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Nick🇬🇧🇪🇺 Profile picture
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14 Mar, 4 tweets, 1 min read
+UPDATE+

After stopping ERASMUS for UK students, Boris Johnson is to effectively end the VSO - which supports thousands of young people working & teaching abroad - mostly in the Commonwealth.

200 staff at the Voluntary Services Org. to lose their jobs.

thetimes.co.uk/article/vso-to…
Those with long memories may remember I suggested a smart way to get young people not so anti Brexit..& do something really useful & characters-forming would be to make an international study/work/teaching gap year free for all.

VSO would be an ideal vehicle for this.

Now gone.
3/
While ERASMUS was always a clearly European thing...the VSO has impeccable conservative credentials grounded in the Commonwealth with (past) strong establishment support, royal family engagement & a business model that was relatively cheap.

This is institutional vandalism.
4/
At this stage it really wouldn’t surprise me if the govt ended its backing for the ESU.

This govt seems almost in love with cultural & institutional destruction - no matter what the target.

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More from @nicktolhurst

Nick🇬🇧🇪🇺 Profile picture
12 Mar
+MEDIA UPDATE+

One of Britain’s most critically acclaimed news-comedy shows - The Mash Report - is to be axed as part of the new post-Brexit emphasis on more “patriotic & Conservative television”.
2/
The new BBC director Tim Davie - a prominent Conservative supporter of Boris Johnson - has been tasked with a radical overhaul of BBC comedy programming which has been perceived as too left wing & not pro Brexit.
3/
The Mash Report was publicly identified as one of the early targets for cancellation by Boris Johnson’s “anti-woke unit” as it was highly popular with a younger demographic who tend not to get their news via either official news channels nor Govt friendly press.
Read 12 tweets
Nick🇬🇧🇪🇺 Profile picture
10 Mar
I know Twitter doesn’t really like nuance - but here goes anyway.

I’ve been increasingly disturbed by the reporting around Meghan & the royal family because I hold 2 views that seem to put me in 2 different utterly ideological warring camps.
2/
First statement:

Meghan has been vilified & treated atrociously by UK press beyond what even Diana had to put up with on all levels racist, sexist and just plain nasty

However...
3/
2nd statement

Altho it’s not fashionable to say it As someone who worked in FCO I can say royal family & queen in particular have been active in anti racism - in some cases at personal cost to herself.
Anyone who knows queens discreet C’Wealth actions knows this to be true.
Read 8 tweets
Nick🇬🇧🇪🇺 Profile picture
9 Mar
+UPDATE+

Talk in Whitehall that the UK govt is planning a “reorganisation” of Civil servants in the Northern Ireland Office as too many are perceived as too “neutralist”.
2/
Recruitment into the Northern Ireland Office was generally handled deliberately in a more sensitive way and with an emphasis on neutrality & a “making things work” attitude and less on unionism.
3/
This interesting in this context.

Read 5 tweets
Nick🇬🇧🇪🇺 Profile picture
9 Mar
+UPDATE+

UK govt sitting on report that it’s replacement for the Erasmus scheme - The Turing Scheme - won’t work as envisaged and will cost vastly more than estimated.
2/
One of the problems highlighted is that as govt only intends to fund UK students this doesn’t create the synergies & goodwill of Erasmus which depends on reciprocity.

Foreign unis won’t have incentive to cooperate - merely to charge UK students/govt as much fees as they can.
3/
Secondly, because of this bureaucratic costs with the UK scheme is likely to be far higher than Erasmus - “like a thousand ad hoc schemes” - with all the hassle & administration deadweight costs associated with such fragmented ventures.
Read 10 tweets
Nick🇬🇧🇪🇺 Profile picture
9 Mar
+UPDATE+

Biden govt “unnerved” by Boris Johnson’s new “Global Britain” defence plans.

New UK defence review suggests an aggressive move for UK autonomy in Asia and less resources to defend UK’s immediate continental threats such as Russia.
2/
New US administration reported to be perturbed by a UK move that could antagonise China - where UK may not have the power/resources to deal with the consequences and that a move away from common European defence could lead to a more EU autonomous military structure.
3/
Very interesting article on this in today’s @FT as well.

This has created quite the stir in US circles.

ft.com/content/4a0022…
Read 5 tweets
Nick🇬🇧🇪🇺 Profile picture
9 Mar
+UPDATE+

A number of Conservative MPs are reported to have admitted privately that they are “unclear” on Boris Johnson’s actual Brexit negotiating strategy or aims....

...apart from escalating a row with the EU as it “works well with the press”.
2/
While such a strategy as a tactic leaves the UK govt plenty of room for manoeuvre...

...it’s nots really clear this is an efficient way to speed up negotiations or builds up the required levels of trust with the EU to optimise future negotiation outcomes.
3/
Also leaves open the door for misunderstanding on EUs side.

Can the EU be relied upon to treat all UK govt communication & even actions as “principally aimed for domestic consumption”, that should be ignored even as it makes the EUs work more complex & difficult to manage?
Read 4 tweets

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