What is your favourite moment of the\u00a0Alien\u00a0film series? Is it the discovery of the massive and terrifying xenomorph queen in\u00a0Aliens\u00a0(1986)? Is it John Hurt\u2019s explosive breakfast (John Peel voice: \u201cThree more from them later\u201d) in the 1979 original? Is it the edge-of-seat corridor chases, the milk-spewing dying androids, the gruelling self-C-section in\u00a0Prometheus\u00a0(2012)?<\/p>\n
Or is it that moment in each of the films when Ellen Ripley and her fellow lone survivors decide that the hard work of climbing into a power loader, fighting and subduing the alien and then firing it out of an airlock is all too much of a faff? And that, as long as sensible measures can be put in place to prevent the homicidal creature from extending its hideous jaw and nibbling on the nearest unfortunate, it should remain free to roam the air vents, laying its eggs and only staging one or two horrific slaughters per week?<\/p>\n
This \u201cRipley reset\u201d seems to be the government\u2019s new line on the carnage caused by Britain\u2019s decision to leave the European Union. It is now finally OK to talk about the facehugger in the room, and Rachel Reeves is doing so ahead of her tax-raising budget on November 26.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no doubting that the impact of Brexit is severe and long-lasting,\u201d the chancellor said on Sky News last week. Meanwhile, government sources told the\u00a0Financial Times\u00a0that the Office for Budget Responsibility\u2019s long-standing prediction of a 4% hit to GDP from leaving the EU might have been a bit generous. \u201cThe OBR will say clearly that Brexit had a bigger effect on the British economy than they expected, along with Covid,\u201d said one official.<\/p>\n
Finally, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey told a summit in Washington that he had weighed up Brexit\u2019s impact on the UK\u2019s economic growth. \u201cAnd the answer is that for the foreseeable future it is negative.\u201d It seems that the cat is finally out of the bag, the chestburster finally out of the chest.<\/p>\n
So, what are we going to do about this havoc and destruction? Keep calm and carry on, apparently. A Starmer ally told the\u00a0FT: \u201cThis isn\u2019t a big strategy to revisit Brexit, while \u201canother Labour official said criticism was being levelled against the \u2018hard Brexit\u2019 negotiated by former Tory premier Boris Johnson, not the 2016 Leave decision in itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
At prime minister\u2019s questions on Wednesday, the song remained the same. Ed Davey said: \u201cI know Labour members are relieved they are finally allowed to say that the Conservatives\u2019 Brexit deal is a disaster. But that cannot just be a political ruse to attack the honourable member for Clacton [Nigel Farage], however much he deserves it.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven worse, given that we still have the highest inflation in the G7, it must not be a smoke screen to raise taxes on ordinary people. It must be a call to action. Will the prime minister act now to repair the Brexit damage by negotiating a new UK-EU customs union to boost Britain\u2019s trade and grow our economy?\u201d<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer\u2019s reply was as predictable as it was disappointing: \u201cNo, I do not think that is the way forward,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we have done is to have a much closer relationship with the EU, recognising the damage done by the flawed Brexit deal that the Conservative Party negotiated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, Starmer\u2019s deal has stopped a bit of the (acid) bloodletting. But it\u2019s not going to offer the adrenaline shot that a customs union would. It\u2019s not going to save the Nostromo.<\/p>\n
Sadly, when it comes to Brexit and No 10, it seems that reality is still an alien concept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What is your favourite moment of the\u00a0Alien\u00a0film series? Is it the discovery of the massive and terrifying xenomorph…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,807,528,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-522761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-keir-starmer","16":"tag-labour-party","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115424821587743262","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}