A lot of airborne activity over Central London atm - what looked like a few Pumas and a couple of Ospreys.
Trump-related, no doubt.
The agenda was to have a joint UK-US special forces demonstration for Trump, because as a wannabee authoritarian he likes to see military displays of power.
Mr. NorthWales, advocating a second referendum with those two options (deal/remain)?
Yes - I am now firmly in remain as the best option.
As a lifelong conservative I came under attack yesterday from fellow conservatives accusing me of hysteria, not being a proper conservative, and that my son in law working for Airbus should maybe not expect to have a foreign holiday as it will all come right in the end.
I will remain a loyal member of my party and reject the 25% of ERG groups suicidal march to economic disaster
It is so strange that this week has seen me actually move to the Dominic Grieve, Anna Soubry, Ken Clarke side
Really disturbing and dangerous times
I never said your son in law shouldn’t expect to have foreign holidays. I merely pointed out that if our currency weakens, they would become more expensive for all of us, so some might chance their plans or holiday in the U.K. instead.
On a separate topic, if you voted for Blair twice, please do not call yourself a lifelong Conservative. It would be a false statement.
Royal Blue You are absolutely right.
I have the utmost respect for BigG personally but someone who voted for Blair twice is not a 'lifelong conservative' even if he generally does vote and campaign for the Tories.
To explain that from a Tory perspective try telling a Labour member and Corbyn supporter someone who voted for Cameron twice is a 'lifelong Labour voter' and wait for the reaction
To be fair, very many Corbynistas are a long way from being lifelong Labour voters. Half the Corbyn leadership team and Momentum executive campaigned against Labour as recently as the 2015 general election.
Many Labour members and voters stayed in the party and voted Labour in 2005 and 2010 though despite reservations about Blair and Iraq
Labour have a fundamentalist view when it comes to tribalism.
Rees Moog on R4 right now claiming that Obama was wrong to interfere, but Trump is right
Fuqwit
They have the gall to call themselves patriots.
JRM is an utter c**t. How dare he and people like him side with those who seek to humiliate us and our PM. T May may be useless but for Trump to behave in the way he has is a total disgrace. He is not on our side. Britain has a trade surplus with the US. Any deal with the US would be an attempt by the US to reverse that i.e. to make things worse for us. The so-called special relationship is a fiction and it is long past the time for us to stop believing in this fairy story.
I would really like May to stand up to Trump at the press conference and say that it is for her - and her Cabinet and the British Parliament - not any foreign leader to decide what is in Britain's interests and that one thing the British do not like are bullies, of whatever variety. She won't of course. But she should.
I wouldn’t rule it out. Her Love actually moment? It’s not obvious what she has to lose at the moment.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.
UKIP is dead? Oh really? UKIP were on 6% with Yougov yesterday, double the Green share and not far off the LD share. 6% would be the highest UKIP general election vote since 1997 after 2015
But UKIP never get near polling totals in real elections.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
It's certainly true, at the moment, that those who want hard Brexit are angry with the Conservatives. However, if hard Brexit were to be implemented and proved to be a disaster for the country then I somehow reckon those very same voters will be more inclined to blame the Conservatives who implemented it than themselves who pushed for it.
The sensible thing for the Conservatives would be to take the short term hit on the polls that soft Brexit will bring rather than double down and risk taking a much bigger hit later when hard Brexit hurts voters in the wallet. They won't just shrug and blame themselves for pushing for the policy - they'll take it out on those who implemented it.
Rees Moog on R4 right now claiming that Obama was wrong to interfere, but Trump is right
Fuqwit
They have the gall to call themselves patriots.
JRM is an utter c**t. How dare he and people like him side with those who seek to humiliate us and our PM. T May may be useless but for Trump to behave in the way he has is a total disgrace. He is not on our side. Britain has a trade surplus with the US. Any deal with the US would be an attempt by the US to reverse that i.e. to make things worse for us. The so-called special relationship is a fiction and it is long past the time for us to stop believing in this fairy story.
I would really like May to stand up to Trump at the press conference and say that it is for her - and her Cabinet and the British Parliament - not any foreign leader to decide what is in Britain's interests and that one thing the British do not like are bullies, of whatever variety. She won't of course. But she should.
Umunna is right on this. JRM, Boris and Trump have clearly coordinated this behind the scenes.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.
UKIP is dead? Oh really? UKIP were on 6% with Yougov yesterday, double the Green share and not far off the LD share. 6% would be the highest UKIP general election vote since 1997 after 2015
At the last local elections they lost all bar 1 of their councillors, mainly because they couldn’t even find candidates. I think that the chances of them even having candidates to vote for in the vast majority of seats at the next election are very slight so they will poll only a small proportion of that 6%.
The more votes UKIP gets from Tory Leavers the harder it gets to beat Corbyn Labour for the Tories
Rees Moog on R4 right now claiming that Obama was wrong to interfere, but Trump is right
Fuqwit
They have the gall to call themselves patriots.
JRM is an utter c**t. How dare he and people like him side with those who seek to humiliate us and our PM. T May may be useless but for Trump to behave in the way he has is a total disgrace. He is not on our side. Britain has a trade surplus with the US. Any deal with the US would be an attempt by the US to reverse that i.e. to make things worse for us. The so-called special relationship is a fiction and it is long past the time for us to stop believing in this fairy story.
I would really like May to stand up to Trump at the press conference and say that it is for her - and her Cabinet and the British Parliament - not any foreign leader to decide what is in Britain's interests and that one thing the British do not like are bullies, of whatever variety. She won't of course. But she should.
A lot of airborne activity over Central London atm - what looked like a few Pumas and a couple of Ospreys.
Trump-related, no doubt.
The agenda was to have a joint UK-US special forces demonstration for Trump, because as a wannabee authoritarian he likes to see military displays of power.
I am most gratified to hear it, and with my own teenage manchild to deal with I shall take this sage advice and apply when appropriate!
There must be something revivifying in the limpid waters of PB ... it is some 14 years since we first laid blade on blade in these august halls!
I'm not entirely sure you'd get good value from sporting Mrs JackW's full dress regalia when admonishing your own teenage offspring ?!? ... but the effort may bring forth some unexpected father son bonding ..
My word fourteen years !! ... Has PB become an unruly teen boy? - spotty, hormonal, full of angst and politically bewildered ?? ... I'm sure Father Smithson will see us through with wise words, cash bribes and a box of Klennex for bedtime !!
It's the competent radicals who are the scary ones.
Most populists are incompetent, but to a large extent, so are the people they're replacing.
I notice the NYT, the Times and the Guardian have this morning referred to a subset of Levers as "the Brexiters". Let's remember Gove, Raab, Mordaunt, Leadsom, Hannan and many others are all onboard. They are bright enough to actually understand which concessions matter and which do not. The future of the world economy is services, especially for long distance trade. Amazing how many people opposing Chequers can't engage with that argument.
I agree with that argument but that doesn’t make the Chequers proposal a good deal.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.
UKIP is dead? Oh really? UKIP were on 6% with Yougov yesterday, double the Green share and not far off the LD share. 6% would be the highest UKIP general election vote since 1997 after 2015
But UKIP never get near polling totals in real elections.
I still think there are far too many people hoping for a soft brexit and then thinking all the problems will go away.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
It's certainly true, at the moment, that those who want hard Brexit are angry with the Conservatives. However, if hard Brexit were to be implemented and proved to be a disaster for the country then I somehow reckon those very same voters will be more inclined to blame the Conservatives who implemented it than themselves who pushed for it.
The sensible thing for the Conservatives would be to take the short term hit on the polls that soft Brexit will bring rather than double down and risk taking a much bigger hit later when hard Brexit hurts voters in the wallet. They won't just shrug and blame themselves for pushing for the policy - they'll take it out on those who implemented it.
