AN OUTSIDE VIEW

The period of 150 years from the end of the Napoleonic wars can, in retrospect, be seen as a golden age of Catholicism. An unbroken succession of first rate popes, from Pius IX to Pius XII, built on, and consolidated, the work of each and all of his predecessors. Missionaries spread the faith round the world. Irish immigration brought a wave of Catholicism to America and Great Britain. In Britain, it was boosted by the aftermath of the Oxford Movement, with the conversion of Newman, Manning, Vaughan and many others from the English upper classes. Then came the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England in 1850, with the re-establishment of Catholic dioceses. This was followed by a vigorous period of church building, many by notable architects such as A W Pugin and Joseph Aloysius Hansom. Religious orders such as the Benedictines, Sacred Heart Sisters, and Oratorians, set up new communities all over the world. There were six seminaries in England alone, ...

Today is the feast of St Thomas of Canterbury. He was a martyr in the cause of the independence of the church from state power. That it is a perennial issue we know from the episode of “render unto Caesar”. At Brighton, during the 1980s, we had a curate, Fr Mark Elvins, who was a descendant of the Four Knights who murdered the Archbishop in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170. Fr Mark had acquired a relic of St Thomas whilst on a visit to Rome and brought it back to Brighton. This inspired him to set up a charity in Brighton to provide hostel accommodation for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, under the patronage of St Thomas. The existence of these relics of St Thomas was against the will of King Henry VIII. All relics of St Thomas were to have been destroyed after the shrine was taken down in 1538, on the King’s orders. Henry demanded that all the bones be ground to dust and shot from a canon. The plan was confounded because long before, relics had been given to the P...

A group of us were discussing this question the other evening. These are the odds given at the betting website Paddy Power . It is probably as good a guide as any, unless some new Cardinals are named. Cardinal Tagle (Phillipines) 4-1 Cardinal Marc Ouellet (Canada) 6-1 Cardinal Peter Turkson (Ghana)  6-1 Cardinal Sean O’Malley (United States) 15-2 Archbishop Angelo Scola (Italy) 15-2 Cardinal Christoph Schonborn (Austria) 9-1 For traditionalists, the dream scenario is Cardinal Sarah (French Guinea) or Cardinal Malcolm Ranjit (Sri Lanka, both 22-1) or Cardinal Francis Arinze (Nigeria, 25-1). It is claimed that the decision is the Holy Spirit’s, so any result is possible. However, would a “Benedict XVII” fare any better than Benedict XVI in the Vatican? And his successor in turn? Athanasius Schneider as “Benedict XVIII”? Whether the decision really is the Holy Spirit’s is another question. It all hangs ultimately on a particular interpr...

When I was a child, and that was a very long time ago, we used to go to Petticoat Lane market several times a year, usually on a Sunday morning; its real name is Wentworth Street. It was a train ride to the long-vanished terminal at Broad Street. The trains were ancient even then, having come into service during the First World War. The seats where covered in shiny horsehair with deep buttoned-in upholstery and above them were framed sepia photographs of places on the London and North Western Railway, such as the Lake District. In Petticoat Lane, prices were lower, which covered the cost of the train fare. There were all sorts of things that you could not buy anywhere else: unusual vegetables such as petrushka (parsley root), an essential ingredient of chicken soup; bagels; Cohen’s Smoked Salmon; Barnett’s salt beef; Grozdinski’s bread. You could buy schmaltz herrings (Dutch style, pickled in brine), Edam, Gouda, and white cream cheese, white unsalted butter, and olives, which were a...

Food mountains, wine lakes etc were not fake news. VAT (you could not think of a worse tax) was not fake news. The sudden disappearance of cheap food from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Argentina and Eastern Europe in 1973 was not fake news. The grubbing up of hedgerows in the late 1970s to make the most of CAP was not fake news. Farmers being paid to leave fields full of weeds under the 2nd version of CAP was not fake news. The grants to country landowners under the 3rd and current incarnation of CAP are not fake news The Single Market tariff barrier is not fake news.  Now for non-fake concealed-news: as the Single Market rules kick in after Brexit, there will be as many losers in the E27 as in the UK.

