Notices by d a t green (davidallengreen@mastodon.green)

“Brexit means we can make our own agreements with the EU, as we pick and choose!”

- UK chooses to make agreement with EU on a handful of issues.

“Brexit Betrayed!”

This week, boys and girls, we are going to find out all about why tariffs are not normally applied to service industries.

For visual commentary on the unfolding effects of Trump's tariff policy, we now go over to our new correspondent Max Quordlepleen.

"An interesting effect to watch for is in the upper quadrant of the north Atlantic, where if you look very carefully you can see supply chains disappearing for large arms manufacturers. Anyone here from large arms manufacturers?

"Well, it's too late to worry about whether you left the gas on now."

One fewer hour of doom-scrolling overnight, in UK.

NEW

“We will deport you if we have evidence against you, and deport you if we do not”

On an extraordinary witness statement from the US government - and how it has adopted the logic of the Ducking Stool

By me, at Prospect

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/the-weekly-constitutional/69560/well-deport-you-if-we-have-evidence-against-you-and-if-we-do-not

Query - help please?

Somebody once sought to work out all the rules of a sport (I think cricket?), not by reference to the rule book, but just by pure observation and induction/deduction alone from what they saw, match after match.

Ring any bell for anyone? I would love to track this down.

NEW

By me

Thinking about a revolution

Some things are changing rather fundamentally and the way we think should perhaps change too

Includes Monty Python, Yeats, and C.S.Lewis

Substack: https://emptycity.substack.com/p/thinking-about-a-revolution

Personal blog:
https://davidallengreen.com/2025/03/thinking-about-a-revolution/

In which Trump and cronies discover that just nobbling the prosecution may sometimes not be enough to fix the outcome of a criminal case.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/nyregion/adams-corruption-judge-independent-lawyer.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

NEW

Looking critically at Trump's flurry of Executive Orders

Why we should watch what is done, and not to be distracted by what is said

On Substack
https://emptycity.substack.com/p/looking-critically-at-trumps-flurry

Personal blog
https://davidallengreen.com/2025/01/looking-critically-at-trumps-flurry-of-executive-orders-why-we-should-watch-what-is-done-and-not-to-be-distracted-by-what-is-said/

In 2016-19, the Brexiteers obtained Brexit, and then didn’t know what to do.

In 2024, the Labour Party obtained power, and then didn’t know what to do.

In both cases they were the proverbial dogs that caught the car.

New, by me at FT

The coming battle between social media and the state

Behind the alignment of X and Meta with Trump is a cold business logic — and a position of weakness rather than strength

https://www.ft.com/content/917c9535-1cdb-4f6a-9a15-1a0c83663bfd

See also: East India Company, the then most powerful corporation the world had ever seen, summarily dissolved by a simple Act of Parliament.

Delighted to say that, after a period away, I am writing again for the Financial Times.

In tomorrow’s print edition is a long piece on Elon Musk’s and Mark Zuckerberg’s regulatory strategies.

And why recent events show that X and Meta are weak, not strong, when faced with determined state action.

From my FT article tomorrow:

“This corporate weakness in the face of determined state action should not be surprising. In any ultimate battle, the state will prevail over a corporation for the simple reason that a corporation as a legal person only has legal existence and entitlements to the extent set out by legislation. Those who control the law can, if they want, control and tame any corporate in their jurisdiction.”

Remembering David Lodge, whose death has just been announced.

The great storyteller of Rummidge, which occupied “the space where Birmingham is to be found on maps of the so-called real world”.

Everyone on that book cover - Lodge, Haydn Gwynne and Warren Clarke - now no longer with us.

But what smashing book - and a smashing TV mini-series.

All very much missed.

@goatsarah

He was the very chap I had to correct.

That special day of the year when you get to point out that the cheetah is not the fastest mammal, but a dinky little bat instead.

A neighbourhood has three cafes: Threads cafe, BlueSky cafe and Mastodon cafe.

Some people prefer one, while others go from one to another to say hello.

A few like all three.

All good: no reason for there just to be one.

But we all avoid the once-popular place that went bad under new management.

“…the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was ‘Oh no, not again’.”