As I said May will agree a transition deal but if that has not produced a FTA with the EU by December 2020 the Tories risk big defections to UKIP and a Corbyn government by 2022 if they do not go to WTO terms
The trouble is that people like Clegg don't realise that they are not better than Trump, they are just the reverse of Trump. Elitist snobs who love glad-handing at internationalp exists because people like Clegg exist. If all the Cleggs went away, we wouldn't have Trump!
And no, May will e US.
The US is our ally and friend, regardless of which muppet they elect. The EU is not our ally and certainly not our friend. May forgot this. Trump is giving her a well-deserved kicking.
+10
Trump on 23/6/16.
You’re concerned about being a ‘vassal state’, but perfectly happy for your leaders to be instructed on how to behave by a foreign guest ? Trump wouldn’t know the truth if you beat him about the head with it, and ‘home’ ?
Trump most reminds me of a disregulated child in a primary school class.
I don't disagree that Trump's behaviour is disgraceful. But we need to skip the hypocrisy here. Obama's behaviour in trying to interfere with the referendum was disgraceful. May's behaviour in lying about Brexit is disgraceful. I am just not sure I see much difference between one set of politicians and another.
My point is that to some degree it served May right. The US is our closest ally and she has basically lectured them from afar and failed to back them when she should (don't remember her backing Trump re NATO but he is right) and she wouldn't arrange the visit because she was too weak to face down protesters. Everyone knows Trump wants to be liked. He is the US President. If you can't work out how to manage him appropriately, you shouldn't be in the job and May is getting the pretty foreseeable blowback from her approach.
I don’t think it is disgraceful at all
Obama was trying to influence the outcome of a referendum
Trump is lobbying a government
Two totally different things.
His comments on Boris being “a great PM” were unwarranted interference
Put another way, Charles disagreed with Obama, but agrees with Trump.
The trouble is that people like Clegg don't realise that they are not better than Trump, they are just the reverse of Trump. Elitist snobs who love glad-handing at internationalp exists because people like Clegg exist. If all the Cleggs went away, we wouldn't have Trump!
The US is our ally and friend, regardless of which muppet they elect. The EU is not our ally and certainly not our friend. May forgot this. Trump is giving her a well-deserved kicking.
+10
Trump is no diplomat, but he was right to state a few home truths. If May's proposed deal goes through, probably modified further to suit the EU, it will be BINO. The UK will become a vassal state ruled from Berlin/Brussels, with no say in trade or many other rules/laws and no ability to do business independently with the rest of the world. It is not what I voted for on 23/6/16.
You’re concerned about being a ‘vassal state’, but perfectly happy for your leaders to be instructed on how to behave by a foreign guest ? Trump wouldn’t know the truth if you beat him about the head with it, and ‘home’ ?
Trump most reminds me of a disregulated child in a primary school class.
I don't disagree that Trump's behaviour is disgraceful. But we need to skip the hypocrisy here. Obama's behaviour in trying to interfere with the referendum was disgraceful. May's behaviour in lying about Brexit is disgraceful. I am just not sure I see much difference between one set of politicians and another.
My point is that to some degree it served May right. The US is our closest ally and she has basically lectured them from afar and failed to back them when she should (don't remember her backing Trump re NATO but he is right) and she wouldn't arrange the visit because she was too weak to face down protesters. Everyone knows Trump wants to be liked. He is the US President. If you can't work out how to manage him appropriately, you shouldn't be in the job and May is getting the pretty foreseeable blowback from her approach.
I don’t think it is disgraceful at all
Obama was trying to influence the outcome of a referendum
Trump is lobbying a government
Two totally different things.
His comments on Boris being “a great PM” were unwarranted interference
Rees Moog on R4 right now claiming that Obama was wrong to interfere, but Trump is right
Fuqwit
They have the gall to call themselves patriots.
JRM is an utter c**t. How dare he and people like him side with those who seek to humiliate us and our PM. T May may be useless but for Trump to behave in the way he has is a total disgrace. He is not on our side. Britain has a trade surplus with the US. Any deal with the US would be an attempt by the US to reverse that i.e. to make things worse for us. The so-called special relationship is a fiction and it is long past the time for us to stop believing in this fairy story.
I would really like May to stand up to Trump at the press conference and say that it is for her - and her Cabinet and the British Parliament - not any foreign leader to decide what is in Britain's interests and that one thing the British do not like are bullies, of whatever variety. She won't of course. But she should.
I don't see that Theresa May has very much to lose either personally or for Britain by doing this. And domestically it could work rather well for her.
Rees Moog on R4 right now claiming that Obama was wrong to interfere, but Trump is right
Fuqwit
They have the gall to call themselves patriots.
JRM is an utter c**t. How dare he and people like him side with those who seek to humiliate us and our PM. T May may be useless but for Trump to behave in the way he has is a total disgrace. He is not on our side. Britain has a trade surplus with the US. Any deal with the US would be an attempt by the US to reverse that i.e. to make things worse for us. The so-called special relationship is a fiction and it is long past the time for us to stop believing in this fairy story.
I would really like May to stand up to Trump at the press conference and say that it is for her - and her Cabinet and the British Parliament - not any foreign leader to decide what is in Britain's interests and that one thing the British do not like are bullies, of whatever variety. She won't of course. But she should.
I don't see that Theresa May has very much to lose either personally or for Britain by doing this. And domestically it could work rather well for her.
The biggest danger would be Trump unilaterally putting tariffs on the UK.
Well that is some thought - am I really PB first counter - revolutionary
I think, at the very least, you are an interesting barometer of where the more moderate strands of Conservative opinion are at the moment. You're close to where I was around 2 or 3 or 4 years ago - though, of course, my opinions changed at a more sedate pace as there wasn't a national crisis happening at the time.
Indeed. I have nothing but respect for Big G and, asdie from being a true gent, he's also a good barometer of moderate opinion.
I had my first real Brexit wobble last month as I was driving through a quaint market town, the kind of place you think only exists in postcards these days. And I said to myself, Brexit is going to make everything shit, isn't it?
I despise the EU, I think it's an affront to democracy. I think freedom of movement has caused untold damage to the fabric of society, I think the Euro has been an unmitigated disaster and I think the tin-eared bureaucrats in Brussels have absolutely no interest in representing the interests of British citizens - and make no mistake, as the Brexit negotiations are showing, they are very much the ones in charge.
I still think Brexit is a good idea from a democratic point of view. There is more to life than money - the right to self-determination being one of them. But if we end up as a vassal state, what has been the point of it all? And if the deal is worse than what we had before, or worse, leads to economic disaster, I am inclined to agree that the leaders of the revolution will be swiftly devoured by those who believed in them.
The UK has been a vassal state for years.
Yes we have a vote in the EU but then so does a Conservative supporter in Liverpool.
Except that the Liverpool Conservative will sometimes have a Conservative government whereas the EU is not going to have a UK friendly government.
That depends on how you define UK friendly, of course. The Liverpool Conservative is an individual. We are 65 million people.
Fair point.
The EU government is going to be have varying levels of popularity depending on the individual person.
But for many people in this country they cannot hope to have an EU government they support in the way a Liverpool Conservative or a Surrey Labour supporter can do and sometimes get.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.
UKIP is dead? Oh really? UKIP were on 6% with Yougov yesterday, double the Green share and not far off the LD share. 6% would be the highest UKIP general election vote since 1997 after 2015
But it needs a credible leader - of which there has been one so far - if it's to rise above a lowish ceiling. The rump of what's there at the moment is perceived outside as a rag-tag bunch who think it was all better in the old days and would generally be happier if the blacks went home and the women stayed in the kitchen. It's really unattractive to most Tories. Farage knew that and reached out (albeit pretty cosmetically). If he gets back in the game and Chequers persists, he'll take another 10 per cent off May in a fortnight.
Of course, the result of that is Corbyn in Number 10 which I'm sure they'd both love, but hey..
Now Donald has made it clear he has a complete non-job thanks to May and Robbins what on Earth is he still hanging around for?
