Mr. Walker, the media deserves much blame for this.
Said it before, but if policies were put under the microscope that politicians and their personal lives are subjected to, and the media scrutinised legislation rather than scalp-hunting or portraying any tiny difference of opinion as a split, we'd be better governed.
Not only would it enhance public awareness of policies, good and bad, it'd alter the current situation which must put off a lot of potential MPs for fear of the media firestorm that can descend at any time.
I think The Thick of It nails it, with a speech that identifies a country and a political class, which has given up on morality and simply pursues popularity at all costs.
Hence the focus on small differences. Hence the scalp-hunting. Hence the slow encroachment of what is essentially thought-crime into public debate.
If we leave with No Deal - and I find it depressing to believe that the Tory party is seriously contemplating this as its preferred option - Britain will be a "third country" as far as the EU is concerned. In short, we will be like Zimbabwe or the Congo or Australia or Surinam or Argentina. We will no longer be members of the club. The EU will owe us no favours at all. It will look to its own interests above all. And to the extent that there will be huge opportunities for it to divert business from Britain to the EU as a result of our departure it will do so.
Being a third country which was once a member does not mean that we will we be in some "special privileged ex-members of the club and therefore treated almost as well status".
I sometimes wonder if that's what some of the No Dealers think will happen: that things will continue much as they are now but without the horrid bits. There is a huge amount of wishful thinking going on, a belief that because we are Britain even if we leave we ought to be treated differently from any other third country. The EU could choose to do this, of course. They might be wise to do so. But they don't have to. And one can see why they might not - given the level of ill-informed abuse levelled in their general direction by senior British politicians who give every impression of believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden while being incapable of getting dressed without help.
Whatever happens now a large proportion of the electorate will be miffed and will say that this is not what they voted for. I'm inclined to say that - if Parliament won't vote for the deal or won't give the electorate another opportunity to vote - we should just bloody well revoke Article 50 and then go away into a darkened room for however long it takes and work out a coherent European strategy, for the world as it is and not for the world as it was, something we should have done long before now.
They were actually better than the usual scam emails (*), and I actually went onto the TV licencing website to see when my licence ended. If I wasn't so cautious I might have clicked on the link.
(*) In that the first one I received looked official, and didn't have any obvious speeling mistales.
I still struggle to understand how these fraudsters are allowed to open and operate accounts that can accept card payments.
If we leave with No Deal - and I find it depressing to believe that the Tory party is seriously contemplating this as its preferred option - Britain will be a "third country" as far as the EU is concerned. In short, we will be like Zimbabwe or the Congo or Australia or Surinam or Argentina. We will no longer be members of the club. The EU will owe us no favours at all. It will look to its own interests above all. And to the extent that there will be huge opportunities for it to divert business from Britain to the EU as a result of our departure it will do so.
Being a third country which was once a member does not mean that we will we be in some "special privileged ex-members of the club and therefore treated almost as well status".
I sometimes wonder if that's what some of the No Dealers think will happen: that things will continue much as they are now but without the horrid bits. There is a huge amount of wishful thinking going on, a belief that because we are Britain even if we leave we ought to be treated differently from any other third country. The EU could choose to do this, of course. They might be wise to do so. But they don't have to. And one can see why they might not - given the level of ill-informed abuse levelled in their general direction by senior British politicians who give every impression of believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden while being incapable of getting dressed without help.
Whatever happens now a large proportion of the electorate will be miffed and will say that this is not what they voted for. I'm inclined to say that - if Parliament won't vote for the deal or won't give the electorate another opportunity to vote - we should just bloody well revoke Article 50 and then go away into a darkened room for however long it takes and work out a coherent European strategy, for the world as it is and not for the world as it was, something we should have done long before now.
Agree with this but you could also add that we will be in 3rd country status for all those countries that the EU has negotiated trade deals with. Even if the EU agreed to offer us special privileges (they won't and I don't blame them) those other countries won't.
Trump should be concerned that this comment is from a guy who now has extensive subpoena power, as a Congressional Committee chair... https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-congressman-adam-schiff-future-house-intelligence-committee “One of the issues that has continued to concern me [is] the persistent allegations that the Trumps, when they couldn’t get money from US banks, were laundering Russian money...
Perhaps calling him 'little Schitt' wasn't the smartest of moves.
