“Monarchy is God’s sacred mission to grace and dignify the Earth,” her elderly grandmother, Queen Mary, tells Elizabeth early in the show.
The second season of the series portrays the queen as someone who, feeling betrayed by a family member, wrestled deeply with questions of faith and forgiveness. The show also depicts her budding relationship with famous American evangelist Billy Graham, who drew millions of people to his “crusades” across the globe and was a friend to many U.S. presidents.”
Opinion Writer
“In December, as many as 500 patients per week were dying in Britain because of E.R. waits, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, a figure rivaling (and perhaps surpassing) the death toll from Covid-19. On average, English ambulances were taking an hour and a half to respond to stroke and heart-attack calls, compared with a target time of 18 minutes; nationwide, 10 times as many patients spent more than four hours waiting in emergency rooms as did in 2011. The waiting list for scheduled treatments recently passed seven million — more than 10 percent of the country — prompting nurses to strike. The National Health Service has been in crisis for years, but over the holidays, as wait times spiked, the crisis moved to the very center of a narrative of national decline.
Post-Covid, the geopolitical order has been thrown into tumult. At the beginning of the pandemic, commentators wondered about the fate of the United States, its indifferent political leadership and its apparently diminished “state capacity.” Lately, they have focused more on the sudden weakness of China: its population in decline, its economy struggling more than it has in decades, its “zero Covid” reversal a sign of both political weakness and political overreach, depending on whom you ask.
But the descent of Britain is in many ways more dramatic. By the end of next year, the average British family will be less well off than the average Slovenian one, according to a recent analysis by John Burn-Murdoch at The Financial Times; by the end of this decade, the average British family will have a lower standard of living than the average Polish one.”
David Lindsay: Impressive columne, but why. Here the top comments, helps move the analysis along.
Its interesting how Britain’s decline in real wages coincides closely with the dramatic drop in their corporate tax rates – from 30% in 2008 to 19% today. Conservatives follow the same recipe everywhere – fund tax reductions on corporations and the wealthy by cutting government programs. Motivate voters with xenophobic fear-of-the-other tropes. Rinse and repeat.
Ms. Gold is a journalist who writes about Britain’s politics, culture and everyday life.
“PENZANCE, England — For 40 days, Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain has ridden a roller coaster of ridicule.
Her “mini budget,” on which she hung her free-market credentials, was a disaster: Bond yields rocketed, the pound tanked, and the markets, far from gratified, were distinctly upset. To mitigate the damage, she reversed a tax cut for high earners — and was rewarded with more mockery. At the Conservative Party conference, protesters played loud clown music, and the police refused to intervene, as sure a sign of a failing administration in Britain as the storming of the Winter Palace in Russia.
Embattled, Ms. Truss raged against the “anti-growth” coalition, opponents of her supposed revitalization of the British economy through tax cuts. It is a remarkably capacious coalition, with room for King Charles III (who last week greeted her with the chilling words “Back again. Dear, oh, dear”), the BBC and most of the Conservative Party. To judge from the polls, which put Labour 33 points ahead of the Conservatives and Ms. Truss’s approval rating at minus 47, the country is in that camp, too.
On Friday, things got worse still. Ms. Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng, her chancellor and friend, and replaced him with Jeremy Hunt, a Tory moderate who has torn up the rest of her economic platform with the performative solemnity of a disappointed teacher. The dreaded letters of no confidence are flooding in, and Conservative lawmakers are talking about changing the leadership rules — she is supposed to have a year’s grace — to dethrone her. Ms. Truss may limp on, but she is without power. For all intents and purposes, her prime ministership is finished.”
David Lindsay: Excellent essay and comments. Here is one of my favorite comments:’
For almost 40 years, since the days of Thatcher and Reagan, tax cuts have been the Tory/Republican cure-all for every ill. All of this in spite of the fact that data has shown they do not drive the massive growth promised. How about a new economic idea from that side of the aisle? The only new other idea out of the Tories over the past few decades has been Brexit. How’s that working out? Where’s the massive growth that was supposed to generate? But at least that is some semblance of an idea with a theory behind it (however flawed). Over the past few years, in the absence of any coherent policy on virtually any topic, Republicans here have pretty much only touted three proposals other than tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations: Repealing the ACA to, in effect, cancel heath care subsidies for tens of millions; eliminating a woman’s right to privacy over her own body; and the notion that every election they don’t win must have been fraudulently rigged. despite no evidence, simply because they say so. It’s hard to be optimistic right now, for either country.