Donald is hanging on for tea with the Queen and Liam is hanging on for tea with some queen.
Morning Jack,
As our esteemed member of the Establishment did you get an invite to last nights Banquet in Blenheim Palace?
Anything to report as our "Peer On The Ground" ?
Good morning GIN.
I was more of a "Pier All At Sea" last night at Chez JackW .... my cousin was entirely to blame, an excuse Mrs JackW has heard before, has accepted and has subsequently emptied the wallet of your shortly to be impoverished poster with astonishing dexterity and alacrity.
I suspect devilish family collusion in the matter ....
The alliance that is forming between Trump and the the more extreme Brexiteers is very significant indeed. Though most people are decided on which side of the Brexit debate they sit most leavers are uncertain what particular deal they support.
There will be some very queasy Leavers sratching their heads this morning. I'd go s far as to say this could be one of the most significant events we have seen in a political debate for a very long time.
That is a strategic misreading of the present situation.
The most significant event in British political discourse since the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 was the BREXIT vote. All flows from it.
The Trump "state visit" (in all but name) is dramatic theatre but May and the other European leaders have from the earliest days of his presidency realized that there is one personal driving force behind Donald's term of office - Narcissism - All flows from it.
Their problem is determining how to deal with it. All flows from it
The difference between Brexit and other political decisions is that this one is specifically owned by the people. And because it was their decision they believe they can change their mind. That's what comes from several years of being able to buy things try them and change them with no questions asked.
....new ingredients are being thrown into the Brexit mix all the time which doesn't make much difference because most people have settled on what they bought. But this new ingredient is different. This is a negative celebrity endorsement on a massive scale. They've just bought Harvey Weinstein's favourite scented dressing gown and they've read the small print and it comes with three golden showers
Rees Moog on R4 right now claiming that Obama was wrong to interfere, but Trump is right
Fuqwit
They have the gall to call themselves patriots.
JRM is an utter c**t. How dare he and people like him side with those who seek to humiliate us and our PM. T May may be useless but for Trump to behave in the way he has is a total disgrace. He is not on our side. Britain has a trade surplus with the US. Any deal with the US would be an attempt by the US to reverse that i.e. to make things worse for us. The so-called special relationship is a fiction and it is long past the time for us to stop believing in this fairy story.
I would really like May to stand up to Trump at the press conference and say that it is for her - and her Cabinet and the British Parliament - not any foreign leader to decide what is in Britain's interests and that one thing the British do not like are bullies, of whatever variety. She won't of course. But she should.
I don't see that Theresa May has very much to lose either personally or for Britain by doing this. And domestically it could work rather well for her.
Unfortunately it would require a decisiveness that she has not demonstrated during her political career. If she had a couple of years to think about it, it would be more likely. As it is, I would be very pleasantly surprised indeed were she to do it.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
It's certainly true, at the moment, that those who want hard Brexit are angry with the Conservatives. However, if hard Brexit were to be implemented and proved to be a disaster for the country then I somehow reckon those very same voters will be more inclined to blame the Conservatives who implemented it than themselves who pushed for it.
The sensible thing for the Conservatives would be to take the short term hit on the polls that soft Brexit will bring rather than double down and risk taking a much bigger hit later when hard Brexit hurts voters in the wallet. They won't just shrug and blame themselves for pushing for the policy - they'll take it out on those who implemented it.
Thanks for your reply.
By not preparing for no deal May has ensured that a hard Brexit would be much more damaging than could have been the case. This is another argument for soft Brexit, albeit May’s bad faith makes it less likely she can deliver it through the Commons.
Revolutions really are exhausting... remember the placid days of debating the pasty tax?
A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.
The British don't like outside heads of state meddling in our affairs. But... but can any outside state sign a FTA with the UK if we go ahead with May's proposal. The answer is no as we're bound to the common rulebook with the EU (And the EU being larger obviously they'll have a deal negotiated first)
As Dave put the words into Obama's mouth - 'back of the queue'
Rees Moog on R4 right now claiming that Obama was wrong to interfere, but Trump is right
Fuqwit
They have the gall to call themselves patriots.
JRM is an utter c**t. How dare he and people like him side with those who seek to humiliate us and our PM. T May may be useless but for Trump to behave in the way he has is a total disgrace. He is not on our side. Britain has a trade surplus with the US. Any deal with the US would be an attempt by the US to reverse that i.e. to make things worse for us. The so-called special relationship is a fiction and it is long past the time for us to stop believing in this fairy story.
I would really like May to stand up to Trump at the press conference and say that it is for her - and her Cabinet and the British Parliament - not any foreign leader to decide what is in Britain's interests and that one thing the British do not like are bullies, of whatever variety. She won't of course. But she should.
I don't see that Theresa May has very much to lose either personally or for Britain by doing this. And domestically it could work rather well for her.
While she's at it have an agent slip an anonymous note under Trump's hotel room doors with the words "We have the pee tape" on it
who love glad-handing at internationalp exists because people like Clegg exist. If all the Cleggs went away, we wouldn't have Trump!
And no, May will get notand up for our at the truth of her dreadful Chequers plan is that we won't be able to agree trade deals with major players such as the US.
The US is our ally and friend, regardless of which muppet they elect. The EU is not our ally and certainly not our friend. May forgot this. Trump is giving her a well-deserved kicking.
+10
Trump is no diplomat, but he was right to state a few home truths. If May's proposed deal goes through, probably modified further to suit the EU, it will be BINO. The UK will become a vassal state ruled from Berlin/Brussels, with no say in trade or many other rules/laws and no ability to do business independently with the rest of the world. It is not what I voted for on 23/6/16.
You’re concerned about being a ‘vassal state’, but perfectly happy for your leaders to be instructed on how to behave by a foreign guest ? Trump wouldn’t know the truth if you beat him about the head with it, and ‘home’ ?
Trump most reminds me of a disregulated child in a primary school class.
I don't disagree that Trump's behaviour is disgraceful. But we need to skip the hypocrisy here. Obama's behaviour in trying to interfere with the referendum was disgraceful. May's behaviour in lying about Brexit is disgraceful. I am just not sure I see much difference between one set of politicians and another.
My point is that to some degree it served May right. The US is our closest ally and she has basically lectured them from afar and failed to back them when she should (don't remember her backing Trump re NATO but he is right) and she wouldn't arrange the visit because she was too weak to face down protesters. Everyone knows Trump wants to be liked. He is the US President. If you can't work out how to manage him appropriately, you shouldn't be in the job and May is getting the pretty foreseeable blowback from her approach.
I don’t think it is disgraceful at all
Obama was trying to influence the outcome of a referendum
Trump is lobbying a government
Two totally different things.
His comments on Boris being “a great PM” were unwarranted interference
Charles twists and turns like the apocryphal twisty turny thing. The Neymar of PB.
Nope. I’m clear in what I believe and who I will never vote for (Farage and Trump are both in that category).
But I also understand constitutional proprietary and what should and shouldn’t be done (regardless of whether I agree with them or not)
A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.
Even hardline Tory leavers are not Trump fans particularly - I don't see Trump's intervention as particularly helpful to Boris. Personally I have him as a pretty much breakeven result in my book.
Revolutions really are exhausting... remember the placid days of debating the pasty tax?
Well I certainly remember observing others on here debating the pasty tax. I can't say I ever felt moved to debate that particular issue. However it's a fair comment to point out that it was once the hottest (pun intended... sorry) issue on here.
It's the competent radicals who are the scary ones.
Most populists are incompetent, but to a large extent, so are the people they're replacing.
I notice the NYT, the Times and the Guardian have this morning referred to a subset of Levers as "the Brexiters". Let's remember Gove, Raab, Mordaunt, Leadsom, Hannan and many others are all onboard. They are bright enough to actually understand which concessions matter and which do not. The future of the world economy is services, especially for long distance trade. Amazing how many people opposing Chequers can't engage with that argument.
