A theory: the cabinet Brexit committee's real goal has always been to renegotiate membership of the single market without free movement of people.
- The tried prenegotiation but that didn't work. The assumed this was because the EU didn't think they would go through with leaving. - They announced we would leave the single market. This didn't have the shock effect they were hoping for. Instead the EU welcomed the apparent clarity of the position. - Hoping we could still shock the EU into submission we invoked Article 50, but instead of a generous offer we got a watertight set of negotiating guidelines that gave us no room for manoeuvre. - Panic sets in, and they decide that they need a massive majority to force the EU to take them seriously. May calls the election expecting this to happen.
They completely misjudged the strategic from start to finish and now don't how to get out of the mess.
Stripping out the spin it is undoubtedly true that what the UK wants is unrestricted access to the single market with freedom of movement being at the UK's discretion. It seems to be an entirely sensible objective. Whether it is achievable remains to be seen.
Basically we want to go back to the deal as it was in January 1992.
It may not be something our partners want to agree to, but it's not unreasonable or unthinkable to suggest
Charles
This is a question for you. I appreciate you may feel unable to answer it if you have insider information or business confidences. If so, that's fine, just say you can't talk about it and we'll leave it.
I have been told there is unease about the possible impact of a hard Brexit on the EU's banking system. Do you know if there is such unease and if so why?
I am seriously hoping, incidentally, that the answer is no, as we seem to be heading firmly for hard Brexit and the last thing we need is a simultaneous banking collapse on the continent.
I've always steered well clear of working with banks on their regulatory strategy for a variety of reasons so have no particular insight.
I suspect the fundamental issue will be that if you have a hard Brexit (without a passport) the you will need to have separate pools of capital for the UK based activities and the EU ones (at the moment capital can be shared and shifted).
This means that any organisation - particularly Deutsche - that relies on London-based investment banking for a large chunk of revenues will need significany more capital. It's not so much the risk of a banking collapse so much as yet another round of rights issues for tired investors
Mr. Jonathan, interesting points. Does being the first female PM count as 'doing the hard work', though?
It's a big deal. In America they have not had a female commander in chief. Think of all those puffed up 5 star generals and macho lobbyists and tell me that does not matter.
Whereas we have (whether you agree her politics or not) a role model that demonstrates a woman can thrive in the job. We have also had a history of successful female monarchs. Again something America does not have.
Clinton had a bigger hill to climb, without doubt.
Didn't Clinton win the popular vote by much the same margin as May? But because Corbyn's vote was less efficient than Trump's he couldn't force the overall win.
The task is always to win the election, not the popular vote. One failed, one just scraped it. The popular vote is - at best - a technical consolation to Clinton. She would swap it for an election win in a heartbeat.
That's true, and I suppose the American system does discriminate against the popular vote to a greater degree than ours does (here only once since 1928 has a party won a majority without winning the popular vote as well, although in February 1974 the Tories got more votes but fewer seats).
Though had it not been for the Ulster Unionists taking the Tory whip the 1951 election would have produced a Hung Parliament .
Basically we want to go back to the deal as it was in January 1992.
It may not be something our partners want to agree to, but it's not unreasonable or unthinkable to suggest
That's impossible philosophically as well as politically.
In January 1992 we were part of a conversation about the monetary future of Europe. We can't get back to that position.
You had the single market without free movement of people.
Edit: @DavidL the date was really "pre-Maastricht" rather than specific
Free movement of people/labour was in the Treaty of Rome. What really changed things from our perspective wasn't the concept of EU citizenship as introduced in Maastricht, but the practical effects of expansion to the former Warsaw pact countries.
I thought the vast majority are on here ,the only policy required is to stop Corbyn after spending their money to vote for him in the first place.
I seriously considered taking out the £3 to vote against him. I argued that although it might be amusing to watch Labour tear themselves to pieces, and would be some small compensation for the way they battered me for 13 years while in government, the risk to the country of having a man who looks disturbingly like Hugo Chavez in political terms was simply far too great. (And incidentally it's no pleasure at all to have been proved horrifyingly right, especially after a long time when I thought that it was OK because nobody would actually vote for him.)
In the end I didn't, despite having voted for them a few months before. I decided that it wasn't my fight and that it should be left to the Labour membership.
However, I will confess I cannot understand why anyone would (a) put such a system in place and (b) seek to exploit such a system for their own ends.
Basically we want to go back to the deal as it was in January 1992.
It may not be something our partners want to agree to, but it's not unreasonable or unthinkable to suggest
That's impossible philosophically as well as politically.
In January 1992 we were part of a conversation about the monetary future of Europe. We can't get back to that position.
You had the single market without free movement of people.
Edit: @DavidL the date was really "pre-Maastricht" rather than specific
I took that to be the case but I think my observations still apply. I think we also have to recognise that freedom of movement was always in the treaty of Rome albeit it was far less of an issue prior to the expansion into eastern Europe.
I've always steered well clear of working with banks on their regulatory strategy for a variety of reasons so have no particular insight.
I suspect the fundamental issue will be that if you have a hard Brexit (without a passport) the you will need to have separate pools of capital for the UK based activities and the EU ones (at the moment capital can be shared and shifted).
This means that any organisation - particularly Deutsche - that relies on London-based investment banking for a large chunk of revenues will need significany more capital. It's not so much the risk of a banking collapse so much as yet another round of rights issues for tired investors
Thanks. Doesn't sound too bad to my untrained ears, although it might cut their profits a bit. I will admit I can't get too worked up over that although as it will doubtless have tax revenue implications I probably should.
Nick Clegg on Marr - We should rejoin the outer orbit of the EU - what is he on!!!
Cleemocracy is shown to be worthless.
What is a clean brexit? My ballot paper said leave/remain just because Clegg thinks something different to you makes niether of you right/wrong.
Clegg would have no problem with EU law retaining primacy. Clegg would have no problem with such EU laws deciding who can and cannot come to the UK - and on what terms. Clegg would have no problems with continuing payments to the EU. None of those represent a clean Brexit.
The referendum vote was for Brexit. It didn’t require it to be “clean”, whatever that means.
The political imperative does. The LibDems tried to deny that in the June election. Here in the South-West, the Tory majority over the Lib Dems in Torbay went from 3,200 to 14,200....
If there is one lesson to learn from recent political events, it is "Don't try to get cute with the voters. They will hand you your ass...."
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it.
Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
Decent results in a couple of by elections this week
Like most politicians! Theresa May provides a very good example indeed.
The master waffler of the last 50 years was ACL Blair. He could dodge questions the way Jedi dodged blaster bolts, usually sending them zinging straight back.
It's probably no coincidence that in terms of electoral victories he was also the most successful politician of the last 200 years.
The big takeaway from recent events is that despite forming what is undoubtedly the most incompetent government in modern British political history the Tories are a good bet to win most seats at the next general election.
Oh, Jeremy Corbyn ...
Who do you honestly think would have done better for Labour under the circumstances.? You and me could not predict our way out of a one way street on how Labour would do at the last general election.
This is the issue. Corbyn is awful. He is the worst Labour leader of all time. Even Lansbury did a better job than he is doing, and under much more difficult circumstances to boot. Largely this is due to his (a) lack of intelligence (b) inexperience (admirers of Jacob Rees-Mogg please note) and (c) because the things said about him may be unpleasant and may anger his admirers but are, unfortunately, mostly true.
However, there are few good candidates to lead out there. I put up a list of strong potential shadow ministers earlier, but bluntly none of them look like leaders to me. They are either too old, too dull or too unimaginative. Moreover, just to confuse matters, there is no obvious candidate who could win on the left and no obvious candidate in the centre who could reach out to the left. Ashworth would be the nearest, but he's struggling to get a hearing right now because his brief has only a tangetial link to Brexit. Starmer has about the chance as an ice cube in a furnace and for the same reason.
If I wanted a bet on next permanent Labour leader, therefore, my money would now be on Watson, who will have the priceless advantage of being in post as acting leader when Corbyn finally walks off. He's a poor choice. He's not very bright, he's a nasty bully and he's very much tainted by his over-close association with Brown (and even with that he couldn't make Cabinet rank). But he will be there and I am starting to think that will matter more than anything else.
