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Author Archives: Peter Cook

About Peter Cook

When I was five years old, I wanted to be in The Beatles, but all the jobs were taken … By the age of 12, I wanted to be a scientist and I became one. At the age of 18 I took a job with a philanthropic pharmaceutical company, working around the world and developing the first human insulin, novel medicines for herpes and to bring the first HIV / AIDS treatment to the world in record time. This means that I bring a scientific mind, curiosity and rigour to your enterprise. By the age of 30 I had developed an interest in business leadership and began teaching MBA programmes, having completed 3.5 degrees myself. At 34, I took myself out of a paid job and, for the last 28 years, I have worked independently as a consultant, author and speaker with people at all levels all over the world, helping them to transform their enterprises. My clients seek to balance their passions, purposes and profit for a more responsible and sustainable form of capitalism in the 4th industrial age. I also help leaders digest what we call "wicked problems and opportunities", in other words, the issues that keep them awake at night, using a unique mixture of divergent and convergent thinking skills. My 28 years of consultancy experience bring a wealth of expertise and wisdom to you, in enterprises as diverse as Unilever to the United Nations. Along the way, I have written 12 books on leadership, innovation and creativity, gaining a prize for my work from Sir Richard Branson and various accolades from Professors Charles Handy, Adrian Furnham, Tom Peters et al. Over some 50 years, I have gradually combined my three passions of science, business and music into a potent mixture which reaches the head, heart and soul of your enterprise. In combination, your enterprise benefits from rigour, analytics and curiosity due to my science and business background, plus the emotional intelligence, creativity and improvisation skills that come from my life as a music composer and producer. As a musician I have been privileged to interview world class musicians such as Roberta Flack, John Mayall, AC / DC, members of Prince’s ensembles, Queen's production team and Meatloaf's singing partners for their insights into leadership, innovation and success. I am a passionate advocate for better politics and better business for a better world, fighting populist politicians and short-termism in our global affairs. I am an "HR" person, i.e. a "Hippy Realist": green by ideals, but pragmatic by actions to change the world towards more sustainable behaviour.
Sevington

Rough Trade

I know that Brexiteers have short memories, some because they have died since 2016, but Michael Gove promised us frictionless trade, only sunny uplands with no downsides from Brexit. It seems that Gove lied. Brexit has moved Britain from frictionless trade to rough trade. Please spend 20 minutes watching Michael Lambert’s report on the matter at the end of this article – it’s well worth your time. Some highlights follow:

Veterinary checks at the border are expected to add 0.2% to inflation, plus of course delays and shortages of perishable goods such as meat and veg. BBC Tory cheerleader Amol Rajan tried to make light of this on the Today programme on Monday 20 May, yet of course, it’s all totally unnecessary. In any case, 0.2% from one single issue in an instant hit is rather a lot really, certainly a lot more than the 0.08% over 10 years expected to accrue from Kemi Badenoch’s overblown CPTPP trade deal !!

Then there is the impact on haulage companies. Ciaran the Euro Courier reports on the insane practices being used at Sevington:

There is no water at the purpose built facility, apart from a tap in the toilets, no food and no option to leave the facility to get food and drink. You may be stuck there for days, especially if you arrive late in the day as the facility only operates 12 hours a day in a 24/7 logistics business. This makes onwards journeys much more dangerous for the driver and, of course, other motorists.

The inspection process compares (poorly) with prison. It is designed to be intimidating. No one speaks to you. This is nothing like the process at Calais. It is designed to be intimidating. No wonder many drivers don’t come back.

This will impact our food security despite the many mitigations, cover ups and pieces of gaslighting that will be employed to distract us. Even the fucking Torygraph and The Sun have reported that Brexit border checks will cost us £4.7 BILLION. Try measuring that in nurses, carers and fruit pickers !! To avoid upsetting their readers, the Son are now calling it BREX !!

Sevington
Greenbelt …. Kent – The Lorry Park of England.
Telegraph
Did you vote to waste £4.7 BILLION of YOUR money on this?
The fucking Sun !!! Let’s Talk about BREX … baby.

Click to read Private Eyelines

All the while, the whole HMRC process is meaningless in terms of what it intends to achieve. There is 22 miles between the Sevington facility and the port of Dover. You are free to pick up migrants, contraband and additional goods if you so wish. Brexit is pointless. A tragic comedy of errors.

Pop will

Well worth your time. The work of Michael Lambert.

Read our reports on Brexit impacts

Join the Rejoin Party

Most people now realise that Brexit was a mistake. Make sure politicians hear you loud and clear in the run up to the GE, especially Labour. Write to them today. It matters not whether they respond or whether you like them or not.

