nation…"

That was very early on in her premiership but that was when I knew that she would fail. (Please, see below how many times ALFA has been proven right in its predictions.)

You do not say such things while negotiating, not with your local estate agent, let alone the obstinate, domineering, even bullying bureaucracy of the EU block, and while holding the future of a whole country in your hands, whose mandate you are there to carry out.

But she had misled herself into believing that if she smiled in a diplomatic way, then the likes of Barnier and Juncker would smile back and say, ' Yes, Mrs May, if that is what you want...' And she misled us all, certainly misled those who believed in Brexit whether right or wrong, never having believed in it herself. First she allowed herself to be bullied by the EU, then by the likes of Dominic Grieve MP who spoke as if the referendum had never happened and showed contempt for the people's vote, while at the same time she played hardball with those on her own side, supporting her. And in doing so, she appeared to be duplicitous and deceitful, and became infuriating. She reminded me of parents who are so pleasant and polite to everyone, but then turn cruel to their own children after the front door is shut.

Is she that naïve and so stupid? So, we are a law-abiding nation when we pay 40 billion that we do not have to, but not law-abiding when her own Parliament orders the release of legal advice? Contempt of court is a criminal offence. Did she understand how she made blood boil?

All this was her own, one-woman treaty, against all her own Brexit Secretaries and almost the entire nation.

Whenever she posed for photographs with any EU official, she with a subservient grin on her face, they with a stern scowl, you knew who was dominating whom.

But, on the flip side, does that mean the EU has succeeded? No, the European Union, in their ingrained arrogance, have made the same mistake they made just before the Brexit referendum. When David Cameron tried to negotiate better terms for immigration in June 2016, the EU booted him out. The result was the Brexit vote. And then, during the actual Brexit regotiations, they did the same, trying to impose what they knew were unpalatable terms. And the result will be the same, a harder Brexit than they would have liked, and very detrimental to the EU itself.

At the core of all this lies the free movement of people and the influx of immigrants into Europe from all over the world. You could argue in favour of the free movement of labour, for those who get a job in another country, but not the free movement of populations. That makes no sense, especially for the UK: People will always want to move to a richer country and, unfortunately for the UK, most of them speak English, fewer speak French, German or Italian, so most of them would want to come to the UK.

This was simply unsustainable.

I fear much worse. Extreme anti-immigrant sentiment is rising throughout Europe and it reminds me of Nazis and Fascists just before World War II. Do-gooders now, with open arms to all humanity, are wonderful human beings, better than the rest of us, with all the right feelings in their naïve little hearts, but they are not doing a favour to anyone, not even to those poor immigrants. And they could lead us into a far greater disaster.

There were other issues why the Brits voted for Brexit, all of them of the EU's own making, especially with the Maastricht treaty, but immigration was the final straw that broke the camel's back.

LONDON 2018

One Brexit? Certainly. What flavour would you like?

It's a mutual thing. We rely on journalists to keep us informed, while they rely on us consuming their output in order for them to earn a living. This is a daily auction: they bid to get our attention (with the most topical or attention-grabbing) and we bid to buy what seems most relevant to us.

But it is precisely this process that can distort news and the reporting of news.

On 23rd June 2016 Great Britain voted to leave the European Union. This was, therefore, a decision for the next twenty, forty, sixty, hundred years. It was not about minute details, let alone trivia, it was about the shape of an important country for centuries to come.

And yet within weeks, if not days, and before the process of Brexit (British Exit) had even began, let alone Brexit itself had happened, there were innumerable stories in the media on how this or that had been "affected by Brexit." What, already? Well, not possibly, but that was the story of the day, so journalists run with anything to do with Brexit, anything at all. And they have continued to do so.

Even if a million things had gone wrong already, was Brexit really a decision for just a couple of weeks?

