These walls have ears

​Today our Leader, the Rt. Hon. Theresa May laid down the gauntlet to the Rooskis (as Slim Pickens calls the Russians in Dr Strangelove, which I watched yet again last night). Obey my deadline to tell us all (about your complicity in the attack on your ex-spy and our double agent) by the end of tomorrow or we’ll, we’ll, we’ll . . . .  well, we’ll think of something! So far, it’s not clear what she has in mind to punish Putin’s regime: perhaps she’ll send all the oligarchs home? Remove their right to non-dom status? One thing that has been mooted is removing Russia Today’s UK broadcast licence. Big deal, those that want to will just watch it on the internet. And Russia will of course simply point a finger at British censorship. For the first time ever I watched a little bit of RT tonight. Yes, it’s propaganda – but is it any more biased than what we’re served at home? Well yes, probably, but not so much that it should bother us. It would be more worrying perhaps if it was more subtle.

I also took the opportunity (once again for the first time) to look at Al Jazerra, another sometimes contentious news outlet. I have to say I was amused. There was a story about U.S. contempt for Canada (that goes back a bit: don’t mention ‘manifest destiny’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny) following a quote from a recent Trump speech which Al Jazeera reported thus: ‘“In Trump's manic mind, Canada is, in fact, a sly, fiendish, duplicitous ‘trading partner’ that has fleeced America out of good jobs and profitable business for far too long. “Canada's brutal, Canada's really tough," Trump told an adoring crowd of cultists in Pennsylvania recently. "Because they just outsmarted our politicians for decades."’

So there’s lots going on in these alternative news sources, and sometimes (heads up Daily Mail readers) it may be worth looking in just to see if there’s a chance somebody has a different opinion. As regards the Canada stuff, just out of interest I Googled ‘medicine trade Canada/US’. The top reports all pointed to how a revised NAFTA – which Trumpo wants – will force up the price of pharmaceuticals to Canadians, who currently benefit from a health system not unlike ours. Americans have an unregulated market in medicine. Now there’s something worth looking at post-Brexit. 

Al Jazerra link here: www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/shocking-trump-threats-canada-180312120304994.html