Modern Fairy Tale of the Cabinet's New Clothes. Trumpeted Jerusalem. Toastmasters' Xmas.

Remarkable news today as David Davis reveals to the Exiting the EU Committee that the 57 Brexit impact assessments don't actually exist, that some of the material submitted to the committee was of a poor standard, and anyway, most of the information was in the public domain. In fact, David Davis thought that it wasn't even worth conducting economic impact assessments because Brexit was such a great paradigm shift that predictions were useless.

This seems to confirm that Brexit has more of the nature of an ideology than a rational, evidence based action.

The difficulties in the Cabinet were further revealed when the Chancellor Philip Hammond revealed that the cabinet had not yet had discussions on the final target for Brexit negotiations.

Prime Minister Theresa May has a bit of a challenge on her hands. There's an intransigent DUP and Barnier has set a Friday deadline for submitting a proposal that can actually be reviewed by the other EU states before the critical meeting next week.

A plot to kill the Prime Minister was foiled late November, but the news only emerged overnight.. The attacker wanted to plant a bomb outside the gates of Downing Street and use the ensuing confusion to penetrate into 10 Downing Street armed with an explosive vest and knives to assassinate Theresa May.

President Trump has broken the 50 year old consensus on the status of Jerusalem. Since annexing East Jerusalem in the 1967 war, Israel has declared Jerusalem its capital, whilst the Palestinians still regard East Jerusalem as theirs, although it is in Israeli control. Because of the special nature of Jerusalem for the three Abrahamic religions, sacred to the Jews, Muslims and Christians, most nations have avoided placing their embassies there, awaiting a political solution to the Palestinian-Israel conflict.

The US has had a nuanced approach to date, acknowledging Jerusalem as the Israeli capital but deferring moving their embassy there.

President Trump has now officially recognised Jerusalem as the capital and initiated the US embassy move there. He claimed it was acknowledging the status quo. Israel was delighted by the decision, The Palestinians are upset at an apparently partisan move. Most of the rest of the worlds nations disapprove as it could be a trigger for renewed violence in the region.

What a relief to be able to go to the Toastmasters' Christmas Event for a light-hearted evening of preposterous hats (puddings, presents, reindeer) and jumpers. With a floppy hat on my head and brightly coloured scarf around my neck, I went as a earlier version of Dr Who. Lots of laughter and a turkey free meal, though fortunately there were mince pies! Discovered a Dalek app for the smartphone that simply calls out "Exterminate" when tapped.