The Friday Blog: The fish and State Aid
The clock is ticking. There is not long left. Squeaky bum time. It is too close to call. I simply cannot bear to watch. It is a right nipper. Insert your favourite, most appropriate simile here. I could, I suppose be talking about the US Presidential Election, except, as you know, I do not do politics on here, and even if I did, I would not do somebody else’s. As the late, great Micky Gee once wrote, “I’m just a fool in another man’s land.”
What I am actually referring to is the thing that is attracting an increasing amount of my attention, and yours, I very much hope, too. Brexit. Which is where we started these Friday afternoons together in those halcyon days BC. They have been at it officially again in what was billed as “week long talks.” 1970s winter of discontent week long maybe. They did not start until Tuesday and went home at lunchtime today. Still, I suppose even those involved in the most important discussions of our lives, our children’s lives and probably our grandchildren’s lives, are entitled to a bit of work-life balance.
There are still differences. “The fish and State Aid” has now, I think, replaced “speculation is foolish” as the most frequently used phrase in these blogs. As always, it is hard to read what is coming out of the talks, and, unlike what we were talking about last week, it is largely a “leak” free zone. There does appear to have been some progress as far as I can tell. And on the fish as well. We will know soon enough. White smoke will be announcements that the two parties are heading into so called “submarine talks” next week. I think that is the European equivalent of a “deep dive,” an equally grating term, but a good sign nonetheless. It is promising also, that talks continue despite the fact that the EU may be considering legal action against the UK over the Internal Market Bill. The prospect of UK officials being summoned to the European Courts of Justice at some point in the middle of next year, is nothing if not an intriguing one. I am not sure what that would achieve in any event. Unlike the Court of Human Rights, the ECJ is not a supranational organisation, and cannot have the power to enforce sanctions on any sovereign state that does not wish to comply, let alone one outside the EU. Still, Brussels has written to Downing Street and Downing Street has said it will reply. I wonder if the term “do one” has ever appeared in official Government correspondence before.
Elsewhere, the Government’s luck has not improved much. After last week’s cunning stunt, the Cabinet Office communication machine reverted to its, of late hapless self. On Tuesday, it failed to adequately brief both the Minister being wheeled out to do the morning news rounds and the PM himself, on the fine detail of the additional restrictions being imposed on parts of the North East of England. To me, it was less dangerous incompetence (Keir Starmer’s charge) and more all a bit amateur hour. Boris had to concede that he had, indeed, misspoken, and chose to do so on, groan, Twitter. I know it is the modern way, but really? It makes him look about as statesman like as the other bloke whose name I will not mention because I do not do politics on here, and even if I did, I would not do somebody else’s. The message I took was that if those making the rules do not understand the restrictions properly, then we should not be too hard on ourselves for being permanently confused about what we can and cannot do without facing a fine. That is not, however, an excuse that will wash if you are an MP that has tested positive and willfully breaks the law by getting on a train. Margaret Ferrier has been roundly pilloried for her actions, and it is hard to see how she will still be an MP this time next week. But there are two elements to her story. The second one, the bit on the train post-positive test, is indefensible, having got herself in a bad position, she exacerbated it with a seriously bad error of judgement. But something compelled her to travel to work despite suffering symptoms. What was that, a sense of duty to her constituents or maybe she believed pressure was being put on her to turn up despite her own reservations and condition? Only she will know, but it is something we all have a responsibility to think carefully about.
Anyway, there might be some sort of method in the chaos of imposing a whole series of unconnected, slightly different restrictions across the country. At some point, the Government may want to convince us that it was its clever, adept marshaling of the pandemic that prevented a second national lockdown. It does beg the question, though, that if local restrictions exist in the North West of England, the North East of England, the Midlands, North Wales, South Wales, Scottish students are in goal until cap and gown time, and do not get all smug on me Londoners because you are next, then when is a national lockdown not a national lockdown?
That is a far more serious question that I just tried to make it sound, and is at the heart of some more grief HMG was copping in the Commons. MPs were miffed that restrictions were being imposed with no recourse to Parliament, and that is one thing that will really get their goat. For many who are not the Ministerial sort, or whose persuasion has condemned them to spend the best years of their lives on the opposition benches, holding the Government to account is about all they have left in their chosen profession. But this was a bit more serious for No. 10, because it was also under what we might call unfriendly fire. Its own revolting backbenchers, the sinister sounding 1922 Committee, had got the serious hump about proceedings. On Wednesday, they fielded Steve Baker to moan at the media. Remember him? He was the self-styled hard man of Brexit, who somehow became a Minister when we needed a Department for Exiting the European Union, and Theresa May needed to appease the swiveled eyed in her party. It did not do her much good, as Baker was one of the ones that did for her, a fact that may have influenced Boris’ inner sanctum to offer up some sort of concession. That and the fact that, immediately before Prime Minister’s questions on Wednesday, the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, launched a withering attack on the way Government was conducting itself. It was not much of a concession in the end. HMG would consult Parliament “whenever possible,” probably when restrictions were national in nature. And the concession, offered by our Matt Hancock, came in the same session when the Government was granted additional executive powers. Still, gift horses and all that. It does pick up a theme that has been a source of considerable concern for a couple of years now amongst policy watchers. The timetable associated with Brexit always threatened to reduce the amount of scrutiny legislation was subject to, a situation since aggravated by COVID. The perceived wisdom is that with a majority of 80, this administration can do pretty much what it wants, but this week may have sent the proverbial across its bows. There are parallels in the Lords, where the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill, a short piece of legislation designed not to be amended, a fact pointed out to me with an air of something vaguely approaching menace by the Bill team, now has 33 pages of amendments and counting, as it awaits a date for committee stage. Lords know how many pages those for the Internal Market Bill will run to.
In NHS land, Simon Stevens (speculation is foolish) is keeping alive the prospect of legislation in the Spring to give Integrated Care Systems statutory body status. Using his platform at an HSJ conference the NHS CEO, said he expected to see proposal early in the new year. It will certainly be needed to make people get on with each other in some areas, and some areas will face an explosion as what was once the individual financial responsibility of multiple, autonomous organisations, becomes the problem of “the system.”
So, were you out and about last weekend, even if you had to go home early? No, I was not actually. It was a dad and daughter cook in, and my wife that went into the centre of Birmingham to support the evening time economy on a long-planned girls’ night out. I can confirm that she was not in one of the many establishments across the city that were emptied by the police after hours. No, she was back on our Great Barr sofa not too long after 10, asking why in the name of Public Health she had to truncate a birthday celebration with some of her oldest friends. She also suffered a double whammy, as I could not satisfy her request for some Bombay potato and a couple of nan breads, as our most reliable outlet, which has, to be fair, had a few issues on the COVID front recently, was also taking an early bath. In just about every town and city in the country, the emergency services were stretched as hostelries all emptied their doors on the hour. The fighters did their thing and the lovers decided they were enjoying themselves and wanted to carry on. Supermarkets did a roaring trade in off-sales and masses continued drinking and mingling in places unknown to the test and trace App.
None of this was a surprise to me and neither, I will wager, will it have been a surprise to you. It was certainly not a surprise to Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram, metro mayors who knew what was coming and have been calling for a rethink. People do predictable things, but to predict those things, you have to understand people. I said last time that the 10 o’clock malarkey merely illustrated how far the lives of those who govern are removed from the lives of those who are governed. I suppose we have a duty to try and understand their lives as well, and we might do worse than read Sasha Swire’s Diary of an MP’s wife. There is far more to it than the well reported salacious content, it gives a real sense, maybe inadvertently, of what makes the people who have governed us for the past decade tick. They are not, to use their own expression, PLU.
