The Kent Big Apple a big bus Senor De Blasio?

Here in the Kent Big Apple, Englandshire's 51st state is certainly in a right old state after the shenanigans of Airstrip One at Manston. The Virginian sister-state pulling the plug on the foolishness of KCC-USA too a few years ago.

And UK drift not just with the County Empty Barn but a Zombie Parliament staggering along after the carcrash of Brexit even before Brexit begins.
USA narrowly escaping Kent's Benedict Arnold, the divisive Nigel Farage, electing himself US Ambassador, but perhaps, as with Tate and Lyle's David Davis trying to sugar the pill of Brexit, Britain's worst export to Europe since Lord Haw Haw.

An especially dismal effort for East Kent and Thanet South as the founding nation of USA: Tom Paine etc etc. (No problem. You're welcome. Have a nice day). And even the White House Oval Office (before the fire -oops) modelled on Leeds Castle.

And surely Bill de Blasio as Mayor of NYC, America's Big Mango if you will, should be putting the pedal to the metal on UK-USA trade.

That trade a big bus for both nations and all 50 states (and Puerto Rico Commonwealth) and 33 counties - not just NYC's buses and subway carriages (and logistic chain of supplies and parts), but also Ford in Port Talbot: cars, steel and a port what's not to like and the affable PM Carwyn Jones back from USA trade talks and also on board with UK/Wales/Kent/NYC/USA trade.

And the new Boeing HQ factory just opened in Sheffield, those UK and USA employees no doubt keen to keep the lights on and burning late and get the wheels turning there, perhaps even helping on the Johnny Appleseed strategy not just in Kent or 11M Trees and Fish Minister Michael Gove but the absurd Sheffield Council felling of trees. Haven't they heard of Climate Change?

And Boeing efforts say on cargo helicopters or trains more fruitful than a Belfast-Brooklyn trade war with Boeing-Bombardier? Even POTUS Trump urging the cancellation of the F35 junk planes (USMC wisely snapping up all UK’s VTOL Harrier jets).

Lord Bridges keen on all sorts of bridges too. And Ramsgate's General Lord Dannatt urging perhaps not swords to ploughshares yet but certainly pruning shears. Perhaps one for Gillette: their ye olde swords or their new-fangled razors.

And POTUS Kaine must be gearing up for a democrat caucus view of Pentagon spend after the F35 farce - perhaps to a slow and mournful bluesy refrain on the harmonica of all those dollars and years wasted. Vietnam's Senator McCain, hardly a Commie peacenik, and his golf buddy Joe Biden must have a view on that too. Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg could even crunch some of the numbers, with his investments, on his Starbucks coffee break too.

As Mayor in Waiting and MP in Waiting with the collapse of Kent governance not much else will happen otherwise.

And as with Canada's First Nations why isn't UK tourism to Arizona and the South West being turbocharged? Also Lincolnshire and Kent Police's Operation California amidst the effort to Follow the Sun for the LA Olympics 2028. More UK tourism receipts, so less USA tax dollars needed? Californians and Cherokees must welcome that.

A few more Yankees from Yonkers over here would be nice too. Ambassador Woody named after Woody Guthrie perhaps or channeling his inner Toy Story, now on board in London and revving his engines, after rattling through most of the ceremonial stuff, and already firing up the New York Jets and American Football in general.

Is doubling UK-USA trade within 5 years so outrageous and state-by-state: flyover country often just a flyspeck on DC's windshield.

Surely more USA-UK media cooperation needed too. Apart from football and soccer, Steve Balmer's LA Clippers basketball teams a slamdunk. And more Microsoft cybersecurity and innovation here too? The NHS Crapita database will eventually, maybe, get built, probably from string and sealing wax, unless Bill gets a grip of it. How difficult can computerising 65M data records be? Even without DNA samples. USA even manages to run its nuclear missiles on those big old floppy disks the size of a pizza.

And, as the bodies of the Manston-Infratil (and Stagecoach (yeehah!) UK's largest Scottish bus company) cancer victims start to poke through the top soil, as a cancer on the Kent body politic, and not dissimilar to the ending of schlock-horror movie Carrie, surely UK-USA Hollywood cooperation is needed.
Whether that's the Virginia Film Office - or UK's LA and new San Diego or Carolina's trade and film offices. Especially relevant for EKFOS here, the East Kent Film Office and Studio at the Ramsgate Old Gasworks and Old Police Station - everything's old it seems or cancerous Dickensian slums - for jobs(!), jobs(!!), jobs(!!!) and regeneration.

Kent should not just Be More Wyoming and Be More Virginia on trade, but take lessons from Buffalo upstate on regeneration too. Be More Buffalo too.
And East Kent still 5,000 missing jobs from the last four years or so from Discovery Science Park and Pfizer (and nearby Sittingbourne Science Park) at Sandwich, previously USA's largest inward investment in Europe. Kent's wilting trade strategies in need of more Viagra from Pfizer and other vaccine manufacturers.
Ambassador Woody's going to spark up Johnson and Johnson too? Science labs and factories and Dover Europe's largest port and the Channel Tunnel 20 minutes just down the road to the rest of the road what's not to like and where's the American can-do?

