The Question
When is enough enough?
Talking Points
- The Greek train crash death toll climbed to 57
- Half of humanity will be overweight or obese by 2035
- Charges were laid in the shocking Kong Kong model murder case
- India recorded its hottest February since 1901
- After Adani, Vedanta began to wobble
- Iranian schoolgirls were targeted in poison attacks
- Israel's finance minister urged settlers to "wipe out" a Palestinian village
- More FTX executives sung sweetly for the Feds
- Eli Lilly moved to cap insulin prices at $35 per month
- Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon tried to right the ship
Deep Dive
In 2016, one of our first Weekly Wraps explored the stunned aftermath of the Brexit referendum. After years of institutional failure, diplomatic faux-pas, and bad-faith policy, we are pleased to finally be able to share a rare piece of positive Brexit news.
The adults in the room
In this wholly enervating saga, Northern Ireland has been a total basket-case. No, not the people — they are fine as far as we can tell — the protocol. Drawing a line on a map is one thing; its reification in customs checks and border posts is another. High questions of legal sovereignty were posed. Some parties murmured darkly about the Good Friday Agreement. Boris Johnson's solution was to place customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland: in the middle of the Irish Sea. This plan, the protocol, was negotiated on either side of the 2019 general election. And yet within months the reelected Johnson was threatening to blow up his own handiwork . Brussels grew frosty. Lord Frost grew brusque. Both sides threatened to sue the pants off one another and the Conservatives introduced a bill that would allow them to unilaterally alter bilateral agreements.
Now, at long last, a breakthrough. On Monday, Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the Windsor Framework from the gilded halls of the eponymous castle. It was the culmination of a dialogue that began at Sharm el-Sheikh four months earlier and continued in a "tunnel" of strict secrecy in Brussels. As with nearly every challenge worth solving in life: it started with recognition. As one Whitehall mandarin put it, "They both realised they were serious people who could do this together." The talks were broached by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who has earned both his stripes and his surname. A welcome relief in Brussels after the two clowns that preceded him (Liz Truss and Dominic Raab). Cleverly was lucky to have the capable Maroš Šefčovič in the seat opposite him.
The deal itself is a moderate, technocratic solution to a self-imposed nightmare. Goods sailing west across the Irish Sea will be split. Goods intended for sale or use in Northern Ireland from trusted traders will receive light-touch checks in green lanes. Anything bound for the Republic of Ireland, and further into the single market, will receive the usual treatment in red lanes. It's a neat, if slightly oversold solution. At the very least: it's a start.
Compromise or be compromised
The great thing about secret negotiations is that you can excise certain stakeholders from the argy-bargy. The difficult thing about secret negotiations is that eventually you need to make them public. It turns out that while squirrelled away in the tunnel the negotiators did the unthinkable: they compromised. The Windsor Framework will give the EU real-time trade data on what is moving through the green and red lanes. In order to keep the frontier soft as Irish butter, the European Court of Justice needed some sway in Northern Ireland. Sunak has promised that what's been offered still obviates 97% of possible / applicable EU laws. Even so, it's a red-flag for Northern Ireland's conservative Democratic Unionist Party.
So to head off obvious criticism, the EU has made its own extraordinary concession: Stormont (Northern Ireland's Parliament) can "pull an emergency brake" if ever there are changes to EU goods laws that would materially impact the situation in Northern Ireland. There are also other treats on offer: the Northern Irish now have a zero-rate VAT on solar panels (presumably in case the sun ever shines there) and beer. The DUP base remains negatively disposed to the Windsor Framework but, in all honesty, if you strike a recalcitrant stance long enough the world will eventually just pass you by. Sunak has already intimated that the DUP's blessings are a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have.
