An englishman’s home is his castle. Harold’s backed onto a large, enclosed green where, before a ww2 rocket flattened it, a victorian school stood. The neighbours argued over what to do with their common backyard before a bold group across the stream bandied together, took out a big loan and eventually built a golf club. Harold, who had been patiently cultivating a perimeter rose garden with a couple of the other neighbours on his side was not happy. The club though was a great success and after a while all the neighbours signed-up to become members. Harold learnt to live with it. Membership brought a steady income and open access to the bar and spa; he even convinced them to…

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Never has british politics been more precarious. This is not though because of brexit, but a symptom of the same malaise. Setting aside the prime minister’s triumphant conference speech (well done, simon, and best commentary is david mitchell’s on how the failing lettering was the worst sign) her strategy behind the early election that so undermined her was actually a good one, undone only by its pitiful execution. It’s hard to recall now that most of corbyn’s parliamentary party were passively-aggressively willing labour to lose (just not too badly) and even his strongest supporters thought staying alive would be above-expectations. The conservatives looked imperious and about to enter a period of thatcher-like dominance giving them time to regenerate and cast…

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I’ve always been a glass half-full person, as well as someone seemingly keeping his head when all around are losing theirs and indeed (I’d like to think) all rudyard’s “ifs”. That wasn’t easy with bombs blowing up buses in front of me in the 1990s (see 10 march 2012, here we go again), and isn’t easy now with the open, liberal, humanistic world I’ve seen move forward so strongly in my lifetime seeming to take some sharp steps back with those bombs here now, trump, brexit and all. That the world is getting worse is a general perception that drives the west’s current “anti” malaise: 81% of trump’s supporters think life has grown worse in the past 50 years. Yet,…

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Ten years and a few days ago, I went to work to find we (the european central bank) had injected a staggering 95 billion euros into the money market, after overnight lending rates shot up (due to bnp paribas freezing funds over american sub-prime mortgages). After being at it since 3am, an excellent colleague composed a great email to everyone explaining this was not the ecb giving away money but lending it to ensure no-one ran out, i.e. monetary policy. As in the normal run of things, it said, we’d soon be bringing it all back. After ten years of lowest-ever interest global rates and quantative easing, in spades for the uk, that deal is still not closed. A few…

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Though my other half and kids remain in budapest, I am back from a week in switzerland, and a second by lake balaton in hungary. Britons may be shunning fortnights away, but I have to say a longer break (still shorter than the august ecb grande vacances) is something I hugely appreciate. Unusually this year, we did several musical highlights, including reliving my youth at paleo nyon, an impromptu night with manchester’s own david gray and a double dip into the paloznak jazz picnic, where we saw kool and the gang and matt bianco, who were apparently massive in eastern europe back in the day. We made a lovely start in geneva before mosying around the lake and then breaking…

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As someone who fled when I was 18, never to return, it’s only slowly that manchester crept up on me since I actually did, even though my role in life for many years was its boosting and (weird word alert) agglomeration. Now of course I’m a proud native and suffered with everyone on hearing of the bomb and cheered at our response. There may be other things going on, but my emotions were on my sleeve as the dead kids were identified, probably as I now have my own and they both had friends there (thankfully everyone totally fine). My obvious resonance was to israel, as there was a time I was there in the early 90s when bus bombs…

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Britain and the union have set out their initial positions on uk withdrawal. They are some way apart. Despite wanting a “deep and special partnership”, the uk confirmed it does not want to remain in the single market. Though that is unambiguously the best economic outcome, the three political stooges of parliamentary control, paying in big money and free movement of people made it impossible. The same logic may seem to rule out joining the eea too, though I continue to suspect that if we do actually exit, that’s where we’ll go (see 11 june 2016, building the post brexit boat). Britain is also leaving the customs union, as, again politically, a whole government department has been pinned on britain…

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The brits have always been sceptical. Their delegate at messina in 1955 left before the famous political declaration that 2 years later created what is today the eu, saying “I leave because you will never agree, and if you agree you will never implement it, and if you implement it, it will be a disaster”. They only joined in the 70s when stuck in the economic doldrums while europe’s benelux writ seemed to be spreading the german economic miracle across the continent. Back in the early noughties, when my job was the first half of the “prepare and decide” policy on joining the euro, it was clear the uk would only sign up when, again, the uk economy seemed to…

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Well obviously he-who-must-not-be-remained got there before me (well done, tony), but I’ll happily jump on that bandwagon, as just like the last-tory-remainer standing ken clarke, I too somehow missed out on that great epiphany on 24 june that convinced so many other people that despite what they may have thought previously, leaving the eu is not such a bad idea after all. It is. And if staying in is the right thing to do, then it’s worth fighting for. The 48% have not yet given up. Though hsbc and various european orchestras may not yet presage the great exodus, there is no doubt that things cannot be better afterwards for those that want to encourage liberal, create, innovative people, of…

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