The unusually early heavy snowfalls have created plenty of work in the past few weeks for people who must get up in the middle of the night to clear it by hand and with snowploughs. All this extra activity is reflected in the GDP figure and looks like economic growth.  You could think of it as a job creation programme from heaven.

“The problem is that the Orthodox Churches will continue with what has been given and the un-Churched will continue with what has always been but the cavalier attitude of the Pope to the explicit teaching of Jesus Christ will wound the Catholic Church for generations and set precedents for further rejection and sidelining of Christ.” So writes Fr Blake in his latest blog . But surely it is not a problem, rather a useful pointer?

THE JOY OF ORTHODOXY I have so far said little about the joy of Orthodoxy. There are small things about the Orthodox I have noticed for a long time, for example, that those visiting a church stop at the threshold and make the sign of the cross before entering the building. Our local Franciscans have a library with a well-stocked section with books by Anthony Bloom, Meyendorff, Kontzevich and many others, which I have been reading my way through. One of the most inspiring was “The Unknown Homeland”, an autobiography by a priest from St Petersburg who had been arrested and imprisoned for a year before being sent to a remote village in Siberia, where, his health broken, he died after a few months. Reading these books has been a rewarding exploration in itself. There is a beautiful church, a re-modelling of a unpromising grey concrete protestant church put up in the 1970s. Obviously, there has been the Divine Liturgy. One can only concur with the emissaries sent by Prince Vladimir of...

The BitCoin mania reminds me of tulip mania. I might be mistaken, since a currency has a value as a medium of exchange as long as enough people have confidence in it. The energy now being consumed in computing to “mine” bit coins is immense. A friend one described his computers as fan heaters which did computing as a side-line. There is a data processing centre in Helsinki which uses the waste for heating an office block. Perhaps BitCoin mining could develop in a similar way. What, though, is one to make of trading in BitCoin futures? Is it the equivalent of trading tulip bulb futures? Luke 12:13-21 comes to mind. What could possibly go wrong?

A balance of payments deficit indicates that the value of the wealth coming into a country is higher than the value of the wealth going out, which is exactly as it should be. Goods are always worth more to the buyer than to the seller, and worth more in the country to which they are imported than they are in the country where they are exported form. That is why international trade takes place. A balance of payments surplus means that wealth is leaving the country in exchange for claims on wealth flowing back in return ie foreign exchange balances. A country with a balance of payments surplus is experiencing a loss of wealth. Sterling balances held abroad are the driving force behind UK exports since they create demand for UK goods and services, and generate foreign investment in the UK. Thus a country must import in order to export. That is why the the EU Single Market is so damaging, since it sets up an obstacle against imports from the rest of the world. This is pretty much the o...

Financial services have concentrated in London not as a result of a conscious decision but for particular reasons which make it the optimal location. By preventing EU businesses from making use of London-based services, it is forcing them to employ consultants operating sub-optimally, which will incur not only the cost of the initial disruption but also ongoing additional costs; such is the foolishness of the EU's trade policies. How things develop remains to be seen. Some of the business may eventually return to London for the very reason it has concentrated there in the first place. The present over-concentration of financial services in London is unhealthy and leads to a raft of problems. The departure of those businesses leaves premises in London vacant. The owners of the buildings they occupied will want to find tenants and so new opportunities will open up for other commercial users; they could be involved in design or technology-related activities. The import...

I will not be reading the book “Dictator Pope”, which has come out under a pseudonym. Were I to do so it would make me angry. That would be bad for my eternal soul, and probably for my heart also, which I need to be careful about. An ECG last week showed that it not altogether as it should be; I seem to have inherited something from my father, though he died at the age of 93 from a different cause altogether. The problems at Rome did not begin in 2013, or with the Second Vatican Council, or with the First Vatican Council, or even with the schism in 1054. They are a product of Roman Catholic ecclesiology and emerged slowly from around the year 700. Rather than engage with the Roman problems, I am walking away. I would advise others to do the same. Jesus Christ is the head of the church. His clear instruction was, “Follow Me”.  That is enough of a task. We do not need to concern ourselves with church politics which are plainly the work of the Devil.

