Big news on the UK domain front. Nominet's years of commercial overreach have finally caught up with it. (It was at its best as a lean, mean organisation focused exclusively on running the UK namespace well.) Members had enough.
Five founding members of the original Nominet lend their weight to a letter calling for the appointment of specific interim directors (who were originally going to be the subject of a second EGM resolution, before Nominet refused.)
In other words, strict restrictions on travel meant very few deaths, virtually no change to day to day life, and comparatively little economic damage. Simple.
The pandemic is global. Brexit mainly affected our relationship with the EU (of course some third country trade deals were not rolled over, but most were).
Telling that food and drink trade with the EU fell 75.5% but with non-EU countries it only fell 11.1%.
The net effect is that the % of trade the UK does with non-EU countries has gone up and the % of trade it does with the EU has gone down, because that's just a matter of ratios.
However, the VALUE of the trade has fallen very substantially in both cases.
To expand on this...
As you can see, our non-EU trade in food and drink went up from 39% to 69% of all our trade, when comparing January 2021 to January 2020.
Our EU trade fell from 61% to 31% of all our trade.
Dominic Raab, on increasing the number of Trident nuclear warheads: "Because it is the ultimate guarantee, the ultimate insurance policy against the worst threat from hostile states."
Except it's not, because they will only be used in circumstances where we're already dead.
Remember, they're second strike weapons. They're not meant to be fired first.
But if we're retaliating against a massive nuclear attack, almost everyone not in a cosy government bunker will be a glowing pile of ash. So there is zero protective value to having dozens more.
Plus, when you think about it, any PM who ordered their use is the biggest idiot of all time.
If we're really talking about a situation where there was a mass nuclear exchange, we need as much of the world to survive as possible so there's an eventual chance of rebuilding.
Everything is so disturbingly cheap-looking... Thin carpets, rubbish chairs, flat-pack quality furniture, flags that will crackle with static when you get within ten paces, etc.
And yet £2.6 million of OUR money was sent up in smoke chasing this particular white elephant.
You can see how desperately they've tried to copy the White House, down to the shape of the lectern.
Notice how, unlike ours, the US version hasn't been kitted out by PlasticsRUS. (Not saying it's the height of luxury, but it's several ranks above our amateur effort.)