It is however fair to point out that only one acting leader of the party out of four has gone on to be permanent leader - Attlee, as long ago as 1935. Both George Brown and Beckett were defeated and Harman declined to stand. That said, Attlee followed Lansbury just as an election was looming. Watson could play a similar role depending on when Corbyn goes and if a Conservative PM outmanoeuvres Labour.
Watson would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer replace him
Watson Attlee would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer Morrison, Bevin or Greenwood replace him.
If you see my point. Admittedly Watson is no Attlee, but in 1935 nobody seriously thought Attlee would turn out to be Attlee.
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it. Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
The Lib Dems` trouble is that they believed Mrs May when she said, so many times, that there would be no general election until 2020. Very foolish of them. They should have realised that all the members of this Conservative Cabinet are unmitigated liars, bounders and cads.
The Lib Dem strategy was, I think, based on winning back ground at the local level first. The Lib Dems would have done much better in the County elections, if Mrs May had not deliberately muddled these up with her general election campaign over the terms of Brexit. Perhaps many electors voted Labour in the general election - safe in the knowledge that Corbyn could not win - as a way of twisting the knife in the Tory wound.
We shall have to see how things go in May 2018 and 2019. I have a feeling that the Tory cheerleaders on PB are crowing too soon.
I expect the LDs to make gains in the council elections in the Home Counties next year because of Javid's housebuilding programme which will inevitably include some of the greenbelt and not just brownbelt areas
Watson Attlee would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer Morrison, Bevin or Greenwood replace him.
If you see my point. Admittedly Watson is no Attlee, but in 1935 nobody seriously thought Attlee would turn out to be Attlee.
Watson is an odious thug with some slightly weird obsessions and paranoia. Even the Attlee of 1935 was clearly a man of much greater substance.
Nick Clegg on Marr - We should rejoin the outer orbit of the EU - what is he on!!!
Cleemocracy is shown to be worthless.
What is a clean brexit? My ballot paper said leave/remain just because Clegg thinks something different to you makes niether of you right/wrong.
Clegg would have no problem with EU law retaining primacy. Clegg would have no problem with such EU laws deciding who can and cannot come to the UK - and on what terms. Clegg would have no problems with continuing payments to the EU. None of those represent a clean Brexit.
The referendum vote was for Brexit. It didn’t require it to be “clean”, whatever that means.
The political imperative does. The LibDems tried to deny that in the June election. Here in the South-West, the Tory majority over the Lib Dems in Torbay went from 3,200 to 14,200....
If there is one lesson to learn from recent political events, it is "Don't try to get cute with the voters. They will hand you your ass...."
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it.
Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
Decent results in a couple of by elections this week
Watson Attlee would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer Morrison, Bevin or Greenwood replace him.
If you see my point. Admittedly Watson is no Attlee, but in 1935 nobody seriously thought Attlee would turn out to be Attlee.
Attlee of course lost the 1935 general election and only became PM in 1945 having been Deputy PM in the war years
Watson Attlee would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer Morrison, Bevin or Greenwood replace him.
If you see my point. Admittedly Watson is no Attlee, but in 1935 nobody seriously thought Attlee would turn out to be Attlee.
Watson is an odious thug with some slightly weird obsessions and paranoia. Even the Attlee of 1935 was clearly a man of much greater substance.
I've always steered well clear of working with banks on their regulatory strategy for a variety of reasons so have no particular insight.
I suspect the fundamental issue will be that if you have a hard Brexit (without a passport) the you will need to have separate pools of capital for the UK based activities and the EU ones (at the moment capital can be shared and shifted).
This means that any organisation - particularly Deutsche - that relies on London-based investment banking for a large chunk of revenues will need significany more capital. It's not so much the risk of a banking collapse so much as yet another round of rights issues for tired investors
Thanks. Doesn't sound too bad to my untrained ears, although it might cut their profits a bit. I will admit I can't get too worked up over that although as it will doubtless have tax revenue implications I probably should.
Deutsche is pretty stretched. Cryer has done some repair work but not enough. It's more likely to lead to a governmental bail out though because a failure by DB would be a disaster
Watson Attlee would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer Morrison, Bevin or Greenwood replace him.
If you see my point. Admittedly Watson is no Attlee, but in 1935 nobody seriously thought Attlee would turn out to be Attlee.
Watson is an odious thug with some slightly weird obsessions and paranoia. Even the Attlee of 1935 was clearly a man of much greater substance.
Normally I would entirely agree with you.
The times are not at all normal.
Well the alternatives are not great, I can't argue with that. I wish Balls would return. It would force the Tories to up their game and the country needs that.
All the options are bad, but all are possible. I would rank the eventual probabilities as 1) Norway; 2) Canada; 3) EU membership.
I would rank them exactly in reverse.
Norway is unacceptable to the patriotic 'global Brexit' wing because it is perceived as an abdication of British leadership and doesn't allow us to unlock the benefits of diverging from a sclerotic and failing EU (as they see it).
The problem for them is that the case for the kind of Brexit they favour is built on sand. It's based on misconceptions about the EU, our place in it, and our place in the world.
I think Canada is less likely because avoidance of pain is a powerful motivator. I think rejoining the EU is less likely because it would be too embarrassing. There has to be some point to Brexit right? Which leaves Norway by default. Interestingly Norway is also ""Norway" by default. You're right it's a nonsense solution, but there we go.
The UK set up EFTA in 1960 as a rival to the EU. 12 years later it dumped EFTA for a new partne called the EEC. Considerable embarrassment can be incurred if the result is thought to be in the national interest. But I still think Norway is more likely as an interim state of affairs.
Nick Clegg on Marr - We should rejoin the outer orbit of the EU - what is he on!!!
Cleemocracy is shown to be worthless.
What is a clean brexit? My ballot paper said leave/remain just because Clegg thinks something different to you makes niether of you right/wrong.
Clegg would have no problem with EU law retaining primacy. Clegg would have no problem with such EU laws deciding who can and cannot come to the UK - and on what terms. Clegg would have no problems with continuing payments to the EU. None of those represent a clean Brexit.
The referendum vote was for Brexit. It didn’t require it to be “clean”, whatever that means.
The political imperative does. The LibDems tried to deny that in the June election. Here in the South-West, the Tory majority over the Lib Dems in Torbay went from 3,200 to 14,200....
If there is one lesson to learn from recent political events, it is "Don't try to get cute with the voters. They will hand you your ass...."
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it.
Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
Decent results in a couple of by elections this week
Watson Attlee would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer Morrison, Bevin or Greenwood replace him.
If you see my point. Admittedly Watson is no Attlee, but in 1935 nobody seriously thought Attlee would turn out to be Attlee.
Attlee of course lost the 1935 general election and only became PM in 1945 having been Deputy PM in the war years
The poor man had only been in office for four weeks. He still nearly tripled the number of seats Labour held -although Lansbury might have done OK too of course it seems likely his interesting past (y'know, the pacifist convicted of terrorism, the Poplar Rates rebel, the anti-WWI campaigner) and policy positions (opposition to rearmament and pledges to get rid of the Army and Navy) would have counted against him.
All the options are bad, but all are possible. I would rank the eventual probabilities as 1) Norway; 2) Canada; 3) EU membership.
I would rank them exactly in reverse.
Norway is unacceptable to the patriotic 'global Brexit' wing because it is perceived as an abdication of British leadership and doesn't allow us to unlock the benefits of diverging from a sclerotic and failing EU (as they see it).
The problem for them is that the case for the kind of Brexit they favour is built on sand. It's based on misconceptions about the EU, our place in it, and our place in the world.
I think Canada is less likely because avoidance of pain is a powerful motivator. I think rejoining the EU is less likely because it would be too embarrassing. There has to be some point to Brexit right? Which leaves Norway by default. Interestingly Norway is also ""Norway" by default. You're right it's a nonsense solution, but there we go.
The UK set up EFTA in 1960 as a rival to the EU. 12 years later it dumped EFTA for a new partne called the EEC. Considerable embarrassment can be incurred if the result is thought to be in the national interest. But I still think Norway is more likely as an interim state of affairs.
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Watson Attlee would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer Morrison, Bevin or Greenwood replace him.
If you see my point. Admittedly Watson is no Attlee, but in 1935 nobody seriously thought Attlee would turn out to be Attlee.
