Well Erdogan has gotten control of his Istanbul stronghold. The coup still has forces in the east of Turkey.
The coup failed to do 3 very important things:
1. Control the mobile phone networks. 2. Control the private TV stations. 3. Arrest the civilian party leaders.
The Egyptian military managed to do all of the above and Al-Sisi will remain for many years in power.
More importantly, if the reports are to be believed, it seems the forces undertaking the coup are only a faction of the armed forces.
First rule of a military coup: control the military.
The other worry about that is that if, as seems likely, the coup was led by career military officers, their purging will weaken the army further as they are replaced by ineffectual officers who are politically sound. Good news for Erdogan and Daesh, bad news for the Middle East.
Sky reporting that 1563 military personnel have been arrested so far.
I'm surprised they're surrendering at all. They must surely be expecting execution.
Please god can we never ever ever see that word repeated on pb
Why not? I invented it for the purpose of putting it in that sentence. I found it useful. I can invent words if I want to. If you disagree, you are a booliak, and you should be groaked until you confess.
I'm all for inventing words. 'Upculture' is gobsmackingly hideous. It's the worst example of computer-speak.
There's another thing about Theresa May. She presumably thought all this down the years and yet she kept her powder dry, managed to stay in the cabinet, in the 2nd toughest job in Gov't, and was STILL the leadership choice of the outgoing guard.
We had a PM called Cameron who wanted Turkey to join the EU.
It's becoming increasingly clear that he and his chums ran govt to their own benefit, none of them are anywhere to be seen. Still, he's looking on from his £17m house, like his idol Blair he had a plan all along.
Punishment beating for a bloc of more than 12 MPs is "smart" with a majority of 12?
Really?
I meant them sitting together as a menacing force on the back benches.
Maybe Theresa thinks that they're all mouth and no trousers.
As far as I can tell she's removing those who have either unimpressed her over the years, or were vassals of George Osborne.
That won't be unpopular on the backbenches.
And the most state school educated cabinet since Clem Attlee's 1945 Gov't marks a massive change and sends the strongest signal: do well and you can get to the top table. Meritocracy will be a huge pull for the majority of backbenchers. It does remind me of early Maggie Thatcher: a new broom cleaning out the old guard but not out of spite at all: out of regard for rewarding the best people no matter their background.
It all depends on what you think "modernisation" means.
I think that for not a few of the Cameroon set it was about their social comfort in describing themselves as Tories at London dinner parties mixing with fellow elites. Disproportionately from the academic, think-tank, media and international business worlds. In particular, that led to the route of adopting New Labour clothes, social policy, and championing diversity, internationalism, and choosing the rhetoric to match it accordingly. It also included an implicit shunning of provincial England.
For Theresa May, it's about shedding the Tories image as the party of the privileged and the rich, and probably making it clear it's not just about the English too. She recognises social changes and wants inclusion (no discrimination based upon gender, sexuality or race) but doesn't view grandstanding on it as the main totem of modernisation. I found the way it she hat-tipped the WWC so much in her first statement as PM very interesting.
In my view, it's her vision of modernisation that should have been pursued by the Tories all along.
'How long will Tory Brexiteers give it until they start to get fidgety about the glacial pace of negotiations?' Based on what Hammond - a very good appointment IMO - has said over recent months there seems to me to be the potential for big clashes between him and Davis/Fox over the terms of a Brexit deal.'
As long as it takes,Remain lost get over it.
What a silly little post.
Good - thought it might be just me who thought it made no sense.
When I suggested she had parked her tanks on Labour's lawn he replied, 'we have no lawn left, you mean our compost heap.' But he agreed. If there were a Labour party left they should be quaking at that Downing St speech.
It's a Tory unity government, all major factions are in, liberals, weather vanes, conservatines.
Apart from the Cameroons who have been culled, and now all sit together on the back benches.
Maybe smart. Looks spiteful right now. Time will tell.
How long will Tory Brexiteers give it until they start to get fidgety about the glacial pace of negotiations? Based on what Hammond - a very good appointment IMO - has said over recent months there seems to me to be the potential for big clashes between him and Davis/Fox over the terms of a Brexit deal. May will not be able to sit on the fence should that happen.
It could all start to go horribly wrong on September 13th. Thats the day the proposed boundary changes are announced. Whats the betting that for the 2nd time they will be shelved?
I doubt that. Even the smallest step away from EU membership is big win. Brexit will be a process, not a one off event.
If we sign up to the 4 freedoms, UKIP will go mental.
If we don't, Hannan's faction will be distraught.
That circle can never be squared, however long it takes
1. I don't think we'll accept free movement. 2. Hannan and co won't be much bothered. Sovereignty is his lodestar.
3. I'm expecting UKIP to fizzle without the EU. A lot will depend on their new leadership.
UKIP has to have a very serious think about its future. A right wing leadership and membership are going to have to find a credible way to move leftwards economically and fiscally if the party is going to challenge Labour in its heartlands. Immigration won't be enough, especially as it is likely to start falling.
I doubt that. Even the smallest step away from EU membership is big win. Brexit will be a process, not a one off event.
If we sign up to the 4 freedoms, UKIP will go mental.
If we don't, Hannan's faction will be distraught.
That circle can never be squared, however long it takes
1. I don't think we'll accept free movement. 2. Hannan and co won't be much bothered. Sovereignty is his lodestar.
3. I'm expecting UKIP to fizzle without the EU. A lot will depend on their new leadership.
UKIP has to have a very serious think about its future. A right wing leadership and membership are going to have to find a credible way to move leftwards economically and fiscally if the party is going to challenge Labour in its heartlands. Immigration won't be enough, especially as it is likely to start falling.
UKIP needs a credible social policy framework which it has never really had. I am not sure if they have the brains or appetite for that.
Punishment beating for a bloc of more than 12 MPs is "smart" with a majority of 12?
Really?
I meant them sitting together as a menacing force on the back benches.
Maybe Theresa thinks that they're all mouth and no trousers.
As far as I can tell she's removing those who have either unimpressed her over the years, or were vassals of George Osborne.
That won't be unpopular on the backbenches.
Depends how big a group they'll be - on the backbenchers!!
It only becomes a problem if the Cameroons become a "wing" that starts to regularly vote against the Government as a bloc on the backbenches.
The Tory Right had become almost entirely ostracised, and ignored, under Camerons's leadership and there were between 40-90 MPs who'd regularly defy the whips.
I'm not sure I can see Boles, Osborne and Gove can command a new bloc based on some sort of prospectus, for the Tory Right it's social conservatism, and consistently whip up the same sort of defiance. They don't have much ideological reason to object to what she wants to do, and so the objections would mainly be careerist.
I doubt that. Even the smallest step away from EU membership is big win. Brexit will be a process, not a one off event.
If we sign up to the 4 freedoms, UKIP will go mental.
If we don't, Hannan's faction will be distraught.
That circle can never be squared, however long it takes
Hannan's faction is tiny at a national level. Perhaps a lot smaller than the Corbyn faction.
It's not free movement per se that matters, it's the future of the City. That does have a lot of powerful friends in the Conservative party, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer and, I suspect, the Prime Minister. What the City needs it will get.
The Egyptian military managed to do all of the above and Al-Sisi will remain for many years in power.
ary.
That's called doing a Stalin.
Looks like Boris was right to call him what he did in his limerick. I might have used stronger words.
Dear old Stalin. countries.
It already has fallen out of the orbit of the west since 2002.
The diffence is that Turkey is growing stronger and more hostile to the west as it's strength grows. How can you solve the problem of a great power that is in NATO but at the same time an enemy of NATO ?
But every cloud has a silver lining, if the Americans are looking for a credible enemy to maintain their defence budget, Turkey is very much at the top of the list.
It's powerfull enough to be a very credible boogeyman but not powerfull enough to be a direct threat to america, it's already hostile to american interests, Turkey has no reliable allies, and can scare europe into line much easier than Russia with whom there are too large commercial interests to maintain hostility for long.
