I had a slow start to the week due to sleep issues for the first couple of days, but that soon changed, once I had caught-up on some decent sleep.
I progressed into the week by exploring the merits of stylus writing on ‘Nebo’ and ‘OneNote’, the outcome of which was to decide that each one provided different benefits, and both will therefore continue to be used by me – OneNote on Windows laptop, and Nebo on Android tablet.
On Wednesday, I spent some time talking to my daughter who had blonde hair, as a half-way stage to dyeing her hair pink (not anything new). She continues to juggle health problems and the effects of med changes, and I continue to feel helpless in being able to do anything for her, other than provide moral support.
Meantime in the world at large, President Trump ramps up the activity on tariffs, with China responding in kind. Throughout the day, the American Bonds (Trusts) market was taking some serious trading hits.
At the end of the day, President Trump paused the tariffs for 90 days against all those who had announced retaliatory measures. This followed a day of seeming criticism by the American people, and from Republican and Democrat leaders alike, alongside some very serious concerns being expressed by business leaders and experts in the trading behaviour of the markets. This left UK media observers wondering whether President Trump saw the writing on the wall himself, or whether it was forced upon him by his advisers recommending the 90-day suspension.
In the meantime, Jaguar-Landrover have suspended all exports to the USA, and the government has delayed the end of petrol and diesel car sales, planned for 2035, as recognition of the likely harm of 25% tariff on vehicle exports to the USA.
In addition, as a result of the 25% tariff on steel exports to the USA, and the difficulties in continuing to use the blast furnaces in Scunthorpe, and the delays in changing to electric arc furnaces in Port Talbot, the government has announced that it is looking at possibly re-nationalising British Steel.
In some good news for the UK, the government has announced plans for Comcast, on behalf of Universal Studios, to build a huge theme park in Bedfordshire, predicting billions of pounds in investment, revenue and jobs, attracting visitors for the whole of Europe.
I have also been enjoying the sunshine in the last week. It has been great Spring weather, and people’s moods seem to be more elevated as a result.
Probably the main thing that happened on Friday was a visit from my friend. I last saw him around October 2023, when he told me that he had just sold-up his property on the island of Bute, and was off to Thailand to marry his long-term partner, and was not intending to return to the UK.
Yet, here he was in my lounge drinking coffee and munching his way through some chocolate chip cookies.
He did get married and was settled in Thailand, but he found that he couldn’t stand the heat during the hottest months. In addition, he found that his pension was adversely affected by not spending enough time in the UK – something I thought he would have found-out about before leaving the country.
So, now, he spends 6 months in Thailand, and 6 months in the UK, being joined for a few of those months by his wife. From what I can gather, that seems to be a preferred position for both of them. Not the strangest of marriages, but not the most straightforward either, but according to him, they are both happy with that arrangement. And after all, as they are both pensioners, they know quite well what they want (and don’t want) out of life at this point in their respective journeys.
I am guessing that I probably won’t see him again for another couple of years, as the small property he has now purchased is, once again, on the island of Bute. Then again, both his daughters and his twin sister continue to live in Bristol, but I feel that my friendship with him becomes increasingly distant in values as well as geography.
On Saturday, parliament was recalled for 11am to discuss the emergency situation at Scunthorpe steel works, where the Chinese firm, Jingye, who owns the business operated at that steel plan, appeared to be working against the firm, by taking actions to shut-down the blast furnaces, which would cause permanent and irreparable damage to the furnaces, and bringing an end to the production of ‘Virgin’ steel (the strongest steel available) in the UK.
Some politicians were suggesting that they were acting on the orders of the Chinese government, who wanted to stop all production of steel in the UK, so that we would become reliant on steel manufactured within China, a situation deemed to be politically and economically unacceptable.
After a day of full debate on the issue, the decision reached, by all-party support, was for the government to immediately step-in to take-over all processes to ensure that the furnaces continue to run. They will have further discussions with Jingye to try to get them to resume full production of steel or, if not, to re-nationalise British Steel to bring it fully under government control until a new investing partner can be found.
Listening to the UK Business Secretary talking of this situation, he seemed to be exhausted; and he and his team had clearly been dealing with this for the last two weeks, alongside trying to organise a trade deal with the USA, despite the baseline tariff of 10% and the steel and cars tariffs of 25% introduced by President Trump.
And the government is also being kept on its toes with their intended support to Ukraine, given the ongoing conflict, despite any discussion of peace.
The “end of globalisation” announced by Sir Keir Starmer, also made by Rachel Reeves earlier in the year appear to be behind the decisions made over both response to tariffs and the possible re-nationalisation decision made by the government, and may bring some other interesting decisions during the course of their first term as government. I watch with interest.
The future does not seem bright, but let’s see what next week brings, as the principal actors just seem to be warming-up at the moment.
Fraser
April 2025