Watson is an odious thug with some slightly weird obsessions and paranoia. Even the Attlee of 1935 was clearly a man of much greater substance.
Normally I would entirely agree with you.
The times are not at all normal.
Well the alternatives are not great, I can't argue with that. I wish Balls would return. It would force the Tories to up their game and the country needs that.
How bad is life when we are all feeling nostalgic for old Utter?
All the options are bad, but all are possible. I would rank the eventual probabilities as 1) Norway; 2) Canada; 3) EU membership.
I would rank them exactly in reverse.
Norway is unacceptable to the patriotic 'global Brexit' wing because it is perceived as an abdication of British leadership and doesn't allow us to unlock the benefits of diverging from a sclerotic and failing EU (as they see it).
The problem for them is that the case for the kind of Brexit they favour is built on sand. It's based on misconceptions about the EU, our place in it, and our place in the world.
I think Canada is less likely because avoidance of pain is a powerful motivator. I think rejoining the EU is less likely because it would be too embarrassing. There has to be some point to Brexit right? Which leaves Norway by default. Interestingly Norway is also ""Norway" by default. You're right it's a nonsense solution, but there we go.
The UK set up EFTA in 1960 as a rival to the EU. 12 years later it dumped EFTA for a new partne called the EEC. Considerable embarrassment can be incurred if the result is thought to be in the national interest. But I still think Norway is more likely as an interim state of affairs.
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
I've always steered well clear of working with banks on their regulatory strategy for a variety of reasons so have no particular insight.
I suspect the fundamental issue will be that if you have a hard Brexit (without a passport) the you will need to have separate pools of capital for the UK based activities and the EU ones (at the moment capital can be shared and shifted).
This means that any organisation - particularly Deutsche - that relies on London-based investment banking for a large chunk of revenues will need significany more capital. It's not so much the risk of a banking collapse so much as yet another round of rights issues for tired investors
Thanks. Doesn't sound too bad to my untrained ears, although it might cut their profits a bit. I will admit I can't get too worked up over that although as it will doubtless have tax revenue implications I probably should.
Deutsche is pretty stretched. Cryer has done some repair work but not enough. It's more likely to lead to a governmental bail out though because a failure by DB would be a disaster
THat's probably where the rumour was coming from.
Surely the German government would have to do a rescue even if disguised in some way? I mean, DB down, Euro down seems a likely sequence.
Watson Attlee would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer Morrison, Bevin or Greenwood replace him.
If you see my point. Admittedly Watson is no Attlee, but in 1935 nobody seriously thought Attlee would turn out to be Attlee.
Attlee of course lost the 1935 general election and only became PM in 1945 having been Deputy PM in the war years
I don't think Attlee would make leader these days, we are too media obsessed and he was pretty useless at it. What the war showed was that he was a brilliant administrator, pragmatic, a compromise and consensus builder who could hold a widely divided party together. None of these essential attributes seem to be valued as much as a good sound bite or a bit of witty repartee (yes Boris, I am thinking of you).
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
Have you really thought about it beyond the political dynamics of the Tory party? Specifically, what happens to Northern Ireland during this period of hard Brexit?
Like most politicians! Theresa May provides a very good example indeed.
The master waffler of the last 50 years was ACL Blair. He could dodge questions the way Jedi dodged blaster bolts, usually sending them zinging straight back.
It's probably no coincidence that in terms of electoral victories he was also the most successful politician of the last 200 years.
Blair used masochism strategy in many instances going head to head with hostile voters on camera.Gained him some respect I suspect as the voters gave him three election wins.
It simply would not have happened. No prime minister having won an election (and she did win albeit without a majority) has ever been deposed in the days after the poll. Consider how it would have looked. The British people would have voted for her as prime minister and then her colleagues would have circumvented what the voters wanted by removing her. People (quite rightly) would have said to Boris Johnson "but we didnt vote for you as PM". As a result Johnson would have been in an even weaker position than May.
Like most politicians! Theresa May provides a very good example indeed.
The master waffler of the last 50 years was ACL Blair. He could dodge questions the way Jedi dodged blaster bolts, usually sending them zinging straight back.
It's probably no coincidence that in terms of electoral victories he was also the most successful politician of the last 200 years.
Blair used masochism strategy in many instances going head to head with hostile voters on camera.Gained him some respect I suspect as the voters gave him three election wins.
The funny thing with Blair was that most people seemed to think he had answered the question when he had dodged it. Remember his withering put down of Campbell at poor old Sir Ming's disastrous first PMQs? It was a dodge, and a ruthlessly brilliant dodge that skewered his opponent truly superbly, but it felt like an answer.
I didn't like the man, but there is no doubt he was a truly special talent as a politician. I think in any age, with any system, he would have got to somewhere near the very top. It's a shame that to an even greater extent than his good friend Bill Clinton, he wasted that talent.
Watson Attlee would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer Morrison, Bevin or Greenwood replace him.
If you see my point. Admittedly Watson is no Attlee, but in 1935 nobody seriously thought Attlee would turn out to be Attlee.
Attlee of course lost the 1935 general election and only became PM in 1945 having been Deputy PM in the war years
I don't think Attlee would make leader these days, we are too media obsessed and he was pretty useless at it. What the war showed was that he was a brilliant administrator, pragmatic, a compromise and consensus builder who could hold a widely divided party together. None of these essential attributes seem to be valued as much as a good sound bite or a bit of witty repartee (yes Boris, I am thinking of you).
It depends on the circumstances and he was right for the time in 1945 ie a UK with no NHS or welfare state and Labour having failed to win a general election for 16 years. However even Attlee lost 3/5 of the general elections he fought
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
Have you really thought about it beyond the political dynamics of the Tory party? Specifically, what happens to Northern Ireland during this period of hard Brexit?
It simply has a points system for migration the same as the rest of the UK and an open border for travel with the Republic. As for tariffs NI would impose none other than replicating those imposed by the Republic through the EU, though of course the largest party in NI backed Brexit. The idea that the Leave vote can see no new controls on immigration, even only in the short-term, is a non-starter
Mr. Doethur, Blair was a triumph of style over substance.
Good at PMQs and speeches. Rather less good at economic management, which he farmed out to a spending buffoon, constitutional tinkering, which is lopsided and unsustainable, and his foreign policy was not an episode of undiluted glory.
Like most politicians! Theresa May provides a very good example indeed.
Well quite - Corbyn definitely brought something different to the leadership, but at the end of the day he is a professional politician and has been for decades, and like any other politician he had those rudimentary skills of waffling and obfuscation, which as leader come out far more often than when someone is on the backbenches.
I didn't like the man, but there is no doubt he was a truly special talent as a politician. I think in any age, with any system, he would have got to somewhere near the very top. It's a shame that to an even greater extent than his good friend Bill Clinton, he wasted that talent.
I have a theory that Blair's true legacy is to be found in Germany. His 1999 paper with Schroeder on the way forwards for European social democracy helped Schroeder win his party political battle over the reforms which have allowed Germany to become the dominant force it is today.
When the Brexiteers have their final date with Angela Merkel at the climax of the negotiations, they should feel the ghost of Tony Blair looking back at them.
Watson Attlee would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer Morrison, Bevin or Greenwood replace him.
If you see my point. Admittedly Watson is no Attlee, but in 1935 nobody seriously thought Attlee would turn out to be Attlee.
Attlee of course lost the 1935 general election and only became PM in 1945 having been Deputy PM in the war years
I don't think Attlee would make leader these days, we are too media obsessed and he was pretty useless at it. What the war showed was that he was a brilliant administrator, pragmatic, a compromise and consensus builder who could hold a widely divided party together. None of these essential attributes seem to be valued as much as a good sound bite or a bit of witty repartee (yes Boris, I am thinking of you).
This is strangely on topic. Much the same could be said of Hammond. He is a competent administrator, and able to build consensus, but can be a bit flat footed politically and in the media. Not as bad as Theresa, but no star.
I have long thought that our process of selection, both for politics and indeed for more prosaic things like jobs, favours charismatic extroverts. These are however often a synonym for amateuristic bullshitters. What the process of government really requires is diligent and thoughtful introverts who can resist distractions.
