Looking forward to seeing how ITV4 cover the chaos on Ventoux today. Feel sorry for the commissaires - think they did the right thing by awarding Froome the same time as his other GC contenders but it really was a can of worms either way. Oh dear!
He would have won the tour today had the crowd / motorbike not got in the way. He had broken all his rivals and was going away from them with ease. All that effort and only got the same time as all those he had blitzed.
That would be sensible.Is it constitutional and can you be in the cabinet if you are not a member of (the Westminster) parliament?
Jan Smuts was a cabinet minister 1917-1919 despite not being a member of either house or even technically a British subject.
The Union of South Africa in 1917 was part of His Majesty's dominions, so all of its citizens would be British subjects. The dominions didn't get the right to establish their own citizenships until after the Statute of Westminster in 1931, and most didn't actually do so until after WW2. I agree Smuts wasn't a member of either house of the Imperial Parliament, but I'm guessing he was still a South African MP at that time.
Off Topic: Trump's VP pick, never heard of him before, Mike Pence. He's gone for an old white guy - so played it safe.
Does this take pressure off of Clinton to pick a minority VP candidate? I think with Bernie's endorsement she has no need for Warren as VP so I don't expect an uberprogessive type. Are there any other suitable female candidates? Trump's weakness seems to be his misogyny, if Clinton can draw enough women away, to go with the nailed on black and latino votes, she won't need to worry about losing the WWC vote. And I think the WWC will break very heavily for Trump, more so than we expect (Brexit is a good indicator of that).
The problem the GOP have is that they are fishing in an ever smaller pool - poor whites.
@jameskirkup: Reshuffle in sum: Leavers get to do Brexit & deal with its consequences. One Nation Remainers get to do modernisation without Cameron.
Remain-leaning commentators are treating this as if it's a bunch of people cleaning up after a party.
May will live and die by Brexit in 2020. She can't just point at members of her own cabinet and say "They fucked it up, vote for me anway".
Personally, I think the Boris appointment is not because of some Machiavellian scheme that he'll fuck up and ruin his reputation, but more because him being there allows May to essentially take over the running of foreign affairs herself whenever she feels like it. Boris is notoriously lazy, and thus probably wouldn't object too much to May's team micromanaging everything, as long as it reduced his own workload; on the other hand, if she put a workaholic in the Foreign Office instead, they would probably be much more "territorial" and not let May take over the decision-making.
analysis on this site is becoming notoriously lazy
Things must be settling down. Hunchman is talking about snow and certain addresses in London NW3, Danny is doing the 'plague on all Labour's houses' maudlin, and Charlie Falconer has resigned.
"The three Brexiteers will be all but irrelevant in the negotiations on Brexit. Their main significance will be the influence they have on their civil servants."
Do not underestimate the importance of doing just that. A large number of civil servants, especially at the FCO, have just had the rug of their world pulled out from beneath them and will be struggling to cope with the new requirements. Those same civil servants will be doing a lot of the detail and writing the position papers.
To get a good deal for the UK those civil servants will need close guidance and support.
They need, in general, to be removed from the process entirely until the implementation stage.
I don't think it is possible to exclude civil servants from government business. Someone has to do the preparatory work and write the position papers for a minister.
Of course it is. You set up your own unit with your own experts to do the prep work. Actually, if we want this to happen, such a move is probably essential. The civil service are working for the other side.
I'll stick up for the Civil servants here. The SCS and perhaps the GC6s might be obstructive.
The administrative grades will do the necessary. Despite all the brickbats, we have many very fine civil servants. That said, from my own experience, the quality range in the civil service is huge. The smartest people I've ever worked with were at Cheltenham. Sadly, so were the dimmest.
We don't want the potwashers and coffee makers doing this job, though.
Theresa will be intimately involved in Brexit as well because if Brexit fails the whole government (Mrs May included) will carry the can.
That's not how cabinet Government works.
if the Minister for X screws up, the PM doesn't resign (normally)
No, but as far as the voters are concerned the government survives or falls on the success of Brexit.
It's not going to a matter that Brexit can be compartmentalized to Boris, Davis and Fox and everyone else can get on with the actual government. Brexit IS this government.
Or put another way, if your consoling yourself that Theresa isn't really serious about Brexit, that she's going to let Boris screw up and then the whole thing will be forgotten about in a couple of years... Think again.
Not really. Brexit will take 10 yrs to sort out with new trade deals elsewhere. If it takes a long time May will blame the EU. but its nice to see so many already sharpening their political hatchets post the change of PM
That's interesting. I wonder where he'll stand? I don't know to what extent the choice of Stockport last time was driven by his brother playing for Stockport County (ah, happy memories of teenage Friday nights at Edgeley Park!). I'd say if he's going for a Greater Manchester seat, maybe Heywood and Middleton? Or Wythenshawe and Sale East? Manchester Blackley might be attractive too but Graham Stringer is the sort of Labour MP who stands up quite well to the UKIP challenge.
It is hard to imagine the stress that Ms May must be under at the moment. She has a relatively new team who are yet to learn their briefs, she faces a recession and there are major negotiations required with foreign countries. One of her core plans is Brexit which is not universally supported and faces opposition from key regions and lobby groups.
May has time pressures but the Europeans have no time pressure. They can sit around and discuss until the cows come home. How will May respond to stonewalling?
I just can't see the easy win that will cement her position but I can see multiple banana skins. I took my advice and put a small bet on Lib Dens being the largest party at the next general election and this is as a Scottish Tory.
It's early, but by signalling withdrawal from the Single Market, the tension is removed. If the EU stonewall, we will simply move to WTO MFN status. That's not as big an issue as it might sound.
The risk of that approach is Sindy II.
It seems that the WTO solution is the most likely end point. The issue that May faces is that this solution is probably not supported by most people in the UK. I spent some time working in Korea which operated mostly on a WTO basis with the world.
The country is quite insular and 95% of people drive Korean made cars. The manufacturing and technology base are strong but service and retail are not. It would be quite a transition for the UK.
The story goes that if in Korea you buy an expensive foreign car, you get investigated by the tax office. I guess this is called a non-tariff barrier.
Comments
It is saying Leavers are small-minded, scared, looking to an idealised past and fearful of the future and outsiders.
I am summarising for reasons of space.
Clinton 40 .. Trump 36
http://ap-gfkpoll.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/July-2016-AP-GfK-Poll-Posted-Topline_Clinton_Trump.pdf
Oh to be in England in the sweet summertime.
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