Snart kommer jag att bestämma mig. Det finns olika skäl som driver mig i samma riktningen. Det blir till helgen ingen Traditionell Latinsk mässa som sig bör. Inte på grund av brist på präster, utan för att alla andra präster (det finns åtminstone 10 präster i och omkring Göteborg) vägrar att fira mässan i denna uråldriga form. Detta är bara en liten knuff som driver mig österåt. Jag kan inte ange exakt när resan började men säkerligen var det för många års sedan. Resan tog fart på allvar år 2013 när Påven Franciskus blev vald. Valet stämde inte i sig då den nya påven var jesuit; medlemmar i jesuit orden är efter löfte underställda att lyda påven. Detta i sig borde ha uteslutet en jesuit att kunna bli påve. Man kan sonika inte lyda under sig själv; det är en paradox i sig. En annan knuff i aktuell riktning var påvens besök till Sverige i oktober 2016 för firandet av 500 års minnet av Reformationen. Gudstjänsten i Lunds domkyrka var minst sagt märklig, samt mässan dagen efte...

I am coming close to making up my mind. There are several factors prompting me in the same direction. This weekend, for example, there will be no Tridentine Mass at my parish, not because of a shortage of priests but because all but one of them (there are at least a dozen in and around the city) refuses to celebrate it. What does that say? This is, however, only one little push moving me along on a journey which began,  imperceptibly, many years ago but gathered momentum following various events in 2013, including the election of Pope Francis, but also the local situation. The election of Pope Francis struck me as odd from the outset. A Jesuit, having made the special Fourth Vow of Obedience to the Pope, should have ruled himself automatically out of the running since obedience to oneself is meaningless or worse. Another push was the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation which took place in Sweden on 31st October last year with a strange ecumenical litur...

Seen from a non-mercantilist perspective, ie the view which was held by classical economists from the Physiocrats, via Smith and Ricardo, to Henry George, roughly 1750 to 1890, the picture looks very different from the usual anti-Brexit narrative. EEC/EU trade policy would have been castigated by the classical economists as a revival of the mercantilism which they had worked so hard to refute. The contemporary return of mercantilism was never based on a rebuttal of the classical view. It is just that the power of sectional producer interests has turned the majority of politicians, commentators and professional economists into mouthpieces for policies which work to their advantage; essentially, it is rent-seeking behaviour. The interesting thing for future generations to ponder will be how it is that these  producer lobbyists, acting against the well-being of the public at large, succeeded in getting so many members of the intelligentsia to speak for them.

An exchange of views in the FT discussion columns got me thinking about the sheer stupidity of the way the EU trade rules have been set up in the first place. This is really an issue of finding a balance between the interests of producers and consumers - and between different EU member countries. Producers should be able to look after themselves. They should be aware of what the competition is doing and stay ahead, or step sideways - which is what the UK heavy chemical industry did very successfully. The policy can be changed as interests evolve. Tough discussions on anti-dumping have been going on for years, and will probably continue (as the United States could tell you). So when the UK leaves the EU, your business may indeed be free to import cheap Chinese steel into the UK. But wait and see whether the EU will allow the UK to export anything made of cheap Chinese steel to the EU.  So the EU will get in the way of consumers and producers wishing to purchase UK products ...

Remainers refuse to accept that the problem over the Irish border is one created by the way the EU Single Market operates and is in principle an EU problem. When I posted under this Guardian piece that " The Republic don't want goods coming INTO their country from the post-Brexit UK. It's their problem and people in the Republic are the losers. I don't recall any threats from the UK to penalise Kerrygold butter etc and make it more expensive. What would be the point of putting up prices in UK shops unnecessarily? Getting out from under the tariff wall is one of the most important reasons for Brexit. UK consumers should not be forced to pay through the nose for stuff ", responses were mostly offensive, or they referred to WTO rules "Absolute bollocks...... complete and utter."  "why don't you look up WTO Trade rules to see what tariff free trade will await you when you hard exit from the EU. Way to shoot yourself in the head uk. Clap, Clap ...

