Suchergebnisse

Electoral politics have moved once again centre stage in Europe over the past month, with Labour and Conservative party conferences in the UK and a historic election in Germany. France too is preparing for elections next year and elsewhere electoral calculations are also heavily shaping the agenda for the next couple of years. None of this promises to ease post-Brexit relations between the EU and the UK.

My very first column for this blog back in 2018 was a plea to manage Brexit well, addressed mostly to the UK but also the EU. In order to restore, or safeguard whatever was left of, trust in politics and public institutions. Once the 2016 referendum had served up Brexit, whatever that was taken to mean, it was imperative on all sides to carry it through and make the best of it. Clearly, the first part happened, the second didn't, whatever the situation will be onthe 1stof January.

In politics there are no friends, only interests, to fudge and combine two hackneyed phrases on the subject. But what does that still mean in an era in which acting against our own interests is becoming the norm? From the 2007 financial crisis to Brexit, the handling of the corona pandemic, the war in Ukraine and inaction on climate change, the last couple of decades have been marked by startling acts of national and societal self-harm. The previous century started in a similar vein, and see what that got us.

Last week marked a further drifting apart of the EU and the UK, albeit in a way that should gladden the heart of those who advocate transparency and accountability. In a move that was at least in part aimed against British regulations that have made London the 'libel capital of the world', the EU introduced legislation to limit Slapps, strategic lawsuits against public participation. Such cases are often brought by wealthy individuals or companies against journalists, media organisations and NGO's that publish stories and reports that are unfavourable to them. The lawsuits have a chilling effect on public debate and the ability of journalists to do their work. The proposed EU legislation specifically allows courts to ignore judgments from non-EU countries, i.e. the UK, where many of such cases are brought.

As we enter 2022 after a turbulent couple of years, you, perhaps like me, have been considering possible New Years' resolutions. I've also been thinking about what the West Midlands might have as its New Years' resolutions as we look ahead to the next decade.

Almost two years ago to the day, Covid-19 began spiralling throughout the UK. Little did we know, this new strain of Coronavirus would change the way we lived for the next two years, at least. From national lockdowns to strict social distancing guidelines, the ripple effects of the pandemic have impacted every inch of society.

News that, according to the data produced by the ONS (Office for National Statistics), the consumer price index (CPI) has risen over the last twelve months to 5.5% in December is not good news Nachiappan (2022). Given that only just over a year ago, in January 2021, CPI for the UK was 0.7%, it's possible to see that there's been a marked increase over the last year (Martin, 2022).

As the economies in the West are facing the very real prospect of stagflation, we have seen a shift in thinking. As oil and gas prices are going through the roof following the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, energy security rather than net-zero has for the moment moved up on the agenda. Larry Summers the former US Treasury secretary in an interview for the BBC this week argued on the that any recessionary impact from those higher prices would be less hard than what we experienced due to Covid. He also thought that any worsening in this prognosis that might follow a decision at any point to cut Russia's ability to export oil and gas to the West would be worth it in the longer term as ' freedom has its price' and restoring world order was paramount.

Tuesday's announcement by the ONS (Office for National Statistics), tells us much about the state of the economy. That UK unemployment fell from 3.9% to 3.8% in the three months to February, back to its pre-pandemic levels (October-December 2019), suggests an economy that's recovered from the shock caused by lockdowns and prospects for workers are good.

The second largest exporter of coal and one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gases on a per capita basis, Australia's progress on climate change has been labelled 'unambitious' at best, and a 'catastrophic failure' at worst.

Having been in Ireland over the weekend, the first time since 2019, I was interested to see how its economy is doing in the aftermath of Brexit. My travel, which originally planned to fly to Belfast and travel across the border, was altered because of the problems being experienced with airlines. Instead, we used the car ferry to Dublin and drove to our hotel which is just south of the border in the Republic.

Just before Christmas the UK Government released its figures for public spending for the year up to March 2021. These revealed a whopping £29 billion (£29 thousand million) spent in Northern Ireland – an unprecedented increase of nearly one third on the previous year. This amounts to a huge £15,000 for each person in NI, or £60,000 for a couple with two children. This spending includes the cost of all public services plus social security. Across the whole UK this would normally be financed mainly by taxation but NI has never generated much more than half the tax revenue needed to fund its public services. In the latest year tax revenues from NI amounted to only 40% of the cost of public services. The rest comes from taxpayers in GB, from Treasury borrowing, and in the Covid crisis by the Bank of England printing new money.

The signs are not good for the EU on the Northern Ireland Protocol. Collapse is in the air but of course the EU wants to maintain an evolving fiction that the UK's legal obligations will be fully realized once a few tweaks are negotiated to make trade flow more easily across the Irish Sea border. Meanwhile, the UK has been on a 'go slow' in implementing the Protocol ever since it came into force at the start of 2021. A unilateral grace period was imposed by Lord Frost to suspend EU checks of food products and a ban on imports of chilled meat. The EU took legal action but with not much to gain in practice little has subsequently been heard of the legal case. Further grace periods were agreed by the EU in mid-2021 to avoid the threat of further unilateral action.

What are the implications for Brexit for manufacturing supply chains? This is the focus of a new open-access paper just available in Regional Studies, co-authored by Alex de Ruyter, David Hearne and Raquel Ortega-Argilés. We look at the impact of post-Brexit trade dis-integration on the automotive sector in the East and West Midlands of the UK as a long-run slow burn process and consider the ramifications for industrial policy and resilience. We suggest these are illuminating case studies given their vulnerabilities to Brexit disruption due to the intricate nature of the auto supply chain's trading relationships with the EU.

From 1968 until 1976, all users gas appliances were converted from 'town gas' to what was proclaimed to be a cleaner and cheaper alternative, 'natural', North Sea gas. Significantly, it's interesting to note that in 1970, central heating was still regarded by many as a luxury item. The percentage of households with central heating systems in the UK was 30% though would double by 1980 and rise steadily to 96% by 2010-2015, dipping very slightly since (Statista, 2022).