Opinion Columnist
“Britain is in a very difficult economic position. The British economy, like the U.S. economy, seems to be seriously overheated, with substantial amounts of inflation driven by high domestic demand. Unlike America, it is also facing the full force of Europe’s energy crisis, driven by the efforts of President Vladimir Putin of Russia to use a shut off of natural gas to bully the West into abandoning Ukraine.
So many of us expected Britain’s economy to go through a rough patch in the months, or maybe even years, ahead. What few foresaw, as far as I can tell, was a policy zombie apocalypse.”
.
Jonathan Pie and
Jonathan Pie is a fictional newscaster created by the British comedian Tom Walker. Mr. Westbrook is a producer and editor with Opinion Video.
“So Liz Truss will be Britain’s next prime minister — the nation’s fourth in seven years. And she’s inheriting a nation falling apart at the seams.
Ms. Truss’s victory on Monday followed a long summer of overlapping and escalating crises in the country: Inflation soared to double-digit figures and continues to rise; nationwide strikes have crippled the train networks, the postal service and trash collections; a heat wave brought the first drought in 20 years; and Brexit and the pandemic conspired to ruin many families’ first overseas vacations in three years.
On top of all of that, the government has been unable to prevent Britain’s energy companies from raising electricity and natural gas prices to levels that for many residents are simply unaffordable. The average household energy bill will nearly double between now and October, to 3,549 pounds a year (about $4,200).”
“Absolutely not, despite years of warnings from its official climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee. “We’ve been telling the government for over 10 years that we are nothing like well enough prepared in the UK for the really hot weather we are seeing now,” said Lady Brown, the CCC’s deputy chair.
The CCC’s five-yearly assessment in 2021 concluded the government was failing to protect people from a fast-rising risk. The report said: “Alarmingly, this new evidence shows the gap between the level of risk we face and the level of adaptation under way has widened [since 2016]. The UK has the capacity and the resources to respond effectively, yet it has not done so … Little preventative action is being taken to address health risks from overheating in buildings, and in homes in particular.”
The CCC’s experts said they were frustrated by the “absolutely illogical” lack of action on adaptation, particularly as acting is up to 10 times more cost-effective than not doing so. The CCC’s repeated call for heat-proofing standards for new homes was long rejected by ministers, who cited a commitment to “reduce net regulation on homebuilders”. “
Source: Why is the UK so unprepared for extreme heat and what can be done? | Extreme weather | The Guardian
“Oil giants like BP and Shell as well as Iberdrola, the Spanish utility, look like the big winners in Scotland’s first offshore wind auction, whose results were announced on Monday.
If the proposed wind farms are constructed, they would triple Britain’s capacity to generate electricity from turbines at sea.
They would also advance still nascent plans to transform the Scottish North Sea region from oil and gas production into a major area for renewable electric power.
“This is not just going to be a matter of producing green power,” said Soeren Lassen, head of offshore wind at Wood Mackenzie, a market research firm. “This is fuel to build up a green economy,” he added.”
Ms. McKay is an Irish journalist who writes extensively about the politics and culture of Northern Ireland.
“BELFAST, Northern Ireland — It was meant to be a year of celebration.
But Northern Ireland, created in 1921 when Britain carved six counties out of Ireland’s northeast, is not enjoying its centenary. Its most ardent upholders, the unionists who believe that the place they call “our wee country” is and must forever remain an intrinsic part of the United Kingdom, are in utter disarray. Their largest party has ousted two leaders within a matter of weeks, while an angry minority has taken to the streets waving flags and threatening violence. And the British government, in resolving Brexit, placed a new border in the Irish Sea.
It’s harsh reward for what Northern Ireland’s first prime minister, James Craig, called “the most loyal part of Great Britain.” But the Protestant statelet is not what it was. Well on its way to having a Catholic majority, the country’s once dominant political force — unionism — now finds itself out of step with the community that traditionally gave it uncritical support. And for all his talk of the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made clear his government would cheerfully ditch this last little fragment of Britain’s empire if it continues to complicate Brexit.
The writing is on the wall. While the process by which Ireland could become unified is complicated and fraught, one thing seems certain: There isn’t going to be a second centenary for Northern Ireland. It might not even last another decade.” . . .