And most important, Turkey has no oil, so Turkey being officially declared an enemy of the west won't rattle energy markets.
But it will leave Israel even more exposed, so emboldening its enemies across the region, and it will make it harder to work with Turkey to solve the ongoing refugee crisis.
Israel was already on the rocks with Turkey, it has nukes anyway so they can defend themselves if needed. And Turkey was behind the refugee crisis anyway.
Since circa 1985 and Glasnost, the americans are constantly looking for a new credible enemy to excuse their large defence budget, keep europe in line and rally the flag around the President. America is a country seeking a purpose, with a military seeking an enemy.
First Gaddafi, then Noriega and the Colombian drug lords, China, Saddam, Milosevic, Bin Ladden, Saddam again, Iran, N.Korea, Gaddafi again, Putin, ISIS. Some real enemies, some imaginary, some convenient.
Turkey is in the sweet spot of being large enough for being a credible long term enemy, small enough to be contained without much effort, and being an actual enemy that scares europeans.
It's a Tory unity government, all major factions are in, liberals, weather vanes, conservatines.
Apart from the Cameroons who have been culled, and now all sit together on the back benches.
Maybe smart. Looks spiteful right now. Time will tell.
How long will Tory Brexiteers give it until they start to get fidgety about the glacial pace of negotiations? Based on what Hammond - a very good appointment IMO - has said over recent months there seems to me to be the potential for big clashes between him and Davis/Fox over the terms of a Brexit deal. May will not be able to sit on the fence should that happen.
I thought the first part of the plan was to spend a few weeks or months with internal discussions to set out and formulate objective and strategies to achieve the planned goal.
The difficulty is doing this without telling the EU your negotiating strategy in advance.
The Egyptian military managed to do all of the above and Al-Sisi will remain for many years in power.
ary.
That's called doing a Stalin.
Looks like Boris was right to call him what he did in his limerick. I might have used stronger words.
Dear old Stalin. countries.
It already has fallen out of the orbit of the west since 2002.
The diffence is that Turkey is growing stronger and more hostile to the west as it's strength grows. How can you solve the problem of a great power that is in NATO but at the same time an enemy of NATO ?
But every cloud has a silver lining, if the Americans are looking for a credible enemy to maintain their defence budget, Turkey is very much at the top of the list.
It's powerfull enough to be a very credible boogeyman but not powerfull enough to be a direct threat to america, it's already hostile to american interests, Turkey has no reliable allies, and can scare europe into line much easier than Russia with whom there are too large commercial interests to maintain hostility for long.
And most important, Turkey has no oil, so Turkey being officially declared an enemy of the west won't rattle energy markets.
But it will leave Israel even more exposed, so emboldening its enemies across the region, and it will make it harder to work with Turkey to solve the ongoing refugee crisis.
Israel was already on the rocks with Turkey, it has nukes anyway so they can defend themselves if needed. (snip)
When I suggested she had parked her tanks on Labour's lawn he replied, 'we have no lawn left, you mean our compost heap.' But he agreed. If there were a Labour party left they should be quaking at that Downing St speech.
Right, I must press on.
I can't be the only person who's struggling to reconcile a very centrist speech on the Downing St steps and the wholesale replacement of Cameroons with the Tory right in the government.
I doubt that. Even the smallest step away from EU membership is big win. Brexit will be a process, not a one off event.
If we sign up to the 4 freedoms, UKIP will go mental.
If we don't, Hannan's faction will be distraught.
That circle can never be squared, however long it takes
1. I don't think we'll accept free movement. 2. Hannan and co won't be much bothered. Sovereignty is his lodestar.
3. I'm expecting UKIP to fizzle without the EU. A lot will depend on their new leadership.
UKIP has to have a very serious think about its future. A right wing leadership and membership are going to have to find a credible way to move leftwards economically and fiscally if the party is going to challenge Labour in its heartlands. Immigration won't be enough, especially as it is likely to start falling.
UKIP needs a credible social policy framework which it has never really had. I am not sure if they have the brains or appetite for that.
If you are essentially Thatcherite in outlook - as the UKIP leadership and membership are - how can you move leftwards on economic and fiscal policy? It looks to be a very hard task.
There is a yawning gap for a socially conservative, redistributionist party in England and south Wales, but I just don't see how UKIP can become it. More likely, I'd have thought, is a further tack to the right on immigration. That will have to be very carefully handled, though, as the danger will be straying into BNP territory, which would be a gift for Labour.
Punishment beating for a bloc of more than 12 MPs is "smart" with a majority of 12?
Really?
I meant them sitting together as a menacing force on the back benches.
Maybe Theresa thinks that they're all mouth and no trousers.
As far as I can tell she's removing those who have either unimpressed her over the years, or were vassals of George Osborne.
That won't be unpopular on theindeed backbenches.
Depends how big a group they'll be - on the backbenchers!!
It only becomes a problem if the Cameroons become a "wing" that starts to regularly vote against the Government as a bloc on the backbenches.
The Tory Right had become almost entirely ostracised, and ignored, under Camerons's leadership and there were between 40-90 MPs who'd regularly defy the whips.
I'm not sure I can see Boles, Osborne and Gove can command a new bloc based on some sort of prospectus, for the Tory Right it's social conservatism, and consistently whip up the same sort of defiance. They don't have much ideological reason to object to what she wants to do, and so the objections would mainly be careerist.
She knows what she's doing.
Indeed you may be right but with a small majority it's very easy for a small group to cause very big damage. If the right push too hard they will soon discover that sauce for the goose......
When I suggested she had parked her tanks on Labour's lawn he replied, 'we have no lawn left, you mean our compost heap.' But he agreed. If there were a Labour party left they should be quaking at that Downing St speech.
Right, I must press on.
I can't be the only person who's struggling to reconcile a very centrist speech on the Downing St steps and the wholesale replacement of Cameroons with the Tory right in the government.
You're not. Judge people on what they do, not on what they say. All incoming PMs make pitches to the centre ground and talk of hope, reconciliation and helping the left behind. Then they start governing and it doesn't always turn out like that :-)
We had a PM called Cameron who wanted Turkey to join the EU.
It's becoming increasingly clear that he and his chums ran govt to their own benefit, none of them are anywhere to be seen. Still, he's looking on from his £17m house, like his idol Blair he had a plan all along.
That, as you well know, is an extremely partial view.
Cameron was keen on the modernising, more secular, Westward-looking Turkey of 2011 joining. The one that was abolishing the death penalty and making other reforms in line with the Copenhagen principles. He wasn't at all keen on today's Turkey, where the government has pivoted and is now facing much more to Mecca; hence all his comment during the referendum.
2. Nate Silver have been overated, the primaries showed that his forecasts are biased by his personal opinions like any pundit, but even his nowcast model gives Trump a 45% chance.
3. Agree there, but too many Florida polls have given Trump large leads there recently.
4. I refuse to include Rasmussen and Fox News polls whatever you say, and Marist is ruined since they changed their methodology in February (having Ted Cruz leading the GOP race strikes them out).
5. Agree, the only polls with less than 500 that could be credible would be those from very small states, like Delaware or Rhode Island.
1. You are incorrect. In the past two cycles RCP failed to include polls that were Obama friendly until they were roundly condemned for doing so. It skews the average. They are doing the same now. Caution is required.
2. Nate Silver has conceded that he made mistakes in the primary season - good. It will ensure his analysis is more rigorous going forward.
3. No recent Florida poll has given Trump a "large" lead. JMC had him +5 on a 700 sample with chuckle inducing crosstabs.
4. Throwing out an entire pollster because of a change of methodology or recent poor performance in a primary is a mistake. Look at their long term record and 538 rating.
5. Size matters in sample size and state size. A small poll doesn't become more valid because you are polling Rutland or Auchentennach-by-the-sea.