Both parts of that statement are correct. A No Deal Brexit would be disruptive, and the warnings are exaggerated.
This country is really fucked. Both main parties are now vehicles for extremist, destructive ideology.
I'd say the period 1968-84 was a good deal more politically turbulent, but we came through it.
Yes, but then we had political leaders with good brains, competence and plain honesty. The leadership of both Labour and Tories nowadays are seriously deficient in these qualities.
If we leave with No Deal - and I find it depressing to believe that the Tory party is seriously contemplating this as its preferred option - Britain will be a "third country" as far as the EU is concerned. In short, we will be like Zimbabwe or the Congo or Australia or Surinam or Argentina. We will no longer be members of the club. The EU will owe us no favours at all. It will look to its own interests above all. And to the extent that there will be huge opportunities for it to divert business from Britain to the EU as a result of our departure it will do so.
Being a third country which was once a member does not mean that we will we be in some "special privileged ex-members of the club and therefore treated almost as well status".
I sometimes wonder if that's what some of the No Dealers think will happen: that things will continue much as they are now but without the horrid bits. There is a huge amount of wishful thinking going on, a belief that because we are Britain even if we leave we ought to be treated differently from any other third country. The EU could choose to do this, of course. They might be wise to do so. But they don't have to. And one can see why they might not - given the level of ill-informed abuse levelled in their general direction by senior British politicians who give every impression of believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden while being incapable of getting dressed without help.
Whatever happens now a large proportion of the electorate will be miffed and will say that this is not what they voted for. I'm inclined to say that - if Parliament won't vote for the deal or won't give the electorate another opportunity to vote - we should just bloody well revoke Article 50 and then go away into a darkened room for however long it takes and work out a coherent European strategy, for the world as it is and not for the world as it was, something we should have done long before now.
I think that most MPs will prefer to do nothing, and point the finger art each other.
Both parts of that statement are correct. A No Deal Brexit would be disruptive, and the warnings are exaggerated.
This country is really fucked. Both main parties are now vehicles for extremist, destructive ideology.
I'd say the period 1968-84 was a good deal more politically turbulent, but we came through it.
Yes, but then we had political leaders with good brains, competence and plain honesty. The leadership of both Labour and Tories nowadays are seriously deficient in these qualities.
And party memberships slightly more aligned with the broader electorate...
Hi Malcolm I've missed you too. I see you are still posting the equivalent of the mindset of a Tartan Citizen Smith. You must have wet your breeks when we Eck got kicked out last year!
LOL, FOX news is here
A travesty that was , the best politician in the UK by a country mile, brought down by perfidious unionists of Labour and Tory persuasions. He will see them get their comeuppance. Nice to see you back by the way.
Both parts of that statement are correct. A No Deal Brexit would be disruptive, and the warnings are exaggerated.
This country is really fucked. Both main parties are now vehicles for extremist, destructive ideology.
I'd say the period 1968-84 was a good deal more politically turbulent, but we came through it.
Yes, but then we had political leaders with good brains, competence and plain honesty. The leadership of both Labour and Tories nowadays are seriously deficient in these qualities.
The calibre of politicians was higher but they still struggled.
And, there were some pretty dodgy ones as well (eg Maudling, Thorpe, Stonehouse, Cyril Smith)
I voted Leave ( I prefer Remain ) in the hope it would help get 2nd referendum on independence
Hats off. Makes sense. If you don't like the pond throw a rock in it. And it might work.
I am English but I am going to risk a comment on Scottish Independence. I'm feeling robust today.
Although most supporters of Sindy are Remainers, there is a similarity between Sindy and Brexit in one important sense, being that both of them are largely driven not by dry & dusty calculations about money, but by feelings and attitudes, towards identity, sovereignty, place in the world. It is not so much "how will we get on?" more "who do we think we are?".
A true believer in Brexit will (if they're honest) support the cause even if they suspect that it will, at least for quite some time, lead to lower economic growth, and the same applies to an ardent Sindy supporter.
It's heart over head and I intend this as neither insult nor compliment.
What it does mean is that the message is powerful. There is a romance to it that provides an innate advantage. Heart over head tends to trump the reverse, not just in politics, in pretty much everything. We are not machines.
