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With Bio-Waste Spreader: "With a Brexit deal finally agreed, food prices in the EU and the UK will not rise as they would have done under a no-deal scenario. But for how long will there continue to be free movement of tariff-free food between the EU and the UK, or even within Great Britain (excluding Northern Ireland), as food production standards start to diverge post-Brexit? On 31 December, just before the trade deal took effect, food standards within the UK and the EU were fully aligned. But since 1 January the picture has become more complex…”
With Dr B Ching: "The Tories’ 2012 contract for ‘Super Express’ trains is a gift that keeps on giving to the Agility Trains consortium, regardless of the pandemic. David Cameron, then prime minister, bowed to top-level Japanese lobbying by ordering privately financed Hitachi inter-city trains, for which Great Western Railway and the east coast mainline franchisee (now replaced by government-owned LNER) would pay hefty ‘train usage’ fees for almost 30 years. Risks to taxpayers were glossed over as ever-rising fares and passenger numbers were presumed to offset the higher rolling-stock costs…”
With Remote Controller: "The most unexpected development in BBC1 peak-time over the past decade has been the ratings power of mid-20th-century English nuns. Call the Midwife, set among the nursing sisters of Nonnatus House, is, after ten series, the Beeb’s most reliable non-soap drama. The call inevitably went out for more convent content, which brings Black Narcissus, adapted from a 1939 novel by Rumer Godden (filmed in 1947 by Powell and Pressburger). Women in habits and wimples are, counterintuitively in a secular age, attractive to TV executives…”
With Old Sparky: "Just before Christmas, the much-delayed energy white paper appeared, constructively addressing complex but vital practicalities for achieving the 2050 zero-carbon target and showing up ‘green’ demands for a 2025 target as hopelessly naïve… The paper stresses a need for ‘affordability’ for consumers who must foot the huge bills – until it gets on to nuclear power…”
With Lunchtime O’Boulez: "More on the highly irregular events at the Musicians Union last year, when general secretary Horace Trubridge’s term was extended by three years without election, by a decision of the executive committee made with Trubridge in the room (he shouldn’t have been) and quietly announced to members as though entirely unremarkable. It happened just as the UK had gone into lockdown and the average MU member was so overwhelmed with other problems he or she was unlikely to notice…”
With Slicker: "So damning is last month’s Gloster report into the repeated regulatory failings of the Fundamentally Complicit Authority to spot and stop the London Capital & Finance (LCF) fraud it could result in the government having to pick up the compensation bill for most of the £237m lost by 11,600 investors. A similar abject regulatory failure in the 1980s left the taxpayer with a £153m bill for Barlow Clowes. Living down to its Private Eye description, the FCA did not move on LCF until December 2018, four years after it had started pushing its high interest mini-bonds. LCF collapsed a month later…”
Letter from New Delhi
From Our Own Correspondent: "Inter-faith weddings in India are far from common and now an increasingly risky endeavour, following the recent enactment of the Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020. This provides for the annulment of marriages between Muslim men and women from other communities where the bride converts solely for matrimony. The legislation carries a ten-year jail sentence and a hefty fine. It is for the accused to prove their innocence, rather than the prosecutors their guilt. Hindu women who are willing to convert before or after their wedding must seek permission from their local authorities or face legal consequences…”