Continue to Brexorcise soft Brexiteers using the handbook of Brexorcism.

Buy us a coffee to help us continue our work into the General Election. Compared with the big beasts, we are unsupported.

Brexit has failed : Rejoin the EU
Blank Canvas

Blank Canvas

The Labour Party knocked on my door at the weekend. An extremely pleasant man began the canvassing by introducing himself and then asked me if I had any local issues that were troubling me. I replied with one word : BREXIT. I also apologised later on for telling him things he probably did not want to hear. He seemed fine with that and our conversation was cordial. Some of the hoops we jumped through are here for the record.

I began by explaining that I was finding it hard to vote for a Brexit party and revealed that I knew some senior Labour people who had told me that they would commence Rejoining in 2032. I explained that nobody would know what Brexit was by then and, in any case, the damage wreaked by Brexit would be mostly complete and much of it irreversible. I went through my usual argument that growth was for the birds, with a 4.5% resilience knock from Brexit, akin to trying to swim the English Channel with a 4.5 kg block of concrete around one’s neck.

Brexit resilence concrete
Brexit resilence concrete

He listened carefully and then tried a few gentle pieces of pushback:

Well the Conservatives won’t reverse Brexit” … I replied that I was not so sure, citing the fact that there was evidence of incremental movement to undo some of the worst elements of Johnson’s Brexit deal via the Windsor framework and our rejoining the Horizon science scheme. I went to point out that David Cameron had not come back to politics for a game of tennis and that one scenario would see Cameron pivoting towards the centre leaving the ERG loons in a boat on the Channel. I pointed him towards our articles Tectonic Plates and Cameron.

Read Tectonic Plates

He went on to say “But the Tories will pivot towards the far right” … Again, I had to disagree, citing my appearance on James ‘O Brien, where I said that the votes were in the centre and that whilst it may appear that the far right are in ascendancy, this was only due to the loudest voices on MSM, such as Braverman and was not supported by the numbers. He nodded. I went on to say that Labour now have a major PR problem, having decided to partner with someone who supports sex pests and who relishes the thought of drowning children in the English Channel.

He found it very hard to argue against this recent development with Nathalie Elf Thick, but did ask me “What was Keir Starmer supposed to do?” … I replied that he should have simply thanked her for her kind offer and politely declined. Elphicke’s arrival in Labour offers them few advantages but also may cause them significant problems. I have wondered if she has actually been sent in under a false flag. We shall see. It seems rather fishy that the Tories instantly denounced her. Smells like a double bluff to me.

My canvasser’s parting shot was that he’d put me down as a floating voter, after I said that I may even have to hold my nose and vote Tory if Labour would not change its position on Brexit. I explained that Brexit was at the heart of many of the things he was hoping I might talk about (cost of living, NHS, migration etc.) and showed him my Brexit iceberg in the window of my house. It was a bit like doing a slightly nerdy keynote address with a poster in my window instead of a PowerPoint visual !!

Brexit Iceberg
The Brexit Iceberg.

I am hoping that he’ll report all of this back up the channels to Labour strategists. I was really impressed at our dialogue and how well he listened and constructively challenged me.

On the other hand, I heard from one of our group that Labour are banning posts on their Facebook groups that mention words like Erasmus, Horizon, ULEZ, Brexit etc. Labour are just as bad as the Tories in terms of censorship. I’m pleased to say that this has not extended to my local fb group, although the levels of misinformation are beyond comparison in the group. Some examples are below:

There are still industrial levels of misinformation out there. Don’t be like Steve.

Never give your voting intention away as you lose power to influence policy by doing so. I am still contemplating standing a candidate for the Rejoin party or possibly a cat again.

Buy us a coffee

NHS

Septic Shock

Whilst I was working as Gina Miller’s campaign manager I was asked to handle an enquiry from Dean Gwilliam. Dean had seen Gina’s TV appearance on Sky with Sophy Ridge and was fatally impressed by her sense of purpose in seeking truth, justice, transparency and fairness. Dean freely admitted that he voted for Brexit in 2016 but wondered if we could help. Having heard his story, I felt that we should do something, especially as he had been so honest about his views. Dean was very patient with me and explained his long campaign of seeking justice for this mother. It also happened to coincide with another similar matter from someone living in Gina’s chosen constituency of Epsom and Ewell, so I decided to seek some ways forward. In the event, Gina decided that she did not wish to act in either case for reasons that I am not at liberty to write here. But, having spent some considerable time speaking and meeting with these people I felt an obligation to see if there was some way that I could amplify their cases, if only to attract further interest or to shame some people into conducting a proper review. I have been very moved by the Mr Bates vs The Post Office cases and realise that people feel isolated and alone in such circumstances. Here is Dean’s story, as he explained it to me. I understand that he has a very large body of evidence to support his assertions. He merely seeks the truth for his mother. It is quite technical and this short paper covers seven years of advocacy, so please read carefully. I have reported summary as written by Dean and clearly there are also many pieces of documentation that support his assertions. Nonetheless, what is now needed is a proper inquiry so that the various allegations can be addressed.

