Back in 2020 Guido bet Anand Menon that by the time of the next election, UK GDP would be higher than France’s GDP – at the time they were neck and neck in GDP terms. The latest data suggests that unless France achieves double digit economic growth next year he’s buying dinner at a Michelin starred French restaurant…
“Poor Brexit Britain” both beats Eurozone member France on GDP per capita and has extended its lead in GDP terms from a $65 billion bigger economy to $287 billion bigger economy. Not something remainers and economists predicted…
*2022 UK $3,070,600,000,000 versus France 2,782,777,000,000
Aside from partygate yesterday, the government celebrated the two year anniversary of Brexit, publishing a 100-page document of the victories so far and plans for future Brexit-enables successes. According to Steve Barclay and the Cabinet Office, the government’s achieved 76 policy changes so far that wouldn’t have been possible within the EU. Most are sound and should be shouted about, some were rather tenuous…
Wonks were quick to share their two cents on the paper and the government’s stated plans to use Brexit to improve the country’s regulations and legislation.
The CPS welcomed the white paper, particularly supporting the intention to make Britain the best regulated economy in the world; as well as ensuring regulators take into consideration competition, growth and innovation when assessing the impact of decisions; simplifying burdens for SMEs; and the freeports agenda. They did, however, criticise the abandoning of a ‘one in, two out’ pledge on new regulations…
“Fixing our regulatory system is one of the great opportunities of Brexit. But that needs to apply to all regulations, not just those inherited from Brussels.
The £1 billion target for cutting post-Brexit regulation is headline-grabbing but relatively unambitious. We need more detail on what will replace the current system of regulatory budgeting and business impact targets, which are due to expire. It is especially concerning to note that a one-in-two-out system was considered but rejected – apparently because it will be too difficult to implement alongside Net Zero.”
The IEA were more critical, saying the government “is talking a good talk on cutting red tape yet failing to walk the walk”:
“The Prime Minister is making the right noises about tackling the regulatory burden all the while introducing laws and regulations that go in the opposite direction.”
“Brexit was meant to provide us with greater freedom not even more burdensome rules derived from Whitehall rather than Brussels. From online safety to Net Zero, it’s hard to see how the government is sticking to its own principle of regulating only when “absolutely necessary”.”
UK In A Changing Europe’s Anand Menon accused the document of “missing the trade-offs”, and it appeared the report had been published “because of where the Prime Minister is”. Guido presumed it was more to do with the two year anniversary of Brexit…
The taxpayer-funded ‘UK in a Changing Europe’ held a panel discussion on Friday on the subject of ‘Brexit and Comedy’. How the host, Professor Anand Menon, squares this with it being ‘an independent organisation created to make the findings of academic research easily available’ is beyond Guido. The panel was one of those all left, all remain, type of independent panels. It was in many ways no different to your average impartial BBC Radio 4 comedy panel…
On the panel were Nish Kumar – who made no bones about his left-wing comedy goals – Marina Hyde who at least cracks jokes about right-wingers that have other right-wingers laughing and Andy Zaltzman, whom Guido has never heard of before. Wikipedia says he’s your standard-issue Oxbridge-Edinburgh Fringe-Radio 4 cliche left-wing comedian. The most interesting thing he said was that the Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy called him up to ask him to write jokes for David Miliband. We have reached out to Krishnan to ask him if this is true and for some kind of explanation. We await the impartial news broadcaster’s explanation…
BSE have a new line: “Britain is the best connected country in EU negotiations,” they claim, pushing a new report by the Economic and Social Research Council as evidence. Indeed Britain is so “well connected” that we have not once succeeded in blocking an unwanted EU measure in recent years. This is despite trying over seventy times.
So, who is behind the report? It was published as part of ESRC’s “UK in a Changing Europe” project, which is directed by Professor Anand Menon. Who is a “visiting expert” at the European Commission, reporting directly to the President.
What about ESRC themselves? They have just won the contract to lead the EU India Platform for the Social Sciences and Humanities – a 1.5-million euro project funded under European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme. They are literally paid by Brussels.
And what of the report’s author? Simon Hix was previously directly awarded a contract directly by the European Commission. Worth £53,700.
Yet more pro-EU sockpuppets funded by Brussels, then wheeled out by BSE. Guido will be watching out for more…