I agree with that argument but that doesn’t make the Chequers proposal a good deal.
It is a very good deal. We get close and frictionless trade on goods, which mainly matter for short term trade. We get to cut tariffs on food from Africa while maintaining standards. We control freedom of movement. We leave the CFP and CAP. We exit the EU's banking rulebook. Services we have complete control over, which matters most for long term trade deals. And we get no Northern Ireland border, so Remainers lose one of their axes to grind.
The only weakness is lack of control over goods regulations, but we still get the option of escalation for any egregious new laws. Also, it reduces the ability of the USA or China to demand weakening of food safety or data protection when we negotiate with them.
A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.
Fwiw I do not believe Trump's is a coordinated intervention, and his remarks on the incompatibility of American and EU trade agreements have been commonplace even on pb. I'm at a loss as to how it harms May or helps Boris. Trump is just stating the bleeding obvious. The only shock is that diplomacy normally precludes that.
A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.
It is an interesting question when Trump gave this interview and who arranged it. It's unlikely he found himself with time on his hands so he gave the Sun a call.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.
UKIP is dead? Oh really? UKIP were on 6% with Yougov yesterday, double the Green share and not far off the LD share. 6% would be the highest UKIP general election vote since 1997 after 2015
But it needs a credible leader - of which there has been one so far - if it's to rise above a lowish ceiling. The rump of what's there at the moment is perceived outside as a rag-tag bunch who think it was all better in the old days and would generally be happier if the blacks went home and the women stayed in the kitchen. It's really unattractive to most Tories. Farage knew that and reached out (albeit pretty cosmetically). If he gets back in the game and Chequers persists, he'll take another 10 per cent off May in a fortnight.
Of course, the result of that is Corbyn in Number 10 which I'm sure they'd both love, but hey..
Suppose the Tories were to drop to ~30% in the opinion polls. Would that leave Corbyn with a 10% lead?
I think that a lot of people may have supported Corbyn's Labour only as the best anti-Tory game in town. If the Tories are no longer perceived as a threat, some may look a bit more closely at his policies on Brexit and take their support elsewhere.
A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.
Even hardline Tory leavers are not Trump fans particularly - I don't see Trump's intervention as particularly helpful to Boris. Personally I have him as a pretty much zero profit result in my book.
Didn't we have favourability ratings just yesterday? Trump is a political leper in the UK, anything he touches rots. He's viewed favourably by ~30% of Leave voters. Hardly the standard bearer for the Brexiteer cause.
The SNP are still running scared of a general election, obviously.
SNP down 3 points on the constituency vote and 6 points on the top up vote on 2016 in the Holyrood figures in the same poll
Projected Holyrood figs:
SNP + Green 69 seats
SCon+ SLab = SLD 60 seats
After you saying on a daily basis that there no longer being a pro indy ref majority at the next Holyrood election would kill the issue stone dead, I look forward to your reasoning that a pro indy ref majority at the next Holyrood election will also kill the issue stone dead.
I am most gratified to hear it, and with my own teenage manchild to deal with I shall take this sage advice and apply when appropriate!
There must be something revivifying in the limpid waters of PB ... it is some 14 years since we first laid blade on blade in these august halls!
I'm not entirely sure you'd get good value from sporting Mrs JackW's full dress regalia when admonishing your own teenage offspring ?!? ... but the effort may bring forth some unexpected father son bonding ..
My word fourteen years !! ... Has PB become an unruly teen boy? - spotty, hormonal, full of angst and politically bewildered ?? ... I'm sure Father Smithson will see us through with wise words, cash bribes and a box of Klennex for bedtime !!
In 2018 teenagers don't bat an eyelid a little cross-dressing, political or otherwise :-D
I see NPxMP is still here; whither erstwhile contributers like Rik?
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.
UKIP is dead? Oh really? UKIP were on 6% with Yougov yesterday, double the Green share and not far off the LD share. 6% would be the highest UKIP general election vote since 1997 after 2015
But UKIP never get near polling totals in real elections.
I still think there are far too many people hoping for a soft brexit and then thinking all the problems will go away.
A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.
It is an interesting question when Trump gave this interview and who arranged it. It's unlikely he found himself with time on his hands so he gave the Sun a call.
I suspect the instruction went out “biggest selling newspaper” -(it was yesterday in Brussels) two interesting comments from Tom Newton Dunn - they’d been given a 10 minute slot and when the White House Press Secretary tried to end it Trump said no and they over ran to 28. Also that Trump appeared uncomfortable and defensive - so I suspect he knows he’s not going to be met with uncritical adulation in the U.K. But I guess that goes with the territory of being a thin skinned narcissist. May is almost his polar opposite.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties.
It's a possibility.
I think you're right that a chunk will desert the Conservatives, but I doubt it'll be because of BINO per se. Rather, BINO is leading to the Conservatives tearing themselves apart; that results in the party looking divided and incompetent; and that will be what does for their support.
Most voters are not that ideological, but they detest division and incompetence. People didn't vote against Brown because they detested his policies (which were not that different from those on which Blair had been repeatedly elected). They voted against him because they thought he was an incompetent weird-looking sociopath and Cameron looked like a better alternative. So it will go with the Conservatives.
(And this is why I'm not worried about a UKIP comeback, because there is absolutely no sign of them gaining any semblance of competence any time soon.)
Rees Moog on R4 right now claiming that Obama was wrong to interfere, but Trump is right
Fuqwit
They have the gall to call themselves patriots.
JRM is an utter c**t. How dare he and people like him side with those who seek to humiliate us and our PM. T May may be useless but for Trump to behave in the way he has is a total disgrace. He is not on our side. Britain has a trade surplus with the US. Any deal with the US would be an attempt by the US to reverse that i.e. to make things worse for us. The so-called special relationship is a fiction and it is long past the time for us to stop believing in this fairy story.
I would really like May to stand up to Trump at the press conference and say that it is for her - and her Cabinet and the British Parliament - not any foreign leader to decide what is in Britain's interests and that one thing the British do not like are bullies, of whatever variety. She won't of course. But she should.
Everything after your first sentence is superfluous.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
It's certainly true, at the moment, that those who want hard Brexit are angry with the Conservatives. However, if hard Brexit were to be implemented and proved to be a disaster for the country then I somehow reckon those very same voters will be more inclined to blame the Conservatives who implemented it than themselves who pushed for it.
The sensible thing for the Conservatives would be to take the short term hit on the polls that soft Brexit will bring rather than double down and risk taking a much bigger hit later when hard Brexit hurts voters in the wallet. They won't just shrug and blame themselves for pushing for the policy - they'll take it out on those who implemented it.
Thanks for your reply.
By not preparing for no deal May has ensured that a hard Brexit would be much more damaging than could have been the case. This is another argument for soft Brexit, albeit May’s bad faith makes it less likely she can deliver it through the Commons.
Revolutions really are exhausting... remember the placid days of debating the pasty tax?
The placid days were an illusion. The Blair years likewise. Our economy was run on consumer debt. With low end wages kept low by immigration, an increasing ageing population requiring higher proportions of state spending and an NHS with an internal rate of inflation of 4%, we are running out of money. Austerity is an illusion as state spending has increased, not decreased - it's just being spent differently. More taxation is not a long term solution. More borrowing will only work while people believe we can afford the repayments.
The fundamental fact is that we consume more wealth than we create and no civilisation in human history has survived when doing so.
We HAVE to grow our economy and/or reduce state spending hard. We can only do that through trade. We HAVE to do whatever it takes to grow our trade with the rest of the World. Anything else will just be managed decline - or worse.
A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.
Even hardline Tory leavers are not Trump fans particularly - I don't see Trump's intervention as particularly helpful to Boris. Personally I have him as a pretty much breakeven result in my book.
Leavers disapprove of Trump by 2:1. Even among Tory Leavers it's probably 60/40.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.