Dean believes that doctors and nurses on London’s St Thomas’ Hospital’s (GSTT) Sarah Swift Ward unlawfully killed 84 year old Maureen Gwilliam, on 1/6/22, They concealed her leg interventions’ triggering of septic shock and denied her 10 days of antibiotics and intensive care. This, against her medical history, son’s reports of her sepsis 6 symptoms, from 21/5/22, and their own research, confirming sepsis survivors’ serious risk of death, for up to 5 years.

The cover-up began on 24/5/17, when University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) and Sandwell and West Birmingham (SWBH) NHS Trusts conspired to subject Maureen to a non-consensual Right CFA-to-PTA bypass graft, to outwardly conceal her lower right legs’ critical limb ischaemia (CLI), from 10/9/14, her right big toe’s wet gangrene and required amputation, from 9/12/14, her lower right leg arteries’ occlusion, in turn, noted 5/2/15, 31/3/16 and 12/8/16 and, more particularly, her lower right leg’s resultant fixed mottling and required amputation, from 20/6/16.

Maureen’s CLI, gangrene and fixed mottling were allowed and concealed, to deny their underlying PVD or atherosclerosis, noted 23/12/13, that had caused Maureen’s 20/11/13 subtotally occluded LAD-based NSTEMI/heart attack. UHB and Maureen’s Wychall Lane Surgery GPs had caused it, by hiding her family history for ischaemic heart disease (atherosclerosis) record from 1977 and the US ARIC study’s suggestion of a related heart attack at around 72, and concealed it, by misportraying it as a sudden, blameless inferior STEMI.

The 24/5/17 bypass was performed to deny Maureen’s lower right leg’s fixed mottling, from 20/6/16, and similarly misportray its associated amputation requirement, as a sudden, blameless one. This was effected by misrepresenting Maureen’s exposed PTA’s foreseeable causation of a bloodstream infection, septic shock, above the knee amputation and kidney failure, as a chance infection, just after her supposedly successful bypass. The concealment continued by discharging Maureen, under the aftereffects of antibiotics (<=2wks), to ward 307, on 1/6/17, then to Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust’s (BCH) Moseley Hall Hospital (MHH), on 20/6/17, having covered up her sepsis’ delirium, spiking temperature and underlying infected groin graft remnant, that maintained it.

The cover-up caused further right leg AKA, on 5/7/17, and C.diff, by overexposing Maureen to antibiotics. Maureen’s C.diff was diagnosed on 21/8/17 but deliberately prolonged, by ignoring our appeals for FMT referral and confining Maureen to Fidaxomicin’s around 70% failure rate, considering Vancomyin’s failure, that would have killed her, on 30/1/17, as her SAE might have, had her son not intervened on both occassions, resulting in 999s to A&E, with life-threateningly low blood pressure, a well known septic shock symptom.

In fact, Maureen’s C.diff was maintained, until St Thomas’ relented to Dean’s appeals for FMT and cured her in 30 minutes on 3/5/18. After returning home Maureen changed GP surgery to Cofton Medical Practice, who similarly denied her emergency vascular referrals, with BHC’s community podiatrists’ help, as Wychall Lane Surgery had done and Worcestershire Royal Hospital’s A&E department proved no better, denying Maureen duplex imaging and claiming that her absent PTA pulse was inconclusive, despite her medical history. We asked for an urgent referral to GSTT, but they obstructed imaging and treatment permitting gangrene to develop in Maureen’s remaining leg, hid its underlying occluded ATA/shin artery, that was responsible for her right leg’s gangrene, discharged her when her treatment was obviously insufficient, and outwardly concealed her interventions’ causation of sepsis/septic shock.