Tariffs always result in an overall economic loss because they distort people's purchasing decisions. That in turn leads to the misdirection of resources. You are good st fishing and your neighbour at growing vegetables, so you swap fish for vegetables. A tariff barrier means that you waste time growing vegetables and your neighbour not only wastes time fishing, but also has to spend money on fishing tackle. The same objection applies in principle to any tax on sales, such as VAT. This is the case however governments spend the money raised. The chain of economic losses caused by tariffs spreads around the world because almost every country's government is at it.

This evening, I accompanied a friend, whose ankle has suddenly swollen up, to the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg. This was around 5.00 pm. He was quickly seen by the reception nurse, who told him, however, that it needed to be drained and that there was no-one who could do it. The nurse wrote a report and advised that he should take the report with him to Mölndal Hospital, where a doctor was on duty who could do it. We arrived at about 6.00 pm, he was promptly registered, and after an hour's wait, he was seen by a nurse who took a sample, and told that he would be treated within three hours. At around 9.20 he asked the receptionist how much longer the wait would be. He was told that it would be several hours more owing to the number of people in the queue, and there was only one doctor on duty. At which point my friend concluded that he could not wait until, possibly, three in the morning as he had to go to work next day, and so he insisted on leaving. He was, ...

People talk as if the post-Brexit lock-out of exports from the UK will do no harm inside the EU. Import substitution, they say, will quickly solve any problems. Matters are not so simple. There are many firms in EU countries whose major or sole business is as agents or importers from the UK. Many manufacturers produce items which include UK-made components which are not easily substituted, if at all. Simple things like the positions of holes for mounting bolts may not be in the correct positions. Substantial redesign and re-tooling may be necessary. Then there is the matter of spares and consumables; equipment may need to be scrapped prematurely due to non-availability. At the consumer level this also affects, for example, the availability of matching items, such as replacements or additions to tableware, a popular import from the UK to Scandinavia, or paints, wallpapers. There are also popular UK foods and confectionery; import substitution does nor work if you like some partic...

The EU's trump card is its ability to impose trade sanctions on itself at the cost of those inside the EU. I wonder if the North Koreans realise how lucky they are?

If the UK allows Irish produce in without tariffs, it will probably have to do the same for every import from the US, China, Australia, etc. Thus it not quite true to say, as is commonly claimed, that the WTO requires control of inwards movements in all circumstances. I say "probably" because Minford, who advocates free trade, unilaterally if necessary, has had one of his minions at work on the subject and has pointed out that the situation is not precisely as is usually asserted ie that the UK is required to impose border controls if it does not immediately offer unrestricted imports from everywhere. Minford's advocacy of unilateral free trade is in accord with the conclusions of all the classical economists in the line of evolution from the Physiocrats, through Smith and Ricardo, to J S Mill and Henry George. That conclusion, which was in opposition to the earlier mercantilist theory, has never been refuted. It has just been ignored, together with most of the body of...

I received the following comment in a discussion recently about the troubled relationship between the UK and the EU. " The EU set-up is quite comparable to most European countries that were pushed in the French administration model under Napoleonic rule or transferred to a similar system later. " In other words it is diametrically opposed to the English system (Scottish law is different). English law is based on Common Law principles as developed the case precedent and modified by statute. In principle, everything is permitted unless it is specifically stated otherwise, on the basis that "The Law is written on men's hearts", a concept absorbed from Anglo-Saxon times and which is derived from scripture, not Napoleon. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Jeremiah 31:33, Romans 2:15, Hebrews 10:18) It is this difference which lies at the root of all the conflict. Ordinary people understand this, since it has been picked up by osmosis. It is significant that it is precisely ...

The Four Freedoms are a recipe for strife unless they are accompanied by a Fifth Freedom. Land needs to be free, free as air. And freedom to trade should mean what it says. We are not even free, in principle to trade with our next door neighbours. What a pity that was not understood when the EEC was set up.

Christians should pray for Prince George to be gay, says C of E minister. Christians should pray for Prince George to be gay to force support for same-sex marriage in the Church of England, a senior Anglican minister and LGBTQ campaigner has said. Very Rev Kevin Holdsworth says C of E will be forced to support same-sex marriage if the ‘Lord blesses George with the love of a fine young gentleman’. In such an event one would not of course wish on the prince the fate of his antecedent King Edward II, ( the actual king , not the locomotive , which is one of the three of the type to survive), but being gay is not something to be wished on anyone. If William is a good father, loves the boy and spends time with him, and his mother is not over-dominant, it is unlikely that such a thing will happen. So the misguided clergyman is praying the the prince should have bad or incompetent parents. A former chaplain to the Queen, Rev Gavin Ashenden, has described the comments as “unkind” and “p...