Such superficial news coverage would have been infuriating, if it was not so ludicrous. But of course journalists have to be topical to earn a living - we said that. In fact, with repetition they made sure it remained the biggest story, a bit like the Soviet daily reporting on tractor production numbers; if you keep making it headlines, it becomes important, or seems to.

I was surprised, however, to see what lay behind this trivialising approach, namely a general bias among the chattering classes - and nobody chatters more than journalists - against Brexit, thus putting a negative spin and a negative tone on everything to do with it. Sometimes this would be no more than an implied sadness in the delivery, but often a blatant anger in the reporter: Stupid humanity, how could they have voted for such a thing? Or worse than that, revealing a wish for Britain to do badly out of Brexit, to suffer and fail.

The latest example, at time of writing, was Katya Adler's documentary on the BBC about how the EU "holds all the cards," in negotiations, with a few selective interviews thrown in - selected as her witnesses, naturally. She was not alone in doing that and must not be singled out. Just like some politicians are a bit simple, some journalists are a bit simple. What this means for us, their audience, is that we do not always hear the real complexity of an issue, just easy potshots and one-liners.

The same could be said of people in highly responsible positions whose 'independent' views against Brexit were made clear before the referendum, like the present governor of the Bank of England. Mark Carney shows great sadness now when talking about Brexit and the economy, for example on 3rd August 2017, without actually saying much. In fact in the ensuing press conference he said many positive things about the post-Brexit economy, but only after questioning. In his preceding statement, after announcing the interest rate hold and a downgrade (of 0.1%) of the UK growth forecast, the general tone of his statement was, sad, sad, sad, covering his prejudice up with "It's not what I think, it's what businesses and households think…" Oh, yes, governor, but then you went on to tell us what 'they' think, and you spoke of nothing but "uncertainty." Do you really know what all of us think? And how can it be that your own statement sent sterling plummeting while the stock market rose, if it is UK businesses that are suffering so much from Brexit uncertainty? There is a genuine case for Mark Carney to be fired for such a stance, if it was not for a justified fear of generating genuine uncertainty. But this would be short-term, so we are better off without him in the long run. In stressing the present uncertainties of Brexit, he is behaving more like a politician interested in short-term re-election, rather than the long-term welfare of the country.

We could be distracted and go off at a tangent here, to consider how big the gap between said chattering classes and the general population. The essence of democracy is not a system of electing a government; the essence of democracy is stopping others dictate your future to you, even if they are above your intelligence or if they claim to know better than you - whether politicians, academics, journalists or anything else. All credit to the Greeks for inventing this most crazy system of governing, which consults even the most stupid and uninformed, but delivers the goods most of the time. Only geniuses can come up with such unlikely but brilliant ideas. Most recently, in the UK itself, this crazy system came up with the right verdict twice, if you include the rejection of Scottish independence.

So we will not talk about that.

The simple truth about Brexit was this: Membership of the European Union, including the resulting influx of immigrants to Britain, had advantages and disadvantages for all indigenous Brits. But here is the KEY: Those who could insulate themselves from the disadvantages, e.g. through money, fame, occupation or otherwise, mainly benefited from the advantages and therefore would want to remain. The rest of the population benefited from the same advantages but could not insulate themselves from the disadvantages, and they would want to leave the EU. It really is that simple.

If your daily train is overcrowded to the point of asphyxiation but you can afford to go first class or get a taxi, if your doctor is overbooked for the next month but you can go private, if your local state school is full but you can afford perhaps a boarding school, if you can avoid the sudden rise in traffic jams on previously accessible roads, if you can afford a house in a secluded area and generally have little daily contact with the general public, then you do not suffer so much from what immigration has done, neither from the daily grind of dealing with people of very different cultures, manners (or lack of), languages and smoking habits. However, for the rest of us, such disadvantages outweigh any economic and other benefits. Or possibly we care more about other things than money, we care about the British way of life, British values and traditions, and the perpetuation of a certain way of dealing with other people, and we are right to want out of the EU.