Maureen’s clinicians did not unlawfully kill her and cover it up, alone. They were aided and abetted, from 29/6/17, by the wilful blindness and intellectual dishonesty of other pillars of our establishment. Pillars, including:

a) The IOPC, the HMICFRS, West Midlands Police, its PSD and commissioners, David Jamieson and Simon Foster, who destroyed and denied our contact and evidence, of Anthony Collins’ Solicitors (AC) and expert Professor Linda Hands’ (LH) conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and concealment of Maureen’s family history for ischamic heart disease, subtotally occluded LAD, 897 days of critical limb ischaemia, 292 days of wet gangrene, fixed mottling, 42 days of sepsis and 255 days of C.diff, in the latter’s report, whilst misportraying them as an unrelated heart attack and a couple of weeks of acute limb ischaemia. mfg Solicitors and The Wilkes Partnership also supported the two’s perjury, along with the SRA.

b) Maureen’s MPs, Richard Burden and Gary Sambrook who, along with Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, Victoria Atkins, Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak, refused to challenge the deceit behind Maureen’s destruction.

c) Birmingham County Court judges Leong, Fentiman and Murch, who supported AC and LH’s perjurious cover-up, facilitating Maureen’s ongoing destruction and unlawful killing.

d) The Met, its PSD, Sir Mark Rowley, Sadiq Khan, Susan Hall, The IOPC, Victoria Prentis, Southwark Council, other County Court judges, Southwark Coroner’s Court, the High Court, the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court, the Lady Chief Justice Sue Carr and the Justice Select Committee who have, all, since Maureen’s death, avoided AC’s, LH’s and Southwark’s lead medical examiner Dr Luke Smith’s perjury, that disclaims Maureen’s 10 day denial of antibiotics and an ICU, by denying her one per day sepsis 6 symptoms, between 20-23/5/22, and by fabricating her need of only an HDU, initially, on 30/5/22, and her transfer to one, complete with imaginary heroic doctors, who supposedly treated her.

Editor’s note : Dean has many letter exchanges with the people listed. These would constitute the basis of an inquiry to seek the truth. At this point they are merely allegations that need resolution.

In case you are finding this incredulous by now, Dean points out that Dr Smith’s perjury is exposed by tape recordings and his cover-up of Maureen’s similar septic decline, after her 7/12/21 leg intervention, that was obscured by faking her discharge on 9/12/14 and then stopping her leaving, denying her IV antibiotics for 5 days, that Dean made an email record of when Maureen called him to explain her new cannula’s purpose but that were later denied, giving her the 9/12/21 discharge letter on her 21/12/21 discharge and postponing her intervention, in her 21/12/21 POPS letter, until after her sepsis-related tachycardia, which happened on both occasions, had been observed – Dean has the letters requesting their correction that were never responded to. Amanda Pritchard and Dr Ian Abbs were behind Maureen’s mistreatment at GSTT.

Dean now seeks the truth and some fairness. Whilst it is obvious that he has been extremely persistent and stoic in pursuing this matter, the absence of any sense of closure on the matter is troubling. A proper inquiry would restore some sense of equity. I am not a medical expert, but what looks like a continuing case of concealment does need to be addressed. Whilst medical people are not magicians, and can confuse symptoms with causes, it is also true to say that if there’s nothing to hide then there is nothing to fear in responding to Dean’s request for an inquiry.

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Rejoin EU

London Calling

With your help, the Rejoin Party retained their deposit and came 6th overall in the London Assembly elections.  Support also fell away from UKIP and the far right with Britain First and The Heritage party losing their deposits  This is a wonderful result and your votes and shares of the campaign undoubtedly contributed to this result.  A big thank you !!! 

See the note below from the leader of the Rejoin Party.   Why not join Rejoin for the next battle aka the General Election?

Rejoin Party

Hey Peter,

Just wanted to say a big “thank you” for all your help and support during the election campaign.

You may have heard we managed to keep our deposit for the first time ever (🥳) – by just 611 votes!

What you may not have heard is that this forces the BBC to redesignate us a “party with significant support” in London (one of just 6 parties! Us and the “usual suspects”). This in turn means over the next 4 years we should be able to force the BBC to have “reverse Brexit” commentator on in London at least (in theory!)

Anyway, thanks once again for all your help and support – those 611 crucial votes only came out of our very low budget campaign!

Best regards,

Rich  

Join us next Monday 13 May on ZOOM at 8 pm

p.s. Our leaflets are ready to order to finish the job on the Tory party btw.

Rejoin EU

London Assembly for Rejoin

The London Assembly elections take place soon. If you vote strategically, you will be able to send a strong message to the whole of the country that we wish to Rejoin the EU. This will not affect the election of Sadiq Khan as Mayor. Let me explain how:

You have three votes : Tier 1 : Mayor, Tier 2 : constituency London Assembly Member, and Tier 3 : London-wide Assembly Members. Each election operates under different rules and therefore you don’t have to split the vote for Major in order to give your third vote to the Rejoin Party candidates. Tier 1 and 2 operate under the First Past the Post (FPTP) system, whereas Tier 3 operates under a D’Hondt based proportional system. This is where Rejoin candidates are standing. Thus a vote for Rejoin is NON-DESTRUCTIVE in terms of the vote for London Mayor. Read the rules at The Electoral Commission.