Well Erdogan has gotten control of his Istanbul stronghold. The coup still has forces in the east of Turkey.
The coup failed to do 3 very important things:
1. Control the mobile phone networks. 2. Control the private TV stations. 3. Arrest the civilian party leaders.
The Egyptian military managed to do all of the above and Al-Sisi will remain for many years in power.
More importantly, if the reports are to be believed, it seems the forces undertaking the coup are only a faction of the armed forces.
First rule of a military coup: control the military.
The other worry about that is that if, as seems likely, the coup was led by career military officers, their purging will weaken the army further as they are replaced by ineffectual officers who are politically sound. Good news for Erdogan and Daesh, bad news for the Middle East.
Sky reporting that 1563 military personnel have been arrested so far.
I'm surprised they're surrendering at all. They must surely be expecting execution.
Those at the bottom will 'only be following orders' and should be fine. The middle- and higher-ranking officers involved, however: yes, they should expect firing squads.
We already know that those people are claiming that Corbyn is out of touch and incompetent when they shoud look at their own mirror (I'm sure that Bryant is so intelligent that he will think I'm talking about the Daily Mirror).
I doubt that. Even the smallest step away from EU membership is big win. Brexit will be a process, not a one off event.
If we sign up to the 4 freedoms, UKIP will go mental.
If we don't, Hannan's faction will be distraught.
That circle can never be squared, however long it takes
1. I don't think we'll accept free movement. 2. Hannan and co won't be much bothered. Sovereignty is his lodestar.
3. I'm expecting UKIP to fizzle without the EU. A lot will depend on their new leadership.
UKIP has to have a very serious think about its future. A right wing leadership and membership are going to have to find a credible way to move leftwards economically and fiscally if the party is going to challenge Labour in its heartlands. Immigration won't be enough, especially as it is likely to start falling.
Values will be a big part of it. The metropolitan left seems to like to denigrate british traditions and history, but patriotism is popular. UKIP need to try to tap into that.
Before the 2010 election the Resolution Foundation pointed out that poorer voters have low party allegiance. If UKIP/Con can offer them something, they'll try it.
When I suggested she had parked her tanks on Labour's lawn he replied, 'we have no lawn left, you mean our compost heap.' But he agreed. If there were a Labour party left they should be quaking at that Downing St speech.
Right, I must press on.
I can't be the only person who's struggling to reconcile a very centrist speech on the Downing St steps and the wholesale replacement of Cameroons with the Tory right in the government.
Well there's a good precedent for a left-of-centre Downing St inaugural female PM's speech followed by bone crushing right wing ideology
Actually I don't read the cabinet appointments as right wing per se though. Looks like pure meritocracy to me as well as brilliant politics: the three brexiteers right where they're needed, farming out the loony Leadsom but also appointing some eye-catching state school and avant guard appointments from Justine Greening (fab fab fab) to Patrick McLoughlin. The first comp educated Tory education minister speaks volumes to me: and openly gay pro LGBT to boot. Awesome.
Cameron had a kind of soft left lesse majeste toryism which, frankly, became tiresomely patronising and truly came unstuck when he tried to lecture the plebs on how to vote in the Referendum.
This is meritocracy writ large. Do well and she'll get your back. Be shit and you're out.
Scott Adams has a good blog post on how Dallas has helped Trump, by transforming the contest into one between "cop-killers" & "racists", and in such a contest, the "racists" will win.
Punishment beating for a bloc of more than 12 MPs is "smart" with a majority of 12?
Really?
I meant them sitting together as a menacing force on the back benches.
Maybe Theresa thinks that they're all mouth and no trousers.
As far as I can tell she's removing those who have either unimpressed her over the years, or were vassals of George Osborne.
That won't be unpopular on theindeed backbenches.
Depends how big a group they'll be - on the backbenchers!!
It only becomes a problem if the Cameroons become a "wing" that starts to regularly vote against the Government as a bloc on the backbenches.
The Tory Right had become almost entirely ostracised, and ignored, under Camerons's leadership and there were between 40-90 MPs who'd regularly defy the whips.
I'm not sure I can see Boles, Osborne and Gove can command a new bloc based on some sort of prospectus, for the Tory Right it's social conservatism, and consistently whip up the same sort of defiance. They don't have much ideological reason to object to what she wants to do, and so the objections would mainly be careerist.
She knows what she's doing.
Indeed you may be right but with a small majority it's very easy for a small group to cause very big damage. If the right push too hard they will soon discover that sauce for the goose......
The Cameroons have always been very loyal to the party, I cannot see that changing now whilst they are facing Corbyn.
When I suggested she had parked her tanks on Labour's lawn he replied, 'we have no lawn left, you mean our compost heap.' But he agreed. If there were a Labour party left they should be quaking at that Downing St speech.
Right, I must press on.
I can't be the only person who's struggling to reconcile a very centrist speech on the Downing St steps and the wholesale replacement of Cameroons with the Tory right in the government.
Me too - time will tell. Action on something like the triple lock on pensions, contributions for benefits, etc would give a clue but the early signs of borrow and spend suggest a classic fudge and may not end well.
Punishment beating for a bloc of more than 12 MPs is "smart" with a majority of 12?
Really?
I meant them sitting together as a menacing force on the back benches.
Maybe Theresa thinks that they're all mouth and no trousers.
As far as I can tell she's removing those who have either unimpressed her over the years, or were vassals of George Osborne.
That won't be unpopular on theindeed backbenches.
Depends how big a group they'll be - on the backbenchers!!
It only becomes a problem if the Cameroons become a "wing" that starts to regularly vote against the Government as a bloc on the backbenches.
The Tory Right had become almost entirely ostracised, and ignored, under Camerons's leadership and there were between 40-90 MPs who'd regularly defy the whips.
I'm not sure I can see Boles, Osborne and Gove can command a new bloc based on some sort of prospectus, for the Tory Right it's social conservatism, and consistently whip up the same sort of defiance. They don't have much ideological reason to object to what she wants to do, and so the objections would mainly be careerist.
She knows what she's doing.
Indeed you may be right but with a small majority it's very easy for a small group to cause very big damage. If the right push too hard they will soon discover that sauce for the goose......
The Cameroons have always been very loyal to the party, I cannot see that changing now whilst they are facing Corbyn.
Punishment beating for a bloc of more than 12 MPs is "smart" with a majority of 12?
Really?
I meant them sitting together as a menacing force on the back benches.
Maybe Theresa thinks that they're all mouth and no trousers.
As far as I can tell she's removing those who have either unimpressed her over the years, or were vassals of George Osborne.
That won't be unpopular on theindeed backbenches.
Depends how big a group they'll be - on the backbenchers!!
It only becomes a problem if the Cameroons become a "wing" that starts to regularly vote against the Government as a bloc on the backbenches.
The Tory Right had become almost entirely ostracised, and ignored, under Camerons's leadership and there were between 40-90 MPs who'd regularly defy the whips.
I'm not sure I can see Boles, Osborne and Gove can command a new bloc based on some sort of prospectus, for the Tory Right it's social conservatism, and consistently whip up the same sort of defiance. They don't have much ideological reason to object to what she wants to do, and so the objections would mainly be careerist.
She knows what she's doing.
Indeed you may be right but with a small majority it's very easy for a small group to cause very big damage. If the right push too hard they will soon discover that sauce for the goose......
Theresa has offered an olive branch to the Right, and brought several of the big beasts in-house.
It's up to them what they do with it. And I speak as someone on the Conservative Right.
Punishment beating for a bloc of more than 12 MPs is "smart" with a majority of 12?
Really?
I meant them sitting together as a menacing force on the back benches.
Maybe Theresa thinks that they're all mouth and no trousers.
As far as I can tell she's removing those who have either unimpressed her over the years, or were vassals of George Osborne.
That won't be unpopular on theindeed backbenches.
