This is why we need experts

I am very grateful to the doctors and nurses at Warwick Hospital (and the ambulance crew who arrived in three minutes) who intervened effectively to save my life when I contracted sepsis recently. After three weeks in hospital, and a spell in intensive care, I am now being treated at home each day by the hospital's dedicated SWAT team.

Michael Gove insists that what he particularly had in mind when he castigated experts were economists and political scientists, and I am doubly guilty as I work on the cusp of both subjects, having been tolerated over the years by the distinguished economists with whom I taught such as Nick Crafts, Mark Harrison, Ben Lockwood and Professor Lord Skidelsky.

On Radio 5 this morning I heard Professor Jon Tonge discussing Britain, Brexit and Ireland. There are few people who know more about Ireland, and I was delighted that he agreed to contribute two essays on the subject to Political Quarterly. He is a martyr to the cause, sitting through the conventions of various political parties. What he provided was a forensic and balanced analysis with one (to me) new idea. Jon is a former chair of the Political Studies Association and he shows why we need well-informed political scientists.

I wasn't able to take notes (it may be possible to track the clip down) but here are some highlights as I heard them:

• Theresa May's did clarify some issues. In particular, it was a wake up call for those who think that Brexit will be costless for the economy. (In my view the main function of the speech was to keep the two wings of the Conservative Party on board and singing from a similar hymn sheet and in this it succeeded. This was needed after Jeremy Corbyn's intervention).
• Jon was (in my view) rather sceptical about the technological solutions that are being advanced as a light/smart border. We are still very short on detail about how they would work and time is running out.
• Jon put forward the ingenious idea of making the common travel area between Britain and Ireland a common trade area. This was a new idea to me, but it certainly deserves further discussion.

I have worked on agriculture and food in Ireland since the 1990s and I would emphasise that the economy of the island of Ireland is highly integrated as far as these key industries are concerned.

The EU reaction to the May speech

Inevitably there were charges of 'cakeism' and the speech certainly lacked detail on some key points, deliberately so. The EU thinks that all they can offer is a Canada style free trade agreement. I think that a bespoke customs arrangement could be possible.

I think that the EU was too dismissive of the idea of the UK being an associate member of some specialised agencies. Take the chemicals agency which the prime minister mentioned. I have worked on the chemicals industry since the 1980s and have some unpublished material on the REACH agreement. It is in the interests of producers, consumers and the environment to have common standards for chemicals across Europe. Just because non-member states have not had associate membership in the past does not mean that they could not in the future (there are a lot more agencies than the three mentioned). The UK would, of course, have to pay a subscription.

I have a message for Guy Verhofstadt: stop talking like a political weight machine and try and engage constructively in the negotiations: Gives it large

Michael Heseltine has slammed the speech as 'platitudes and generalisations', but he is an incorrigible and Dominic Grieve gave a much more favourable response on Sky: Hezza