Thanks, agreed, Jonathan. Interestingly, this just emphasises what many of us were saying previously: the EU is a union of sovereign states cooperating for their mutual benefit by consensus. The current crises just emphasises the different cultures and approaches in these countries' way of dealing with this situation. That is causing friction in the consensus between members but nothing compared to the level of apparent aggression between the federal and state governments in the USA. That's surprising as the USA does have a federal government with a constitution defining its direct authority over the states which gives it federal powers in some spheres - defence, taxes, national emergencies, etc - and coercion in other areas: the 50 mph was enforced by threatening budgetary sanctions. Fortunately, we're still in the transition phase so goods are still flowing between the UK and EU reasonably freely without any new agreements. The EU were friendly enough to invite us to join them with sourcing ventilators, an offer declined by our government for whatever reason; although I understand we're now trying to obtain 200 from the US urgently. I'm sure Trump won't be looking for any quid pro quo ... Fortunately the F1 and Dyson engineering expertise seems to be proving its worth there.It will be a different world post COVID-19 - if such a thing exists; we will need to choose our friends and the nature of our international relationships carefully but it's too soon to evaluate that.
Michael Ixer ● 2253d