I do, but not online. My experience is that the lack of body language, tone of voice, and the fact we rarely know our 'audience' personally makes it too easy to be misinterpreted. But in any case, no harm done today.
I'd thought the mood music was that complacency about the inevitability of Angela returning was going to flatten turnout? Mind you, I think it was James Naughtie saying that, so..
I don't know what's more worrying - North Korea having ICBMs and nukes, or this nutter having been in charge of the US intelligence agency.
Arming Japan with nukes would really ease tensions, wouldn't it? Why not go the whole hog and offer them to Tibet? That way, they'll definitely know the US is not their main enemy...
"The bad news for May isn't just that support for her new approach couldn't even last the weekend. The really, really bad news for May is that she is quite probably going to have to have this fight again when it becomes clear that two years is not enough to negotiate a bespoke deal."
Like most politicians! Theresa May provides a very good example indeed.
Well quite - Corbyn definitely brought something different to the leadership, but at the end of the day he is a professional politician and has been for decades, and like any other politician he had those rudimentary skills of waffling and obfuscation, which as leader come out far more often than when someone is on the backbenches.
The best trick the devil ever played was persuading people he was thte new politics. Corbyn in 2017 was the epitome of old politics - lying his arse off about offering things he knew he could never deliver. But then, he was never going to have to. Nor will he ever.
Watson Attlee would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer Morrison, Bevin or Greenwood replace him.
If you see my point. Admittedly Watson is no Attlee, but in 1935 nobody seriously thought Attlee would turn out to be Attlee.
Attlee of course lost the 1935 general election and only became PM in 1945 having been Deputy PM in the war years
I don't think Attlee would make leader these days, we are too media obsessed and he was pretty useless at it. What the war showed was that he was a brilliant administrator, pragmatic, a compromise and consensus builder who could hold a widely divided party together. None of these essential attributes seem to be valued as much as a good sound bite or a bit of witty repartee (yes Boris, I am thinking of you).
This is strangely on topic. Much the same could be said of Hammond. He is a competent administrator, and able to build consensus, but can be a bit flat footed politically and in the media. Not as bad as Theresa, but no star.
I have long thought that our process of selection, both for politics and indeed for more prosaic things like jobs, favours charismatic extroverts. These are however often a synonym for amateuristic bullshitters. What the process of government really requires is diligent and thoughtful introverts who can resist distractions.
Of our recent PMs Thatcher, Blair and Cameron were all extroverts, Major, Brown and May introverts. In the US too Reagan, Clinton, Dubya and Trump were also extroverts, Bush Snr and Obama introverts. Looking at other major western leaders Macron and Trudeau for example are also extroverts, Merkel an introvert.
So generally Presidents and PMs tend to be extroverts, much as ceos and chairmen of major companies do too (with a few exceptions like Bill Gates). However that does not mean introverts cannot get the top job though more often it is a case of an extrovert executive advised and supported by introverts
I don't know what's more worrying - North Korea having ICBMs and nukes, or this nutter having been in charge of the US intelligence agency.
Arming Japan with nukes would really ease tensions, wouldn't it? Why not go the whole hog and offer them to Tibet? That way, they'll definitely know the US is not their main enemy...
He was chief of counter operations, rather than the ultimate top guy, but still very senior.
The logic is the threat to do so, puts so much pressure on China, that they actually do something about NK.
Seems to me more a sign of the desperation amongst security professionals at the way Trump is engineering an inevitable war because he doesn't understand diplomacy.
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it. Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
The Lib Dems` trouble is that they believed Mrs May when she said, so many times, that there would be no general election until 2020. Very foolish of them. They should have realised that all the members of this Conservative Cabinet are unmitigated liars, bounders and cads.
The Lib Dem strategy was, I think, based on winning back ground at the local level first. The Lib Dems would have done much better in the County elections, if Mrs May had not deliberately muddled these up with her general election campaign over the terms of Brexit. Perhaps many electors voted Labour in the general election - safe in the knowledge that Corbyn could not win - as a way of twisting the knife in the Tory wound.
We shall have to see how things go in May 2018 and 2019. I have a feeling that the Tory cheerleaders on PB are crowing too soon.
I expect the LDs to make gains in the council elections in the Home Counties next year because of Javid's housebuilding programme which will inevitably include some of the greenbelt and not just brownbelt areas
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
Like most politicians! Theresa May provides a very good example indeed.
Well quite - Corbyn definitely brought something different to the leadership, but at the end of the day he is a professional politician and has been for decades, and like any other politician he had those rudimentary skills of waffling and obfuscation, which as leader come out far more often than when someone is on the backbenches.
The best trick the devil ever played was persuading people he was thte new politics. Corbyn in 2017 was the epitome of old politics - lying his arse off about offering things he knew he could never deliver. But then, he was never going to have to. Nor will he ever.
Not sure he is lying. The Left genuinely sees this as their moment and believe they can deliver stuff.
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
Have you really thought about it beyond the political dynamics of the Tory party?
Specifically, what happens to Northern Ireland during this period of hard Brexit?
Sorry William, but I am quite convinced that, to the hardcore Leavers, nothing is so important as making sure that Britain is not run by foreigners. Any pain is bearable except that one...
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it. Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
The Lib Dems` trouble is that they believed Mrs May when she said, so many times, that there would be no general election until 2020. Very foolish of them. They should have realised that all the members of this Conservative Cabinet are unmitigated liars, bounders and cads.
The Lib Dem strategy was, I think, based on winning back ground at the local level first. The Lib Dems would have done much better in the County elections, if Mrs May had not deliberately muddled these up with her general election campaign over the terms of Brexit. Perhaps many electors voted Labour in the general election - safe in the knowledge that Corbyn could not win - as a way of twisting the knife in the Tory wound.
We shall have to see how things go in May 2018 and 2019. I have a feeling that the Tory cheerleaders on PB are crowing too soon.
I expect the LDs to make gains in the council elections in the Home Counties next year because of Javid's housebuilding programme which will inevitably include some of the greenbelt and not just brownbelt areas
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
Exactly, it is classic LDs, all pro free movement and single market on the one hand, then anti any building on the green belt on the other to produce the houses needed to house the increased population.
Just watching Blair's last PMQs, for a laugh. Some points to note:
1) Didn't know the Jezziah had a slot, not that he asked anything very useful;
2) His remark to Winterton about Cameron 'should be worried about the guttural roar' that greeted a call for a referendum looks eerily prescient;
3) Michael Martin really was the most useless speaker imaginable wasn't he? As much use as a Nick Timothy strategy and even more embarrassing - sort of Sir John Trevor without the eloquence. John Bercow with all his faults is a great deal better.
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
Have you really thought about it beyond the political dynamics of the Tory party?
Specifically, what happens to Northern Ireland during this period of hard Brexit?
Sorry William, but I am quite convinced that, to the hardcore Leavers, nothing is so important as making sure that Britain is not run by foreigners. Any pain is bearable except that one...
DavidL: "The Lib Dems are going to need to work out what they are for once we have left. At the moment the answer is not obvious."
The LibDems are missing the huge opportunity of the Referendum loss to turn around and turn themselves honest. File "Britain plays leading role in EU" under "tried it, failed it, fck it" and abandon "Superstate trumps Nation-State". Then, be liberal and democratic. Especially democratic.
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it. Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
The Lib Dems` trouble is that they believed Mrs May when she said, so many times, that there would be no general election until 2020. Very foolish of them. They should have realised that all the members of this Conservative Cabinet are unmitigated liars, bounders and cads.
The Lib Dem strategy was, I think, based on winning back ground at the local level first. The Lib Dems would have done much better in the County elections, if Mrs May had not deliberately muddled these up with her general election campaign over the terms of Brexit. Perhaps many electors voted Labour in the general election - safe in the knowledge that Corbyn could not win - as a way of twisting the knife in the Tory wound.
We shall have to see how things go in May 2018 and 2019. I have a feeling that the Tory cheerleaders on PB are crowing too soon.
I expect the LDs to make gains in the council elections in the Home Counties next year because of Javid's housebuilding programme which will inevitably include some of the greenbelt and not just brownbelt areas
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
Exactly, it is classic LDs, all pro free movement and single market on the one hand, then anti any building on the green belt on the other to produce the houses needed to house the increased population.