Depends how big a group they'll be - on the backbenchers!!
It only becomes a problem if the Cameroons become a "wing" that starts to regularly vote against the Government as a bloc on the backbenches.
The Tory Right had become almost entirely ostracised, and ignored, under Camerons's leadership and there were between 40-90 MPs who'd regularly defy the whips.
I'm not sure I can see Boles, Osborne and Gove can command a new bloc based on some sort of prospectus, for the Tory Right it's social conservatism, and consistently whip up the same sort of defiance. They don't have much ideological reason to object to what she wants to do, and so the objections would mainly be careerist.
She knows what she's doing.
Indeed you may be right but with a small majority it's very easy for a small group to cause very big damage. If the right push too hard they will soon discover that sauce for the goose......
The Cameroons have always been very loyal to the party, I cannot see that changing now whilst they are facing Corbyn.
Didn't they oust IDS?
If they did so, then they were being *very* loyal to the party,
I'd guess Erdogan will lurch in an even more oppressive direction now. That's rather depressing.
It looks like Turks of all political persuasions took to the streets last night to defend what's left of Turkish democracy. Now Erdogan will to throttle that democracy even further. It's tragic. The coup plotters will end up achieving the exact opposite of what they hoped for, and will no doubt end up in front of firing squads or on rope-ends for their troubles.
By the way, did anyone catch Lynne Featherstone's praise of Theresa May over the same sex marriage bill? I think it surprised a number of us to discover the bill may have fallen had TM not backed it to the hilt against massive opposition in the Home Office.
RT claim Police let lorry killer drive his lorry in, despite a large lorry ban being in place in France near major events, after telling them he was delivering ice cream (and neglected to check the lorry out) and according to some reports let him sit parked up for nine hours before setting off with his attack.
But it seems pretty inevitable to me now that, under Erdogan, Turkey is going to gradually fall out of the orbit of the West and take a path more like the other muslim majority MENA countries.
I think that's absolutely right. I wouldn't be at all surprised if turkey left NATO in the next five years.
I doubt that. Even the smallest step away from EU membership is big win. Brexit will be a process, not a one off event.
If we sign up to the 4 freedoms, UKIP will go mental.
If we don't, Hannan's faction will be distraught.
That circle can never be squared, however long it takes
Staying IN the EU would have required an even bigger circle to be squared. Namely, being part of an organisation relentlessly committed to a goal that only a very small fraction of the British people have ever supported - "ever closer union".
I've followed this for over 40 years. Sometimes the EU pauses for a little while in it's march to the final goal, but it ALWAYS resumes. Notice that I do not say that this is a good thing, nor a bad thing - just that it is something which we have never wholeheartedly bought in to.
There would have to be a final IN/OUT decision some time. Better now than later. (Even better if we had done it sooner)
So the coups over then. Erdogan is popular, or at least more popular than an enforced alternative. Turkey wants to be one a more Islamist state, and that's that.
Mr. Observer, I don't know as much about Turkey as I'd like, but I'd suggest they've not helped themselves, or the country.
Turkish democracy includes a president who shuts down and takes over newspapers and TV stations, locks up political opponents and considers insulting the president a crime. And that's before today.
'How long will Tory Brexiteers give it until they start to get fidgety about the glacial pace of negotiations?' Based on what Hammond - a very good appointment IMO - has said over recent months there seems to me to be the potential for big clashes between him and Davis/Fox over the terms of a Brexit deal.'
As long as it takes,Remain lost get over it.
What a silly little post.'
You just can't get over the fact 'Remain' & the so called experts lost, and so try to dream up every conceivable reason for it to be blocked or changed,we are leaving to EU,get over it. It's not that complicated.
Punishment beating for a bloc of more than 12 MPs is "smart" with a majority of 12?
Really?
I meant them sitting together as a menacing force on the back benches.
Maybe Theresa thinks that they're all mouth and no trousers.
As far as I can tell she's removing those who have either unimpressed her over the years, or were vassals of George Osborne.
That won't be unpopular on the backbenches.
And the most state school educated cabinet since Clem Attlee's 1945 Gov't marks a massive change and sends the strongest signal: do well and you can get to the top table. Meritocracy will be a huge pull for the majority of backbenchers. It does remind me of early Maggie Thatcher: a new broom cleaning out the old guard but not out of spite at all: out of regard for rewarding the best people no matter their background.
It all depends on what you think "modernisation" means.
I think that for not a few of the Cameroon set it was about their social comfort in describing themselves as Tories at London dinner parties mixing with fellow elites. Disproportionately from the academic, think-tank, media and international business worlds. In particular, that led to the route of adopting New Labour clothes, social policy, and championing diversity, internationalism, and choosing the rhetoric to match it accordingly. It also included an implicit shunning of provincial England.
For Theresa May, it's about shedding the Tories image as the party of the privileged and the rich, and probably making it clear it's not just about the English too. She recognises social changes and wants inclusion (no discrimination based upon gender, sexuality or race) but doesn't view grandstanding on it as the main totem of modernisation. I found the way it she hat-tipped the WWC so much in her first statement as PM very interesting.
In my view, it's her vision of modernisation that should have been pursued by the Tories all along.
Punishment beating for a bloc of more than 12 MPs is "smart" with a majority of 12?
Really?
I meant them sitting together as a menacing force on the back benches.
Maybe Theresa thinks that they're all mouth and no trousers.
As far as I can tell she's removing those who have either unimpressed her over the years, or were vassals of George Osborne.
That won't be unpopular on theindeed backbenches.
Depends how big a group they'll be - on the backbenchers!!
It only becomes a problem if the Cameroons become a "wing" that starts to regularly vote against the Government as a bloc on the backbenches.
The Tory Right had become almost entirely ostracised, and ignored, under Camerons's leadership and there were between 40-90 MPs who'd regularly defy the whips.
I'm not sure I can see Boles, Osborne and Gove can command a new bloc based on some sort of prospectus, for the Tory Right it's social conservatism, and consistently whip up the same sort of defiance. They don't have much ideological reason to object to what she wants to do, and so the objections would mainly be careerist.
She knows what she's doing.
Indeed you may be right but with a small majority it's very easy for a small group to cause very big damage. If the right push too hard they will soon discover that sauce for the goose......
The Cameroons have always been very loyal to the party, I cannot see that changing now whilst they are facing Corbyn.
Didn't they oust IDS?
Getting rid of him was the ultimate sign of loyalty, he was a joke of a leader.
Punishment beating for a bloc of more than 12 MPs is "smart" with a majority of 12?
Really?
I meant them sitting together as a menacing force on the back benches.
Maybe Theresa thinks that they're all mouth and no trousers.
As far as I can tell she's removing those who have either unimpressed her over the years, or were vassals of George Osborne.
That won't be unpopular on the backbenches.
And the most state school educated cabinet since Clem Attlee's 1945 Gov't marks a massive change and sends the strongest signal: do well and you can get to the top table. Meritocracy will be a huge pull for the majority of backbenchers. It does remind me of early Maggie Thatcher: a new broom cleaning out the old guard but not out of spite at all: out of regard for rewarding the best people no matter their background.
Until the new faces have time to prove themselves we don't actually know that's what she has done. It coukd be so, but If her clique of newbies does poorly it will have been changes done out of spite. We shall see.
''Turkish democracy includes a president who shuts down and takes over newspapers and TV stations, locks up political opponents and considers insulting the president a crime. And that's before today.''
The EU's answer? appeasement, bordering on capitulation.
Mr. Observer, I don't know as much about Turkey as I'd like, but I'd suggest they've not helped themselves, or the country.
Turkish democracy includes a president who shuts down and takes over newspapers and TV stations, locks up political opponents and considers insulting the president a crime. And that's before today.
I agree. The big victims of the failed coup will be the Turkish democrats who took to the streets to stand against it. But that makes Erdogan contemptible rather than them foolish.