Help The Rejoin Party at their campaign events:

Fri 12 April : Soho and Fitzrovia : 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM Soho Square Gardens W1D 4NR

Sat 13 April : Notting Hill and Portobello Road :11:00 AM – 2:00 PM Portobello Road Market, near Notting Hill Gate W11 1AN

Sun 14 April : Hackney: 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM: Hackney Central, Broadway Market E8 4PH

Mon 15 April : University College London (UCL) and Surrounding Area: 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM Malet Place, near UCL Main Quad WC1E 6BT

Wed 17 April : London School of Economics (LSE) and Surrounding Area: 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM Sheffield Street, outside LSE Old Building WC2A 2AE

Thur 18 April : Islington: 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Angel Central Shopping Centre N1 0PS

Sat 20 April : Shoreditch and Hoxton: 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM Shoreditch High Street, near Boxpark E1 6JE

Sun 21 April : South Bank and Waterloo: 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM Near the Southbank Centre Book Market SE1 8XX

Fri 26 April : King’s Cross and St Pancras International: 7:00 AM – 10:00 AM Near the entrance to the international departures N1C 4QP

Sat 27 April : Camden Market and Surrounds: 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM Camden Lock Place, near the food market NW1 8AF

Mon 29 April Kings College London (KCL) : 12.00 – 2.00 PM Surrey Street WC2R 2LS

Tues 30 April London School of Economics 12.00 – 2.00 PM Sheffield Street WC2A 2AE

Wed 1 May University College London (UCL) 12.00 – 2.00 PM Malet Street WC1E 6BT

Mont St Michel

Vive La France

I took a rare holiday in Normandy last week. The stark differences between Brexit Britain and France were plain. The border crossing was uneventful until we returned to British customs on the way back, with an amount of petty bureaucracy. We had chosen to go by Le Shuttle to avoid potential delays on the M20 / M2 which forced the cost up, but it was more relaxed overall.

On the first evening, we went shopping to get some provisions. I was struck by the price of cheese (inexpensive) and bought a bottle of Malbec for €1.99 !!! It was surprisingly good and would retail from £9 upwards here, probably more after Brexit border checks are introduced which may add 60% to the price of imported goods. Oh well, it’s what they wanted.

But what really struck me was the sense of community and state of high streets in French towns and villages. More so because I watched a film of “English Patriots” saying that they had no identity, because we have no nursery rhymes, have to drink coffee and are no longer allowed to eat fish and chips or meat and two veg. Painfully funny reportage by Max Robespierre below:

By contrast, I noted that entire families dine out in the towns I visited, including children, who ate real food, not fast food. I hardly saw any children playing computer games in cafes with their parents. Instead they had family conversations. A common complaint of the English Patriots is that the high street has been taken away from them. It’s no wonder when many of them shop at Tesco etc. In the high streets of Normandy, it was not a constant stream of kebab joints, vaping huts and coffee outlets. Whilst the butcher, baker and candlestick maker are absent from most English towns, there was a rich diversity of shops in the French towns. Although there are supermarkets, they are not of the massive size that are allowed in Britain. I sense a very different approach to town planning and culture. The very culture that the English patriots crave is present … in France!! Perhaps Margaret Thatcher was right when she said that “there is no such thing as (English) society”.

Britain seems to have invested in the industrialisation of high streets / consumption and much of what these people feel they have lost is the product of this process. The faux nostalgia of the English Brexit patriots is painfully summed up by Billy Bragg in his epic song “Full English Brexit”.

Brexit has failed - official

Con Home

Amidst all the other carnage of Brexit, Tory sleaze, corruption and mismanagement a rather odd item emerged into the political landscape this week. It was a report from Conservative Home stating that Brexit had not produced ANY benefits, now or into the future. It also pointed out that Brexit has cost us some 2-3% in terms of resilience. Actually that figure is ‘conservatively’ low aka a LIE. Best estimates suggest a 4.5% GDP hit to the UK economy into perpetuity… with a peak of 5-6% by 2035. Any ideas of growth from Liz Truss, Rishi Sunakered or Keir Starmer are therefore for the birds. And it’s not just GDP. Imports and exports will tank by 15% The impact of post-Brexit trade deals is minimal at best and probably insignificant, never mind the social and environmental effects of Brexit.

Seeing is believing … from the horse’s mouth below !!