The LibDem election leaflets I saw in Torbay in the General were playing the "defenders of the GreenBelt" card. The way they got stuffed suggests they have been rumbled....
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
Have you really thought about it beyond the political dynamics of the Tory party?
Specifically, what happens to Northern Ireland during this period of hard Brexit?
Sorry William, but I am quite convinced that, to the hardcore Leavers, nothing is so important as making sure that Britain is not run by foreigners. Any pain is bearable except that one...
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
Have you really thought about it beyond the political dynamics of the Tory party?
Specifically, what happens to Northern Ireland during this period of hard Brexit?
Sorry William, but I am quite convinced that, to the hardcore Leavers, nothing is so important as making sure that Britain is not run by foreigners. Any pain is bearable except that one...
Just arrived home from the arrival of our new Llandudno lifeboat 'William F Yates', put on the tv to hear Abbott blaming Glenfell on the Government. Politicising Glenfell is gutter politics
Like most politicians! Theresa May provides a very good example indeed.
Well quite - Corbyn definitely brought something different to the leadership, but at the end of the day he is a professional politician and has been for decades, and like any other politician he had those rudimentary skills of waffling and obfuscation, which as leader come out far more often than when someone is on the backbenches.
The best trick the devil ever played was persuading people he was thte new politics. Corbyn in 2017 was the epitome of old politics - lying his arse off about offering things he knew he could never deliver. But then, he was never going to have to. Nor will he ever.
Not sure he is lying. The Left genuinely sees this as their moment and believe they can deliver stuff.
Prediction: the biggest cuts ever seen by the NHS would be under a Corbyn government. The Left don't seem to get that the NHS is paid for by the very people they want to piss off out the country.... And they just don't get Marquee Mark's Maxim: Money Flees Taxation.
Just arrived home from the arrival of our new Llandudno lifeboat 'William F Yates', put on the tv to hear Abbott blaming Glenfell on the Government. Politicising Glenfell is gutter politics
Abbott has to be among the worst politicians in UK, how do people vote for idiots like that.
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it. Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
The Lib Dems` trouble is that they believed Mrs May when she said, so many times, that there would be no general election until 2020. Very foolish of them. They should have realised that all the members of this Conservative Cabinet are unmitigated liars, bounders and cads.
The Lib Dem strategy was, I think, based on winning back ground at the local level first. The Lib Dems would have done much better in the County elections, if Mrs May had not deliberately muddled these up with her general election campaign over the terms of Brexit. Perhaps many electors voted Labour in the general election - safe in the knowledge that Corbyn could not win - as a way of twisting the knife in the Tory wound.
We shall have to see how things go in May 2018 and 2019. I have a feeling that the Tory cheerleaders on PB are crowing too soon.
I expect the LDs to make gains in the council elections in the Home Counties next year because of Javid's housebuilding programme which will inevitably include some of the greenbelt and not just brownbelt areas
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
Exactly, it is classic LDs, all pro free movement and single market on the one hand, then anti any building on the green belt on the other to produce the houses needed to house the increased population.
They are very much the party of the I'm alright Jack, self satisfied, right on, well off middle classes totally cut off from the impact of the policies they support. At the first sign of any personal impact they are out there protesting so it doesn't impact them. They are very much the party of Surbiton!
The Lib Dems` trouble is that they believed Mrs May when she said, so many times, that there would be no general election until 2020. Very foolish of them. They should have realised that all the members of this Conservative Cabinet are unmitigated liars, bounders and cads.
The Lib Dem strategy was, I think, based on winning back ground at the local level first. The Lib Dems would have done much better in the County elections, if Mrs May had not deliberately muddled these up with her general election campaign over the terms of Brexit. Perhaps many electors voted Labour in the general election - safe in the knowledge that Corbyn could not win - as a way of twisting the knife in the Tory wound.
We shall have to see how things go in May 2018 and 2019. I have a feeling that the Tory cheerleaders on PB are crowing too soon.
Recovering the local losses of the Coalition years and before is the start and has to be. The two wins last Thursday were both in areas of previous strength.
Curiously, at 105,000 or so, the Party has more members than ever but it's not the Party I joined in 1980 and which broke through locally and nationally in the 80s and 90s and finally got some feet under the Cabinet table in 2010.
The Coalition Experience was complex and multi-layered. It prospered on what was unfortunately a temporary convergence between Cameron's "liberal conservatism" and the Orange Bookers "conservative liberalism". The problem was significant minorities in both parties didn't want the convergence and it couldn't stand.
The Liberal Democrat party now is a product both of the 2015 disaster and the 2016 EU Referendum. It is still finding its way and establishing its identity. This evolution will be of interest to me if no one else.
I have been a member for 5 years, and voted LD for 25/35 yearsof my adult life, but the near trebling of the membership over the last couple of years has changed the party. Many of the new entrants seem to only be interested in stopping Brexit, and not in the wider politics. I understand and even empathise to a degree, but it does cause me concern.
I also did not like the Coronation of Vince, without a real debate on future direction. He is too contaminated by the coalition and tuition fees in particular, and I would have much preferred Lamb to be leader, with his Europhile, yet accepting response to Brexit.
Just arrived home from the arrival of our new Llandudno lifeboat 'William F Yates', put on the tv to hear Abbott blaming Glenfell on the Government. Politicising Glenfell is gutter politics
Abbott has to be among the worst politicians in UK, how do people vote for idiots like that.
Hate to say this, but the designs and plans for making fissile and fusion nuclear weapons are well known, in fact any competent 2nd year university engineering student could download them, set up the machines and make the nuts, bolts and gubbins. What they don't have, are the explosives, nuclear materials or the gases required - that needs a state government with access to nuclear power stations. Remind us of any country in particular? The one I am obviously thinking of, already has a missile programme putting satellites into orbit, and I believe round the moon. Even though the country concerned has a legal requirement not to have or make nuclear weapons, they have the skills, equipment, knowledge and most importantly the materials to be able to make them within days or if push came to shove, probably by being able to find bits and pieces lying around, already made and just needing to be put together, within hours.
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
Have you really thought about it beyond the political dynamics of the Tory party?
Specifically, what happens to Northern Ireland during this period of hard Brexit?
Sorry William, but I am quite convinced that, to the hardcore Leavers, nothing is so important as making sure that Britain is not run by foreigners. Any pain is bearable except that one...
The DUP are pro-Brexit
The DUP are pro-£1bn, or had you not noticed
The DUP got dealt a great hand. They played it well. Surprise surprise.
They did no more for NI than Scotland has done for decades in propping up Labour. How many billions did Scotland get from the Barnett formula? Named after Labour MP Joel Barnett, up and running since 1978 and diverting £££'s for Scottish votes ever since.
The only people who have a right to be aggrieved about the DUP billion are the Welsh.
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
Have you really thought about it beyond the political dynamics of the Tory party?
Specifically, what happens to Northern Ireland during this period of hard Brexit?
Sorry William, but I am quite convinced that, to the hardcore Leavers, nothing is so important as making sure that Britain is not run by foreigners. Any pain is bearable except that one...
The DUP are pro-Brexit
The DUP are pro-£1bn, or had you not noticed
The EU are pro-£30 bn, or had you not noticed?
The DUP are more British than the British. Remember, I used to live amongst these people. They are tribal. Britain for the British. No Surrender!!!!
And no Papists/Popery either!!!!!
(Personally, I was glad to leave NI. I have no intention of ever returning)
Hate to say this, but the designs and plans for making fissile and fusion nuclear weapons are well known, in fact any competent 2nd year university engineering student could download them, set up the machines and make the nuts, bolts and gubbins. What they don't have, are the explosives, nuclear materials or the gases required - that needs a state government with access to nuclear power stations. Remind us of any country in particular? The one I am obviously thinking of, already has a missile programme putting satellites into orbit, and I believe round the moon. Even though the country concerned has a legal requirement not to have or make nuclear weapons, they have the skills, equipment, knowledge and most importantly the materials to be able to make them within days or if push came to shove, probably by being able to find bits and pieces lying around, already made and just needing to be put together, within hours.
Just arrived home from the arrival of our new Llandudno lifeboat 'William F Yates', put on the tv to hear Abbott blaming Glenfell on the Government. Politicising Glenfell is gutter politics
Abbott has to be among the worst politicians in UK, how do people vote for idiots like that.