Even Simon Cowell. I used to watch X Factor (although not these days obviously), and something used to happen with amusing regularity. During the judging, when deciding which of 2 acts would progress, Simon (or one of the others on the panel) would speak words along the lines of, "This is such a tough one. I hate this. My head is telling me one thing, it has to be Moppet, and my heart is saying Thunderbirds Are Go!".
End of suspense, because then every time, every single time without exception, the act going through would be Thunderbirds Are Go! (or whoever).
I think The Thick of It nails it, with a speech that identifies a country and a political class, which has given up on morality and simply pursues popularity at all costs.
Hence the focus on small differences. Hence the scalp-hunting. Hence the slow encroachment of what is essentially thought-crime into public debate.
Isn't that what centrism does, it's a pernicious force that robs adherents of ideology, belief, ethics and forces them to endlessly triangulate into whatever will buy them short term popularity, because they have no other basis for deciding what the right thing is.
Centrism hollows out people and parties and leaves them unable to even properly explain what they're even for. Look at what it did to Blair.
The rapid rise of poujadist movements across the democratic world is a testament to the emptiness that centrism leaves in its wake, and the desperate desire to fill it with something -- *anything*.
That was not the view of the CJEU in the recent Article 50 case. Indeed the Vienna Convention played a significant role in their argument.
They aspire to the EU being a nation state and so would obviously aspire to the trappings and rights. But the basic fact is that the EU are not a signatory to the Convention nor can they be unless they become a recognised State.
As they almost said in Star Trek, " Its law Jim, but not as we know it.".
In the case of A50, the ECJ created new jurisprudence because it had too. A50 was totally vague, but a ruling was requested, so creating new jurisprudence was unavoidable.
The lesson here is: if you don't want new jurisprudence to be created by judges, make sure your laws and treaties are specific enough so they don't have to.
Also can I just point out the nonsense of referring to a court as a "political" court. All courts are political, they're one of the three arms of the state. English common law, for example, gives judges broad scope to create binding precedents.
Huge tracts of the UK constitutional settlement has been created through jurisprudence, not through acts of parliament or executive actions.
I have long argued on here that the ECJ is actually less political than many other courts given that it has a clearly defined remit to act in accordance with the treaties whether that helps or hinders the other EU institutions. This includes the preliminaries to the Treaties which set out the aspirations for the EEC/EU including the objective of ever closer union.
When there is a lack of clarity in the body of the treaties, the ECJ will often fall back on the preliminaries for guidance.
They were actually better than the usual scam emails (*), and I actually went onto the TV licencing website to see when my licence ended. If I wasn't so cautious I might have clicked on the link.
(*) In that the first one I received looked official, and didn't have any obvious speeling mistales.
You mean you had paid both of them before it sunk in
Surely at Westminster it's DUP+Tory vs SNP+Labour. So it shouldn't matter a jot to Corbyn's chances of being PM if SNP and Labour trade seats. What really matters to Corbyn in Scotland is number of Tory seats.
Agreed. I would settle for an SNP clean sweep in Scotland to maximise the number of non-Tory seats.
I think you’re playing with fire. I would dearly love politics to find an equilibrium north and south of the border. One party states are unhealthy, Scotland is too interesting to be represented by one party. The UK will not have recovered from this crisis period until Scotland feels confident enough of its position to move on from nationalism. It seems on that front we’re going backwards.
We will only be confident when we are free and not serfs.
The Scots have never been and never will be serfs.
Maybe you mean Smurfs? That blue face paint must be hard to wash off.
Time they got off their bended knee. The old fearties are vanishing like snow off a dyke, soon we will be free.
I like our Malc. He's always here to remind us that no matter how nutty the ERG or Maomentum get, the SNP's cybernutters will always go one step further.
bellend old boy , I am not in the SNP or have any connection. I am for independence, think what that word means, I am not a political party sheeple lackey like you fan boys on here.
The reckoning is coming for traitorous no dealers and it cannot come soon enough.
Roaster Ross is the first of many, be afraid be very afraid.
After promising the voters nowt but sunlit uplands and then delivering no deal the voters will want to extract their pound of fresh for being misled.
I wonder if Roaster Ross is one of those thick as mince Leavers like David Davis who thinks we still get a transition with No Deal?
Wasn't that Leadbrain?
Could be her too.
But David Davis did it as well, confirming his excellent grasp of detail, which is why he was a success as Brexit Secretary.
