Well that's right, Keith. You have outlined what hard-nosed negotiating is all about. The only thing is that the assumptions you claim I've made I haven't made at all. Whatever they are currently asking for is not known. In any case, there's more to it than a cash sum in one big cheque. It's rumoured that May may have offered more than the twenty billion. Who knows? These things are being thrashed out in secret. There will be leaks, of course. But, you see, the EU is acting in the interests of the EU. That's what they're paid to do. I don't like many aspects of it. I don't like the idea that the interests of individual states are placed secondary to the interests of gigantism. I don't like the idea that, say, Catalonia should be inhibited from seeking self-determination by the threat of being expelled from the EU. My view is that both Scotland and Catalonia should be free to vote for independence and stay in the EU. The EU wants them in and they both want in. It's pig-headed of the EU to oppose the fracturing of nations if that fracturing would be in the best interests of Scotland and Catalonia. If I lived in either country I'd want to vote for independence, but maybe I'd think twice if the threat of blackmail from the EU/Spain/the rest of the UK seemed to outweigh those best interests. But in these negotiations, the Tory party is acting in the interests of the Tory party, not of the country. That's what's holding things up. Shame you can't see it.