“PARIS — It is done at last. On Jan. 1, with the Brexit transition period over, Britain will no longer be part of the European Union’s single market and customs union. The departure will be ordered, thanks to a last-minute deal running to more than 1,200 pages, but still painful to both sides. A great loss will be consummated.
Loss for the European Union of one of its biggest member states, a major economy, a robust military and the tradition, albeit faltering, of British liberalism at a time when Hungary and Poland have veered toward nationalism.
Loss for Britain of diplomatic heft in a world of renewed great power rivalry; of some future economic growth; of clarity over European access for its big financial services industry; and of countless opportunities to study, live, work and dream across the continent.
The national cry of “take back control” that fired the Brexit vote in an outburst of anti-immigrant fervor and random grievances withered into four and a half years of painful negotiation pitting a minnow against a mammoth. Posturing encountered reality. The British economy is less than one-fifth the size of the bloc’s. President Trump is leaving office, and with him goes any hope of a rapid offsetting British-American trade agreement.
“Brexit is an act of mutual weakening,” Michel Barnier, the chief European Union negotiator, told the French daily Le Figaro.
But the weakening is uneven. Britain is closer to fracture. The possibility has increased that Scotland and Northern Ireland will opt to leave the United Kingdom and, by different means, rejoin the European Union. The bloc, by contrast, has in some ways been galvanized by the trauma of Brexit. It has overcome longstanding obstacles, lifted its ambitions and reignited the Franco-German motor of closer union.
“Brexit i not good news for anyone, but it has unquestionably contributed to a reconsolidation of Europe, which demonstrated its unity throughout the negotiations,” François Delattre, the secretary-general of the French foreign ministry, said.
The European Union — prodded by Brexit, facing the coronavirus pandemic, and confronting the hostility of Mr. Trump — has done things previously unimaginable. It has taken steps in a quasi-federal direction that Britain always opposed.
Germany abandoned a tenacious policy of austerity. The federalization of European debt, long taboo for the Germans, became possible. The European Union can now borrow as a government does — a step toward sovereign stature and a means to finance the $918 billion pandemic recovery fund that a British presence would probably have blocked.
“Brexit made Angela Merkel willing to abandon positions that had been sacred,” said Karl Kaiser, a former head of the German Council on Foreign Relations. “There has long been a debate about widening or deepening the European Union. Well, it has deepened.” . . .
Thank you Roger Cohen, your reporting is like Visa and Mastercard, priceless. I am thinking of a second story to organize. Was Brexit possibly the brainchild or Vladimir Putin of Russia, or did the Russians really help push the Brexit vote into victory? It appears that the only real winner of Brexit, is Russia. I read that the largest google search the UK after the historic and tragic vote was, “What is Brexit?” Is it true that the cheapest and least professional newspapers, especially Rupert Murdoch’s, pushed the Brexit division along, in a publishing war, for who could sell the most scandal mongering tabloids, and did the main stream papers make the mistake of competing with some of their own junk. What a colossal mess. It has been a fabulous four years for Putin. Maybe Time Magazine missed a beat this week, when they named Biden and Harris as Person of the Year, when the big winner of 2020 was Vladimir Putin.
David Lindsay Jr. is the author of “The Tay Son Rebellion, Historical Fiction of Eighteenth Century Vietnam” and blogs about the environment at TheTaySonRebellion.com and InconvenientNews.wordpress.com.
“LONDON — Scotland has become the first country in the world to make period products freely available to all who need them, after final approval was given to a landmark piece of legislation in Parliament on Tuesday.
The measures are intended to end “period poverty” — or the circumstances, and in some cases, prohibitive expense that have left many without access to sanitary products when they need them.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, posted on Twitter shortly after the vote on Tuesday evening that she was “proud to vote for this groundbreaking legislation” which she called an “important policy for women and girls.”
A draft bill received initial approval in Parliament in February, and the measure was officially passed on Tuesday, with lawmakers voting unanimously in its favor.”
NYC and Connecticut Theater News and Reviews
On World Affairs: Politics, the Environment, the Drug Wars, and the Arts
Providing more on Environmental and Resource Economics
Politics, Economics, the Environment, and the Arts
The latest news on WordPress.com and the WordPress community.
InconvenientNews.Net 