At some point, the penny will drop with all these Labour politicians going on about punishing the Tories in K&C. Because if there is guilt for what happened in K&C where there was a fire, then all those Labour councils that followed the same path and put the same toxic cladding on buildings could also be facing prosecution for conspiracy to do the same, even if they have got away with no fires yet...
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it. Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
The Lib Dems` trouble is that they believed Mrs May when she said, so many times, that there would be no general election until 2020. Very foolish of them. They should have realised that all the members of this Conservative Cabinet are unmitigated liars, bounders and cads.
The Lib Dem strategy was, I think, based on winning back ground at the local level first. The Lib Dems would have done much better in the County elections, if Mrs May had not deliberately muddled these up with her general election campaign over the terms of Brexit. Perhaps many electors voted Labour in the general election - safe in the knowledge that Corbyn could not win - as a way of twisting the knife in the Tory wound.
We shall have to see how things go in May 2018 and 2019. I have a feeling that the Tory cheerleaders on PB are crowing too soon.
I expect the LDs to make gains in the council elections in the Home Counties next year because of Javid's housebuilding programme which will inevitably include some of the greenbelt and not just brownbelt areas
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
News laws to end that:
1) Supporters of unrestricted immigration have to accept an immigrant lodger 2) Businesses which employ cheap immigrants have to fund new housing
Hate to say this, but the designs and plans for making fissile and fusion nuclear weapons are well known, in fact any competent 2nd year university engineering student could download them, set up the machines and make the nuts, bolts and gubbins. What they don't have, are the explosives, nuclear materials or the gases required - that needs a state government with access to nuclear power stations. Remind us of any country in particular? The one I am obviously thinking of, already has a missile programme putting satellites into orbit, and I believe round the moon. Even though the country concerned has a legal requirement not to have or make nuclear weapons, they have the skills, equipment, knowledge and most importantly the materials to be able to make them within days or if push came to shove, probably by being able to find bits and pieces lying around, already made and just needing to be put together, within hours.
Perhaps even 45 minutes...
Well not 45 minutes, but most people in the field think Japan could have the bomb in a year or two at most. They really do possess all the material and expertise required. Japan's often considered to be a de facto nuclear power because they are one of the few states where the only thing stopping them is the will and the law.
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it. Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
The Lib Dems` trouble is that they believed Mrs May when she said, so many times, that there would be no general election until 2020. Very foolish of them. They should have realised that all the members of this Conservative Cabinet are unmitigated liars, bounders and cads.
The Lib Dem strategy was, I think, based on winning back ground at the local level first. The Lib Dems would have done much better in the County elections, if Mrs May had not deliberately muddled these up with her general election campaign over the terms of Brexit. Perhaps many electors voted Labour in the general election - safe in the knowledge that Corbyn could not win - as a way of twisting the knife in the Tory wound.
We shall have to see how things go in May 2018 and 2019. I have a feeling that the Tory cheerleaders on PB are crowing too soon.
I expect the LDs to make gains in the council elections in the Home Counties next year because of Javid's housebuilding programme which will inevitably include some of the greenbelt and not just brownbelt areas
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green ...
Exactly, it is classic LDs, all pro free movement and single market on the one hand, then anti any building on the green belt on the other to produce the houses needed to house the increased population.
The LibDem election leaflets I saw in Torbay in the General were playing the "defenders of the GreenBelt" card. The way they got stuffed suggests they have been rumbled....
That was at the general election though when other issues were also to the fore including Brexit, at local elections it will be a bigger card for them to play
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
Have you really thought about it beyond the political dynamics of the Tory party?
Specifically, what happens to Northern Ireland during this period of hard Brexit?
Sorry William, but I am quite convinced that, to the hardcore Leavers, nothing is so important as making sure that Britain is not run by foreigners. Any pain is bearable except that one...
The DUP are pro-Brexit
The DUP are pro-£1bn, or had you not noticed
The EU are pro-£30 bn, or had you not noticed?
The DUP are more British than the British. Remember, I used to live amongst these people. They are tribal. Britain for the British. No Surrender!!!!
And no Papists/Popery either!!!!!
(Personally, I was glad to leave NI. I have no intention of ever returning)
£30 bn is THIRTY times £1 bn, or haven't you noticed?
PS. No one's forcing SF to abstain from Westminster
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it. Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
The Lib Dems` trouble is that they believed Mrs May when she said, so many times, that there would be no general election until 2020. Very foolish of them. They should have realised that all the members of this Conservative Cabinet are unmitigated liars, bounders and cads.
The Lib Dem strategy was, I think, based on winning back ground at the local level first. The Lib Dems would have done much better in the County elections, if Mrs May had not deliberately muddled too soon.
I expect the LDs to make gains in the council elections in the Home Counties next year because of Javid's housebuilding programme which will inevitably include some of the greenbelt and not just brownbelt areas
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
Exactly, it is classic LDs, all pro free movement and single market on the one hand, then anti any building on the green belt on the other to produce the houses needed to house the increased population.
They are very much the party of the I'm alright Jack, self satisfied, right on, well off middle classes totally cut off from the impact of the policies they support. At the first sign of any personal impact they are out there protesting so it doesn't impact them. They are very much the party of Surbiton!
They are very much a party of largely graduate ABs certainly who are happy to support liberal globalism in theory as long as it does not negatively impact them personally
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it. Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
The Lib Dems` trouble is that they believed Mrs May when she said, so many times, that there would be no general election until 2020. Very foolish of them. They should have realised that all the members of this Conservative Cabinet are unmitigated liars, bounders and cads.
The Lib Dem strategy was, I think, based on winning back ground at the local level first. The Lib Dems would have done much better in the County elections, if Mrs May had not deliberately muddled these up with her general election campaign over the terms of Brexit. Perhaps many electors voted Labour in the general election - safe in the knowledge that Corbyn could not win - as a way of twisting the knife in the Tory wound.
We shall have to see how things go in May 2018 and 2019. I have a feeling that the Tory cheerleaders on PB are crowing too soon.
I expect the LDs to make gains in the council elections in the Home Counties next year because of Javid's housebuilding programme which will inevitably include some of the greenbelt and not just brownbelt areas
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
News laws to end that:
1) Supporters of unrestricted immigration have to accept an immigrant lodger 2) Businesses which employ cheap immigrants have to fund new housing
"The bad news for May isn't just that support for her new approach couldn't even last the weekend. The really, really bad news for May is that she is quite probably going to have to have this fight again when it becomes clear that two years is not enough to negotiate a bespoke deal."
They are very much a party of largely graduate ABs certainly who are happy to support liberal globalism in theory as long as it does not negatively impact them personally
Is there any party in Britain that is actually in favour of the things they espouse being done to themselves?
Hang on a mo. Nuclear arming Japan? Do they want to be nuclear armed? Would have thought that may be somewhat unpopular. (And who can blame them?)
Although possession of nuclear weapons is not explicitly forbidden in the constitution, Japan, as the only nation to have experienced the devastation of nuclear attacks, expressed early its abhorrence of nuclear arms and its determination never to acquire them. The Atomic Energy Basic Law of 1956 limits research, development, and utilization of nuclear power to peaceful uses only, and beginning in 1956, national policy has embodied "three non-nuclear principles"—forbidding the nation to possess or manufacture nuclear weapons or to allow them to be introduced into its territories. In 1976 Japan ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (adopted by the United Nations Security Council in 1968) and reiterated its intention never to "develop, use, or allow the transportation of nuclear weapons through its territory". Nonetheless, because of its generally high technology level and large number of operating nuclear power plants, Japan is generally considered to be "nuclear capable", i.e., it could develop a usable weapon in a short period of time if the political situation changed significantly.[13]
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
Have you really thought about it beyond the political dynamics of the Tory party?
Specifically, what happens to Northern Ireland during this period of hard Brexit?
Sorry William, but I am quite convinced that, to the hardcore Leavers, nothing is so important as making sure that Britain is not run by foreigners. Any pain is bearable except that one...
The DUP are pro-Brexit
The DUP are pro-£1bn, or had you not noticed
The EU are pro-£30 bn, or had you not noticed?
The DUP are more British than the British. Remember, I used to live amongst these people. They are tribal. Britain for the British. No Surrender!!!!