There is talk yet again about the need to improve productivity in the UK. The country's low productivity is curious and apparently persistent, assuming that the figures are not affected by recording errors or other systematic mistake. This problem is not going to be solved until the reasons are discovered. It raises some obvious questions, of which these are just a few: What are people doing when they are at work? How much time are workers actually at their work? How much time is wasted doing nothing, waiting for other people to finish things? How much time is wasted on abortive activities? How much time is wasted in putting right what has been done wrongly? How much time is wasted due to design not made for efficient assembly ie poor production engineering? How many firms are operating inefficiently due to being in unsuitable premises? How many firms are operating inefficiently due to being in an unsuitable location? Are there geographical factors here eg transport c...

The new Hitachi bi-mode trains are now coming into service; after the embarrassing maiden trip, it is possible to make a more balanced judgement. It will be a while before I get an opportunity to travel in them, but the verdict seems to be that the underfloor engines are not too bothersome and the main complaints are about the hardness of the  seats. The air conditioning problem on the inaugural run was due to the failure of the pump which removes the condensed water, but one wonders why the system was designed to need one, when previous air conditioning systems relied on gravity to drain away the condensate. What became of the principle of keeping things simple? Ian Walmsley, writing in Modern Railways, said that the Great Western ones so far running are all right as commuter trains, but not much better than that. The big question mark concerns performance. The engines were supposed to have been de-rated to improve reliability, but this will have a detrimental effect on timekeepin...

It now turns out that the Great Western Main Line's "Tunnel of Steel" was not necessary after all. It seems, as Roger Ford explains in "Informed Sources", that there were design errors which went unnoticed. There have indeed been problems with overhead electrification on the East Coast Main line, which was carried out to super-economical standards, but the West Coast route, electrified in the 1970s, has performed reliably even though it passes through some of the most exposed uplands in the country; in comparison, it looks like gossamer.

Gothenburg is in chaos this week, with roads closed, tram routes cut and buses being sent on long diversions because the city is the choice of location for an EU talking shop, under the title " Social Summit for fair jobs and Growth " " Together with President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven will host a Social Summit in Gothenburg on 17 November 2017, focusing on promoting fair jobs and growth. The Social Summit for Fair Jobs and Growth will gather heads of state or government, the social partners and other key players to work together on a more social Europe and to promote fair jobs and growth.  "Well-functioning and fair European labour markets, effective and sustainable social protection systems and the promotion of social dialogue at all levels will be at the heart of the summit agenda. " Given the absence of a coherent theory of how the economy works, this expensive talking shop - with a lunc...

My former Parish Priest at Brighton, has written another depressing blog this week, lamenting the state of the Catholic Church. The real question is whether the Latin church can recover? Some people point out that it has been through these crises before. But that was before liturgical reforms weakened the sacramental signs to the point of confusing Catholics as to the very meaning of the liturgy, and split the church into language groups so that it was hardly recognisable as catholic (with a small "C"). The problems also raise ancient issues such as the role of the Papacy, post-schism theology and dogma, and even the Filioque clause, which influences people's concept of the Trinity in a fundamental way. The Latin church might recover. On the other hand, and it is difficult to see major changes of this kind when one is living inside them, it could be coming to the end of the road it has travelled for almost 1000 years.

I would be thinking along the following lines. All import tariffs to be removed on B-day. The UK should not waste energy on trying to negotiate trade agreements. People abroad do not buy UK goods as an act of charity but because they want them or need them. It is up to them to put pressure on their own governments to get out of the way and stop preventing them from purchasing what they want.  VAT to be phased out in two stages; it may result in no loss at all to the Exchequer. ( this is the reason for the surprising conclusion) Corporation tax to be scrapped on B-day.  Additional revenue can be raised if required from the UBR (commercial rents will go through the roof if CT is scrapped, giving the Chancellor a juicy tax base). However, upwards-only rent revision clauses must be banned so that commercial rents can find their market level. A national Council Tax to be raised on top Bands and G and H properties.  Income Tax and NI thresholds to be raised substantiall...