When I suggested she had parked her tanks on Labour's lawn he replied, 'we have no lawn left, you mean our compost heap.' But he agreed. If there were a Labour party left they should be quaking at that Downing St speech.
Right, I must press on.
I can't be the only person who's struggling to reconcile a very centrist speech on the Downing St steps and the wholesale replacement of Cameroons with the Tory right in the government.
You're viewing her moves through Cameron era thinking. View it through Mayist thinking.
Firstly, I don't think she has replaced the Cameroons wholesale with the Tory Right. Far from it. What she has done is brought them in house.
She's been quite consistent so far. She's wants to be a healer, unifier and a meritocrat: she's trying to unite all wings of the party, all nations within the union, and all strands of British society as well. I don't see that as left, right, or centre. It's the Tory modernisation project I always had hoped for.
(Besides which, whatever I might say, I just don't believe you: you are far, far too intelligent not to be able to work out what's going on here)
Betfair seems slow to catch up with Trump. You can still get 3% (1.03) on him being the republican nominee. And back him for president at 3.7 and lay the republicans winning at 3.4. Both free money?
'How long will Tory Brexiteers give it until they start to get fidgety about the glacial pace of negotiations?' Based on what Hammond - a very good appointment IMO - has said over recent months there seems to me to be the potential for big clashes between him and Davis/Fox over the terms of a Brexit deal.'
As long as it takes,Remain lost get over it.
What a silly little post.'
You just can't get over the fact 'Remain' & the so called experts lost, and so try to dream up every conceivable reason for it to be blocked or changed,we are leaving to EU,get over it. It's not that complicated.
Whether it takes two or three years we are OUT.
I am sorry you are not bright enough to understand my posts. But that is your problem, not mine.
I read all of Nick Timothy's Con Home columns. He's my kind of Tory. He's clearly influenced May's views - her Birmingham speech was his agenda in a nutshell.
Punishment beating for a bloc of more than 12 MPs is "smart" with a majority of 12?
Really?
I meant them sitting together as a menacing force on the back benches.
Maybe Theresa thinks that they're all mouth and no trousers.
As far as I can tell she's removing those who have either unimpressed her over the years, or were vassals of George Osborne.
That won't be unpopular on the backbenches.
And the most state school educated cabinet since Clem Attlee's 1945 Gov't marks a massive change and sends the strongest signal: do well and you can get to the top table. Meritocracy will be a huge pull for the majority of backbenchers. It does remind me of early Maggie Thatcher: a new broom cleaning out the old guard but not out of spite at all: out of regard for rewarding the best people no matter their background.
Until the new faces have time to prove themselves we don't actually know that's what she has done. It coukd be so, but If her clique of newbies does poorly it will have been changes done out of spite. We shall see.
How the frog can it be spite when Osborne was shite, Morgan was shite, Whittingdale was shite and Gove was the most disgusting backstabbing odious pile of ordure to ooze into parliament in many a decade?
I read all of Nick Timothy's Con Home columns. He's my kind of Tory. He's clearly influenced May's views - her Birmingham speech was his agenda in a nutshell.
After reading his columns, I'm wondering if Mrs May voted Leave in the polling booth. Good times ahead.
As I think others have said, some Remainers are bordering on fanatics: in their obsession they see every global event as being linked to Brexit.
Whereas all leavers are cool, sensible fellows who never blame the EU for things outside its control?
Oh, there are fanatics on both sides absolutely.
If we'd had a Remain vote, we'd being seeing it the other way.
What's so surprising now is just how many previously 'sensible' people are seemingly desperate for Brexit to be seen as anything but a success.
And how many people are seemingly desperate for it to be a success, with any sign of problems being swept under the carpet, trivialised, ridiculed or ignored (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly).
Both are equally bad for the country. Making any definitive comments about success or otherwise at this stage is fairy odd given the early stage we are at.
'How long will Tory Brexiteers give it until they start to get fidgety about the glacial pace of negotiations?' Based on what Hammond - a very good appointment IMO - has said over recent months there seems to me to be the potential for big clashes between him and Davis/Fox over the terms of a Brexit deal.'
As long as it takes,Remain lost get over it.
What a silly little post.'
You just can't get over the fact 'Remain' & the so called experts lost, and so try to dream up every conceivable reason for it to be blocked or changed,we are leaving to EU,get over it. It's not that complicated.
Whether it takes two or three years we are OUT.
Reading this, I dont quite understand it. The question was about potential Tory divisions over the pace and nature of a Brexit deal, not a refusal to accept leave won. That seems pretty Uncontroversial - we know some people want may to declare very soon, we know some want access to the single market and others don't etc, there's bound to be continued disagreement from some as we move toward Brexit.
But no, let's pretend any suggestion like that is someone trying to block Brexit, that's helpful.
Leave won, everyone knows that and there's no realistic path to stop it. But leavers are not a homogenous mass and as may herself shows the views of remainers will be critical too. My impression is she is going for hard Brexit, but whatever option she tries for some level of division will be there, it's a question of how much.
I read all of Nick Timothy's Con Home columns. He's my kind of Tory. He's clearly influenced May's views - her Birmingham speech was his agenda in a nutshell.
After reading his columns, I'm wondering if Mrs May voted Leave in the polling booth. Good times ahead.
She certainly believed in Brexit. Quite some politician to hold her nose and pretend to support Remain out of loyalty. The proof of her brilliance? Well ... just look now.
But it seems pretty inevitable to me now that, under Erdogan, Turkey is going to gradually fall out of the orbit of the West and take a path more like the other muslim majority MENA countries.
I think that's absolutely right. I wouldn't be at all surprised if turkey left NATO in the next five years.
Erdogan won't leave NATO. If he leaves NATO it will automatically solve the problem of how to deal with a NATO member that is an emeny of NATO at the same time.
That will be contrary to his interest in confusing western policy reaction to him, since he is presently clearly an enemy of the west but also an ally on paper, thus confusing western foreign policy.
We had a PM called Cameron who wanted Turkey to join the EU.
It's becoming increasingly clear that he and his chums ran govt to their own benefit, none of them are anywhere to be seen. Still, he's looking on from his £17m house, like his idol Blair he had a plan all along.
That, as you well know, is an extremely partial view.
Cameron was keen on the modernising, more secular, Westward-looking Turkey of 2011 joining. The one that was abolishing the death penalty and making other reforms in line with the Copenhagen principles. He wasn't at all keen on today's Turkey, where the government has pivoted and is now facing much more to Mecca; hence all his comment during the referendum.
Yeah but yeah but yeah but, Cameron wanted Turkey to join, he never said otherwise, it was one of the biggest factors in the referendum.
So the coups over then. Erdogan is popular, or at least more popular than an enforced alternative. Turkey wants to be one a more Islamist state, and that's that.
Or maybe it wants to be a democracy. Writing off a whole country to Islamism for not supporting a military coup seems a bit, er, Boris-like :-)
We had a PM called Cameron who wanted Turkey to join the EU.
It's becoming increasingly clear that he and his chums ran govt to their own benefit, none of them are anywhere to be seen. Still, he's looking on from his £17m house, like his idol Blair he had a plan all along.
That, as you well know, is an extremely partial view.
Cameron was keen on the modernising, more secular, Westward-looking Turkey of 2011 joining. The one that was abolishing the death penalty and making other reforms in line with the Copenhagen principles. He wasn't at all keen on today's Turkey, where the government has pivoted and is now facing much more to Mecca; hence all his comment during the referendum.
Yeah but yeah but yeah but, Cameron wanted Turkey to join, he never said otherwise, it was one of the biggest factors in the referendum.
During the referendum, did he *want* - present tense - Turkey to join?
Leave lied consistently about Turkey during the campaign.
'How long will Tory Brexiteers give it until they start to get fidgety about the glacial pace of negotiations?' Based on what Hammond - a very good appointment IMO - has said over recent months there seems to me to be the potential for big clashes between him and Davis/Fox over the terms of a Brexit deal.'