And no Papists/Popery either!!!!!
(Personally, I was glad to leave NI. I have no intention of ever returning)
£30 bn is THIRTY times £1 bn, or haven't you noticed?
PS. No one's forcing SF to abstain from Westminster
At the moment the DUP are getting £31bn so a 3% increase for nothing
SF is a different tribe and as pig-stubborn as the DUP
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it. Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
The Lib Dems` trouble is that they believed Mrs May when she said, so many times, that there would be no general election until 2020. Very foolish of them. They should have realised that all the members of this Conservative Cabinet are unmitigated liars, bounders and cads.
The Lib Dem strategy was, I think, based on winning back ground at the local level first. The Lib Dems would have done much better in the County elections, if Mrs May had not deliberately muddled these up with her general election campaign over the terms of Brexit. Perhaps many electors voted Labour in the general election - safe in the knowledge that Corbyn could not win - as a way of twisting the knife in the Tory wound.
We shall have to see how things go in May 2018 and 2019. I have a feeling that the Tory cheerleaders on PB are crowing too soon.
I expect the LDs to make gains in the council elections in the Home Counties next year because of Javid's housebuilding programme which will inevitably include some of the greenbelt and not just brownbelt areas
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
News laws to end that:
1) Supporters of unrestricted immigration have to accept an immigrant lodger 2) Businesses which employ cheap immigrants have to fund new housing
How about business owners who employ illegal labour at below the minimum wage face a spell in the clink? It seems to be a fine which bears no relation to the profits made. Similar deterrence is deemed suitable for benefit fraud.
They are very much a party of largely graduate ABs certainly who are happy to support liberal globalism in theory as long as it does not negatively impact them personally
Is there any party in Britain that is actually in favour of the things they espouse being done to themselves?
Certainly most parties have a certain client base to favour but none quite as contradictory stances as the LDs often espouse
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
News laws to end that:
1) Supporters of unrestricted immigration have to accept an immigrant lodger 2) Businesses which employ cheap immigrants have to fund new housing
Sounds a plan
This is the current situation:
' A raid on a three-bedroom house in north-west London has found 35 men living in rooms full of mattresses.
The discovery was made on Winchester Avenue, Queensbury, at about 6am on Tuesday following complaints from neighbours, Brent council said. The men, all of eastern European origin, had piled bedding in every room except bathrooms, with one mattress even laid out under a canopy in the back garden.
...
A local businessman said “up to 100” men could be seen “waiting for work” outside a local DIY shop a few minutes walk from the property early in the morning, and he was sure the men living at the three-bed home waited for work with the group. '
The collapse in Lib Dem support in the South West has been startling.
I think they are in big trouble - Labour is in second place in many seats, and UKIP had been before that, even a LD barchart will struggle to say 'Only the LDs can beat the Tories' in swathes of seats in the next election, and good second places provide the groundwork for wins eventually, not all places can be Bath and Oxford.
St. Ives is ultra-marginal, and they have more distant chances in North Cornwall, North Devon, and Cheltenham, but that's it. Seats like Camborne, West Devon, Torbay, Newto Abbott, Mid Dorset, Somerton, Taunton, Yeovil are out of reach.
The Lib Dems` trouble is that they believed Mrs May when she said, so many times, that there would be no general election until 2020. Very foolish of them. They should have realised that all the members of this Conservative Cabinet are unmitigated liars, bounders and cads.
The Lib Dem strategy was, I think, based on winning back ground at the local level first. The Lib Dems would have done much better in the County elections, if Mrs May had not deliberately muddled these up with her general election campaign over the terms of Brexit. Perhaps many electors voted Labour in the general election - safe in the knowledge that Corbyn could not win - as a way of twisting the knife in the Tory wound.
We shall have to see how things go in May 2018 and 2019. I have a feeling that the Tory cheerleaders on PB are crowing too soon.
I expect the LDs to make gains in the council elections in the Home Counties next year because of Javid's housebuilding programme which will inevitably include some of the greenbelt and not just brownbelt areas
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
News laws to end that:
1) Supporters of unrestricted immigration have to accept an immigrant lodger 2) Businesses which employ cheap immigrants have to fund new housing
How about business owners who employ illegal labour at below the minimum wage face a spell in the clink? It seems to be a fine which bears no relation to the profits made. Similar deterrence is deemed suitable for benefit fraud.
An excellent idea.
Likewise slum landlords to go to jail and lose their property.
Watson Attlee would be like Michael Ancram leading the Tories 15 years ago, unlikely beyond a stop gap candidate. Either Corbyn wins next time and becomes PM in my view or he loses and resigns and Umunna, Cooper or Starmer Morrison, Bevin or Greenwood replace him.
If you see my point. Admittedly Watson is no Attlee, but in 1935 nobody seriously thought Attlee would turn out to be Attlee.
Attlee of course lost the 1935 general election and only became PM in 1945 having been Deputy PM in the war years
I don't think Attlee would make leader these days, we are too media obsessed and he was pretty useless at it. What the war showed was that he was a brilliant administrator, pragmatic, a compromise and consensus builder who could hold a widely divided party together. None of these essential attributes seem to be valued as much as a good sound bite or a bit of witty repartee (yes Boris, I am thinking of you).
Alec Douglas-Home and Ted Heath were not very media driven either.The striking thing about Attlee though was that he simply did not care what the media said - he refused to let it bother him.He was before my time but I can just about imagine him being sufficiently carefree and disciplined so as to tell the media to 'go hang itself'. I have long thought it a mistake for senior politicians to pander to media demands and somebody like Attlee would have restricted his statements and public appearances to occasions which suited him - not TV. Of course, the media would not have liked that - but I suspect would eventually have got the message! It would also probably mean that much more weight would have been given to the statements he actually did make.
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
Have you really thought about it beyond the political dynamics of the Tory party?
Specifically, what happens to Northern Ireland during this period of hard Brexit?
Sorry William, but I am quite convinced that, to the hardcore Leavers, nothing is so important as making sure that Britain is not run by foreigners. Any pain is bearable except that one...
The DUP are pro-Brexit
The DUP are pro-£1bn, or had you not noticed
The DUP got dealt a great hand. They played it well. Surprise surprise.
They did no more for NI than Scotland has done for decades in propping up Labour. How many billions did Scotland get from the Barnett formula? Named after Labour MP Joel Barnett, up and running since 1978 and diverting £££'s for Scottish votes ever since.
The only people who have a right to be aggrieved about the DUP billion are the Welsh.
Scotland has paid a very high price for the Barnett pocket money. If you look at the numbers over the years it is all flowing south, a bum deal for Scotland for sure.
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
News laws to end that:
1) Supporters of unrestricted immigration have to accept an immigrant lodger 2) Businesses which employ cheap immigrants have to fund new housing
Sounds a plan
This is the current situation:
' A raid on a three-bedroom house in north-west London has found 35 men living in rooms full of mattresses.
The discovery was made on Winchester Avenue, Queensbury, at about 6am on Tuesday following complaints from neighbours, Brent council said. The men, all of eastern European origin, had piled bedding in every room except bathrooms, with one mattress even laid out under a canopy in the back garden.
...
A local businessman said “up to 100” men could be seen “waiting for work” outside a local DIY shop a few minutes walk from the property early in the morning, and he was sure the men living at the three-bed home waited for work with the group. '
There are too many people benefiting from exploitation of immigration while ensuring that they do not suffer any negative effects themselves.
Yes, benefits nobody, neither the migrant workers themselves nor a young family who could have bought that home instead. Only beneficiary the employer who gets cheap labour
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
News laws to end that:
1) Supporters of unrestricted immigration have to accept an immigrant lodger 2) Businesses which employ cheap immigrants have to fund new housing
Sounds a plan
This is the current situation:
' A raid on a three-bedroom house in north-west London has found 35 men living in rooms full of mattresses.
The discovery was made on Winchester Avenue, Queensbury, at about 6am on Tuesday following complaints from neighbours, Brent council said. The men, all of eastern European origin, had piled bedding in every room except bathrooms, with one mattress even laid out under a canopy in the back garden.
...
