New Agenda on Sunday. is out! Edition of 4th March 2018

Good morning everyone

The weather which the Express has been predicting/forecasting for some months, finally arrived as "The beast from the East" swept into Kent, Essex, Norfolk,Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland and all places North into Scotland, before bumping into "Emma" roughly along the M4 corridor, coming in from the South to hit the West Country , Wales and Ireland with heavy snow, the worse and heaviest it is reported in over thirty years.

Apart from the usual travel chaos on roads and rail, the storms, snow and intense cold, tragically claimed 10 lives over the period of a few days. It is forecast that there will be a gradual thaw but it will remain unsettled. We must hope that we have seen the last of winter for this year. March 1st was, after all, the first day of Spring.

Prime Minister defends "cherry picking"

Prime Minister Theresa May, treat the country and the European Union with yet another speech outlining her plans/vision for our future relationship with remaining 27 EU members. It seems that her words have struck at least a small cord with the warring factions of the conservative party who view her message as "constructive". She remains convinced that it is possible to have a "soft border" between the Republic of Ireland and Gt. Britain (Northern Ireland) whilst at the same time taking the United Kingdom out of the Customs Union and Single Market.

When will this obdurate and intransigent woman grasp the simple reality, which practically every European Leader from Dublin to Brussels has made perfectly clear over the months, that a soft border and leaving the Customs Union and single market are totally incompatible and that she cannot "cherry pick" her way to a Brexit agreement?

As a footnote to this, the DUP are about to receive another £1 billion to ensure their votes stay on side in the Commons. The payment is being made with prior Parliamentary approval.

Image result for wallander (swedish tv series)

Sweden produces some first class television drama. Wallander was a classic example and on Saturday night, Modus completed a second series (I missed the first series) on the disappearance of the American President while on a visit to Sweden. Atmospheric and well acted I am looking forward to the start of another series next Saturday. With a very few notable exceptions, Strike for example, British television drama could learn from Sweden.

Image result for greggs driver distributing cakes

In a week dominated by news of snow, ice, wind and cold, it was refreshing to note the stories which went some way to restoring faith in human nature. The 4 wheel vehicle drivers pulling others out of snow, or gong to local hospitals to ferry patients and nurses to work or emergency appointments. The neighbours lowering food and hot drinks from motorway bridges to drivers and passangers stranded for hours on motorways. Farmers fixinging ploughs to the front of their tractors to clear snow from blocked lanes and roads. The one which really caught my eye amidst hundreds of acts of kindness was the Greggs delivery driver who unloaded cakes, pastries, pies and other "goodies" and from his stranded lorry and distributed them to other marooned drivers. The age of community spirit is not dead.

Have a nice week

Northern Ireland and Brexit. The return of "The Troubles"

Northern Ireland: police attacked in another night of disturbances | Northern Ireland | The Guardian When the "Brexit" debate was still filling our newspapers and our television screens, readers may remember why I had changed my mind since voting to leave at the referendum vote. Apart from the economic arguments, which had become crystal clear after peeling away all the lies and misrepresentations trotted out by Bozo Boris and his "Get Brexit Done" conspirators, there was always the problem of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Would it be possible to have a border between the European Union and the United Kingdom where people, goods and services could pass freely between the two nations without customs restrictions, tariffs, duties and all the other formalities? Would it be possible to have one part of the United Kingdom treated differently from other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly when Scotland for example had voted overwhe...

Enough of this hysterical nonsense

http://style.uk.msn.com/royal-baby/how-will-the-royal-baby-look-as-he-grows-up Media generated hysteria. This is too much. For the last 36 hours (thought it seems more like 36 days) there has been wall to wall news coverage, media and television comment and reporting, with Sky News taking first prize for frenzied minute by minute reporting from the Palace, the hospital, from a village somewhere in England, from the studio and anywhere else that Burley, Botting and company could stick a microphone into some obscure "celebrity's" face and ask for yet another banal quote. All this galvanising the mass hysteria of some elements of the public, (who the media would have you believe is the reaction of "the whole world",) with their flag waving, dancing, singing and cheering over what is after all, no more than a woman having a bab...

A perverse and rather sinister media obsession to discredit, smear and undermine Jeremy Corbyn

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/venezuela-jeremy-corbyn-blasted-for-not-condemning-president-maduro-a3606156.html#commentsDiv Venezuela: Jeremy Corbyn blasted for not condemning socialist President Nicolas Maduro as violent conflict escalates There is a perverse and rather sinister obsesseion with the media and particularly television "interveiwers", in seeking to secure from Jeremy Corbyn a "condemnation" of some person or organisation or event. This time it is connected with events in Venezuela and the actions of President Nicolas Maduro and the bloody crackdown on protests against the result of last weeks poll which inaugurated a constituent assembly . The media "stories" and the interrogation by the television interviewers, are as subtle as a sledgehammer being nothing more than a variation on the "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" question, which so many repoters use in order for them to make themselves appear very ...

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