That Was The Week That Was 1-5 November 2021
A Study in Differences
F Scot Fitzgerald remarked that the rich are different to us (to which Hemingway replied ‘yes, they have more money’); but, Shakespeare noted, wisely, that comparison is the thief of all joy. Nonetheless, sometimes it is fun to note that there is a place where they do things differently, and that place is Britain.
A country locked in a fictionalised version of its past; increasingly not rich, unless you are in the 1%; and determined to prove just how very different they are. The antics of their parliament this week, the week that was, taught us all that modern Britain has no sense of shame, or moral compass – yes all of you, you do not get out of it by sighing and saying ‘oh, Boris’… But we are not here to praise the UK government, or indeed to bury it, despite what so many Right Honourable men might have said.
For country with a (totally undeserved) reputation for politeness and doing the right thing, you might think that with COP26 in full swing in Glasgow, they would at least attempt to keep their head below the parapet for a couple of weeks. You would be wrong. Instead, we were given a full steam example of that most curious of things, the British sense of humour.
Calendars being what they are it is no-one’s fault that the autumn budget which sets out the fiscal and operational plan for the next year was due moments before the start of the COP. That sort of coincidence of timing is impossible to avoid. But given how very importantly the British told us they were taking the COP – jetting ministers all over the world to discourage Presidents Erdogan, Putin and Xi from attending – whilst being trolled by the Queen who refused to take part other than to show off that sense of humour thing, you might think that announcements that are likely to be controversial might have been avoided.
Instead, because we are talking about those very different, zany Brits, the Chancellor announced a halving of the tax on flying, as long as it was domestic. Just to remind you, this is Britain we are talking about. A country that you can throw a rock over. All over the world, householders will mow an area the size of Wales next Saturday and call it tidying up the back yard. The country that not only invented the steam engine, but also the steam train. Indeed the country that invented the railways. And the timetable. [Insert joke about anal retentiveness here, noting that its favourite toy bear has what can only be called a very scatological name; its second most famous is named after a railway station].
Yes, this Britain. Would that there be another.
At the COP, around the COP, leading up to the COP, the talk is of carbon pricing, reducing flying and increasing ticket prices including by way of carbon border adjustment mechanisms. So Light Brigade-like, Britain is reducing its departure tax on domestic flights. Which will save the government a lot of money. Because on Sunday we discovered that about 300 flights each day were taken by public servants.