UKIP is dead? Oh really? UKIP were on 6% with Yougov yesterday, double the Green share and not far off the LD share. 6% would be the highest UKIP general election vote since 1997 after 2015
But UKIP never get near polling totals in real elections.
I still think there are far too many people hoping for a soft brexit and then thinking all the problems will go away.
I am most gratified to hear it, and with my own teenage manchild to deal with I shall take this sage advice and apply when appropriate!
There must be something revivifying in the limpid waters of PB ... it is some 14 years since we first laid blade on blade in these august halls!
I'm not entirely sure you'd get good value from sporting Mrs JackW's full dress regalia when admonishing your own teenage offspring ?!? ... but the effort may bring forth some unexpected father son bonding ..
My word fourteen years !! ... Has PB become an unruly teen boy? - spotty, hormonal, full of angst and politically bewildered ?? ... I'm sure Father Smithson will see us through with wise words, cash bribes and a box of Klennex for bedtime !!
In 2018 teenagers don't bat an eyelid a little cross-dressing, political or otherwise :-D
I see NPxMP is still here; whither erstwhile contributers like Rik?
There Is a spectrum of people here ranging from the loyalist to the true believer. The extremes do not understand each other.
BigG is very loyal to May, when she changes tack his continued support confuses the hell out of the true Brexit beloveds.
Equally I don’t understand how certain ex MPs can enthusiastically back Blair, Brown and Corbyn.
Hello! I've always been pretty left-wing, but in 1997 I felt a lot needed doing on the lines that Blair and Brown were pursuing which everyone to the left of Genghis Khan could agree with, so we could get on with those in unity and worry about other stuff later. I became uneasy in the latter stages when Iraq went so badly wrong and Tony pursued privatisation as a personal mantra, but they still seemed better than the Tories. Nonetheless I feel the party is now more what I went into politics for. I don't necessarily think it's alwaya taking the best approach to winning an election, but that's a different issue.
There's some personal loyalty there too. I like Tony and respect Gordon, but I've known Jeremy off and on throughout my adult life and he's the sort of politician I most identify with - in my view sincere, polite, kind and consistent. Those are virtues which are on a different axis to the left-right spectrum, and visible in for instance Big G, who I hope will forgive the comparison. Equally I know George Galloway and hold him in little regard even on the occasions when I agree with him - I don't think he has any of those personal qualities.
Thanks for your interesting reflections.
I've never met JC, but I've met the others a few times.
I accept your view on his general integrity and kindness, but do not for the life of me understand how he then tolerates the nastiness from some of his supporters. Why doesn't he shut down talk about things like 'Gammon'. Why does he not reach out to other groups? JC is very tribal.
On policy, Corbyn's nostalgic backward-looking politics is the antithesis of what Labour is about. He is also a bit too much of a patrician for my taste. Too much of a conservative, albeit of the the old-school socialist variety.
For me, his approach to Brexit has been disingenuous. I think he has lied on that. It has turned me from a sceptic into an active opponent of him. I will be to him, what his supporters were to Blair. Still Labour, but not always helpful to the leader.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
It's certainly true, at the moment, that those who want hard Brexit are angry with the Conservatives. However, if hard Brexit were to be implemented and proved to be a disaster for the country then I somehow reckon those very same voters will be more inclined to blame the Conservatives who implemented it than themselves who pushed for it.
The sensible thing for the Conservatives would be to take the short term hit on the polls that soft Brexit will bring rather than double down and risk taking a much bigger hit later when hard Brexit hurts voters in the wallet. They won't just shrug and blame themselves for pushing for the policy - they'll take it out on those who implemented it.
Thanks for your reply.
By not preparing for no deal May has ensured that a hard Brexit would be much more damaging than could have been the case. This is another argument for soft Brexit, albeit May’s bad faith makes it less likely she can deliver it through the Commons.
Revolutions really are exhausting... remember the placid days of debating the pasty tax?
The placid days were an illusion. The Blair years likewise. Our economy was run on consumer debt. With low end wages kept low by immigration, an increasing ageing population requiring higher proportions of state spending and an NHS with an internal rate of inflation of 4%, we are running out of money. Austerity is an illusion as state spending has increased, not decreased - it's just being spent differently. More taxation is not a long term solution. More borrowing will only work while people believe we can afford the repayments.
The fundamental fact is that we consume more wealth than we create and no civilisation in human history has survived when doing so.
We HAVE to grow our economy and/or reduce state spending hard. We can only do that through trade. We HAVE to do whatever it takes to grow our trade with the rest of the World. Anything else will just be managed decline - or worse.
House prices rose 320% from 1996 to 2007. So many problems stem from that.
A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.
IDS was behind it.
He used his friendship with John Bolton to persuade Trump to make this intervention.
I think that a lot of people may have supported Corbyn's Labour only as the best anti-Tory game in town. If the Tories are no longer perceived as a threat, some may look a bit more closely at his policies on Brexit and take their support elsewhere.
I would take my support for Corbyn elsewhere in a heartbeat, but at present he *is* the only game in town.
There Is a spectrum of people here ranging from the loyalist to the true believer. The extremes do not understand each other.
BigG is very loyal to May, when she changes tack his continued support confuses the hell out of the true Brexit beloveds.
Equally I don’t understand how certain ex MPs can enthusiastically back Blair, Brown and Corbyn.
Hello! I've always been pretty left-wing, but in 1997 I felt a lot needed doing on the lines that Blair and Brown were pursuing which everyone to the left of Genghis Khan could agree with, so we could get on with those in unity and worry about other stuff later. I became uneasy in the latter stages when Iraq went so badly wrong and Tony pursued privatisation as a personal mantra, but they still seemed better than the Tories. Nonetheless I feel the party is now more what I went into politics for. I don't necessarily think it's alwaya taking the best approach to winning an election, but that's a different issue.
There's some personal loyalty there too. I like Tony and respect Gordon, but I've known Jeremy off and on throughout my adult life and he's the sort of politician I most identify with - in my view sincere, polite, kind and consistent. Those are virtues which are on a different axis to the left-right spectrum, and visible in for instance Big G, who I hope will forgive the comparison. Equally I know George Galloway and hold him in little regard even on the occasions when I agree with him - I don't think he has any of those personal qualities.
Thanks for your interesting reflections.
I've never met JC, but I've met the others a few times.
I accept your view on his general integrity and kindness, but do not for the life of me understand how he then tolerates the nastiness from some of his supporters. Why doesn't he shut down talk about things like 'Gammon'. Why does he not reach out to other groups? JC is very tribal.
On policy, Corbyn's nostalgic backward-looking politics is the antithesis of what Labour is about. He is also a bit too much of a patrician for my taste. Too much of a conservative, albeit of the the old-school socialist variety.
For me, his approach to Brexit has been disingenuous. I think he has lied on that. It has turned me from a sceptic into an active opponent of him. I will be to him, what his supporters were to Blair. Still Labour, but not always helpful to the leader.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.
UKIP is dead? Oh really? UKIP were on 6% with Yougov yesterday, double the Green share and not far off the LD share. 6% would be the highest UKIP general election vote since 1997 after 2015
But UKIP never get near polling totals in real elections.
I still think there are far too many people hoping for a soft brexit and then thinking all the problems will go away.
Mrs C, backing Corbyn is to move from bad to worse, in my view.
Not only that, he's not even a fan of the EU.
That is not the point Mr Dancer. I will not vote for a party that is actively damaging to the UK. To me, the behaviour of the current Tory party proves that they are utterly incompetent to govern and need to be removed.
I suspect that Corbyn and Very Old Labour will also be quite useless, but the choice is between proven incompetents and potential incompetents.
It is a lousy choice, but for now, at this moment in time, Corbyn (barely) gets the benefit of the doubt.
I am most gratified to hear it, and with my own teenage manchild to deal with I shall take this sage advice and apply when appropriate!
