Rebuild Hadrian's Wall :)

Interesting take, but that's not what I get from all this.

No leader can take all decisions themselves, they have to delegate. I take a couple of things out of all this - firstly that the ambition that this Government holds exceeds their current capacity to deliver (not unusual) and secondly that they have realised this and are taking steps to try and improve their capacity (much less common). Whether they're the right steps, and whether they'll manage to forge an effective organisation to achieve their ambitions, remains to be seen. But if the Government aspires to be truly transformational, it needs to start with itself - and to bring in viewpoints and experience that is different from the skillset required to win elections.

It could all still go horribly wrong, of course. But starting a 5 year term by opening up and trying to overhaul the leadership team is not at all a bad place to start, and could mean that four and a half of the five years of this Government are significantly improved at the expense of 6 months spent forging a new team.

We've had three years in which the only course of Brexit action to command a majority in Parliament was the Withdrawal Agreement with the backstop removed. That has been the focus of the negotiating efforts since Boris became PM, at least judging by the reports and news conferences we've seen. So in seeking to negotiate that, Boris is respecting the will of Parliament.

However, the PM and his negotiators clearly believe that they need to have No Deal as a viable option to bring the EU to the table. While the Commons does not want No Deal to happen, but lacks majority support for any other strategy to bring about the only Brexit option it's decided in favour of.

The problem with an extension is that it doesn't solve this issue. Nor does a referendum - it's unlikely that there would be an outirght majority for No Deal, and likely that there would be a majority for a deal with no WA, but again that won't solve the question of how do you get there.

If an election happens, however, and Boris goes to the country of "I will try to negotiate WA minus backstop but if that fails we leave with No Deal", it seems the Brexit Party will stand against him on a pure No Deal manifesto. Remainers will be split between Labour and Lib Dems and Leavers will be split between Tories and Brexit, and the result in FPTP would be completely up in the air.

Going to the country with a No Deal manifesto, however, shoots the fox of the Brexit Party but is an approach many Conservatives have deep reservations about and doesn't seem to be the intended outcome for the PM either - and having done it, he would then be unable to negotiate a deal without stamping on his manifesto.

So... an election would clear the current HoC. But it's unclear how the Conservatives could use one to empower the course of action the leadership is trying to pursue... and one which is probably the closest thing to a consensus outcome that exists today.

Agree. When I was a North Londoner I used to just sit on the Piccadilly line to get to Heathrow. Took about 90 minutes end to end, but was extremely reliable with regular trains and cost a tube fare. The idea of taking an expensive HS2 train out of Euston to Birmingham International might save 20 minutes travel time, but the less frequent trains means the net time saving is likely to be marginal at best and the cost will presumably be much higher.

Some of us do... and the world is much bigger than Europe. Language barriers make it harder to sell some products and services in France than Australia, despite France being in the SM/CU and Australia not.

Companies that import and export have to be able to handle 3rd party regulatory requirements and tariffs unless they restrict themselves solely to the European market, which most do not (and those that do in many cases aspire to a broader reach in future).

Unions of sovereign countries aren't inherently a bad thing. The idea behind the EU itself isn't a bad idea. It's the execution that has been so bad as to drive people to turn against it.

It's perfectly possible to be pro-UK and anti-UK membership of the EU, if you're a pragmatist interested in what works rather than an ideologue wanting to make things fit into neat boxes.

I run the professional services team in Asia-Pacific for a UK-based company, and between a third and a half of my regional team at any time is comprised of engineers from our UK team on (usually) 2 year assignments to the region. There has definitely been a trend of 20-something engineers with partners who are qualified as doctors volunteering to come out to Australia on assignment so their partners can work in the Australian system.

It's too few data points to be anything more than an anecdote, but it's one of my best sources of good people!

Another expat here, but I at least got to cast my Leave vote :)

Travelling the world actually gave me much more confidence in Brexit, and I can't be the only one. Seeing the unique sympathy for the UK that exists in North America, Southeast Asia and ANZ, to take the three strongest examples, and the complete lack of equivalent sentiment for the EU, was eye opening. As was seeing the power of the English language as a common tongue for business dealings.

It also highlighted the "unfairness" of offering special relationships to our EU neighbours at the expense of other countries. Australia had automatic gates for British passport holders for years before the UK reciprocated... during that time, you had to be an EU citizen to use the e-gates in Britain. That sort of thing is basically a slap in the face to our friends in other countries, and rebalancing our foreign policy to be more balanced between EU and non-EU is definitely a good thing.

Dual citizenship isn't registered anywhere, as far as I can tell. (I've been an expat for 8 years myself, mix of US and Australia).

Tax and benefits are interesting. Reciprocal tax treaties exist with many countries, ensuring that individuals are not double taxed, but also describing an implicit position that "as many people will pay you taxes but then take benefits here, as pay taxes here but then take benefits there". And e.g. the Australian health service has reciprocal arrangements with the NHS, allowing citizens of each country to use the other's health service. Of course, the US has no system to be reciprocal with :) Net is that it's a fairly complex equation and varies by country, so it's not clear that one set of rules is suitable everywhere.

Then there are practical issues. I missed my first election while abroad because the postal vote papers took too long to arrive. I set up a proxy vote for my second election (which took over a year to work through the paperwork... then the process changed and I had to resubmit!). That registration took me through one general election and the Brexit referendum... but then in Oct 2016 my registration apparently lapsed and I didn't find out until my proxy didn't get a form for me in the 2017 election. So out of 3 GEs that I have been eligible for, in 2 of them administrative reasons meant I didn't get to vote.

Given the effort apparently required to maintain an active registration, it seems that the system isn't likely to be abused.

Singapore and Hong Kong are not good examples, because they are city states. London could emulate them - indeed, exceed them. But the UK as a whole has a very different balance sheet.

This strategy might work - but it needs much more reasoning than just "look at Singapore and Hong Kong".