Yesterday Theresa May got to address Parliament for one last time, answering MPs questions during Prime Ministers Questions. In this video, we discuss May's last words to the House including reflecting on her time in office and her thoughts on her successor, Boris Johnson.
26 July 2019
The Guardian: Boris Johnson can’t be found out: we all know he’s bluffing
As Boris Johnson walked up to the podium at 10 Downing Street to make his first address as prime minister, they should have played Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows as his fanfare: “Everybody knows that the boat is leaking / Everybody knows that the captain lied.” For the one thing that can be said in Johnson’s defence is that he is not a conman. Yes, of course, he speaks fluent falsehood as his native language. But he deceives no one. Everybody knows.[...]
Johnson’s fictions have always had a kind of postmodern quality – everybody knows they are fictions. Take the example that Johnson himself has constantly cited, what he called his “foam-flecked hymns of hate to the latest Euro-infamy: the ban on the prawn cocktail flavour crisp”. Everybody knows and has always known that there was no such ban. Why? Because everybody could walk into a shop and buy a packet of prawn cocktail flavour crisps.
Equally, his more recent brandishing of a kipper to embody another Euro-infamy was a kind of camp self-parody in which the performance is everything and the relationship to truth simply irrelevant. In this sense, there is no more deception than there is at a pantomime. The point is not to make a claim about reality. It is to draw the audience into a knowingly comic complicity with unreality, so that, when the EU says “but we never banned prawn cocktail flavour crisps”, everyone can shout out together, “Oh yes you did!”
Politico: Germany wary of Macron’s space force
Macron unveiled the broad outlines of the plan during Bastille Day celebrations this month, saying it would help the country “better protect our satellites.”
But the French president's agenda, unveiled in the midst of France's biggest national celebration, sits uneasily with Germany's preference for a multilateral approach to military and defense issues. [...]
In his announcement, Macron was careful to say that the plans should fit with a “European framework” but he also said the move is meant to strengthen France's “strategic autonomy.”
And the president’s insistence that the country must launch an “active” defense of its array of space-based infrastructure — key to communication networks, as well as intelligence, navigation and surveillance — has raised questions over whether he wants to develop offensive capabilities that could be deployed by France alone. [...]
However, Brussels is for the first time launching a significant program to fund defense equipment spending, despite strong opposition from left-wing groups to the idea of using EU cash for military purposes.
Politico: Sánchez loses bid to be reelected Spanish PM
Spanish lawmakers on Thursday voted down Pedro Sánchez’s bid to be reelected as prime minister — triggering the countdown for a new election to be held in November if the Socialist leader doesn’t manage to assemble a majority within two months.
Sánchez — whose party came first in a general election in April with 29 percent of the vote but fell short of a ruling majority — had been negotiating a potential coalition deal with the far-left Podemos. But the two sides failed to reach an agreement and accused each other of blowing up the talks in a parliamentary session that turned into a blame game. [...]
Ciudadanos head Albert Rivera used the word “gang” to refer to Sánchez’s potential allies among the far-left and regional nationalists, and argued that “the gang just couldn’t agree on how to share the lot.” [...]
It took close to three months after the April 28 ballot for the Socialists and Podemos to start talks, which took place against a backdrop of mutual mistrust, threats and ultimatums aired in media, and leaks of both parties’ negotiating positions.
Curbed: France’s solar roadway experiment has failed
In 2016, France announced its bold plan to “pave” 1,000 kilometers (around 620 miles) with photovoltaic panels, which would generate 790kWh per day. When completed, the road was supposed to power up to 5 million homes. But that first 0.6-mile stretch, which engineers had originally estimated would power up to 5,000 homes, hasn’t lived up to expectations.[...]
The report claims that engineers didn’t account for the natural deterioration caused by thunderstorms, leaf mold, and heavy trucks and tractors that would be regularly using the road. At its peak, the road only generated 149,459 kWh in a year, making them far less efficient than regular tilted solar panels.
The outcome, while disappointing, isn’t necessarily surprising. Experts have lobbed skepticism at the glitzy promise of solar roadways since they were first announced. Other experiments in the realm have gone similarly awry. In China, one six-foot panel of a 0.6-mile solar highway was stolen, prompting the government to abandon the project. In Missouri, where the company Solar Roadways was meant to test a small patch of sidewalk at a rest stop along Route 66, negotiations between the Department of Transportation and the company broke down.
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