There must be something revivifying in the limpid waters of PB ... it is some 14 years since we first laid blade on blade in these august halls!
I'm not entirely sure you'd get good value from sporting Mrs JackW's full dress regalia when admonishing your own teenage offspring ?!? ... but the effort may bring forth some unexpected father son bonding ..
My word fourteen years !! ... Has PB become an unruly teen boy? - spotty, hormonal, full of angst and politically bewildered ?? ... I'm sure Father Smithson will see us through with wise words, cash bribes and a box of Klennex for bedtime !!
In 2018 teenagers don't bat an eyelid a little cross-dressing, political or otherwise :-D
I see NPxMP is still here; whither erstwhile contributers like Rik?
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.
UKIP is metastasizing.
Yesterday's by-elections:
Cockerton Darlington, FOR BRITAIN (UKIP spin off) 5.8%
Old Town Barnsley, DEMOCRATS AND VETERANS (UKIP spin off) 27.3%
I am most gratified to hear it, and with my own teenage manchild to deal with I shall take this sage advice and apply when appropriate!
There must be something revivifying in the limpid waters of PB ... it is some 14 years since we first laid blade on blade in these august halls!
I'm not entirely sure you'd get good value from sporting Mrs JackW's full dress regalia when admonishing your own teenage offspring ?!? ... but the effort may bring forth some unexpected father son bonding ..
My word fourteen years !! ... Has PB become an unruly teen boy? - spotty, hormonal, full of angst and politically bewildered ?? ... I'm sure Father Smithson will see us through with wise words, cash bribes and a box of Klennex for bedtime !!
In 2018 teenagers don't bat an eyelid a little cross-dressing, political or otherwise :-D
I see NPxMP is still here; whither erstwhile contributers like Rik?
I bow to your far more extensive knowledge of cross dressing. My own comes from the exploits and PB narratives of another PB "Old Contemptible" - Peter The Punter(ess).
I know little of the recent exploits of Rik. I hope he remains in PB wider diaspora. Sadly we have also lost some of the old school. Mark Senior has gone to the great in the bar chart in the sky, where I'm sure he regales all with tales of "Winning Here".
And with that sad note I bid PB adieu for the day.
Edit - Just noticed TSE comment on RikW - Shocking.
Brexit cuts across both main parties, and both May and Corbyn appear duplicitous to many of their parties’ own supporters. There is no majority in Parliament for any position on Brexit. At the same time there is a majority in the country for leaving somehow. It looks impossible, like squaring the circle. But perhaps that’s only because we think we are rational and the other side irrational. We should accept that Brexit is transcendental. What we all want is pi in the sky and the circle squared.
Well that is some thought - am I really PB first counter - revolutionary
Welcome to the dark side Mr G.
Some posters of this parish take it personally when you change your political position (as I found out myself a couple of months ago)
Ignore the purists and zealots or do what I did and take several weeks off and relax
Lovely to see you back.
Thanks.
Did I miss much? It seems to be business Brexit as usual around here....
Not much. Brexit is even more of a shit show than it was before.
There have, however, been some very interesting thread headers from the likes of @DavidHerdson, @AlistairMeeks, @NickPalmer and @Foxy. And Big G continues to show the rest of us what polite gentlemanly Conservatism used to be like.
Oh and I have been doing a lot of gardening in this glorious weather. Every so often I bestir myself to go into central London for meetings and wonder how anyone can travel on the tube twice a day for years (and then remember that is what I used to do - ).
A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.
IDS was behind it.
He used his friendship with John Bolton to persuade Trump to make this intervention.
Whether this is true or not, Boris will be the Leaver candidate. JRM has always supported him and he won't stand if Boris does. DD does not want to be leader. And the rest have disgraced themselves.
If May does fall, I think Boris is most likely to replace her as a result of recent events. Much will depend how convincing he is when he starts his public campaign for a CETA style Brexit.
Theresa May and the rest of the upper ranks of the parliamentary party have made a fundamental miscalculation about their support. It will be their undoing.
The Tory vote now skews very clearly to Leave (c. 75%). By delivering BRINO, May guarantees that a chunk of that 75% will abstain or vote for other parties. Remainers who switched to other parties in 2017 are unlikely to be grateful to her for BRINO, as she attacked some of them in her 2016 conference speech and she is still delivering an outcome they don’t want.
As a matter of party strategy, it would have been better to double down on hard Brexit than try to split the difference. I expect Tory support will slump over the next 2-3 months, with UKIP roaring back. If the party is languishing in the polls, May has no chance whatsoever to get her deal through Parliament.
UKIP is dead. Just accept it and recognise that the debate about what sort of Brexit we ask for (not necessarily get of course) will be determined within the Tory party.
UKIP is metastasizing.
Yesterday's by-elections:
Cockerton Darlington, FOR BRITAIN (UKIP spin off) 5.8%
Old Town Barnsley, DEMOCRATS AND VETERANS (UKIP spin off) 27.3%
I think I prefer the term disintegrating. But we shall see. There is certainly a lot of anger looking for a home.
Mrs C, I finished ahead at a Grand Prix! And there was much rejoicing.
Corbyn would not undo our departure from the EU. Not only that, he's sided with the Russian state against us regarding the use of chemical weapons on British soil. His Chancellor is a self-described Marxist. Corbyn himself has described Hamas and Hezbollah as 'our friends'. He's praised Venezuelan economics, questioned shoot to kill against terrorists, argued against using drones to take out threats to the UK.
And that's before we get to the spike in anti-semitism within Labour.
May is a poor Prime Minister. Corbyn would be far worse in almost every sphere. He would not undo that which you hate, but would inflict many horrendous, ideologically driven policies upon this country.
Mr. B, got to admit, I always forget about the Hockenheim layout and have to dredge it from my memory of old(ish) videogames. Tight and twisty. Shouldn't be much overtaking. Weather forecast suggests rain is possible. May be best to leave it a bit until the weather forecast firms up.
Well that is some thought - am I really PB first counter - revolutionary
Welcome to the dark side Mr G.
Some posters of this parish take it personally when you change your political position (as I found out myself a couple of months ago)
Ignore the purists and zealots or do what I did and take several weeks off and relax
Lovely to see you back.
Thanks.
Did I miss much? It seems to be business Brexit as usual around here....
Not much. Brexit is even more of a shit show than it was before.
There have, however, been some very interesting thread headers from the likes of @DavidHerdson, @AlistairMeeks, @NickPalmer and @Foxy. And Big G continues to show the rest of us what polite gentlemanly Conservatism used to be like.
Oh and I have been doing a lot of gardening in this glorious weather. Every so often I bestir myself to go into central London for meetings and wonder how anyone can travel on the tube twice a day for years (and then remember that is what I used to do - ).
Your opening salvos have become a little intemperate.
After multiple lawsuits have been filed over the butterfly-switch keyboards found on the MacBook Pro and MacBook lineups, you would think Apple would fix this issue by including a keyboard in the new MacBook Pros that can't be damaged by a little dust. Unfortunately, while the new 2018 MacBook Pro does have an updated third-generation keyboard, Apple tells CNET it doesn't include any new engineering or tweaks to address the sticky key issue
I've never met JC, but I've met the others a few times.
I accept your view on his general integrity and kindness, but do not for the life of me understand how he then tolerates the nastiness from some of his supporters. Why doesn't he shut down talk about things like 'Gammon'. Why does he not reach out to other groups? JC is very tribal.
On policy, Corbyn's nostalgic backward-looking politics is the antithesis of what Labour is about. He is also a bit too much of a patrician for my taste. Too much of a conservative, albeit of the the old-school socialist variety.
For me, his approach to Brexit has been disingenuous. I think he has lied on that. It has turned me from a sceptic into an active opponent of him. I will be to him, what his supporters were to Blair. Still Labour, but not always helpful to the leader.