On the subject of compromise, lurking former PM Johnson is still not interested in it. He's called this plan a great mistake , but there's not a great deal else for him to say is there? Johnson opined that the extension — however dainty — of EU law into Northern Ireland would "act as a drag anchor on divergence — and there's no point in Brexit unless you do things differently". He's not wrong here. But the problem is a majority of of Britons polled believe there's no point in Brexit at all. The ultimate Johnson wedge has been nullified: there goes the comeback bid . There are other complainants: the inaptly named Eurosceptic Mark Francois promised to scrutinise the agreement to within an inch of its life. Go for it.
For their part, Labour are waving it through. They are already toying with a future deal on veterinary alignment (if and when they win the next election) to ease the passage of food products into the UK.
A Hancock-up
We simply can't spend this long on British politics without noting whatever the latest scandal is. Right now the Daily Telegraph is publishing back-to-back front-pages about Matt Hancock's Covid response. It's all thanks to his memoirist Isabel Oakeshott leaking 100,000 of his WhatsApp messages . Wherever the public lands on his rubbish testing plans at the beginning of the pandemic, we are getting useful insights into how much back-scratching goes on between Fleet Street and Westminster.
Worldlywise
Winners and Losers
📈 Bola Tinubu
The continuity candidate from the All Progressives Congress has claimed victory in Nigeria with just 8.8m votes. Bola Tinubu is happy with the W regardless of the fact that barely a quarter of the enrolled population turned out to vote.
📈 Vocal fry
It's not just your kid imitating celebrities and TikTokers: killer whales and sperm whales use a similar technique to help catch their prey.
📉 South Carolinian patricians
The esteem of the low country Murdaugh clan has died with its 5th generation. This week Richard "Alex" Murdaugh was found guilty of murdering his wife and son.
📉 MI5
Britain's internal spooks have finally admitted that they missed a significant opportunity to stop the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017.
Highlights
The Image
Peruvian history buff Julio Cesar Bermejo surprised friends and piqued interest when he brought a 600-800-year-old mummified human to the park. He took all the right precautions: Julio's "spiritual girlfriend Juanita" arrived in his delivery driver cooler bag. Pure whimsy and family history aside (Julio's father brought the pre-Hispanic mummy home decades earlier) there are a few statutes against this kind of thing. Photo supplied by AFP / Puno TV .
The Quote
"I've lost three careers to direct racism so far. Crocker Bank, Pacific Bell, and cartooning. All three were perpetrated by White people for their own gain. No Black person has ever discriminated against me. That's partly why I identified as Black for several years."
– The assuredly not-Black Scott Adams rages against the decision to remove Dilbert strips from newspapers across the US. The beloved cartoon of yesteryear is no more. Having achieved superposition in his pigmentation, Adams assured his readers in actual fact he is the normal one in this situation.
The Numbers
60 minutes
- TikTok is introducing a daily time-limit of one hour for users under the age of 18 . We hear your howls of derision: aren't most date-of-birth hurdles on the internet a simple drop-down? Yes, they are, but TikTok has so effectively sanded away Zoomers' capacity to retain information that they may not have the attention span required to count backwards to a fake adult birthdate.
1 run
- After enforcing a follow-on in the second test in Wellington, the visiting English cricket team let their hosts off the ropes. New Zealand posted a valiant second innings total of 483 to leave the visitors chasing 258. Day 5 was a truly great day of fans of the red-ball game. England's tail wagged energetically, but Neil Wagner brought them to heel. The Black Caps bowled them for 256 , beating England by a solitary run. You won't see denouement like that at Cannes. That's cricket, baby.
The Headlines
"Help, I'm obsessed with pressure-washing Lara Croft's house" — The Guardian . Everyone's got their thing .
"JPMorgan doesn't want CEO Jamie Dimon questioned under oath in Jeffrey Epstein case"
— Fortune . Oh really, why not?
The Special Mention
The Most-Read Article
'The Double Life of John le Carré'
The Best Long Reads
- The Atlantic culls some sick mink
- Businessweek carves up the Alaskan wilderness
- Financial Times guesses your location
Thomas Wharton
Senior Editor
The Answer...
Warner Brothers announcing more Lord of the Rings films . Please stop.
