A Scot and the Guradian reject Yankee chicken and chips as snakes crash through a ceiling

A final flourish for the Silly Season:

Snakes on a plate: Australian man shocked after massive serpents crash through kitchen ceiling

Then back to business with this

The Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, has said he would vote against allowing UK imports of chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef from the US in a post-Brexit trade deal.

He tries to give the old story some fresh legs:

“The crucial point is that, and I reiterate it because it’s worth 545,000 jobs for Scotland, we have to have this legislation in place to protect the internal market because the alternative is the SNP leave the internal market [by seeking independence] and that would be catastrophic for our economy, for jobs in Scotland and for our businesses.”

There may just be more personal interests at stake too:

Ross defended his plan to remain MP for Moray if he wins a Scottish parliament seat in Holyrood elections in May next year.

Elsewhere the Ghost of Hutton still roaming the unlit sections of the Third Way remanifests too:

Earlier this summer, Boris Johnson sought new powers to block outsiders from picking up British firms, especially hi-tech ones. Weeks later, it emerged that the jewel in the crown of UK computing [ARM -- see posts below] may depart from these shores. Ministers said nothing.

As we know, that dreadful Brexit zealot T May was initially to blame:

[Ownership of  ARM] was previously decided by Brexit politics. Just after the 2016 vote, Theresa May, having vowed to defend UK firms from foreign takeovers, blessed Arm’s sale to SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate, for £24bn.

Then lots of ifs to raise the stakes:

If Arm were to slip into American hands then the US could, under its laws, decide which companies Arm was allowed to sell to. Dr Hauser [founder]  sees Arm’s sale as a major step “towards the UK becoming an American vassal state”. ...Folded into Nvidia, Arm would be forced to end its China business. The UK’s chips would have become weaponised in a US-China trade war. What if this were to become a US-EU battle too?

The Graun sticks to its traditional socialist policy:

The state should intervene to support and protect strategically important British businesses.

Although no doubt just the once and in the spirit of the Third Way

 

Finally, corrections of a few lovable Grudianisms in an earlier edition:

This article was amended on 31 August & 1 September 2020 to correct both the spelling of Hermann Hauser’s first name and his title; and to remove an incorrect reference to Dr Hauser remaining an Arm shareholder.