A local businessman said “up to 100” men could be seen “waiting for work” outside a local DIY shop a few minutes walk from the property early in the morning, and he was sure the men living at the three-bed home waited for work with the group. '
Which of course, allows the LibDems to benefit from being able to stand as the protectors of the Green Belt.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses - that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
News laws to end that:
1) Supporters of unrestricted immigration have to accept an immigrant lodger 2) Businesses which employ cheap immigrants have to fund new housing
Sounds a plan
This is the current situation:
' A raid on a three-bedroom house in north-west London has found 35 men living in rooms full of mattresses.
The discovery was made on Winchester Avenue, Queensbury, at about 6am on Tuesday following complaints from neighbours, Brent council said. The men, all of eastern European origin, had piled bedding in every room except bathrooms, with one mattress even laid out under a canopy in the back garden.
...
A local businessman said “up to 100” men could be seen “waiting for work” outside a local DIY shop a few minutes walk from the property early in the morning, and he was sure the men living at the three-bed home waited for work with the group. '
There are too many people benefiting from exploitation of immigration while ensuring that they do not suffer any negative effects themselves.
Yes, benefits nobody, neither the migrant workers themselves nor a young family who could have bought that home instead. Only beneficiary the employer who gets cheap labour
There are other beneficiaries as well - people who want cheaper strawberries or cheaper cleaners or cheaper construction workers or cheaper taxi-drivers or cheaper car-washers.
There's no shortage of nice middle class people who are benefiting from exploited immigrant labour but who want them kept out of sight and mind.
The problem is that Norway alone isn't an easy option that can be achieved quickly and painlessly. We would still lose EU trade agreements with the rest of the world, and wouldn't automatically drop into EFTA's - it would all need to be renegotiated. We would also still need to come up with a solution for the new customs borders.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Norway in a decade is very likely in my view but Leave voters will want to see a clear reduction in immigration for a few years post Brexit first
Have you really thought about it beyond the political dynamics of the Tory party?
Specifically, what happens to Northern Ireland during this period of hard Brexit?
Sorry William, but I am quite convinced that, to the hardcore Leavers, nothing is so important as making sure that Britain is not run by foreigners. Any pain is bearable except that one...
The DUP are pro-Brexit
The DUP are pro-£1bn, or had you not noticed
The EU are pro-£30 bn, or had you not noticed?
The DUP are more British than the British. Remember, I used to live amongst these people. They are tribal. Britain for the British. No Surrender!!!!
And no Papists/Popery either!!!!!
(Personally, I was glad to leave NI. I have no intention of ever returning)
£30 bn is THIRTY times £1 bn, or haven't you noticed?
PS. No one's forcing SF to abstain from Westminster
At the moment the DUP are getting £31bn so a 3% increase for nothing
SF is a different tribe and as pig-stubborn as the DUP
Comments
I suspect the fundamental issue will be that if you have a hard Brexit (without a passport) the you will need to have separate pools of capital for the UK based activities and the EU ones (at the moment capital can be shared and shifted).
This means that any organisation - particularly Deutsche - that relies on London-based investment banking for a large chunk of revenues will need significany more capital. It's not so much the risk of a banking collapse so much as yet another round of rights issues for tired investors
Edit: @DavidL the date was really "pre-Maastricht" rather than specific
In the end I didn't, despite having voted for them a few months before. I decided that it wasn't my fight and that it should be left to the Labour membership.
However, I will confess I cannot understand why anyone would (a) put such a system in place and (b) seek to exploit such a system for their own ends.
It's probably no coincidence that in terms of electoral victories he was also the most successful politician of the last 200 years.
The times are not at all normal.
For this reason the path of least resistance will always be to cancel Brexit.
Surely the German government would have to do a rescue even if disguised in some way? I mean, DB down, Euro down seems a likely sequence.
I didn't like the man, but there is no doubt he was a truly special talent as a politician. I think in any age, with any system, he would have got to somewhere near the very top. It's a shame that to an even greater extent than his good friend Bill Clinton, he wasted that talent.
https://twitter.com/COdendahl/status/911917869373456384
Good at PMQs and speeches. Rather less good at economic management, which he farmed out to a spending buffoon, constitutional tinkering, which is lopsided and unsustainable, and his foreign policy was not an episode of undiluted glory.
Anyway, I must be off.
http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/352081-former-top-cia-official-running-out-of-options-on-nk
When the Brexiteers have their final date with Angela Merkel at the climax of the negotiations, they should feel the ghost of Tony Blair looking back at them.
I have long thought that our process of selection, both for politics and indeed for more prosaic things like jobs, favours charismatic extroverts. These are however often a synonym for amateuristic bullshitters. What the process of government really requires is diligent and thoughtful introverts who can resist distractions.
Arming Japan with nukes would really ease tensions, wouldn't it? Why not go the whole hog and offer them to Tibet? That way, they'll definitely know the US is not their main enemy...
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/09/theresa-mays-new-brexit-strategy-already-falling-apart
So generally Presidents and PMs tend to be extroverts, much as ceos and chairmen of major companies do too (with a few exceptions like Bill Gates). However that does not mean introverts cannot get the top job though more often it is a case of an extrovert executive advised and supported by introverts
The logic is the threat to do so, puts so much pressure on China, that they actually do something about NK.
Seems to me more a sign of the desperation amongst security professionals at the way Trump is engineering an inevitable war because he doesn't understand diplomacy.
Whilst having been the party most in favour of letting in all the people that require houses -
that means we have to build on the Green Belt in the first place.
It must be great being a LibDem. All the smugness, none of the responsibility...
1) Didn't know the Jezziah had a slot, not that he asked anything very useful;
2) His remark to Winterton about Cameron 'should be worried about the guttural roar' that greeted a call for a referendum looks eerily prescient;
3) Michael Martin really was the most useless speaker imaginable wasn't he? As much use as a Nick Timothy strategy and even more embarrassing - sort of Sir John Trevor without the eloquence. John Bercow with all his faults is a great deal better.
The LibDems are missing the huge opportunity of the Referendum loss to turn around and turn themselves honest.
File "Britain plays leading role in EU" under "tried it, failed it, fck it"
and abandon "Superstate trumps Nation-State".
Then, be liberal and democratic. Especially democratic.
I also did not like the Coronation of Vince, without a real debate on future direction. He is too contaminated by the coalition and tuition fees in particular, and I would have much preferred Lamb to be leader, with his Europhile, yet accepting response to Brexit.
They did no more for NI than Scotland has done for decades in propping up Labour. How many billions did Scotland get from the Barnett formula? Named after Labour MP Joel Barnett, up and running since 1978 and diverting £££'s for Scottish votes ever since.
The only people who have a right to be aggrieved about the DUP billion are the Welsh.
And no Papists/Popery either!!!!!
(Personally, I was glad to leave NI. I have no intention of ever returning)
Is that what Abbot wants?
1) Supporters of unrestricted immigration have to accept an immigrant lodger
2) Businesses which employ cheap immigrants have to fund new housing
'.... ..... seem to think possessing a nuclear weapon makes them safe. In fact it’s the opposite. Having a nuclear weapon makes them a target.’
PS. No one's forcing SF to abstain from Westminster
It seems that nothing will convince the head-bangers except immediate WTO Brexit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Self-Defense_Forces#National_Security_Strategy
SF is a different tribe and as pig-stubborn as the DUP
As good a time as any ....
Similar deterrence is deemed suitable for benefit fraud.
' A raid on a three-bedroom house in north-west London has found 35 men living in rooms full of mattresses.
The discovery was made on Winchester Avenue, Queensbury, at about 6am on Tuesday following complaints from neighbours, Brent council said. The men, all of eastern European origin, had piled bedding in every room except bathrooms, with one mattress even laid out under a canopy in the back garden.
...
A local businessman said “up to 100” men could be seen “waiting for work” outside a local DIY shop a few minutes walk from the property early in the morning, and he was sure the men living at the three-bed home waited for work with the group. '
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/20/london-council-finds-35-men-living-in-one-three-bedroom-house
There are too many people benefiting from exploitation of immigration while ensuring that they do not suffer any negative effects themselves.
Likewise slum landlords to go to jail and lose their property.
People either need to accept reasonable rules such as TfL's, or council occupancy restictions, or face the consequences.
There's no shortage of nice middle class people who are benefiting from exploited immigrant labour but who want them kept out of sight and mind.