That, "Industry and agriculture should be protected, for as long as we need people to have jobs", is a fallacy based on popular/populist economic misconceptions. Trump is following the line. The EEC/EU has followed the same line for sixty years. The misconception ignores the principle of competitive advantage. You would not fry your own fish and chips if there was a perfectly good fish and chip shop across the road. Human progress has been built on division of tasks so that each does that which they are best at; the big strong guys went out hunting, while the weedy short-sighted ones stayed in the camp and made spear tips and fish hooks. Trade arises through the exchange of skills. Without specialisation, the little group of hunter-gatherers would have blunt spears and the weedy guys would have got eaten while out foraging. The same principle scales up. A single family of homesteaders has to do everything for themselves. When a few more arrive, they can share out their ta...

I came across this in the Guardian comments section today Will "The terror of American chlorine washed chicken" beat “Britain is stronger, safer and better off in Europe” for first prize in the post-referendum decider? The most recent study by the Agency showed that 65% of raw shop-bought chicken was contaminated with campylobacter. An estimated 300,000 cases of food poisoning are attributed to the bug every year in England and Wales alone. The Food Standards Agency, Defra, the UK poultry industry, and major retailers have agreed a new target that will measure efforts to reduce the levels of the food bug campylobacter in chickens. There are three categories of contamination levels and, currently, 27% of birds are in the highest category. The Agency's proposed action on campylobacter includes: working closely with the UK food industry to trial new intervention measures on the farm, in slaughterhouses and at retail level. setting a new target for reducing the l...

One of the disputes that has bubbled up over Brexit is what to do about the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. It seems that the UK government has not a clue about what to do over import tariffs. WTO rules mean that it will be difficult to do the really stupid thing and impose them, even if it wants to. The chlorinated chicken will be on the shelves and if people don't want, that is where it will stay until it is sold off as cat food. That means in turn that the Republic would have no problems with getting imports across Great Britain. It also means that that since the UK government is not proposing retaliatory tariffs so there is no reason why farm produce from the Republic should not enter the UK as now. What would be the point of making people pay more for their Kerrygold? All the obstructionism is on the EU side as the single market rules kick in. This will cause the same trouble as is already experienced in places close to the EU's eastern border, on b...

The 1989 Brighton Festival celebrated the bicentenary of the French Revolution, under the theme " A Taste of Freedom ". I thought at the time that it was not the sort of thing that anyone should celebrate - mass murder and two decades of war were the consequence. 2017 marks 500 years of the Reformation and 100 years since the Russian Revolution, which took place on 8 November 1917. The first was a catastrophe for Europe, the second for the world. The death tolls in each amounted to millions. The Reformation has been the occasion of "ecumenical" services, consisting mostly of the singing of some Protestant hymns and sermons by representatives of different denominations, such as this one last Sunday at Uppsala ; a dreary affair apart from an excellent sermon, by Cardinal Arborelius. BBC Radio has filled up the week with commemorative programmes of the Russian Revolution, so that is best avoided. The Russians themselves have had more sense, having been on the recei...

Brexit has been described as a "tragedy." That is a limited view. The EU was the tragedy. Brexit is just one of the consequences. The seeds were sown when the the EEC was founded. Its leaders ignored a founding principle, that of "subsidiarity". Subsidiarity is a principle that first came to public attention in the Catholic Social Teaching encyclical Quadragesimo Anno , issued by Pope Pius XI in 1931. It holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate (or local) level that is consistent with their resolution. Subsidiarity was formulated thus: "It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry." (Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo anno , 79) Had this principle been followed, there would have been no Common Agricultural Policy, no tariff wall around the customs unio...