This also explains why the discrepancy between different sections of the UK population in their attitude to migrants. Those insulated from the hourly shoulder-bumping with people who behave differently (for better or worse) cannot see the problem. Those who suffer the most intrusion into their already crowded space will object. This is an important consideration. A common, agreed code of behaviour is necessary for any society to function but becomes particularly important in a crowded space, and Britain is a crowded island.

Inevitably, amongst both categories, there will be others who feel the same for non-rational reasons, such as racism or a general dislike of foreigners per se, something I have suffered from myself, at the receiving end. But we are not here to talk about such individuals. Or some might resent foreigners arriving to find everything laid out for them and ready to use. Sometimes in all sincerity, the latter might feel they have shed blood, over centuries, to build all the systems that serve them, and one can understand when others come and find it all ready to use from day one, the amount they pay in taxes being trivial in comparison, and it is a moot philosophic or economic question.

IMMIGRATION

The hope of this section is to address those who are genuinely puzzled by the British debate over immigration, including EU bureaucrats who have a very different vision of a future Europe, or good, honest immigrants themselves who want to come to Britain and make a genuine, positive contribution.

How can the Brits be so convivial and civilised when they meet you on a personal level, yet so different from all other Europeans in their strength of objecting to immigration?

Generally speaking, nobody objects to one individual immigrant, and the British too are welcoming, within the bounds of their traditional reserve which makes them seem aloof at times. And there is beauty in a single foreigner living in another country - he becomes an object of interest and fascination - a beauty which turns to ugliness when the single foreigner becomes a flood and a multitude which changes the nature of the native culture. When you can see swathes of neighbourhoods like him, there is no longer any curiosity about what his kind are like. Also, a lone foreigner can absorb local culture and assimilate into the native way of life, but not if he is immersed in entire communities of his own nationality - which does legitimise the question of why they all came here in the first place.

If an armada of one million approached and demanded to land and take over parts of Britain, the army and Royal Navy would be deployed to repel the invasion. What is the difference now, when the same number settle here against the will of the local people? It is still an invasion. Be that as it may, it is the local people who should decide who comes, because such numbers threaten their way of life, quite obviously.

One example: In Great Britain we have fought over many years, sometimes risking personal insult or injury, to rid our world of smoking and smokers. Now suddenly our streets, or even our train stations where it is forbidden, and all our public spaces are full of smokers all over again. It is as if all those long struggles had never happened. And as for cultures and manners, the British, just like the Japanese (also an island), have developed, over centuries, a highly sophisticated code of interacting with others, which includes some peculiar idiosyncrasies but is mostly positive and, like it or not, serves them well. Now, overnight, they are flooded with peoples (plural) who are ignorant of, and often hostile to this kind of manners, politeness and civility, as we know it. We no longer get one rogue individual jumping the queue, now queues are destroyed on mass and a new ethos emerges, and is enforced on others by necessity. We no longer get a rude individual pushing into you to get past, now this happens several times each day. Now entire groups pick their nose while chatting loudly over all other noises on the train. Obviously, they do not think it is disgusting, but we do. Some may call it rough-and-tumble, you may call it social ignorance or even savagery, but whatever it is, it does not belong, and, since there is no way of effective complaining, native Brits have a right to demand such people are thrown out.

When other Brits violate this code, at least both sides understand what is happening and can argue - they speak the same 'language'. And there are ways of dealing with one, single individual misbehaving or being antisocial. But new arrivals en masse cannot even understand what they are doing wrong; they are further confused by other foreigners from other countries alongside them doing the same, Britain now hosting so many different nationalities.