As long as it takes,Remain lost get over it.
What a silly little post.'
You just can't get over the fact 'Remain' & the so called experts lost, and so try to dream up every conceivable reason for it to be blocked or changed,we are leaving to EU,get over it. It's not that complicated.
Whether it takes two or three years we are OUT.
I am sorry you are not bright enough to understand my posts. But that is your problem, not mine.'
I am sorry you are not bright enough to understand that we have a new government that have said Brexit means Brexit, and nobody cares how slow it may or may not take or what arguments there may or may not be on our way out.
You obviously missed that the EU TTIP agreement is now being scrapped (not worth it without the UK apparently) and now the UK is at the front of the queue for a free trade deal with the US.
So lots of deals to be done which most sensible people will understand takes time.
We had a PM called Cameron who wanted Turkey to join the EU.
It's becoming increasingly clear that he and his chums ran govt to their own benefit, none of them are anywhere to be seen. Still, he's looking on from his £17m house, like his idol Blair he had a plan all along.
That, as you well know, is an extremely partial view.
Cameron was keen on the modernising, more secular, Westward-looking Turkey of 2011 joining. The one that was abolishing the death penalty and making other reforms in line with the Copenhagen principles. He wasn't at all keen on today's Turkey, where the government has pivoted and is now facing much more to Mecca; hence all his comment during the referendum.
Yeah but yeah but yeah but, Cameron wanted Turkey to join, he never said otherwise, it was one of the biggest factors in the referendum.
If Turkey met the acquis required for it to join, it would be a very different country than the one we see today.
Well Erdogan has gotten control of his Istanbul stronghold. The coup still has forces in the east of Turkey.
The coup failed to do 3 very important things:
1. Control the mobile phone networks. 2. Control the private TV stations. 3. Arrest the civilian party leaders.
The Egyptian military managed to do all of the above and Al-Sisi will remain for many years in power.
More importantly, if the reports are to be believed, it seems the forces undertaking the coup are only a faction of the armed forces.
First rule of a military coup: control the military.
The other worry about that is that if, as seems likely, the coup was led by career military officers, their purging will weaken the army further as they are replaced by ineffectual officers who are politically sound. Good news for Erdogan and Daesh, bad news for the Middle East.
Sky reporting that 1563 military personnel have been arrested so far.
I'm surprised they're surrendering at all. They must surely be expecting execution.
Those at the bottom will 'only be following orders' and should be fine. The middle- and higher-ranking officers involved, however: yes, they should expect firing squads.
Quite right too, they would have been aware of the consequences.
Mr. Observer, I don't know as much about Turkey as I'd like, but I'd suggest they've not helped themselves, or the country.
Turkish democracy includes a president who shuts down and takes over newspapers and TV stations, locks up political opponents and considers insulting the president a crime. And that's before today.
I agree. The big victims of the failed coup will be the Turkish democrats who took to the streets to stand against it. But that makes Erdogan contemptible rather than them foolish.
Yeltsin 1991 and 1993, he used democratic resistance to a military coup to come in power and then 2 years lated did a military coup to stay in power.
But Erdogan is not a drunk, he's in power far longer than Yeltsin.
I read all of Nick Timothy's Con Home columns. He's my kind of Tory. He's clearly influenced May's views - her Birmingham speech was his agenda in a nutshell.
After reading his columns, I'm wondering if Mrs May voted Leave in the polling booth. Good times ahead.
She certainly believed in Brexit. Quite some politician to hold her nose and pretend to support Remain out of loyalty. The proof of her brilliance? Well ... just look now.
If she supported leave privately then her actions since the win which show she has no wish to be a continuity Cameroon, woukd prove she did not go remain out of loyalty but ambition, that she calculated she could be top of the pile. And she was certainly right and the best of the options.
And we are going to find out which version of Leave has lost.
Whichever one it is, the Ultras are going to be upset
I doubt that. Even the smallest step away from EU membership is big win. Brexit will be a process, not a one off event.
A very sensible point - except when you stop and think of people like Redwood, Baker, Cash, Baron......
Brexit will happen, but it clearly won't satisfy all the dreams and aspirations of the ultras. Partly because they all have different dreams to begin with. Partly because exit will inevitably involve compromises. And partly because people like that will be psychologically driven to find a new bogeyman (bogeyperson?).
But it seems pretty inevitable to me now that, under Erdogan, Turkey is going to gradually fall out of the orbit of the West and take a path more like the other muslim majority MENA countries.
I think that's absolutely right. I wouldn't be at all surprised if turkey left NATO in the next five years.
Erdogan won't leave NATO. If he leaves NATO it will automatically solve the problem of how to deal with a NATO member that is an emeny of NATO at the same time.
That will be contrary to his interest in confusing western policy reaction to him, since he is presently clearly an enemy of the west but also an ally on paper, thus confusing western foreign policy.
Lordy. How much do you actually know about Turkey?
Well Erdogan has gotten control of his Istanbul stronghold. The coup still has forces in the east of Turkey.
The coup failed to do 3 very important things:
1. Control the mobile phone networks. 2. Control the private TV stations. 3. Arrest the civilian party leaders.
The Egyptian military managed to do all of the above and Al-Sisi will remain for many years in power.
More importantly, if the reports are to be believed, it seems the forces undertaking the coup are only a faction of the armed forces.
First rule of a military coup: control the military.
The other worry about that is that if, as seems likely, the coup was led by career military officers, their purging will weaken the army further as they are replaced by ineffectual officers who are politically sound. Good news for Erdogan and Daesh, bad news for the Middle East.
Sky reporting that 1563 military personnel have been arrested so far.
I'm surprised they're surrendering at all. They must surely be expecting execution.
Most of them won't be part of the coup, just on a list of some kind. Anyone who has uttered a word against Erdogan.
When I suggested she had parked her tanks on Labour's lawn he replied, 'we have no lawn left, you mean our compost heap.' But he agreed. If there were a Labour party left they should be quaking at that Downing St speech.
Right, I must press on.
I can't be the only person who's struggling to reconcile a very centrist speech on the Downing St steps and the wholesale replacement of Cameroons with the Tory right in the government.
You're viewing her moves through Cameron era thinking. View it through Mayist thinking.
Firstly, I don't think she has replaced the Cameroons wholesale with the Tory Right. Far from it. What she has done is brought them in house.
She's been quite consistent so far. She's wants to be a healer, unifier and a meritocrat: she's trying to unite all wings of the party, all nations within the union, and all strands of British society as well. I don't see that as left, right, or centre. It's the Tory modernisation project I always had hoped for.
(Besides which, whatever I might say, I just don't believe you: you are far, far too intelligent not to be able to work out what's going on here)
Yes, I suppose I was doubting whether the intent of her speech - which I'm sure is genuine - can be translated into action given the policy appointments she's made. It's all very well trying to unify the party and the country but ministers have a lot of individual power and can pursue their own agenda. Removing Gove from Justice - where he was doing a job that ties precisely into what May wants - seems unnecessarily tactical.
We had a PM called Cameron who wanted Turkey to join the EU.
It's becoming increasingly clear that he and his chums ran govt to their own benefit, none of them are anywhere to be seen. Still, he's looking on from his £17m house, like his idol Blair he had a plan all along.
That, as you well know, is an extremely partial view.
Cameron was keen on the modernising, more secular, Westward-looking Turkey of 2011 joining. The one that was abolishing the death penalty and making other reforms in line with the Copenhagen principles. He wasn't at all keen on today's Turkey, where the government has pivoted and is now facing much more to Mecca; hence all his comment during the referendum.
Yeah but yeah but yeah but, Cameron wanted Turkey to join, he never said otherwise, it was one of the biggest factors in the referendum.
During the referendum, did he *want* - present tense - Turkey to join?