An article in today's Metro explains that whilst not much has been done so far to prevent acts of terror with heavy goods vehicles in Sweden's largest cities, next year there are plans to introduce a digital technology which will limit access by HGVs, or restrict their speed. One is left wondering who might randomly drive vehicles into crowds of people with the intention of killing as many as possible? The Irish Republicans have no quarrel with Sweden. As far as I know there is no radical organisation committed to independence for the Sami, or for Skåne. Nor is there any history of radicalisation among Jehovah's Witnessess or Christian Scientists. The article leaves the readers guessing. Who could the terrorists possibly be?

Boris Johnson has been endlessly ridiculed for saying that Brexit Britain can live by exporting home-made jam. I am not sure what his exact words were, but the those who ridicule have missed the point. "Jam" is a shorthand way of referring to specialist, upmarket niche products with a touch of snob appeal. They are something which the UK does very well; many retail products from the UK on sale in Continental Europe fall into this category. Being in this market segment avoids head-on competition with Germany, where the UK is always at a disadvantage due to the added transport costs, which are a disadvantage of being on an island. Dover and Cheriton are in the extreme bottom right-hand corner of the country, whilst Harwich and Felixtowe, although better placed for Britain's industrial centres, involve a six hour crossing, plus another two or three loading and unloading; the crew of two have to be paid whilst sitting on board the ferry. The German manufacturer...

I went to a Tridentine Mass last night at our local parish. It was the vigil Mass for All Saints and was everything a Mass should be - the Proper sung as in the Liber Usualis, the Ordinary in a polyphonic setting and Credo 1. I then retired to a pub with a group of friends. The conversation turned, as always in these situations, to the state of the church, and how our local priest has been marginalised and even subjected to harassment for his "conservatism". He celebrates the Tridentine Mass every Saturday evening, on most feast days and at least one other day a week. That is impressive. However, there is not a single other priest in the locality who will stand in for him when he is away. Requests to other priests meet with a flat refusal; one gave the feeble excuse, that it was "too complicated". Can he warm up a meal in his microwave? There seems to be a reluctance within groups like my friends to accept that parishes where tradition is holding are tiny isla...

If you were able to coherently tell us what your point is then I would be happy to answer. I have but you cannot see it. It is an example of the head-vase illusion; if you are convinced there are two heads you cannot see the vase. There is an almost universal habit of considering trade relationships through the wrong end of the telescope. It gave rise to the mercantilist principles which dominated in the seventeenth century, and were rebutted in the second half of the eighteenth, when the principles of free trade were established under the influence of Smith and Ricardo . Free trade took hold strongly in Britain in the nineteenth, the high point being the repeal of the hated Corn Laws in 1846, which were reinstated in 1973. Protection dominated in the US throughout the period; the damage done to the US economy was chronicled by Henry George in "Progress and Poverty". Post 1945, mercantilism has crept back in the guise of populist/nationalist policies promot...

Sanctions are imposed on a country as a punishment. The ultimate form of sanctions is a military blockade - like the Germans did in the two world wars - submarines, battleships, bombers, mines, to prevent goods reaching Britain and the other Allies. Protection has exactly the same effect. It is astonishing that people find it so difficult to see the similarity. Chinese protectionism and the sale of goods at below cost is at the cost of the Chinese. If their government is stupid enough to force its people to make stuff and give it away or sell it for less than it costs to produce, then the only rational reaction from the rest of the world is to take it and say, "Thank you very much!" If someone in your street set up a bakery and insisted on selling the bread at half price, everyone in the neighbourhood would scratch their heads for a while and then take advantage of their stupidity. Nobody else would try to compete directly. Sooner or later the crazy baker would get the i...

Free trade means a country's rulers allow goods in tariff free and with minimal other restrictions. It is a unilateral action. It was demonstrated long ago by the classical economists that it is optimal for the importing country. Other countries can do the best for their own people by following suit. Or they can cause them trouble, expense and inconvenience by imposing protectionist measures, eg the EU, Trump, Peron, etc. "Free trade deal" is a contradiction in terms.

The classical economists demonstrated that if country A imposes restrictions against country B, then wealth in country B is optimised if it does not impose retaliatory tariffs. Which makes trade deals pointless and irrelevant. Just open the doors. Obviously we do not want people selling 110 volt appliances when the national supply is 240 volts, and chlorinated chicken should be marked at least with its country of origin, but the general principle holds. A lot of issues with standards can be dealt with by control at the retail end, so that responsibility passes up the supplier chain to the importer (or manufacturer in the UK, for that matter).