Other cultures may be superior to the British in one respect or another, and even those rough and ready ones may be credited with far more honesty and enjoyment of life. Indeed, some EU migrants are better human beings than many Brits and have better manners. But this is not a rule you can apply universally one way or the other. It is the difference which causes problems, not the comparative quality. As a Greek myself, I know better than any Englishman in several areas. This is not the point. The native population are entitled to choose who lives with them and who does not. We are all entitled to 'speak' our own 'language' in our own home and on this, I am one hundred per cent with the British - or indeed any other nation who want to insulate themselves from large numbers of immigrants, no matter what benefits they bring. A cosmopolitan environment can bring richness in other ways, such as infinitely better food and fresh ways of thinking, but to this addition one must calculate what they subtract also; it's basic maths - you cannot pick and choose what numbers to calculate, as it suits you.

That is why nobody can argue for zero immigration. But if we close the door and declare that nobody can come in, then we give ourselves the freedom to invite or let in individuals who will respect the local ethos and embrace it. So this is not about liking or disliking individual foreigners, it is about objecting to our home being overrun by people who can come in at will, whenever they want, and do whatever they like.

During the referendum campaign Remainers asked, if we left the EU, where would we get doctors and nurses for the NHS? Some companies complain now that they will not be able to recruit the best staff from Europe.

This is nonsense: When I come home, I close and lock my door behind me. This means that NOBODY can come in. Nobody means nobody - of course not; the door is locked. But locking the door does not mean that nobody ever comes in. Next day I need a plumber - of course he can come in. I need a doctor, so he comes in. Friends may knock on the door - they can come in. One day I will have a party and let fifty people in. And so on. But none of them CAN come in, i.e. by right. Not one. I decide who does and who stays out, and I can even change my mind or refuse without giving a reason, even people I had previously invited. This is my home and I decide whatever I want. I let in those I need and want, and I refuse all others. And if I am Great Britain, I can let in all the doctors and nurses and experts I want, as many as I want, even invite them, while still stopping everybody else.

And that is why using fear to threaten voters did not work. Talking doctors and nurses is always the last resort of the political scoundrel. Some on both sides used emotive language deliberately, making it impossible to have a rational discussion on immigration. This is not exclusively a UK phenomenon. In August 2017, one supermarket in Germany removed all foreign goods from the shelves in protest, to teach a lesson to those who objected to immigration. Such gestures are just as irrational as their right-wing equivalent. We do want free trade with all our partners, but this cannot mean giving them the right to move over. If I come to your shop and buy your goods, this does not mean you can move freely into my house. ALFA will never side with extremists on either side, nor indeed take a position as such in any argument, but will always argue the pure logic of the matter.

OF PROPHETS AND SUPERHEROES

Those same chattering mouths now went a step further. How will Brexit affect our future, they asked in hour-long 'documentaries.' A legitimate question, no doubt. And, of course, they know best about that also. All they need to do is open their contacts books and find a few willing interviewees, plus make a few 'reasonable assumptions' of their own - easy - and hey presto they have a TV program or an article they can sell, and a window into the future.

We will keep talking about the hubris of trying to predict the future, the eternal repetition of original sin, what the Greeks called by a different name, i.e. trying to be like God. Do they think they are gods? Of course not, or perhaps not. All they want is to earn a living, as we said.

Claims about the future were made by both sides in that referendum debate, and continue now, with little mention of the mathematics of chaos (sic). Quite important this. Scientifically, we know that even a tiny change in something, anything, can have monumental consequences later on, which no scientific method can predict.

So both sides can be accused of mathematical and scientific ignorance. The truth is, nobody can possibly have any idea how Britain will be shaped post-Brexit in decades to come. And this includes 'Leave' campaigners who predicted a great future. The truth probably lies closer to saying it will be good economically in some ways and negative in other ways. The point about leaving was never about making trade agreements or such like for a greater economic future, important though this is. The point about Brexit was for the British to take control of how to try and shape their own future, without the massive drawbacks the EU had imposed on them without their consent. So the truth lies closer to saying Britain will be worse off in ways we cannot predict or ways we choose, and better off in ways we cannot predict or choose to be better off. This is the point.

I am Greek, I love the benefits the EU (not the Eurozone) has brought to Greece, so I cannot be accused of being anti-European. But while for Greece the advantages outweighed the disadvantages, for Britain it was the other way round.

