Britain, once the workshop of the world, now a pauper – The Irish Times

Welcome to this week’s IT Sunday, a selection of the best Irish Times journalism for our subscribers.

Unprecedented turmoil in Westminster earlier this week saw Liz Truss resign after just 44 days in Downing Street, the shortest tenure as prime minister in British history. Another race for the lead is on, with Rishi Sunak the favorite this weekend.

Fintan O’Toole’s latest column looks at the events behind the water and why and how the Truss came to power in the first place: “Karl Marx said that everything in history happens twice, the first time as a tragedy, the second time as a farce. So what do we say about the third and fourth time? For the third time since 2016, British Prime Ministers have had Boris Johnson’s 24-hour vaudeville. The fourth was a devastating derby by Liz Truss, a thrilling spectacle of rumbling that doesn’t last long and leaves the field littered with debris. Johnson turned British politics into a form of entertainment. At least in this, Truss was a worthy successor: she showed herself and her country. So why did she become prime minister?”

David McWilliams in his weekend column, also turns his pen to the mess across the pond and looks at how a once strong economy, visionary and innovative, has sunk into such a weak spot: “Innovation is the single most important factor driving the economy forward. For many years, the UK has been at the forefront of its ability to support and nurture creative scientific minds through universities and public institutes, and this has also included commercial support. The City of London took risks, betting on new companies and new home products, from vacuum cleaners to cars and washing machines, products that sometimes changed the world. Innovation may not have originated there, but Britain has produced industrial champions, engineers, scientists and all sorts of craftsmen, people who, through trial and error, update, reengineer and make the economy work. . . This is tragic and it is hard to see how the UK is going to get out of the mess that successive governments have created. It is also difficult to digest the enormity of the Fall. The country that used to be the workshop of the world is a beggar.”

The fallout from the Irish football team singing Up the ‘Ra after beating Scotland continued to reverberate this week. Fintan O’Toole, however, wrote his own complete, unedited version. “I’m all for people singing Up the ‘Ra. Provided it’s the full version intended by the artists, not a radio-friendly edit. The original version is a true work of art: Up cuts the legs of young women shopping for wedding dresses. Torturing children with Black & Decker drills through their kneecaps. In the 1990s alone, 36 children under the age of 18 were “beaten”. Bury the widow’s body in a secret place and tell her 10 children that their mother ran away with some man and left them.’

Elsewhere, the Central Bank this week changed its mortgage rules so that first-time buyers can now borrow up to four times their salary. TDs are getting more nervous about housing – and rightly so, says Cliff Taylor. “The Central Bank had reasons to change the rules of mortgage lending. At the moment, many are forced to pay more for rent than a mortgage would be worth – lending rules mean they can’t get a loan, but there are no such rules in the rental market. The decision will have some impact on the market – but not a fundamental one. It’s just another patch in the jigsaw of a housing policy that doesn’t fit together and where fundamental problems in the rental market remain central. This will help some potential buyers over the edge in the short term – and in turn, this temporary increase in demand will help some developers get financing to complete projects. But with interest rates rising, fewer will be able to meet the stress-testing rules banks are required to apply to mortgage borrowers – to ensure they can repay if interest rates rise further – and remain locked out.’

With autumn once again in the air, third-level colleges across the state have returned to their lecture halls. This is precious time for parents, so early preparation can pay dividends. In it this week’s personal finance columnFiona Reddon looks at how parents and carers should approach saving for their children’s future education – starting from birth is recommended.

Why do men allow themselves to be humiliated as weak-willed sex maniacs? This posted a question Justin McCarthy in his weekly column, in light of events in Iran and the daily lives of girls and women. “Girls are marked from birth because they are brought into this world in a package commonly known as a body, stamped ‘public property.’ . . .While men watched naked Elnaz Rekabi, the Iranian climbing champion, climb the competition wall in Seoul with deft and dizzying moves, didn’t they admire her physical and mental strength, instead of going to hell at the sight of her tail? Twisted thinking has a destructive history. However, it keeps happening. In the country of Rekabi, “morality police” punish girls and women for letting a strand of hair out from under their headscarves, while Iran’s rulers send in drones from Vladimir Putin’s army to massacre Ukrainian civilians.”

Jerry Thornley writes about it in his column declining attendances are a serious problem for rugby. “Rugby kept the show going in the dark days of the pandemic, although as Leo Cullen observed, games without crowds really took the fun out of it. But the sport is still feeling the effects and maybe even paying for it. . . Add to that the rising cost of petrol/diesel and travel, as well as the cost of modern matchday experiences, and it’s no wonder that much of the rugby industry has found the game increasingly difficult to sell in recent times. Maybe they should start looking for other examples to lower the cost of attending games, like seeing the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons franchise at their new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which has capped food and beverage prices by 50 percent for the past two years. a big hit with fans.”

Earlier this week Trish Murphy advised a person in their 70s who is in a relationship with a man 10 years older than them. The reader asked for advice because he is afraid that I will end up taking care of him like my own mother and I don’t want to go through that again.’ You can read Trichet’s tips here.

And finally, in his column Ro McDermott advises the reader who writes: “Four years after a difficult breakup, I still think about my ex every day. My friends think I still have a chance with her. She ended the case four years ago, why does she have to defend her position again and again? But hope comes out eternal and all that. What do you think?”

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