Britain's vital interests are that goods and flow freely into the country. Enemy opponents in two world wars were trying to block that flow, with battleships, submarines, mines, etc. North Korea is a potential enemy, which is why the country is under sanctions which prevent the sale of goods TO that country. As far as I know, there has never been any threat from the EU to refuse to supply the UK with goods, post Brexit, whether it be ball bearings from Sweden, cars and washing machines from Germany, bacon from Denmark or tomatoes from Spain. So as long as the UK government does nothing silly like imposing retaliatory tariffs, there is no problem on that score. On the contrary, leaving the EU means being free of the burden of tariffs which restrict the flow of goods into the UK and add to their cost. At the same time, consumers and business inside the EU are faced with the same restrictions on importing goods from the UK as they already have when importing from the rest of th...

Trade takes place because goods are worth more to the buyer than to the seller. Everyone's idea of a good deal is that one buys things that satisfy their wants and are good value for money. A brand new car at a 20% discount is a good deal, in normal usage. But in this whole debate over Brexit, the idea of a good deal has been turned inside-out. The "good deal" is that people in the UK are allowed to sell UK produce to people in the EU. It is as if people in the EU were not really buying British goods because they wanted them, but as a favour or act of charity. The reality is that keeping out British goods is depriving EU people of the opportunity to purchase them. It is exactly the same as if the UK imposed sanctions on the EU and refused to sell its goods. In normal situations sanctions are imposed against a country as a punishment. In this case the EU is imposing the punishment on itself, not particularly because there is any desire to punish the UK but because that...

The very public failures of the Hitachi IEP on its first run in public service have been the subject of much criticism in the press. I am no fan of this project but the criticism is unfair at this stage. It takes at least a couple of years in public service to get a new design of train working reliably. British Railways Mark 1 stock is often held up as an example of robust simplicity, but its introduction was plagued with problems. The ride quality of the trains deteriorated rapidly due to the design of the BR1 type double bolster bogie . This led to the setting up of a research programme which eventually resulted in the B4 bogie , but that took almost a decade. In the meantime, the Commonwealth bogie with cast steel frame was adopted as an interim replacement; the ride quality was much improved but it was a heavy piece of equipment. Ride quality became even more of an issue when the mark 1 stock was adapted as an electric multiple unit design for service on the newly electrified Ken...

The new class 700 Siemens trains are even worse than the class 319 stock which it replaces. There is nowhere to put a cup of coffee apart from balanced on one's lap. Had the designers never heard of "food to go"? Do they even travel in trains? The uncomfortable seats have no spacers in between the pairs so if there is one large person in the window seat, his or her neighbour will be half-way off the seat by the gangway. The skirting level duct cuts into the space to put one's feet so that one is forced to sit twisted round.  The lighting is dim - there is only a strip in the centre of the ceiling. What is the reason for the curved shape of the windows? Horrible trains, and you can be sitting or standing in them for well over an hour as they are used on the line between Brighton and Bedford.

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor Bishop of the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton for 23 years Became Archbishop of Westminster in 2000 Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis.

John Paul II 1978 Benedict XIV 2005 Francis 2013

No going back on the liturgy Pope Francis says post-Vatican II liturgical reforms are irreversible.

Catholic Mass obligations With the Tridentine Masses suspended for the holidays, I could not face the Novus Ordo vernacular Masses with Lutheran hymns which were all that was on offer in the Catholic church locally. I would come out feeling irritated and unsatisfied, if not outright angry at the liturgical vandalism verging on abuse. The question that arises is this. Catholics have an obligation to go to Mass every Sunday. I have not missed going to Mass every Sunday, but the Masses I have attended have been Orthodox liturgies. Is this a sin that needs to be confessed? Can it even be confessed? Can a priest give absolution? If, at some point in the future I am received into the Orthodox church, what is the situation then? The following reply came to my response on Fr Blake's blog Physiocrat, I generally find that when somebody asks if something is a sin which needs to be confessed, they already know the answer - yes. Our Lord did not invite us to pick up our crosses and fol...