Brits are not saying let us leave regardless of what happens because nobody can predict what will happen in the next ten, let alone hundred years - otherwise it makes no difference no matter what we do in life. What they decided was, to repeat, that they want to try and shape their future for themselves.

Great Britain would always be the biggest magnet in Europe for the dispossessed of the world, simply because English is the language of the world and almost everyone speaks it, as opposed to those whose only foreign language may be French, German or Italian as they are fewer in number. This, combined with a very elastic welfare system, including the NHS, makes Britain irresistible to migrants of every persuasion, and stopping this unrestricted flow of poorer people into an already overcrowded island is a priority. Any economic benefit from migrants is disproportionate to the damage of the ever increasing strain they put on various systems.

Already, the NHS can hardly cope with demand, London underground trains are well over capacity, main roads have been reduced to slow parking lanes, schools and all public services are unable to cope, not to mention a visible change in the street culture of the nation as described above, while more migrants continue to arrive in their thousands. If the British were complaining about all this many years ago, one can understand why now they simply said, this cannot go on, and to hell with the economic benefits.

Although not directly relevant, one must mention also the damage migrants do to their own countries, leaving the less able behind to the detriment of their own country's development. And while the EU as a whole remains a welcoming, borderless world, all the able (though poor) of the world will want to leave and go there. Time, then, for Britain to get out of such a system. Brexit will be the best thing that ever happened to the EU itself, which had been taken over by bigheaded ideologues who thought they knew best about everything, who had the wrong vision altogether and had turned Europe into their own personal, pet political project. They needed to be educated and confronted with their own foolishness and stupidity - the foolishness of trying to buck the will of the people who have to live with the consequences on a minute-by-minute basis. Such egotists are damaging to democracy itself, that is to say the common man deciding for himself what his life should be like, not have it dictated to him by someone 'greater.'

I have never understood why it had to be a European UNION and not just a Common Market or a bloc of co-operation. Perfect example of ordinary citizens being trodden all over by their elected (or unelected) representatives and left feeling powerless and wanting to grab those big heads and shake them by the throat. What are you doing? Don't you have homes to go to? You think of pet projects to please yourselves and your myopic political beliefs and you tell us to shush, it is for our own good, and to accept whatever designs you come up with?

As far back as 2014, ALFA had raised this very issue - the article appears under the tab EUROPE on this website - 4th paragraph under 2014, beginning, "Perhaps the clue lies in the name…." ALFA has been proven right in its predictions yet again.

Have any of those journalists wondered about this, because it has left me astonished: Throughout the referendum campaign, nobody, absolutely nobody told us why the EU had to be a UNION. Why?

The silent implication seemed to be, well, that is what they had made it into, they had turned a Common Market into a Union, that's what it is now and we have to accept it as it is. But do we want and do we have to belong to a club we do not like? It's a big world out there, outside of any club. Why stick to one we think is going in the wrong direction?

Can those Remainers or journalists tell us where the EU itself will be in the future, can they guarantee that the EU itself will be a better place? If there is a fear Britain might suffer, and nobody can predict the future, is there not an equivalent fear the EU itself will suffer as much or even worse? Anybody remember the Eurozone crisis just recently?

THEN CAME A GENERAL ELECTION

After the referendum, David Cameron should have stayed on as UK Prime Minister. It would have been the manly thing to do. And besides, nobody had asked him to go. I think he would have been an excellent leader during Brexit.