Party leaders have to be infrequent in ticking off their own side, since with hundreds of thousands of people there's always one more nutter you're asked to condemn. You have to mostly stick to general condemnation of abuse, which he's done repeatedly (and he sets a good example).
I don't think he's lied on Brexit, based on personal discussion - he'd no particular reason to lie to me personally during a half-hour chat in his constituency office. He's mildly pro-membership, but doesn't see it as a key issue (in which he's at one with a lot of voters, I think). Lots of us including you and me think he's wrong about that and ought to be much more vigorous on it, but that's simply a policy disagreement. Some think he can't possibly really think that and must secretly think something else, but they're IMO mistaken: it's not his habit to conceal awkward opinions.
Mrs C, backing Corbyn is to move from bad to worse, in my view.
Not only that, he's not even a fan of the EU.
That is not the point Mr Dancer. I will not vote for a party that is actively damaging to the UK. To me, the behaviour of the current Tory party proves that they are utterly incompetent to govern and need to be removed.
I suspect that Corbyn and Very Old Labour will also be quite useless, but the choice is between proven incompetents and potential incompetents.
It is a lousy choice, but for now, at this moment in time, Corbyn (barely) gets the benefit of the doubt.
No party can expect to be in power forever. Leaving aside the exigencies of the day, the Tories just seem tired, divided and out of ideas. They've been in power for 8 years and it really shows.
The placid days were an illusion. The Blair years likewise. Our economy was run on consumer debt. With low end wages kept low by immigration, an increasing ageing population requiring higher proportions of state spending and an NHS with an internal rate of inflation of 4%, we are running out of money. Austerity is an illusion as state spending has increased, not decreased - it's just being spent differently. More taxation is not a long term solution. More borrowing will only work while people believe we can afford the repayments.
The fundamental fact is that we consume more wealth than we create and no civilisation in human history has survived when doing so.
We HAVE to grow our economy and/or reduce state spending hard. We can only do that through trade. We HAVE to do whatever it takes to grow our trade with the rest of the World. Anything else will just be managed decline - or worse.
House prices rose 320% from 1996 to 2007. So many problems stem from that.
Yes. I blame the banks. People felt rich when their illiquid assets rose in value - because the banks lent to them against those assets. I was in a meeting in an unnamed organisation in 2013 when some muppet suggested offering 95-100% mortgages again to increase market share. He actually got shouted at.
The SNP are still running scared of a general election, obviously.
SNP down 3 points on the constituency vote and 6 points on the top up vote on 2016 in the Holyrood figures in the same poll
Projected Holyrood figs:
SNP + Green 69 seats
SCon+ SLab = SLD 60 seats
After you saying on a daily basis that there no longer being a pro indy ref majority at the next Holyrood election would kill the issue stone dead, I look forward to your reasoning that a pro indy ref majority at the next Holyrood election will also kill the issue stone dead.
The SNP vote holds up because so many of differing political views support one vague dream ideal, the Independence of Scotland. While the other parties have hard core support who think the ideal is rotten to the core. If, not when, the majority of people in Scotland vote for Independence, the next question, is like Brexit, what form will it take. The SNP hierarchy have been very careful, not to allow public discussion to take place as to what an Independent Scotland will look like politically, how it will be governed, how it will be taxed, defended, Health Service paid for, trade with other governments, EU (join, with the Euro and fishing rules, or not join). I suspect, that many of the electorate in Scotland, looking at Brexit, think about Sturgeon/Swinney and co, The Tory front bench in Westminster, and will say no way. Which leaves the question of when the SNP supporters will start to realise that there is no point in continuing to vote for them. And that support is starting to drift... For all Sturgeon's spinners of tales to keep her relevant. As to elections, there is more likelihood of a Westminster GE in the near future, than a Holyrood one, and my sense is that the SNP will lose 10 seats to Labour and gain 10 from the Tories.
PS: You forgot about the LibDems, but then, don't we all...
A betting point to note for next Conservative leader/next Prime Minister. If you believe that Donald Trump's intervention has been co-ordinated with hardline Leavers, it appears that Boris Johnson is being lined up as their candidate.
IDS was behind it.
He used his friendship with John Bolton to persuade Trump to make this intervention.
Whether this is true or not, Boris will be the Leaver candidate. JRM has always supported him and he won't stand if Boris does. DD does not want to be leader. And the rest have disgraced themselves.
If May does fall, I think Boris is most likely to replace her as a result of recent events. Much will depend how convincing he is when he starts his public campaign for a CETA style Brexit.
Boris will be lucky to get enough nominations to stand let alone make it to the final two.
This week confirmed his deep unsuitability for the role.
A British citizen died at the hands of Russian operations in the UK so he skipped the COBRA meeting and missed a summit of Balkan countries making the UK looking like even more of a joke.
Tory MPs won't forget that and neither will the country.
Comments
Perhaps you're feeling a little bitter about being wrong about so many things ?
Have you learnt yet what defence spending as a proportion of GDP means.
I do hope so as it would mean that your time here hasn't been entirely wasted.
There's also the Davis white paper, leaked online yesterday, (Canada deal with extra bits, essentially) which was tossed in the bin by May et al.
The sensible thing for the Conservatives would be to take the short term hit on the polls that soft Brexit will bring rather than double down and risk taking a much bigger hit later when hard Brexit hurts voters in the wallet. They won't just shrug and blame themselves for pushing for the policy - they'll take it out on those who implemented it.
My word fourteen years !! ... Has PB become an unruly teen boy? - spotty, hormonal, full of angst and politically bewildered ?? ... I'm sure Father Smithson will see us through with wise words, cash bribes and a box of Klennex for bedtime !!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/07/12/in-a-cosmic-first-scientists-detect-ghostly-neutrinos-from-a-distant-galaxy/
Watched this again yesterday. Very instructive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmyHSMWK148
https://reaction.life/hard-brexiteers-mugged-reality-trade/
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/herpes-viruses-alzheimers/564887/
Lovely to see you back.
The EU government is going to be have varying levels of popularity depending on the individual person.
But for many people in this country they cannot hope to have an EU government they support in the way a Liverpool Conservative or a Surrey Labour supporter can do and sometimes get.
Of course, the result of that is Corbyn in Number 10 which I'm sure they'd both love, but hey..
I was more of a "Pier All At Sea" last night at Chez JackW .... my cousin was entirely to blame, an excuse Mrs JackW has heard before, has accepted and has subsequently emptied the wallet of your shortly to be impoverished poster with astonishing dexterity and alacrity.
I suspect devilish family collusion in the matter ....
....new ingredients are being thrown into the Brexit mix all the time which doesn't make much difference because most people have settled on what they bought. But this new ingredient is different. This is a negative celebrity endorsement on a massive scale. They've just bought Harvey Weinstein's favourite scented dressing gown and they've read the small print and it comes with three golden showers
If she had a couple of years to think about it, it would be more likely. As it is, I would be very pleasantly surprised indeed were she to do it.
By not preparing for no deal May has ensured that a hard Brexit would be much more damaging than could have been the case. This is another argument for soft Brexit, albeit May’s bad faith makes it less likely she can deliver it through the Commons.
Revolutions really are exhausting... remember the placid days of debating the pasty tax?
As Dave put the words into Obama's mouth - 'back of the queue'
But I also understand constitutional proprietary and what should and shouldn’t be done (regardless of whether I agree with them or not)
Personally I have him as a pretty much breakeven result in my book.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LxO0dL-qAFE
The only weakness is lack of control over goods regulations, but we still get the option of escalation for any egregious new laws. Also, it reduces the ability of the USA or China to demand weakening of food safety or data protection when we negotiate with them.
I think that a lot of people may have supported Corbyn's Labour only as the best anti-Tory game in town. If the Tories are no longer perceived as a threat, some may look a bit more closely at his policies on Brexit and take their support elsewhere.