This comes on a day when David Cameron stepped out into the open and more or less admitted that Brexit was the main obstacle in addressing the question of illegal migration. He had to backtrack in order to avoid having several organs removed by ERG hopefuls Truss, Badenoch, Mordaunt, Braverman et al. I’ve said on many occasions that Cameron did not rejoin mainline politics as a swansong, and despite his many peccadilloes, we should ‘play the ball and not the man‘. Of course, I have been pilloried by Labour ideologues and Remoaners with visceral reactions to Lord Cameron. Nonetheless, I’m possibly right and willing to eat a hat if I’m wrong, in the absence of any serious and cohesive cross party strategy to join the EU anew. Watch Peter Stefanovic’s surgical analysis of Cameron’s ‘walk on the wild side’.

I’m left wondering if Cameron’s outburst was mainly directed to the swivel headed loons within his party to face down the fascists.

Read more at Cameron

Click to read Tectonic Plates

In case anyone is still confused about ways to address immigration, watch my two minute film on the solution. Of course, the overarching solution to immigration is the end of Brexit which has now failed : it’s OFFICIAL.

Just two minutes needed.

In case of any doubt as to the manufacture of the immigration issue:

2015: 299 crossed on small boats
2022: 45,000 crossed on small boats
Post Dublin Regulations. No returns arrangement made in that ‘oven ready deal’, burned to a crisp!!

Read The only good Brexit

The Chronicles of Brexit

Last of the Summer Whine

I note empirically from loads of conversations in real life and on Linkedin that the last remaining Brexiteers really only have one issue left. It’s their illusion that the EU is an unelected, bloated dictatorship. Although online Brexorcisms are essentially a waste of time for a host of reasons, other people do notice the whining desperation of these people and therefore I spend a little time on this artform. Here’s a sadly amusing sequence from Steve Rimmington, who today admitted that he was diagnosed with mental health problems but refused to get treatment. I am left wondering if this influenced his Brexit vote (only joking of course – mental health problems, particularly untreated as in Steve’s case, are something that the Government and everyone need to take seriously). I always seek an answer from such people about the benefits of Brexit. None ever came during our exchange and instead Steve tried distraction and gaslighting. None of these work as someone who wrote the book on Brexorcism. Here is some of our exchange, as a series of responses to a post from Sir Keir Starmer.

Steve’s valid objection is that I have not worked as an employee in the service sector. It’s true. Yet I have met plenty of people who do. One does not need to have committed suicide to be a suicide counsellor and so on. More importantly, Steve does not seem to understand that Zero Hours Contracts are particularly a UK phenomenon, with many European countries outlawing them. Zero-hours contracts are NOT permitted in: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain. So, UK was able to operate these bad HR arrangements whilst it was a member of the EU. This rather debunks his notion of a controlling EU superstate. Exploitation of workers is a feature of bad management and that’s what a decent Government might address in a decent political system. Our Brexit government has failed to do so and the direction of travel is back to the workhouse. Although ZHC are currently running at a rate of 3.6% the trend is upwards in Brexit Britain and I agree with Steve that they are a bad feature of our employment landscape.

Steve decides to take offence at this point. As a self employed person of 30 years I have effectively always been on zero hours, having juggled clients over this time. So, I do understand the uncertainty that this can produce. Having said that, I chose my employment arrangement which makes an enormous difference. As a former CIPD Council member, I can confirm that Brexit will gradually lead to poorer employee protection.

Steve attempts to suggest that I blame everything on Brexit. He has not seen my multiple causation / correction iceberg model that includes COVID and Ukraine as causation factors for our malaise. However COVID is a short term effect and Ukraine has only really had a dramatic effect on oil prices and, to some extent, food. Brexit has affected our resilience to the tune of 4.5% GDP loss into the future. Like trying to swim the channel with a 20kg block of concrete round your neck.

The Brexit iceberg – a simplified multiple cause / correlation model.

Steve then tries more shapeshifting to avoid answering the simple question about the ‘many benefits’ of Brexit. In a very usual trick he tries to blame the EU for OUR decision to leave the EU. He appears to have forgotten the promises of zero friction, only sunny uplands and no downsides with immediate benefits. In a real life Brexorcisms I never let people pass to a new subject until they have answered the set question. Rather than explain the benefits of Brexit, Steve suggests that I have insulted him. An insult might be something like “you smell”, but as is clear here I have kept to the simple question of asking him to explain Brexit benefits. In real life, this very occasionally leads to violence. Despite this, I always advocate real life rather than online Brexorcisms due to the factors mentioned below. Steve demonstrates these well.

Online Brexorcisms
The perils of working online with people who have quasi religious beliefs about Brexit.

Steve has worked out that I’m getting bored so he attempts to cough up some benefits. The COVID vaccine story is a verified LIE. And the Australian deal heavily favours Australia being worth just £11 bn as compared with £550 bn with EU. To put this in plain terms, the Australian trade deal offers a potential saving of just £1 per household. How will you spend yours? Steve was right when he stated that he was humouring me. Sadly the self-inflicted slow decline of a once proud nation is not funny.

