UK

UK residents seize panic. The British are massively stocking drugs, food and seeds, preparing for traffic jams in ports and on the highway and empty shelves in stores.

If a private security company closed down an airport for 24 hours and cancelled hundreds of flights because of a ‘drone’ threat, and then later discovered that its own drones were providing that threat, it would quite rightly be tossed out on its ear and lose its contract. Its CEO would probably be fired, several key employees would probably be fired, and the company would almost certainly face imminent bankruptcy and likely closure as other customers withdrew their custom. If the company was to survive such a self-imposed disaster, it would follow on from the result of a rapid and brutal reorganisation, similar to the punctuated equilibria of Darwinian evolution. (For instance, where fish become amphibians inside a rapid geological timeframe, perhaps because of a catastrophic drying of the planet caused by one of those regular instances of rapid solar heating.

In London, and it seems elsewhere, the political and media consensus is that Britain is in its weakest international position since the late summer of 1940.

Brexit fever in the UK continues. On Wednesday, December 12, Prime Minister Theresa May spoke to the House of Commons of the British Parliament and answered sharp and uncomfortable questions.