It was wonderful to wake up this morning and, as I generally do when I make my early morning cup of tea, enquire of my smart speaker, Alexa, what the weather is like and to be informed that the temperature was now 8° and due to rise during the day, albeit with some showers of rain. Our chiropodist when she called yesterday was telling us that she was going to the Caribbean for her first holiday in five years and I know how he feels as this is the longest period of my life when I have gone holiday-less, primarily as a result of the pandemic. I was reading a story in Sky News this morning about the damage that was being wrought to the UK metals industry. We export huge quantities of a semi-finished product of stainless steel in huge bars called billets and this product is eventually manufactured into everything from surgical instruments to kitchen sinks. The Trump-imposed tariffs are now imposed on semi-finished as well as finished products which means that ships laden with British made stainless steel, if delayed across the Atlantic by storms (which they were), now face a 25% tariff wiping out the entire British profit margin. To make matters worse, foreign steel producers now priced out of the USA market are flooding the UK with cheap steel imports and this 'double whammy' is having dire consequence for the UK metals market. This story reveals the complex inter-dependencies and delicate ecostructure of international trade so the Trump tariffs will have ripples that spread far and wide. American steel producers will have to take their old plants out of mothballs to replace those supplies now impacted by tariffs, but this takes time and of the order of years. So, we are living in a situation in which tariffs imposed within days may take years of corrective action. In effect, we are seeing a similar series of events unfolding within the UK domestic scene with the 'instant' decision to abolish NHS ngland which is the administrative and technical arm of the NHS. Many of these functions were established by law in the 'Health and Social Care Act 2012' and so to implant these functions back within the Department of Health and Social Care will take years and at a cost which has probably not been calculated. The politicians always work to an incredibly short time scale and never having worked in 'proper' organisations rather than as political advisers are probably completely unaware of the damage they may be causing. To illustrate this point, Keir Starmer appeared on a Channel 4 programme last night on the acute shortage of nurses and he claimed that getting rid of NHS UK would release sources that would go straight into patient care such as nurses. The trouble with this argument, even if had the smallest grain of truth, is that we would have to wait for several years to make the savings anticipated and it could well be the case that potential savings are considerably smaller once the redundancy and administrative costs of reorganisation are factored into the equation. But these are the calculations that civil servants make, and not politicians, and when the civil servants point out these problems to their political masters they are accused of being obstructive or uncooperative.
Yesterday morning was somewhat dull and cloudy, and I was not unhappy about not taking Meg out for the day, particularly as were expecting a call from our church's Eucharistic minister later in the morning. We spoke about the recent death of one of the parishioners who we knew and then completed our short little service. After she had left, I made a quick visit down into town to collect my newspaper and on the way back, I was intrigued to be following a white van decorated, I think, in the motifs of the British Legion but with the expression 'Grumpy old git inside' As I was behind the vehicle, I never discovered to what organisation the van belonged but it was not an everyday sight. As it was St Patrick's Day on the 19th of the month, I accessed on the BBC iPlayer a documentary detailing the life of St Patrick who was born of Romano-British parents but started off his life in England and not Ireland. Saint Patrick was not sold into slavery but was captured and taken as a slave to Ireland around 400 AD. According to his writings, he was a shepherd for six years in captivity before escaping back to Britain. However, a study from Cambridge University based on his writings suggests a different narrative. It indicates that Patrick may have sold slaves owned by his family to pay his way to Ireland, possibly to avoid becoming a tax collector for the Roman Empire. Despite these conflicting accounts, it is generally accepted that Patrick's experience as a slave in Ireland was a formative period that deepened his faith and eventually led him to return to Ireland as a Christian missionary. After lunch, as we generally do each Friday, we treat ourselves to a catch-up of 'Question Time' from the night before to discover what the country at large is making of topical political questions of the day.
The day's news is dominated by the complete closure of Heathrow following a dramatic fire in an electricity sub-station (and its back up system). As Heathrow has about 1350 flights in/out per day and a flight taking off every 45 seconds, the effects of this closure have been felt worldwide. Flights have been diverted or turned back if they have not reached 'the point of no return' and the consequences of the closure are incalculable. For example, there are a group of Chinese on board on aircraft bound for the UK and with UK visas but not for any other country so what happens to them when they land in another country? Inevitably, questions are raised about the fragility of the infrastructure in the UK, and one would have thought it impossible that there were not robust plans in plans for this admittedly rare event to occur. One does get feeling that the UK which used to have sound systems has been 'hollowed out' in recent decades - could such an event have happened in France or Germany? Who will bear the costs of this massive disruption may be hard to evaluate and it will undoubtedly have an impact on our ability to achieve some economic growth.
© Mike Hart [2025]