When we could…
Government
The other week, the Supreme Court rejected an argument put forward by Subway that their rolls are bread and are therefore zero rated for VAT purposes. The court ruled that the rolls are not, in fact, bread. As the Guardian reports: The ruling followed an appeal by Bookfinders Ltd, Subway’s Irish franchisee. The company had […]
People
Sad to hear that the author of The God Squad died today. A revealing indictment of the Church in Ireland and institutional abuse. I read it a couple of years ago.
Secret State
The outgoing ‘C’ gave an interview to the FT: “So Alex, you’ve been at the service for 30 years, 30 years of being a spy, and then a chief spy. What is the reality of life as a spy? I think that there is a big intellectual curiosity thing. I mean, our job is asking […]
Journalling
Life
Working on something that you don’t quite fully understand, don’t have the time before delivery date to get to understand, yet need to implement as if you understand is really painful. It actually gets me down. It’s painful work. It often arises as a result of being unable to complete some other task that you […]
Brexit
Hmmm: Financial services in the UK can currently trade across the European Economic Area (EEA) because member countries are bound by the same regulatory framework. The arrangement, known as “passporting”, expires at the end of the year and, while the UK has legislated so that EU banks can continue to provide services for customers in […]
Food for Thought
Politics
I was thinking about what Boris Johnson said to Keir Starmer the a while back – ‘why don’t you build up what we are doing?’ It occurs to me that this is really key to leaders like Boris, and Nigel Farage, Donald Trump et al. It’s similar to the if you’re not with me you’re […]