The House of Lords and Donald Trump: Both have left me scratching my head

Dan Hardy reflects upon news he has found surprising this week…

Trump is back.

And with a convincing win.

Unbelievable! And not because I either agree or disagree with his politics.

It’s just that you have to scratch your head and ask how a man who according to Wikipedia has 34 felony counts to his name, one official conviction, two cases still pending and two impeachments on his CV (along with six instances of bankruptcy to his name) has emerged victorious in a political environment that would see anyone else with a similar record banished from even running! It’s a good job the people decide rather than the newscasters, who got the scale of victory badly wrong!

I guess Kamala is wondering what went wrong too. And to that end a legion of experts has lined up to tell her, with the benefit of hindsight, exactly why she failed.

Pundits say that Kamala Harris missed out on the White House because, no matter how much she talked about change she could not decouple herself from the history of deeply unpopular leadership operating a less than perfect regime to which she had in peoples’ minds (somewhat unjustly) become inextricably associated with. And that perception remained, even though she was determinedly doing everything in her power to bring change and to supplant it.

And who doesn’t know that feeling!?!

Give Trump his due though. He is the ultimate disruptor. And that is something that we have in common. At ASEL we are implementing new approaches and technology that do and will fundamentally change the way in which retailers secure their stakeholders’ interests. And that can’t come too soon…

The UK may have signed off Brexit, but Europe is still a very, very important part of our everyday lives. From both economic and security standpoints a healthy Europe is really important to us all. However, whilst we have all been focused on Washington, Germany has quietly been going into political meltdown.

Europe’s most powerful economy has effectively been left ‘rudderless’ at a time when economic growth has stalled, and EU leaders are very nervous indeed about what Mr Trump’s presidency will bring them, when it begins in January.

The crisis in Germany has been brought about by a collapse of the governing coalition. As a result, the Chancellor leads a minority government, which cannot get any legislation passed including the 2025 budget, which is supposed to be agreed next week. Parties are pressing for a snap election.

However, with vitriolic exchanges being made by all German coalition parties against each other the public has become tired of it all and poll numbers for all three of the former coalition parties have been dropping. And this just at a time when Germany really needs a united and effective government more than ever.

And it is easy to see how the UK can get caught up in the fallout from a weakened Europe, an isolationist USA and an emboldened Russia. The result will be further economic turmoil and exacerbated cost of living crisis and even more pressure on good people to make bad decisions.

Any feelgood factor generated by the 0.25% cut in mortgage rates this week was short-lived. Economists lined up to explain why international events meant that interest rates would drop slower and pay would be lower.

Far from allowing money “to fructify in the pockets of the people” (the phrase famously coined by William Gladstone, UK Prime Minister in 1868, who believed government was extravagant and wasteful with taxpayers’ money), the cost of living crisis may well get deeper. And we all know what that means, even the House of Lords…

Shoplifting is at ‘unacceptable’ levels and not being tackled properly, a Lords inquiry has found.

According to the House of Lords Justice & Home Affairs Committee shoplifting is seriously under-reported, estimating that the real figure was as high as 17M incidents each year. Amen to that.

However, the Committee went on to state that. “We acknowledge the pressures on police resources, but we believe that the urgency of the situation relating to shop theft requires immediate action within existing police staffing levels.”

And now I am left wondering what went wrong… as, I suspect, are retailers and the police! How can this come as news. And realistically how are the police going to simply make the problem go away.

Have to say I am left scratching my head..!

Dan Hardy

Group MD