We need to talk about drugs. Of course we do. Even @CommonsSpeaker does. But, unlike me, he’s just picking up traces from the loos near @BorisJohnson’s office.
I’ve been watching Yellow Submarine. And it got me thinking about the state of the world.
A trip … I mean, thread./1.
If you’re sensible, unlike me you’ll have had better things to do than hang out with the crowd who are busy trying to dismantle the foundations of what we’ve fondly thought of as civilised life. /2.
(We’ll be a lot fonder of it once it’s gone. So let’s not overdose on the self-criticism …).
Who are they? Political actors. Massively wealthy, often cynical, self-appointed visionaries. Journalist & academic satraps. Forget voters: the whole point is they should be putty. /3.
Before we go any further, allow me to underline that my experience is there are some very fine people. In politics. Among billionaires. And in journalism & academia. It’s just that they’re losing. And have been for a couple of decades at least. Much worse in the last decade./4.
What is it which unites the wreckers?
I’m naming no names.
But if I say we’ve seen bizarre & erratic thought processes detached from any rational appreciation of external reality, I suspect a few famous faces will come to mind. /5.
It’s hardly controversial to say we’ve experienced aggressive, irritable, panicky, even psychotic behaviour, by numerous prominent figures in public life.
An extreme & unreasonable distrust of others is well-evidenced in the heightened xenophobia of the last years. /6.
In private, it’s routine to be deluged with disorganised thinking, paranoia, mood changes & phantasmagorical beliefs of such a scale & nature its hard to believe the individuals concerned aren’t having visual, auditory & perhaps other as yet unknown kinds of hallucinations./7.
Now I don’t know about you, but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck … etc., then it doesn’t really matter if it is one.
It might as well be.
(OK, that’s a cat, below, in case you were getting worried). /8.
Since everything I’ve described corresponds to US National Institutes of Health cocaine & LSD symptoms guidance, perhaps I’ve just been unlucky with the particular anarcho-authoritarians I’ve got to know best
Or there’s a pattern here.
Multicoloured & shifting, no doubt./9. End
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🤡 If you wonder how the UK got itself into such a disastrous position, look no further than @SirSocks & @NJ_Timothy.
🤡 One, an ex Downing St press secretary & ambassador to the US.
🤡 The other, an ex Downing St co-chief of staff. /1.
🤡 Neither, if you credit what they say, understands the NI Protocol or the Good Friday Agreement. Or what was said by those they seek to mock for not understanding precisely those agreements.
🤡 I’d try to help out. But I know each is well past listening.
🤡 It’s deeply depressing & more than a little disturbing to realise, as they foolishly reveal themselves by how they now sound off in public, the nature of some of the individuals who were entrusted with advising ministers over the years. /3.
Talking of the narrow, perceived advantage which makes the eyes of certain politicians become round with fear & excitement, this recent poll of 2019 Conservative voters explains a lot of recent government behaviour. /3.
Northern Ireland is benefitting economically from the NI Protocol. The data are clear. So are the reasons for them.
A short 🧵.
(i) relative to GB, NI business is doing well because NI hasn’t been ripped out of the EU single market & customs union /1.
(ii) additionally, GB business is being diverted to/via NI, to avoid damage being caused in GB by it having being ripped out of the EU single market & customs union
So, NI is benefitting substantially.
Is this a reason to celebrate the NI Protocol? /2.
No.
The NIP is the result of the disastrous decision to go for the Johnson-Frost Brexit. What did that do? Oh yes: ripped the country out of the EU single market & customs union.
It’s reassuring & welcome that NI is doing well under the NIP arrangements. /3.
“The British public demand a clamp-down on migration”
🌍The truth
🔵An overwhelming majority of the British public support people being able to take refuge here.
A 🧵/1.
“The British public demand a clamp-down on migration”
🌍The truth
🔵This century* there’s never been a British majority negative toward immigration. The current figure is 26%.
*Since the European Social Survey began in 2002. /2.
“The British public demand a clamp-down on migration”
🌍The truth
🔵In the last 30 years* there’s never been a British majority worried about immigration as a key issue. Except for one brief moment in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum.
A. Go it alone
B. Be civilised
C. Control your border
B+C: needs intense, sustained, multilateral, international cooperation. Forget A.
A+B: no effective border regime. Forget C.
A+C: be like East Germany. Forget civilisation.
P.S. I know: East Germany was, infamously, trying to keep people in, perhaps more than keep others out. (Actually it was both).
But the point’s the same: how do you “control” a border?
And stay civilised.
P.P.S. For the avoidance of doubt: I don’t just make this stuff up. I know you’d never think that …
Over many years, I worked at various times (mainly as a government official) on: asylum/migration; frontier controls; organised crime; maritime law; international development.