The old and exaggerated adage about Belgium’s military: a pension fund with an air force.

Is that ‘rowing’ as in arguing?

Agree with this. Governments often prefer to feed stuff to lobby in the UK or White House hacks in US because they can’t be experts in every field, and hence less informed pushback. Brexit debate was almost completely intermediated in the UK press through the lobby and so wasn’t properly examined

I think he’s made a living turning socks into coat hangers

You might say Rest in Peace but I don’t think she’d like resting in peace.

Agreed on the increase in exports from Asia, some replacing China, as I mentioned in my thread. These are US stats. Unsure of volumes of US-UK gold trade or of any reason they would have shrunk permanently post-2017.

Clearly part of the picture is some shifting from China to other countries, particularly in Asia.

Original here. In Trump world, imports are bad. Maybe UK isn’t important enough to bother about.

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02...

The only serious argument was political. My question always was, for the economic costs we would inevitably pay (with a smaller than otherwise economy and therefore lower public spending), what was the probability that UK decision-making would improve from its low base post-Brexit? 20% max?