Leave lied consistently about Turkey during the campaign.
You are in a state of denial, Cameron has said for years he wanted Turkey to join, if you can show where he changed his mind I'll apologise.
So the coups over then. Erdogan is popular, or at least more popular than an enforced alternative. Turkey wants to be one a more Islamist state, and that's that.
Or maybe it wants to be a democracy. Writing off a whole country to Islamism for not supporting a military coup seems a bit, er, Boris-like :-)
My guess is that it's far from black and white.
I wasn't writing them off, your interpreting my words as more than they were. They want democratically to be an Islamist state. Wouldn't be my choice, but hold an election pre coup attempt or post fattemot and erdogan woukd have won, so if he suggested even more Islamist moves and though a significant minority woukd not like it, I'd bet he'd be cocked on that too.
The coup failed for many reasons, but that the people keep electing of their own free will the 'wrong' sort had to be one of them. As despite locking up journalists, my undertanding is turkey is still broadly free and democratic.
We had a PM called Cameron who wanted Turkey to join the EU.
It's becoming increasingly clear that he and his chums ran govt to their own benefit, none of them are anywhere to be seen. Still, he's looking on from his £17m house, like his idol Blair he had a plan all along.
That, as you well know, is an extremely partial view.
Cameron was keen on the modernising, more secular, Westward-looking Turkey of 2011 joining. The one that was abolishing the death penalty and making other reforms in line with the Copenhagen principles. He wasn't at all keen on today's Turkey, where the government has pivoted and is now facing much more to Mecca; hence all his comment during the referendum.
Yeah but yeah but yeah but, Cameron wanted Turkey to join, he never said otherwise, it was one of the biggest factors in the referendum.
If Turkey met the acquis required for it to join, it would be a very different country than the one we see today.
Yes, and if I have a sex change I'll change too. But its never going to happen.
Kle4 I agree except that she couldn't have known Leave would win. I think she thought Remain would win and she should be loyal to Cameron as she has been all down the years.
I repeat, she's formidable. She might have all the attributes of Thatcher without the shortcomings.
Well Erdogan has gotten control of his Istanbul stronghold. The coup still has forces in the east of Turkey.
The coup failed to do 3 very important things:
1. Control the mobile phone networks. 2. Control the private TV stations. 3. Arrest the civilian party leaders.
The Egyptian military managed to do all of the above and Al-Sisi will remain for many years in power.
More importantly, if the reports are to be believed, it seems the forces undertaking the coup are only a faction of the armed forces.
First rule of a military coup: control the military.
The other worry about that is that if, as seems likely, the coup was led by career military officers, their purging will weaken the army further as they are replaced by ineffectual officers who are politically sound. Good news for Erdogan and Daesh, bad news for the Middle East.
Sky reporting that 1563 military personnel have been arrested so far.
I'm surprised they're surrendering at all. They must surely be expecting execution.
Those at the bottom will 'only be following orders' and should be fine. The middle- and higher-ranking officers involved, however: yes, they should expect firing squads.
Quite right too, they would have been aware of the consequences.
Oh indeed. Treason is treason. All the more reason for them to plot it properly beforehand. Idiots.
It's a disaster for Europe though. The army will be purged, Erdogan strengthened and Turkey will turn further from secularism; and the people who came out to support him will find the rights stripped further.
'How long will Tory Brexiteers give it until they start to get fidgety about the glacial pace of negotiations?' Based on what Hammond - a very good appointment IMO - has said over recent months there seems to me to be the potential for big clashes between him and Davis/Fox over the terms of a Brexit deal.'
As long as it takes,Remain lost get over it.
What a silly little post.'
You just can't get over the fact 'Remain' & the so called experts lost, and so try to dream up every conceivable reason for it to be blocked or changed,we are leaving to EU,get over it. It's not that complicated.
Whether it takes two or three years we are OUT.
Reading this, I dont quite understand it. The question was about potential Tory divisions over the pace and nature of a Brexit deal, not a refusal to accept leave won. That seems pretty Uncontroversial - we know some people want may to declare very soon, we know some want access to the single market and others don't etc, there's bound to be continued disagreement from some as we move toward Brexit.
But no, let's pretend any suggestion like that is someone trying to block Brexit, that's helpful.
Leave won, everyone knows that and there's no realistic path to stop it. But leavers are not a homogenous mass and as may herself shows the views of remainers will be critical too. My impression is she is going for hard Brexit, but whatever option she tries for some level of division will be there, it's a question of how much.
We had a PM called Cameron who wanted Turkey to join the EU.
It's becoming increasingly clear that he and his chums ran govt to their own benefit, none of them are anywhere to be seen. Still, he's looking on from his £17m house, like his idol Blair he had a plan all along.
That, as you well know, is an extremely partial view.
Cameron was keen on the modernising, more secular, Westward-looking Turkey of 2011 joining. The one that was abolishing the death penalty and making other reforms in line with the Copenhagen principles. He wasn't at all keen on today's Turkey, where the government has pivoted and is now facing much more to Mecca; hence all his comment during the referendum.
Yeah but yeah but yeah but, Cameron wanted Turkey to join, he never said otherwise, it was one of the biggest factors in the referendum.
During the referendum, did he *want* - present tense - Turkey to join?
Leave lied consistently about Turkey during the campaign.
Not publicly, but yes. Clearly he did. If he had reversed the policy and said he would veto Turkish membership and insist on A 30-40 year transition period for migration to allow them in it would have neutralised the issue. Cameron is personally attached to Turkey's membership for some deranged reason.
Kle4 I agree except that she couldn't have known Leave would win. I think she thought Remain would win and she should be loyal to Cameron as she has been all down the years.
I repeat, she's formidable. She might have all the attributes of Thatcher without the shortcomings.
Every political leader has shortcomings, although I wanted May in I am under no illusions that she could turn out to be bad at the job. But the alternatives were much, much worse.
Torygraph reporting that this isn't over yet and "it unclear who is in control of the country"
If the sides control different parts of the country - as appears to be the case with the PM in Istanbul and the plotters still in the East - I fear the risk of civil war, particularly if the plotters have little to lose by fighting on.
Comments
https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/ResolutionFoundation/the-importance-of-place-64063692
She's formidable.
2. Hannan and co won't be much bothered. Sovereignty is his lodestar.
3. I'm expecting UKIP to fizzle without the EU. A lot will depend on their new leadership.
It's becoming increasingly clear that he and his chums ran govt to their own benefit, none of them are anywhere to be seen. Still, he's looking on from his £17m house, like his idol Blair he had a plan all along.
I think that for not a few of the Cameroon set it was about their social comfort in describing themselves as Tories at London dinner parties mixing with fellow elites. Disproportionately from the academic, think-tank, media and international business worlds. In particular, that led to the route of adopting New Labour clothes, social policy, and championing diversity, internationalism, and choosing the rhetoric to match it accordingly. It also included an implicit shunning of provincial England.
For Theresa May, it's about shedding the Tories image as the party of the privileged and the rich, and probably making it clear it's not just about the English too. She recognises social changes and wants inclusion (no discrimination based upon gender, sexuality or race) but doesn't view grandstanding on it as the main totem of modernisation. I found the way it she hat-tipped the WWC so much in her first statement as PM very interesting.
In my view, it's her vision of modernisation that should have been pursued by the Tories all along.
I think she's going to be very good.
Surprised after the little I saw last night the coup appears to have crumbled so quickly.
When I suggested she had parked her tanks on Labour's lawn he replied, 'we have no lawn left, you mean our compost heap.' But he agreed. If there were a Labour party left they should be quaking at that Downing St speech.
Right, I must press on.
Whats the betting that for the 2nd time they will be shelved?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrX3Ql31URA
I am not sure if they have the brains or appetite for that.
The Tory Right had become almost entirely ostracised, and ignored, under Camerons's leadership and there were between 40-90 MPs who'd regularly defy the whips.