Steve does not understand that we were so desperate to secure Brexit deals that we effectively are in a Brexit fire sale. The Australian deal crucially threatens our farming and farmers. And the CPTPP deal is worth LESS than 0.08% over a decade. Even Nigerian Fraudster Kemi Badenoch has admitted this. Steve does not understand negotiation strategy. All the more reason for Steve to read Reboot Britain. I know he won’t. He will just get more angry with his Brexit buyers’ remorse and attempt to blame others for his decision. And finally on the questions raised at the outset of this article:

BLOATED : The EU has around 30 000 Civil servants to serve 500 million people whereas Britain has 502,710 to serve 67 million people. I will leave you to do the math. This has increased by 19,260 in recent times. It is the UK who score most highly on bureaucracy.

UNELECTED : Contrary to headlines in the Daily Mail / Express, EU officials are elected.

DICTATORSHIP : The EU sets guidelines for high standards of behaviour in many areas of global governance, but individual nations are free to address national issues. If it were a dictatorship, everyone would rive on the same side of the road, bullfighting and fox hunting would be banned and so on. The accusation is quite simply barking mad. In many areas the EU is way ahead of Britain in terms of democratic processes such as Citizens’ Assemblies and so on. For dictatorship see Belarus and North Korea.

At this point I concluded that Steve was really a waste of my time online. I left him with the option of calling me for a proper conversation or an online debate. I much prefer real life conversation as a medium for Brexorcism. I do offer crayons with all direct purchases of my books by the way. Steve left me with the view that nobody could predict the future. Of course, he’s right, if we are talking about the precision of forecasting methods, scenario planning and so on, but it is entirely false to say that Brexit futures cannot be predicted. Most of the predictions made by the Remain movement have come to pass and the worst is yet to come. I am not King Canute either. At this point, Steve does not realise that the Bank of England have withheld an evaluation report on Brexit. I can only presume it makes for uncomfortable reading …

Books
Click the image to read the books online.

Read The Last Remaining Brexiteers

Join us in London next week

The Chronicles of Brexit

The Chronicles of Brexit

This is the opening prelude to a new book on Brexit and Rejoining the EU. Aptly titled “The Chronicles of Brexit”, combining the notion of the fantasy world of Narnia together with the chronic condition of political paralysis.

I still hear Remainers telling me that Brexit is done. They have fallen prey to the kool aid put forward by the Brexiteers, that Brexit was a project and not a process. A project has a finite end point such as building the Channel Tunnel whereas a process continues. As I write in 2024, Brexit continues to wreak a slow chronic infusion of damage socially, economically, politically, environmentally, technologically and legally. We hardly need to rehearse the impacts here, from the gradual departure of businesses, industries and brains from UK plc, the rating of Britain as a ‘problem child’ regarding inward investment, to the unsavoury sights and smells of shit in our rivers and the jubilation by a few residual racists at the joy of drowning migrants. This is Brexit Britain. It’s nothing to be proud of.

Many of the chronic impacts predicted in these chronicles have come to pass since I wrote the original articles collected in this book. Worst of all, we are still dogged by the parliamentary paralysis that made Brexit possible. Keir Starmer continues to spout the vacuous football chant ‘make Brexit work’ to charm people with feeble minds, when all the data suggests that he could carve out a leadership position and win an election comfortably by stating that ‘Brexit isn’t working’. The Lib Dems continue to suggest that we could rejoin the EU ‘when the time is right’. Of course, that time will never come … Only the Scottish National Party (SNP) are brave enough to lead on the need for independence from Brexit Albion.

The Chronicles of Brexit
Images by James Rowland.

A little while back, I designed a t-shirt with a picture of Hannibal Lecter and the slogan ‘Brexit consumes all its children’ with a list : Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Starmer. I predict that Starmer will also be consumed by the offspring of Brexit, perhaps with some fava beans and a nice Chianti  … the offspring of Brexit include the cost of living, ramped up concerns about immigration, a broken NHS, business failures and so on. Of course I was hammered by my left-wing colleagues on Twitter, who have gotten into such a stir with Tory fascism that they are now manically possessed by the idea that we must get Starmer in, then we can talk about Brexit. I hope they are right but fear they are not. See Scottish Bylines as to why I say this.

Even 18th century retro-Latin imperialist adventure capitalist Jacob Rees-Mogg bragged that we will get nothing back from Brexit for 50 years … I am impatient as a ‘Brexit fundamentalist’ (The only good Brexit is a dead Brexit) not for myself at my advanced age, but for future generations. And the softly-softly approaches used by some of the central Remain organisations have largely assisted us in getting a ‘boiled frog Brexit’; so slow that we (the frogs) hardly notice the chronic decline (death by gradual boiling). This makes any approach to undoing Brexit especially difficult, as it requires a large majority of people to have their lived experiences changed by Brexit realities, which will only be visible in slow motion and in small doses.