SNP + Green 69 seats
SCon+ SLab = SLD 60 seats
After you saying on a daily basis that there no longer being a pro indy ref majority at the next Holyrood election would kill the issue stone dead, I look forward to your reasoning that a pro indy ref majority at the next Holyrood election will also kill the issue stone dead.
I see NPxMP is still here; whither erstwhile contributers like Rik?
I think you're right that a chunk will desert the Conservatives, but I doubt it'll be because of BINO per se. Rather, BINO is leading to the Conservatives tearing themselves apart; that results in the party looking divided and incompetent; and that will be what does for their support.
Most voters are not that ideological, but they detest division and incompetence. People didn't vote against Brown because they detested his policies (which were not that different from those on which Blair had been repeatedly elected). They voted against him because they thought he was an incompetent weird-looking sociopath and Cameron looked like a better alternative. So it will go with the Conservatives.
(And this is why I'm not worried about a UKIP comeback, because there is absolutely no sign of them gaining any semblance of competence any time soon.)
The fundamental fact is that we consume more wealth than we create and no civilisation in human history has survived when doing so.
We HAVE to grow our economy and/or reduce state spending hard. We can only do that through trade. We HAVE to do whatever it takes to grow our trade with the rest of the World. Anything else will just be managed decline - or worse.
Whatever people think about their opinions I expect they are universally regarded as behaving with intelligence and thought and dignity.
Perhaps you might model yourself on them.
Now I have some work to do.
** Apologies to anyone I should have included but missed.
https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/reading-berkshire-news/former-reading-councillor-jailed-sharing-13213795
I've never met JC, but I've met the others a few times.
I accept your view on his general integrity and kindness, but do not for the life of me understand how he then tolerates the nastiness from some of his supporters. Why doesn't he shut down talk about things like 'Gammon'. Why does he not reach out to other groups? JC is very tribal.
On policy, Corbyn's nostalgic backward-looking politics is the antithesis of what Labour is about. He is also a bit too much of a patrician for my taste. Too much of a conservative, albeit of the the old-school socialist variety.
For me, his approach to Brexit has been disingenuous. I think he has lied on that. It has turned me from a sceptic into an active opponent of him. I will be to him, what his supporters were to Blair. Still Labour, but not always helpful to the leader.
He used his friendship with John Bolton to persuade Trump to make this intervention.
....
Not only that, he's not even a fan of the EU.
Did I miss much? It seems to be business Brexit as usual around here....
https://twitter.com/margot_james_mp/status/1017659937491771392
I suspect that Corbyn and Very Old Labour will also be quite useless, but the choice is between proven incompetents and potential incompetents.
It is a lousy choice, but for now, at this moment in time, Corbyn (barely) gets the benefit of the doubt.
Thanks for the update Mr Eagles!
http://time.com/5329498/trump-uk-visit-controversy-history/?utm_source=twitter.com&xid=time_socialflow_twitter&utm_campaign=time&utm_medium=social
Yesterday's by-elections:
Cockerton Darlington, FOR BRITAIN (UKIP spin off) 5.8%
Old Town Barnsley, DEMOCRATS AND VETERANS (UKIP spin off) 27.3%
I know little of the recent exploits of Rik. I hope he remains in PB wider diaspora. Sadly we have also lost some of the old school. Mark Senior has gone to the great in the bar chart in the sky, where I'm sure he regales all with tales of "Winning Here".
And with that sad note I bid PB adieu for the day.
Edit - Just noticed TSE comment on RikW - Shocking.
It looks impossible, like squaring the circle. But perhaps that’s only because we think we are rational and the other side irrational. We should accept that Brexit is transcendental. What we all want is pi in the sky and the circle squared.
Is there anything good about it? Would we be able to sign our own trade deals with other countries?
There have, however, been some very interesting thread headers from the likes of @DavidHerdson, @AlistairMeeks, @NickPalmer and @Foxy. And Big G continues to show the rest of us what polite gentlemanly Conservatism used to be like.
Oh and I have been doing a lot of gardening in this glorious weather. Every so often I bestir myself to go into central London for meetings and wonder how anyone can travel on the tube twice a day for years (and then remember that is what I used to do -
If May does fall, I think Boris is most likely to replace her as a result of recent events. Much will depend how convincing he is when he starts his public campaign for a CETA style Brexit.
Corbyn would not undo our departure from the EU. Not only that, he's sided with the Russian state against us regarding the use of chemical weapons on British soil. His Chancellor is a self-described Marxist. Corbyn himself has described Hamas and Hezbollah as 'our friends'. He's praised Venezuelan economics, questioned shoot to kill against terrorists, argued against using drones to take out threats to the UK.
And that's before we get to the spike in anti-semitism within Labour.
May is a poor Prime Minister. Corbyn would be far worse in almost every sphere. He would not undo that which you hate, but would inflict many horrendous, ideologically driven policies upon this country.
Mr. B, got to admit, I always forget about the Hockenheim layout and have to dredge it from my memory of old(ish) videogames. Tight and twisty. Shouldn't be much overtaking. Weather forecast suggests rain is possible. May be best to leave it a bit until the weather forecast firms up.
Pakefield - Craig Rivett (C) 1,473, Melanie Di Gallidoro (C) 1,569, Sonia Barker (Lab) 1,333, Peter Byatt (Lab) 1,369, Rachel Fawkes (G) 182, Robin Hinton (UKIP) 384, Christian Newsome (Lib Dems) 190, Ben Quail (G) 162, Adam Robertson (Lib Dems) 215 and Phillip Trindall (UKIP) 367.
After multiple lawsuits have been filed over the butterfly-switch keyboards found on the MacBook Pro and MacBook lineups, you would think Apple would fix this issue by including a keyboard in the new MacBook Pros that can't be damaged by a little dust. Unfortunately, while the new 2018 MacBook Pro does have an updated third-generation keyboard, Apple tells CNET it doesn't include any new engineering or tweaks to address the sticky key issue
It has been played today after the Blenheim Palace dinner giving the real impression this was his opinion today.
Questions need to be asked of Boris, Farage and Ton Newton Dunns role in this as it seems very staged to me
I don't think he's lied on Brexit, based on personal discussion - he'd no particular reason to lie to me personally during a half-hour chat in his constituency office. He's mildly pro-membership, but doesn't see it as a key issue (in which he's at one with a lot of voters, I think). Lots of us including you and me think he's wrong about that and ought to be much more vigorous on it, but that's simply a policy disagreement. Some think he can't possibly really think that and must secretly think something else, but they're IMO mistaken: it's not his habit to conceal awkward opinions.
CON: 43.8% (+11.9)
LAB: 40.9% (-5.2)
UKIP: 7.9% (+7.9)
GRN: 4.4% (-8.3)
LDEM: 3.0% (-6.3)
Conservative GAIN from Labour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPgiI46FCDU
http://www.eastsuffolk.gov.uk/assets/Elections/Election-notices-WDC/2018/Pakefield-by-election-12-July-2018/00-Declaration-of-Result-of-Poll.pdf
He's quoted as saying that he'd rather he were drunk.
https://order-order.com/2018/07/13/drunk-juncker-unsteady-nato-summit/
I suspect, that many of the electorate in Scotland, looking at Brexit, think about Sturgeon/Swinney and co, The Tory front bench in Westminster, and will say no way.
Which leaves the question of when the SNP supporters will start to realise that there is no point in continuing to vote for them. And that support is starting to drift... For all Sturgeon's spinners of tales to keep her relevant.
As to elections, there is more likelihood of a Westminster GE in the near future, than a Holyrood one, and my sense is that the SNP will lose 10 seats to Labour and gain 10 from the Tories.
PS: You forgot about the LibDems, but then, don't we all...
This week confirmed his deep unsuitability for the role.
A British citizen died at the hands of Russian operations in the UK so he skipped the COBRA meeting and missed a summit of Balkan countries making the UK looking like even more of a joke.
Tory MPs won't forget that and neither will the country.