Independent: The EU is ready to reap the profits from our financial services and there's nothing we can do

Phillip Hammond reckons it is in everyone’s “mutual interests” to include financial services in the deal but it most certainly is not. Now the UK is leaving, the EU has no incentive to ensure London’s financial district continues to thrive, which is why Europe has repeatedly rejected any suggestions of London having access to the single market. [...]

The City of London is an integral part of the UK economy. More than one million people work in finance-related jobs and estimates put the sector’s contribution to the UK economy at £124.2bn in gross value. These jobs and this contribution are now in serious jeopardy and a number of major banks are quite openly making plans to move to the continent. JP Morgan has warned of 4,000 UK job cuts, Goldman Sachs has started to move people abroad, taking up space in Paris and Frankfurt, and Swiss investment bank UBS said the bank “will definitely” be moving people out of London. [...]

During the eurozone crisis, having euro clearing taking place in London proved to be a major difficulty for the ECB as it tried to mitigate and control the crisis. There will soon be nothing stopping Europe from enforcing a policy like this and it works massively in their interests to pursue it. Manfred Weber, the head of the European People’s Party, the largest group in the European Parliament and a political ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, has openly said that it was not conceivable that euro-denominated business could remain in London.

read the article

PinkNews: Gay marriages are less likely to break up than straight ones, study reveals

The study, which tracked more than 500 couples in Vermont over the course of 12 years, also revealed that women in same-sex marriages were the most likely to break up.

Lesbian unions are twice as likely as gay marriages and 1.5 times as likely as straight marriages to end, according to the research.

Professor Esther Rothblum, the study’s author and a visiting scholar at the Williams Institute who also teaches women’s studies at San Diego State University, said that one explanation was the results was that women expected more than men. [...]

The idea that women strive for a better quality of relationship is backed up by a study published last year by researchers at the University of Queensland which showed that lesbian couples are happier than straight ones.

read the article

The Observer view on the danger John Bolton poses to world peace

Despite the calamitous post-9/11 consequences of his neoconservative ideology, arrogant unilateralism and America First nationalism, Bolton has never acknowledged error. He continues, for example, to argue for forcible regime change in Iran and North Korea. Stuck in a unipolar quagmire of his own intellectual making, the louder he shouts, the deeper he sinks. The world has changed since 2003, but he hasn’t. As the New York Times declared last week, Bolton is a truly dangerous man. A worse choice as the US president’s senior adviser on global security affairs is hard to imagine. [...]  

A probable scenario now is that the US side will make demands it knows Kim cannot accept, such as halting his nuclear weapons programme and unilaterally disarming, and will then blame Pyongyang for the ensuing failure. “You see, we tried,” Bolton will say. “So now there is no alternative to bombing.” [...]

In Iran itself, hardline clerics who denounce Bolton as a “sponsor of terrorism” may privately be content to see the gloves come off with Israel and its US and Saudi allies. So, too, may Palestinians ghettoised in Gaza. Perhaps the Middle East was ever a powder keg. But by picking Bolton, and appointing Mike Pompeo, another pro-Israel hawk, as secretary of state, Trump has lit the blue touchpaper.  

read the article

The Observer: Democracy dies without transparency and fairness

The ability to spend large sums on micro-targeted advertising based on revealing data harvested from voters’ social media profile removes much of that transparency. If the material in question goes unseen by the vast majority of voters, it becomes harder to track exactly what a party is putting out, so easier to put out false claims, and for spending to go undeclared, particularly when the money is channelled through little-known intermediaries. Social media platforms are overtaking the national and local press as the channels through which politicians communicate with voters, but they perform that function without the same level of scrutiny, regardless of their own ideological or business interests. Anomalies abound. Broadcast advertising is banned; yet advertising on YouTube – where videos can garner more viewers than primetime television – is unlimited so long as it is within spending limits.  [...]

We don’t know how effective Cambridge Analytica’s efforts were at changing voters’ minds. We don’t know whether the extra spending Vote Leave channelled via BeLeave helped swing the referendum result. Clearly, the poll revealed deep schisms within Britain, fuelled by discontent with the status quo among the electorate. Those sentiments were not manufactured by malevolent actors deploying subterfuge.

The Observer has made no secret of its belief that Brexit is not in the national interest. But asking questions about transparency and fairness is driven not by a partisan wish to overturn a referendum result, but the desire for a critical debate about whether our electoral laws, and ultimately our democracy, remain fit for purpose. Left or right; remain or leave: this debate concerns democrats from all political traditions.

read the article

The Guardian: Gay clergy will live in torment until the Catholic church drops this hypocritical oath

A few months before this, I was informed by the editor of the Catholic Observer that O’Brien had chided her for publishing an article of mine in which I had criticised his attitude to gay people and the use of the word “grotesque” in describing their sexuality. Yet I didn’t derive any delight at his public outing, only a sense of deep sadness that a man with great qualities of leadership and compassion had been brought low by a lie that had probably stalked half his adult life. What misery and self-loathing must he have endured as he preached his fables about human sexuality. And yet what damage had he caused to the faith of thousands not by being revealed as a sinner but as a hypocrite. [...]

Catholic leaders are in denial about sexuality and especially the “grotesque” form of it that they fear more than anything else. Latterly in his ministry, something caused O’Brien suddenly to begin deploying more militant and unpleasant language in describing gay people. 

This would all be hilarious if it weren’t so tragic. The Catholic church is absolutely hoaching with gay priests and bishops. There are so many residing within the Vatican that they could probably form their very own order. I’ve been contacted by several in Scotland over the past few years, simply for highlighting the hypocritical oath that holds sway in the Catholic church and that has made their lives miserable.  [...]

Some of this has been evident in the decades of sex abuse by Catholic clergy in Scotland. Sadly, too, it has been evident in the lamentable response of the hierarchy and the reactionary praetorian guard of lay civil servants that surrounds it. The week before O’Brien’s death, Father Paul Moore, an 82-year-old retired priest, was convicted of sexually abusing three children and a student priest over a period spanning more than 20 years. Without going into the details, the abuse was as bad as it gets. His bishop knew about this many years before, yet chose to park the issue by moving him on. He was only doing what other bishops are told to do.

read the article