I was as sceptical, at first, about Theresa May, as I had been in 1979 about Margaret Thatcher becoming Prime Minister. But comparisons are unfair and gender is never a good basis for such. Thatcher turned out to be one of the greatest political leaders of all time, anywhere in the world. Indeed, she did lead the whole world. She changed the lives of billions of previously enslaved people, enslaved either to communist / socialist states which kept their citizens on a minimum basic existence, or enslaved to dictatorships without basic human freedoms, or enslaved to other ideologies which held people back from fulfilling their own greater potential - because this is what happens to you if you rely on the state to improve your life for you. Margaret Thatcher did not have policies, she had incredible long-term vision, which she transformed into reality, here in Great Britain, in Eastern Europe, in the Soviet Union and even in the USA, where Ronald Reagan was just a sidekick to her intellect and mental clarity. Her strategic vision was on a vast scale, way above day-to-day tactics to get over regular obstacles. She thought long-term and universal, she thought big.

Thatcher turned out to be a phenomenon in human history like Alexander the Great, while Theresa May looks likely to be a little more ordinary, simply a good Prime Minister wanting to do good things "for ordinary people" as she puts it. And nothing much wrong with that, but we shall see. Most of what Thatcher had done turned out for the good of ordinary people all over the world, in the long run. Big shoes to fill, then, for Theresa May.

We will skip any comments on John Major and Tony Blair. Party politics should never enter our judgement of political figures, and style (or lack of) was the foremost feature of them both. Cameron was no genius but capable of dealing with decisions guided by Conservative party principles, which resulted in a very good Prime Minister for the British. His main achievement, because people have very short memories, was to avoid an economic meltdown after a spendthrift Labour government, when the markets could have pulled the rug from under the feet of Great Britain, given how much Gordon Brown had borrowed, and turned the UK into another Greece, with banks shutting down and pensions or salaries cut in half. It did not demand Thatcher's intellectual powers to achieve that, but it was of monumental consequence and it took courage and decisive action, plus the conservative (small c) belief in a smaller state.

Theresa May works differently, always trying to have a thorough understanding of each situation, a bit like scientific determinism. Thatcher only made three mistakes, it remains to be seen what the total tally of May's mistakes will be.

Journalists tell us that Theresa May's calling of the June 8th 2017 general election was a mistake. This was because, instead of a predicted landslide, she lost her previous overall majority in Parliament, previously won by David Cameron for the Conservative party.

The first thing to say, if calling the election was a mistake in itself, why did no journalist predict the loss of her majority before the election? They were all predicting a landslide, as did the opinion polls.

Perhaps the campaign that followed was bad and that was a political mistake. But one way or another, the June 2017 election was good for the United Kingdom and good for the Tories too. It achieved, perhaps inadvertently, far greater things than the security of any government's majority.

1. It killed off Scottish independence. That fox is dead. I cannot tell you how big this is. It puts into shadow any Brexit. Theresa May should not regret calling this election, nor its result. Losing her majority might seem big, but killing the SNP demands for independence has far, far more long-term significance.
2. It made a future Labour government less likely by ensuring the continuation of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. He might have called the election a great victory for himself, and the polls indicate his rise in popularity, but it was the worst possible defeat for Labour, and this very election showed what the polls are worth. Conservatives, and even Theresa May, should be happy.
3. It put off the next scheduled general election by two years. The Tories would hope this is favourable for them at a time the public have had enough of going to the polls, and gives them more time after the financial crisis to apply policies that regain popularity, something that would be completely wasted if they replaced Theresa May now.
4. You might add a fourth benefit: Her government learned a lesson: The Tories had seen their poll-lead as an opportunity to introduce quite a lot of unpopular measures, far too many, necessary though they might have seemed. But, the lesson of this election was, no matter how popular you are, no government can do whatever it likes.

Finally, here is why Theresa May lost seats and what this result meant for Brexit. Because the result has been misconstrued and misreported as a vote for a softer Brexit, the opposite of the case. The following is a deeper analysis of that unexpected election result:

Before the election, people could assume what Theresa May stood for and support her, for example her dictum "Brexit means Brexit". And her standing in the polls soared as a result - no polls in favour of a softer Brexit all those, were they? However, during the campaign, she gave no positive imperative reason for any large group to vote for her. Passionate Remainers had no reason to vote Tory anyway. Neither would lifetime Labour voters. Pensioners were told they would lose the 'triple lock', so they might as well vote anything. The self-employed and those on tax-credits had no reason, because their tax would change (rightly or wrongly) and they knew that in advance, after the Chancellor's previous Budgets and U-turns. No votes from them either.

