Johnson’sreshuffle

As I looked through the list of government appointments in Boris Johnson’s reshuffle, I had a eureka moment.

Beyond some leading ministers and a couple of others who had campaigned for Brexit, I had never heard of any of them.

Not a single one of them had come to public attention for arguing strongly and passionately for or against anything. And then the penny dropped. We have such poor government, because ministers and their juniors are selected for their complete lack of concern about what actually happens in the real world.

Nor are Holyrood and the other devolved assemblies any better, in fact quite the contrary, for the same process of appointment is in operation, coupled with much smaller and weaker pools of candidates to pick from.

As long as lack of concern for the real world, more often than not coupled with ignorance of it, is the route to political advancement we will be ruinously badly governed.

Windfarmcosts

The transmission charges were known to developers when they decided to build their wind turbines.

The owners of wind turbines in Scotland have been paid nearly £ 1 billion of constraint payments since 2010 to switch off their turbines when their electricity was not needed.

This cost was spread over all UK consumers.

Why should the English and Welsh pay for Scottish turbine transmission costs and constraint payments to boost the profits of the greedy turbine owners in Scotland?

Vaccinesforteens

JCVI recently recommended against COVID vaccines for 12-15-year-olds.

The government sought a second opinion and subsequently went against JCVI advice.

It is noteworthy that when JCVI earlier recommended that vaccines be given to 16-17-year-olds the government didn’t seek a second opinion.

Government departments then announced that parental consent wouldn’t be needed for 12-15-yearolds if the child were deemed to be competent to make the decision by themselves.

This is arguably unlawful when you consider the so-called Bell v Tavistock High Court case of 2020, which found that it was highly unlikely that a child aged 13 or under would be competent to give consent to the administration of puberty blockers.

It was also doubtful that a child aged 14 or 15 could understand and weigh the long-term risks and consequences of the administration of puberty blocking drugs.

Tradeprotocolwoes

of disruptive non-tariff barriers to trade between Scotland and Northern Ireland would have serious implications for all Scottish sheep breeders who supply this trade.”

NFU Scotland president Martin Kennedy added: “Addressing the post-Brexit impact on the valued and historic trade in live animals between Scotland and NI has been a priority for both NFU Scotland and Ulster Farmers Union since January 2021.”

Hungrychildappeal