Keir Starmer says it's wrong to say that only women have a cervix. He knows that isn't true. We know it isn't true. The whole of the Labour front bench knows it isn't true and so does every woman. Yet to avoid the wrath of the left, the Labour party, universities and public institutions have to pretend otherwise.  This is not without consequence. The Lords says that transgender prisoners who identify as female and have been convicted of sexual offences should be housed in male prisons. Police forces are recording suspected and convicted rapists as female if they say they are. The of ..read more

Tonight I am furious. A young man has been rushed to hospital after he was stabbed repeatedly in Hyde Park, London. A large fight broke out with several youths armed with knives seen stabbing the man as he fell to the ground. I saw machetes. The only time I've seen similar footage is from Soweto in Sough Africa. From what I can see, and to the surprise of nobody, they were black. This, just a week after Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson was shot in the head by four black gunmen. Beyond the fury I feel, it just break my heart because for this to happen in Hyde Park, London, in the f ..read more

Wearing a yellow star at a protest, according to Twitter, is strictly off limits. No debate allowed. I would agree that it's in very poor taste but groupthinkers will always declare contentious assertions to be in poor taste and off limits rather than engage with the substance. It's a highly effective way of discouraging people from airing contrary opinions. Whenever I'm at the centre of a Twitter storm, which is at least every three months, it's usually because the blue tickers of polite society have declared something I've said is far beyond the pale. I'm not just wrong... I'm evil. I'm of ..read more

I've stirred up a hornet's nest on Twitter. Again. This time regarding the people who showed up to the anti-lockdown protest wearing yellow star badges. Straight off the bat I said it was crude and "perhaps inappropriate" which is not unequivocal enough for Twitter so all the blue tickers have piled in to call me an antisemite for pointing out that there are certain parallels, assuming that the point pertains to vaccine passports. Just for clarity, I have absolutely no animosity toward Jews or Israel except for the horrible paint job on their F15s which caused me no end of problems when I ..read more

There was a huge anti-lockdown demonstration in London yesterday. About this time last year I was saying the people led us into lockdown and they will lead us out again when the time is right. I do not know for a fact if that time is now, but I generally trust the instinct of the crowd if not their arguments. The facts are that Covid is generally a winter virus. There is a vaccine the powers that be thinks is going to work, masks are of limited use, and people are fed up with it all.   So is that latter factor reason enough to open up? To a point, yes. Government has to be by consent ..read more

The media likes to talk about "customs paperwork" as though it were an insurmountable nightmare. It used to be but it's far simpler now than it ever has been. There are dozens of free-to-use online portals to create the necessary documentation. The forms themselves are designed to a UN standard - United Nations/Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport (UN/EDIFACT), approved and published by UNECE. Every form, be it a certificate of origin (eCert) or SPS certificate, has its own XML schema which are now universal. There's about forty different types but for mo ..read more

While we're on the subject of CPTPP, I thought it interesting that the media's third favourite trade wonk, Hosuk Lee-Makiyama (and to my mind the only one ever saying anything worthwhile), should confirm much of what I had assumed. In an older paper written for Daniel Hannan's Initiative for Free Trade (IFT), Makiyama writes: First, CPTPP and other FTAs do not contain provisions that actually set regulatory standards, but ensures the sovereigns regulate in the most non-discriminatory fashion possible. In other words, CPTPP and other trade agreements voluntarily bind its members to refr ..read more

The UK is applying to join a free trade area made up of 11 Asia and Pacific nations, under its post-Brexit plans. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership - or CPTPP - includes Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand. Hitherto now I've been somewhat sceptical in that one wonders what value there is in joining a regional trade agreement on the other side of the planet comprising of members we already have comprehensive agreements with. Furthermore, it is not a regulatory union, and not all that deep in terms of regulatory cooperation. It largely builds on co ..read more

Not because of Brexit, but because of decisions taken by the Conservative government, Britain is going to lose a substantial chunk of its trade. This will be single market based trade we've evolved since the min-nineties. Trade that didn't really exist before and now we've lost those contracts will probably lose out to EU based competitors permanently. We're no longer part of those value chains. The red tape and the third country controls will see to that.  It is going to hurt more than it ever needed to because of a number of faulty assumptions during trade negotiations and because our ..read more

I rather thought I was going to enjoy pulling the wings off ultra-Brexiteer types as their delusions were skewered by the encroachment of reality but it's turning out to be meagre pickings since many of them are too stupid to even realise there is a problem and the rest are unwilling to believe it has anything at all to do with that thing they campaigned so intensively for.  he other problem is with me. I just can't be bothered. There's no real sport in it if it's easy prey. And of course, it scarcely matters now. What's done is done. The fishing industry is mostly getting what it deser ..read more