Can we spot the bait and switch here?

Guardian headline, reported on the Today programme:

European diplomats based in the UK say the British government is stepping back from its threat to leave the EU without a trade deal if negotiations break down.

In private, say diplomats, UK officials recognise the “havoc” that this would cause, and have come to regret the threat to turn the UK into a deregulated offshore tax haven, implicit in Theresa May’s Lancaster House speech in January, when she warned that “no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal”.

They claim the conciliatory signals from UK government officials are an attempt to lower the temperature as the prime minister prepares to send the UK’s article 50 letter on Wednesday, triggering the start of two years of intensive Brexit negotiations.

I would suggest people carefully note the differences between the Prime Minister, pragmatic but a Remainer at heart; Her Majesty's Government, committed to implementing the outcome of the referendum; and "UK officials" who, as with much of the metropolitan class are shocked and ashamed by the evil, low information BREXITers winning.

I could indulge my cynicism further but it should be fairly obvious where I stand.

Also, I would note the pathetic whining about a "deregulated offshore tax haven". WTO rules for trade with the EU do not mean, implicitly or explicitly, a deregulated tax haven. We are, of course, offshore.

Not that being a deregulated tax haven would be a bad thing. It might get Richard Murphy out of the country for one.

This is such a nice conceit :)

We might marginally have ameliorated their impact through dredging differently or spending more or disapplying EU waste directives or sacrificing Lord Smith in a wicker man at Glastonbury, but the deluge would still have happened.

Daniel Hannan, at the Telegraph.

Is this news?

Corruption across EU 'breathtaking' - EU Commission

Oh, sorry. I thought that said:

"Corruption within EC 'breathtaking'"

Supremacy of Parliament?

This is boggling beyond belief:

People who sell DVDs and videos illegally, including pornography to children, cannot be prosecuted because of a legislative blunder dating back 25 years, it has emerged.

Okay - I'm no great fan of the current (or 1984 :) quality of parliamentary draftsmanship but the Video Recordings Act was

ENACTED by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same,

So what is this blunder? Oh,

the then British Tory Government should have notified with the European Commission but failed to do so.

The error also went unnoticed when the laws were amended in 1993 and 1994.

The technicality means the act is unenforceable and urgent action is now under way to notify Europe and re-enact the legislation.

So, a law correctly passed by Parliament and in accordance with the British Constitution (and not over-ridden by legislation such as the HRA) is unenforceable because of a bureaucratic oversight? Has this got something to do with s8 (Cinematographic Films) of the European Communities Act? Or is there another control mechanism which requires all of our laws to be notified to the EU?

Hat tip to Caspar on the FIPR list.

This classic "reap as you sow" example of nu-Lab incompetence made me grin. H/t to Charles Crawford.

This blog can be read in Germany.

And, as Gerald Toben found out, you can be arrested in Britain for doing something in Australia that is a crime in Germany (but not in either Britain or Australia.)

Why is this relevant? Because this pseudonymous blog does not carry an "Impressum" - see examples here and here (from real companies) and here and here from 'real' blogs - one already in the author's name and the other otherwise pseudonymous (Ed adds: and one weird one from a - Disney - corporate blog - see what happens when you cross German authoritarianism with Yank legal paranoia.)

So you could argue that the lack of an impressum here, and in many other blogs - for example, we all know who DK and Guido really are, but neither blog carries an official impressum - is an offence against German and Austrian law (and I do occasionally visit Germany and have been to Austria once, although to the best of my knowledge I have never blogged from either country.) So, if I do something to offend the German authorities (frankly, there is so much need for offending the UK authorities, I can't see where I would find the time), I can be arrested in the UK or if I happen to have a business or private trip there (or my plane to somewhere else just diverts). And I don't want to get into the trouble RFS did. And, as ever, the lawyers are already circling around the nearly-dead body of common-law liberty (and, to extend the analogy, snatching a quick snack before the heart has stopped beating).

So, actually, we don't need cretinous Estonian socialists to invent new ways to restrict our liberties - we can be dragged away through totalitarian legislation already proxied into UK law (s3, Extradition Act, 2003). Be afraid, be very afraid.

Barbary Ape test, everybody?

The EU is a monstrous waste of money, an affront to democracy and MEPs and Commissioners, generally speaking, don't know their arses from their elbows

and under no circumstances should be allowed a say on legislation.

Stolen, with grateful and slightly inebriated thanks, from Trixy.