I'm not sure I can see Boles, Osborne and Gove can command a new bloc based on some sort of prospectus, for the Tory Right it's social conservatism, and consistently whip up the same sort of defiance. They don't have much ideological reason to object to what she wants to do, and so the objections would mainly be careerist.
She knows what she's doing.
https://twitter.com/RhonddaBryant/status/754087371252101124
And Turkey was behind the refugee crisis anyway.
Since circa 1985 and Glasnost, the americans are constantly looking for a new credible enemy to excuse their large defence budget, keep europe in line and rally the flag around the President.
America is a country seeking a purpose, with a military seeking an enemy.
First Gaddafi, then Noriega and the Colombian drug lords, China, Saddam, Milosevic, Bin Ladden, Saddam again, Iran, N.Korea, Gaddafi again, Putin, ISIS.
Some real enemies, some imaginary, some convenient.
Turkey is in the sweet spot of being large enough for being a credible long term enemy, small enough to be contained without much effort, and being an actual enemy that scares europeans.
The difficulty is doing this without telling the EU your negotiating strategy in advance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel–Turkey_relations#Reconciliation_agreement
"And Turkey was behind the refugee crisis anyway."
No, it wasn't.
There is a yawning gap for a socially conservative, redistributionist party in England and south Wales, but I just don't see how UKIP can become it. More likely, I'd have thought, is a further tack to the right on immigration. That will have to be very carefully handled, though, as the danger will be straying into BNP territory, which would be a gift for Labour.
Cameron was keen on the modernising, more secular, Westward-looking Turkey of 2011 joining. The one that was abolishing the death penalty and making other reforms in line with the Copenhagen principles. He wasn't at all keen on today's Turkey, where the government has pivoted and is now facing much more to Mecca; hence all his comment during the referendum.
2. Nate Silver has conceded that he made mistakes in the primary season - good. It will ensure his analysis is more rigorous going forward.
3. No recent Florida poll has given Trump a "large" lead. JMC had him +5 on a 700 sample with chuckle inducing crosstabs.
4. Throwing out an entire pollster because of a change of methodology or recent poor performance in a primary is a mistake. Look at their long term record and 538 rating.
5. Size matters in sample size and state size. A small poll doesn't become more valid because you are polling Rutland or Auchentennach-by-the-sea.
Before the 2010 election the Resolution Foundation pointed out that poorer voters have low party allegiance. If UKIP/Con can offer them something, they'll try it.
http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2010/04/sophia-parker-how-the-votes-of-low-earners-could-deliver-a-conservative-election-victory.html
Actually I don't read the cabinet appointments as right wing per se though. Looks like pure meritocracy to me as well as brilliant politics: the three brexiteers right where they're needed, farming out the loony Leadsom but also appointing some eye-catching state school and avant guard appointments from Justine Greening (fab fab fab) to Patrick McLoughlin. The first comp educated Tory education minister speaks volumes to me: and openly gay pro LGBT to boot. Awesome.
Cameron had a kind of soft left lesse majeste toryism which, frankly, became tiresomely patronising and truly came unstuck when he tried to lecture the plebs on how to vote in the Referendum.
This is meritocracy writ large. Do well and she'll get your back. Be shit and you're out.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/news/dods-people/77259/updating-live-theresa-mays
It's up to them what they do with it. And I speak as someone on the Conservative Right.
We don't know who is in control of the capital and eastern Turkey.
But here is the first mention of a Turkish coup being formulated by Washington or Erdogan himself, dated April 7th:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/7/recep-tayyip-erdogan-uses-turkey-military-coup-buz/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork
If we'd had a Remain vote, we'd being seeing it the other way.
What's so surprising now is just how many previously 'sensible' people are seemingly desperate for Brexit to be seen as anything but a success.
https://www.rt.com/news/351541-nice-attack-ice-cream/
Whatever the upshot of all this, the EU's policy towards Turkey looks in huge trouble.
I've followed this for over 40 years. Sometimes the EU pauses for a little while in it's march to the final goal, but it ALWAYS resumes. Notice that I do not say that this is a good thing, nor a bad thing - just that it is something which we have never wholeheartedly bought in to.
There would have to be a final IN/OUT decision some time. Better now than later. (Even better if we had done it sooner)
Turkish democracy includes a president who shuts down and takes over newspapers and TV stations, locks up political opponents and considers insulting the president a crime. And that's before today.
john_zims
'How long will Tory Brexiteers give it until they start to get fidgety about the glacial pace of negotiations?' Based on what Hammond - a very good appointment IMO - has said over recent months there seems to me to be the potential for big clashes between him and Davis/Fox over the terms of a Brexit deal.'
As long as it takes,Remain lost get over it.
What a silly little post.'
You just can't get over the fact 'Remain' & the so called experts lost, and so try to dream up every conceivable reason for it to be blocked or changed,we are leaving to EU,get over it. It's not that complicated.
Whether it takes two or three years we are OUT.
The EU's answer? appeasement, bordering on capitulation.
Firstly, I don't think she has replaced the Cameroons wholesale with the Tory Right. Far from it. What she has done is brought them in house.
She's been quite consistent so far. She's wants to be a healer, unifier and a meritocrat: she's trying to unite all wings of the party, all nations within the union, and all strands of British society as well. I don't see that as left, right, or centre. It's the Tory modernisation project I always had hoped for.
(Besides which, whatever I might say, I just don't believe you: you are far, far too intelligent not to be able to work out what's going on here)
She culled the crap. Simple.
Laterz peeps.
Both are equally bad for the country. Making any definitive comments about success or otherwise at this stage is fairy odd given the early stage we are at.
But no, let's pretend any suggestion like that is someone trying to block Brexit, that's helpful.
Leave won, everyone knows that and there's no realistic path to stop it. But leavers are not a homogenous mass and as may herself shows the views of remainers will be critical too. My impression is she is going for hard Brexit, but whatever option she tries for some level of division will be there, it's a question of how much.
If he leaves NATO it will automatically solve the problem of how to deal with a NATO member that is an emeny of NATO at the same time.
That will be contrary to his interest in confusing western policy reaction to him, since he is presently clearly an enemy of the west but also an ally on paper, thus confusing western foreign policy.
Sorry if posted already.
Good to see the taxpayer is funding teenage daughters of celebs to work as a govt aide.
My guess is that it's far from black and white.
Leave lied consistently about Turkey during the campaign.
'john_zims
'How long will Tory Brexiteers give it until they start to get fidgety about the glacial pace of negotiations?' Based on what Hammond - a very good appointment IMO - has said over recent months there seems to me to be the potential for big clashes between him and Davis/Fox over the terms of a Brexit deal.'
As long as it takes,Remain lost get over it.
What a silly little post.'
You just can't get over the fact 'Remain' & the so called experts lost, and so try to dream up every conceivable reason for it to be blocked or changed,we are leaving to EU,get over it. It's not that complicated.
Whether it takes two or three years we are OUT.
I am sorry you are not bright enough to understand my posts. But that is your problem, not mine.'
I am sorry you are not bright enough to understand that we have a new government that have said Brexit means Brexit, and nobody cares how slow it may or may not take or what arguments there may or may not be on our way out.
You obviously missed that the EU TTIP agreement is now being scrapped (not worth it without the UK apparently) and now the UK is at the front of the queue for a free trade deal with the US.
So lots of deals to be done which most sensible people will understand takes time.
But Erdogan is not a drunk, he's in power far longer than Yeltsin.
The coup failed for many reasons, but that the people keep electing of their own free will the 'wrong' sort had to be one of them. As despite locking up journalists, my undertanding is turkey is still broadly free and democratic.
I repeat, she's formidable. She might have all the attributes of Thatcher without the shortcomings.
It's a disaster for Europe though. The army will be purged, Erdogan strengthened and Turkey will turn further from secularism; and the people who came out to support him will find the rights stripped further.