Tag archive: Britten

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Boris Johnson, Britain’s New PM

At 12:05 PM BST on July 23rd, 2019, in London, England, it was announced that former UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had been elected Leader of the Conservative Party, currently in power in Britain. Although the formality of outgoing PM Theresa May’s resignation to the Queen, and Her Majesty’s formal invitation to Johnson to form a government, will not occur until the following day, the vote effectively makes Boris Johnson the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

 

A former journalist, Member of Parliament, Mayor of London and Foreign Secretary, the blonde, mop-headed Johnson has often been compared to Donald Trump, predominantly for their trademark bluster and the incendiary nature of their statements, as well as a similarly anti-immigrant, isolationist, transactional political opportunist bent. A leader in the pro-Brexit movement, Johnson has vowed to fully sever ties with the European Union by the current October 31st deadline, come what may.

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Brexit Deadline Looms

There were a lot of bad and flawed decisions that came out of 2016, like the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. With Uranus and TNO Eris locked in embrace and opposing Jupiter, populations across the globe that considered themselves disrespected, marginalized, or disadvantaged (all Eris) rose up in revolt, seeking change (both Uranus), with responses which were overblown and expressed in the political realm (both Jupiter). At least in the US we can say that only a minority of the electorate supported this ill-considered change.

 

Not so in the UK, where voters narrowly approved the British exit, or Brexit, from the European Union. In a sterling example of why we don’t generally submit complex policy decisions to the whims and prejudices of the uninformed masses, Britain now faces that most dreaded of possible outcomes from the vote: a Hard Brexit, with no deal achieved to replace Britain’s about-to-be-severed continental connections.

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Donald Trump’s Annual Performance Review

With his background in real estate, Donald J. Trump is doubtless aware of the concept of a “balloon payment”, a one-time last-minute huge increase in disbursement before a contract term expires. If the President’s outrageous remarks at the breakfast with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on July 11th, and his subsequent trashing of British Prime Minister Theresa May in a tabloid interview on July 12th, didn’t constitute just such a payment immediately before his annual performance review with his boss Vladimir Putin, then I don’t know what would.

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