But then, after all that, some junior Tory minister went on TV and said that reducing immigration was only an aspiration. Not even a target! THAT WAS THE MOMENT THE GOVERNMENT LOST ITS MAJORITY. So we went through all that pain for nothing? CRAZY! All those days, nights, weeks, months of debating, all those evenings watching TV, all the agony of arguing with friends and family, all the anxiety of waiting for the result - a huge chunk of our life - all for nothing?

So now even Brexiteers had no reason to vote Tory. None of those groups had a reason to vote against Theresa May, but no reason to vote for her either. Might as well vote anything, even Jeremy Corbyn, just to send a message.

To repeat: backtracking on immigration was the moment Theresa May lost her majority.

There was still time, after the election, to repair the damage, simply by saying, 'We are going to stop immigration, guaranteed, full stop, no matter what.' Big risk this might have seemed politically but, if she wanted to be as successful as Margaret Thatcher, she would have to nail her colours to the mast. When you try to be all things to all people, you end up being nothing to nobody. And immigration remains the most important colours to nail now, after the referendum and the election.

In conclusion, to repeat: The result of the June 2017 election, and the reasons for that result, have been misread: a) it was not because Theresa May would not debate on TV, b) it was not a vote for a softer Brexit, and c) a blow though it might have seemed to the Conservatives, it was a great result for the UK. Provided there is enough vision to comprehend that result.

After Brexit talks with the EU had started in earnest, we heard that Home Secretary Amber Rudd had commissioned a committee to find out the benefits and costs of immigration. Once again, this sounded like a good time to pull your hair out. Nothing against such a study, you might think, but she was missing the point. The British went through all the pain of that referendum and of the general election and decided they wanted Brexit DESPITE the costs. It is no use pointing out the pros and cons of immigration to them all over again. The decision has been made. If Ms Rudd tries to second-guess it, the Tories are dead.

But, if indeed there has to be an analysis of the ECONOMIC costs and benefits of immigration apart from all other factors, let me save Amber Rudd a few million pounds and give her the answer right now: It is of no economic benefit to the UK when immigrants work here and pay taxes, if later they get lung cancer or heart disease, since so many of them are smokers, or if some of them bring tuberculosis (on the rise again in the UK after the rise in immigration from around the world) and spread it to others, and a few years down the line they have to be treated by the NHS. The future cost to the NHS alone far outweighs any additional taxes now, and we will not talk about other public services.

The above may be misconstrued so, to clarify, Amber Rudd's commission is purely on the ECONOMIC side, so this is all we are talking about here, the merits of her chosen study. I would have been very happy for the NHS to treat and to heal all the sick people of the world, and happy to pay my share, if that were possible. But it is not, and the danger is that a temporary economic uplift may be followed by the collapse, withdrawal or simple curtailing of such welfare systems, like the NHS, for all of us, including native Brits and migrants alike, who also will be suffering in the long term.

Finally, even if this cost were taken into account and the ECONOMIC benefit still proved greater, Ms Rudd, who had campaigned to remain in the EU, needs to be reminded that life is not all about money. And she would benefit from reading the above editorial, right from the top.

LONDON 2014

It is extraordinary that in the year 2013, the year of Margaret Thatcher's death, a Conservative party Chancellor (British Finance Minister) succumbed to political rather than popular pressure and announced measures to "help the housing market." Within months of the announcement and before its implementation, there were claims (denied) that the UK housing market was overheating, London house prices were rocketing, and prices overall in the country rose by just under 10%.

"We learn from history that man never learns from history." And politicians never learn 1) it is foolish trying to outsmart a free market, and 2) as Margaret Thatcher showed, you should never let pressure override your belief in what is right.

