Yesterday was the 58th anniversary of independence in Mauritius. A tough day for Starmer, whose government had been making private promises to the Mauritians that the Chagos sellout would be complete by that milestone, which had been driving the UK parliamentary timetable…
As the Mauritian press puts it, PM Ramgoolam – in his independence day speech – addressed the “economic situation, which he considers worrying. He attributed the current difficulties to the “catastrophic management of the economy” between 2014 and 2024, exacerbated by the war in the Middle East and delays in implementing the Chagos Treaty… Moody’s is now closely monitoring the country… stressing the need to avoid a downgrade of the sovereign credit rating.”
Guido was the first to point out that Starmer’s Chagos deal would avoid such a downgrade and Mauritius saw the deal as a way to swerve its economy being junked in international league tables. A shame, but it was never the job of British taxpayers to fix Mauritius’s problems…
In Henry Mance’s piece today for the FT, lunching with Nigel Farage:
“Splendido!” Farage says, when the drinks arrive; I suppose it’s a step to European reconciliation. We clink glasses, and he lights the first of two back-to-back Benson & Hedges. A few minutes later, we’re back downstairs. “Are you drinking? Good.” He orders a glass of Sauvignon blanc for each of us — not a bottle, “because it’s Lent” — followed by a bottle of claret, to have with our meal. They say Farage drinks less than he used to. They say a lot of things.”