[Magdalen] Today

[Roger Stokes]

This side of the pond a lot of government-related changes happen on 1 
April, which I have been known to say is often an appropriate date for 
them. (I am making no comment on company changes which meant that a 
couple of listren have found themselves now in a new company.) I have 
noted what seems to me to have been a bumper crop of April Fool jokes 
this year and wonder if that is a reflection on what seems to be an 
increasingly mad world we are living in. Over here we have to cope with 
all the uncertainty of leaving the European Union which (to me and many 
others who look at it dispassionately) makes no sense. In practical 
terms we will still need to comply with most if not all of their 
regulations without having any input into formulating them, and have 
extra costs into the "bargain".

The referendum campaign was a battle between heart and head, trying to 
go back to some golden age of the past which is gone forever or dealing 
with the workd as it is now. As so often happens the emotional appeal won.

Roger