Such measures belong to state managed or socialist economies, and it was Margaret Thatcher who had shown the world that they are doomed to failure in the long run. Even if successful in their short term objective, such measures always come back to haunt us because the simple rule is that free markets are too big, too unpredictable and too complex to be interfered with, and interference will do more harm than good, simply because they distort supply and demand. This is the very advantage of a free market, that it is the best, most efficient, and fastest possible method of responding to the needs of the people. A free market is nothing more than the collective voice of a free people daily expressing their needs and wants, not in words but in deeds. It is truthful information. If you mess around with that, you can only harm the people in the long run, not help them.

ISSUES FACING POST-RECOVERY BRITAIN

The UK economy is reported to be on the path to a healthy recovery from a long recession triggered by the financial crisis of 2008. Some predict it will overtake the German economy by 2030. As we say elsewhere, graph curves should be treated with caution because they tend to change direction. All our curves change as we age, and the future never turns out exactly as we expected it, but the current economic climate does look good.

On this website, under our Europe page, we express some fears and reservations about the survival of the European Union in its present form. It is not going to change any time soon but there are voices in every existing member country against more integration and unification. Many Germans, for example, resent being paymasters to Europe, constantly having to bail out other members with their money. In the UK the catalyst may be the issue of immigration from the poorer countries of the EU. All this before even vast countries like Turkey or the Ukraine have joined.

The British preoccupation with the issue of immigration is so old as to be traditional, but it cannot be ignored and certainly not dismissed. A very conservative people, the British have a certain way of life which, with all its faults, has given them stability, security and relative peace over centuries. It has also given them a certain social cohesion and tolerance, despite entire swathes of cities being populated by immigrants. Apart from a major historical event, there is only one thing that can change a country's way of life and it is a change in demographics. Many are complaining against the results of recent immigration, from pressure on schools, to daily things like the sudden increase in smokers in public places, being served in superstores by people who do not speak English, and longer waiting times in doctors' waiting rooms.

This is unfortunate because some immigrants will make a great contribution to Britain, just as past immigrants have done. It is always the numbers that are worrying, plus of course the fact that life is not just about money.

There will be a protest vote at the next British election and all anti-immigration parties will make political gain. If that gain is considerable, we should be prepared for blood on the political floor. Winning outright is unlikely, but if they hold the balance of power, we should all be prepared for an exciting few years, if not a rough ride.

We are not discussing here who or what is right and wrong. Only what the consequences will be, if the river flows in this direction. Exit from the European Union is not an experiment done before, but there is always a first time and we should be in no doubt about the magnitude of such an event and its ramifications on the British economy, British society, Europe and the rest of the world.

In an attempt to deflect such an electoral outcome, the current government has promised a referendum on British EU membership after the general election. Anyone who tries to predict the outcome would be foolish. So many things will have changed by then, we do not even know for sure there will be a referendum. But it is a safe bet that, if the economy is doing well at the time, people will vote for no change and the UK (plus also an independent Scotland?) will stay in the EU. If the economy is doing badly, anything can happen.

It would have been good to hear a dispassionate, non-adversarial discussion. We are not going to get that. What we will get is a shouting match between interested parties, each fighting their corner, political or otherwise.

I remember one famous high street store chain pushing hard for Britain to join the Euro, because a lot of their London customers came over from Europe. A few years later, during the Greek crisis, I would have liked to ask them if they believed they were wrong.

One should never be swayed by rhetoric, and the present is not always a good predictor of the future.

How can anyone plan ahead with such uncertainties? When in doubt, trust the free markets to give you the most accurate information possible from day to day, and simply respond to that.

DISCLAIMER

The content on these pages does not constitute professional advice, as it does not take account of individual circumstances.

LONDON 2013

Mourning the loss of Don Percival, a true gentleman and close personal friend along with his family, who loved helping others, and a man who did so much for the British music industry. Great sadness.


Don with José Carreras