My labour chums tell me “shh, we’ll consider rejoining in 2032”. This misses two important points. Nobody will remember what Brexit was by then and, in any case, much of the damage wreaked by Brexit will be complete and much of it irreversible by 2032. It is at best a dream, at worst a weapon of mass deception to get elected. But I cannot vote for a Brexit party in a General Election even if that means allowing a Tory back in. There is always hope and I hope you will want to read the book and act upon its advice and guidance.

To place a discount pre-order for The Brexit Chronicles in hard copy inc P&P, please PayPal £15.00 as a gift via Paypal using the link below.

We also have one remaining signed copy of our Brexit satire book Private Eyelines at a discount of £20.00 all inclusive compared with £34.99 plus P&P on Amazon.

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London Assembly Elections

Lectern

Lecternology

Not only have we had five Prime Ministers since Brexit, we have also had five lecterns. Each of them have a different character, like each PM and each has cost the taxpayer more than Angela Rayner’s alleged tax scam. Liz Truss’ Jenga lectern cost an uncool £4175, seemingly appropriate, as, no doubt it could be rebuilt into something else 49 days later … In this article we look at the emerging “academic discipline” of lecternology inspired by Peter Hurst and Peter Stefanovic.

Cameron’s lectern was designed by his head of operations to appear “statesmanlike”. Cameron was the youngest PM and, as such, the wood for his lectern was sourced from B&Q, using freshly cut pine with a curved, flared column, signifying agility and smoothness, and a glossy finish to signify superficiality. Read more on Cameron at Cameron.

The simple religious cross style of Theresa’s oak lectern symbolises her victimhood as the Prime Minister who felt a sense of duty to serve but who ultimately would be hoist by her own inner conflict. In the end, the ERG and Remainers placed her on a cross for sacrifice in favour of someone more malleable. That person would be the fatberg formerly known as Boris Johnson.

Johnson’s lectern column and base are the thickest of the five, matching the intelligence and heft of the incumbent. “The Johnson” as it was referred to in No 10 was constructed of teak for strength, as it doubled as a shagging plinth for internal use. It is believed that Carrie’s children were conceived on “The Johnson” along with other random offspring from the Brexit staffers during Partygate.

The Truss lectern is perhaps the most interesting in so far that it is constructed using Jenga. This would enable quick breakdown and reassembly after her 49 days tenure. We have an authentic woodchip replica of The Truss ceremonial lectern available on e-bay for the bargain price of £30 000. This would enable us to stand a lettuce for election in her South West Norfolk constituency. Tony Hanlon commented on the spiral construction “Its a treasured memory of her death spiralling of the economy”.

Truss has since blamed the failure of her Brexonomics budget on the infiltration of left-wing Norwegian wood into her lectern at a cost of £70 billion to the taxpayer and the ruination of young people’s hopes of home ownership. John Lennon, Kate Bush, Chris Witty and Angela Rayner have been blamed by The Truss, along with left wing lawyers, left wing carpenters, carping judges, civil servants, punk rockers, classicists, MDF, lettuce, homosexuals, trannies, the blob, layabouts, drug users, climate protesters, smoking bans, Potter Heigham, Brundall, The A47, The Bank of England, The OBR, UN, The Queen, charities, do-gooders, poets, artists, piss artists, vegans, Christians, Moslems, London, wood carvers, carvery owners, wood workers, sex workers, sex swappers, The Lib Dems, brie, gorgonzola, camembert, left wing cheese, real ale drinkers, real world thinkers, Remoaners, men, women, children, animals, plants, left wing micro-organisms, algae, fungi, Liz’s parents and all members of the deep state who sought to bring her down. The Jenga lectern proved to be her downfall and it was nothing to do with her incompetence, social ineptitude and the triumph of confidence over competence. That is a disgrace. In Liz’s own words “Liz Truss is best ignored”.

Click on the description to buy The Truss on e-bay.

The Sunak lectern is paradoxical. It is bigger than the other lecterns although Sunak is possibly the shortest Prime Minister in history. The upright section is designed to obscure both of Rishi’s legs for reasons of modesty and as support in case he were to break one. Just like its user, the Sunak lectern has no integrity, professionalism or accountability, being made from offcuts from the “previous administration”.

All of the above are, of course, pathetic attempts to look in control by people who are easily persuaded by presentation over content.

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Matt Miller has the last word …