And the Surin Thai restaurant, Kent's best Thai, Lao and Khmer restaurant and a UK top ten, 20 minutes in the other direction - try the seabass!

While 20,000 Thai restaurants in USA and 15,000 in UK must get through a lot of chicken - just one extra Kentucky drumstick? - and pork and beef and fish and Thai lemongrass and sticky rice and Singha and Chang imports. Maybe Budvar or Coors is on the menu too, probably not any of the 57 varieties of Heinz baked beans though.

While affable Sonny Perdue, Secretary of State for Agriculture and Georgia’s best export since Jimmy Carter (it takes a tough man to grow tender chicken, or peanuts, although is fingerlickin’ certain other brands are available and not of that chlorine malarky), is picking low hanging fruit in UK already, urging farmers such as Thailand's wheat n' meat Senator Tammy Duckworth or Walmart-Asda's Idaho potato farmers to grow it and USDA and USAid will help sell it in UK.

And Virginia's dynamic Governor and First Lady, Terry and Dorothy McAuliffe, already industrious on food security and malnutrition across schools and supermarkets.
Surely dynamic Dan Mulhall, Eire's and UK ambassador, doing the work of two men on the Eastern seaboard, and penning a limerick or two, will be keen to shift a few loaves of Brennansor a can or two of Guinness in USA. The Liffey overflowing with Guinness as well as a laser-like focus on USA pharma and finance companies that UK isn't as yet.

Eire lacking hispeed rail through to Scotland, and the astonishing end of the Australian/GM car industry (is Motor City becoming British Leyland) this week a warning light for UK too - the new Landrover and Dyson and Musk electric cars speeding up? And the expansion of the new Australian Space Agency surely needing UK and NASA support – as well as its own hispeed rail - from training to widgets.

The Caribbean Resilience disasters flags up the need for more mobile phone and weather satellites before the next hurricane and typhoon seasons.

East Kent might have built America (No problem. You're welcome. Have a nice day.) but USA was The Arsenal of Democracy and managed to build thousands of ships and tanks from a standing start. Why delay on phones and satellites and vaccines now? 11BN people (up from 7BN now) are going to be using them on Earth or Mars - and getting through a lot of coffee and cake while doing so - whether they're designed and built in USA and UK or not.

Maybe China's 11M graduates each year will do it. Probably as many again in India.

But Eire as with Japan looking after UK interests in indicating the omnishambles of Brexit, must be keen on 2020 as The Big Year of Golf.

Not just the increased tourism around The 2020 Open in Kent (Sandwich weaver Tom Paine's second home with Margate - and the hispeed train upgrades here progressing nicely ready for the flocks of American and Irish tourists) but the golf courses of Ireland too. Even those in Scotland for POTUS Trump - perhaps a glass or three of Guinness at the nineteenth hole. Or some IrnBru. Made in Scotland from girders - if UK or USA Steel needs a refreshing boost from cars to golf clubs.

American tourists flying all the way across the Atlantic (and over flyover country too) must be tempted by holes in one at various golf courses.
And Macy's must be up for some Isaan silk tartan golfing trews or cushions and what-not if Selfridges isn't? And not a Dairy Queen or Nathan's hot dog anywhere in UK yet.

And with Kent's Rolling Stones kicking off the New England effort in Havana - Stones in the Desert soon? - surely USA would support UK as #ADifferentGringo strategy in Latin America. And the Irish Stones, U2, must be up for another American tour (NYC’s Yankee Stadium first? Even a Bronx cheer for Trump) even dedicated to the (Red) HIV/TB work. The UNSDG30 dragging its heels in UK and USA and everywhere else. Even another version of BandAid or FarmAid with Kent's Bob Geldof.

Woody must be able to shift some Elastoplasts at BandAid. Maybe some cancer drugs too - USA universities don't have any coordination on cancer and dementia drugs research and links either?

And absurd that UK farms (and most UK farmers over 65 years old a UK Food Strategy fail) have no supercharged tractor and combine harvester industry which must be ripe for John Deere AI Robotics and agri-sensors too. Those bits of kit perhaps not so dear if done as a joint venture in metal bashing with Ford and Boeing and Bombardier and UK Steel et al. Even fastforwarding new materials such as graphene and given the Chinese monopoly on rare earths.

And USA-ASEAN and USA-Japan powering ahead before UK has even got its frockcoat, pinstripes and buckled shoes on or powdered its wig. Surely the good folks of Jardine and Arup should be leading the UK charge in expanding further and faster in Asia.

With at least 12 European nations each thinking they have a Special Relationship with USA that's surely a testimony to American diplomacy in general rather than a UK-USA Special Relationship now with America First. For beyond warm words and rearranging the coffee cups, surely there needs to be some crunchy trade activity throughout USA and UK and the East Kent Big Apple too?


Time for Change
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