David Davis has been mocked after claiming the UK will still be able to enter a post-Brexit transition phase even if it fails to reach a withdrawal agreement with the EU.
Surely at Westminster it's DUP+Tory vs SNP+Labour. So it shouldn't matter a jot to Corbyn's chances of being PM if SNP and Labour trade seats. What really matters to Corbyn in Scotland is number of Tory seats.
Agreed. I would settle for an SNP clean sweep in Scotland to maximise the number of non-Tory seats.
I think you’re playing with fire. I would dearly love politics to find an equilibrium north and south of the border. One party states are unhealthy, Scotland is too interesting to be represented by one party. The UK will not have recovered from this crisis period until Scotland feels confident enough of its position to move on from nationalism. It seems on that front we’re going backwards.
We will only be confident when we are free and not serfs.
The Scots have never been and never will be serfs.
Maybe you mean Smurfs? That blue face paint must be hard to wash off.
Time they got off their bended knee. The old fearties are vanishing like snow off a dyke, soon we will be free.
No Scots I know are on the blended knee, you’ll get nowhere by distancing yourself from your kin south of the border.
Surely at Westminster it's DUP+Tory vs SNP+Labour. So it shouldn't matter a jot to Corbyn's chances of being PM if SNP and Labour trade seats. What really matters to Corbyn in Scotland is number of Tory seats.
Agreed. I would settle for an SNP clean sweep in Scotland to maximise the number of non-Tory seats.
I think you’re playing with fire. I would dearly love politics to find an equilibrium north and south of the border. One party states are unhealthy, Scotland is too interesting to be represented by one party. The UK will not have recovered from this crisis period until Scotland feels confident enough of its position to move on from nationalism. It seems on that front we’re going backwards.
We will only be confident when we are free and not serfs.
The Scots have never been and never will be serfs.
Maybe you mean Smurfs? That blue face paint must be hard to wash off.
Time they got off their bended knee. The old fearties are vanishing like snow off a dyke, soon we will be free.
The reckoning is coming for traitorous no dealers and it cannot come soon enough.
Roaster Ross is the first of many, be afraid be very afraid.
After promising the voters nowt but sunlit uplands and then delivering no deal the voters will want to extract their pound of fresh for being misled.
I wonder if Roaster Ross is one of those thick as mince Leavers like David Davis who thinks we still get a transition with No Deal?
Wasn't that Leadbrain?
Could be her too.
But David Davis did it as well, confirming his excellent grasp of detail, which is why he was a success as Brexit Secretary.
David Davis has been mocked after claiming the UK will still be able to enter a post-Brexit transition phase even if it fails to reach a withdrawal agreement with the EU.
Did DD ever explain himself? The only conceivable excuse was that it was penned by a blundering minion, whose master didn't wish to waste his precious time on ConservativeHome. If not, then that should have destroyed DD's reputation for ever, and we need never suffer his smirking visage again.
I like our Malc. He's always here to remind us that no matter how nutty the ERG or Maomentum get, the SNP's cybernutters will always go one step further.
bellend old boy , I am not in the SNP or have any connection. I am for independence, think what that word means, I am not a political party sheeple lackey like you fan boys on here.
Fair enough, but you're still barking mad and that's why we love you.
The reckoning is coming for traitorous no dealers and it cannot come soon enough.
Roaster Ross is the first of many, be afraid be very afraid.
After promising the voters nowt but sunlit uplands and then delivering no deal the voters will want to extract their pound of fresh for being misled.
I wonder if Roaster Ross is one of those thick as mince Leavers like David Davis who thinks we still get a transition with No Deal?
Wasn't that Leadbrain?
Could be her too.
But David Davis did it as well, confirming his excellent grasp of detail, which is why he was a success as Brexit Secretary.
David Davis has been mocked after claiming the UK will still be able to enter a post-Brexit transition phase even if it fails to reach a withdrawal agreement with the EU.
Did DD ever explain himself? The only conceivable excuse was that it was penned by a blundering minion, whose master didn't wish to waste his precious time on ConservativeHome. If not, then that should have destroyed DD's reputation for ever, and we need never suffer his smirking visage again.
I still laugh at those deluded PBers who think Brexit would be a success if Mrs May had allowed David Davis to get on with Brexit.
Mr. Cocque, didn't Corbyn also go to a fancy school?
Yeah, I mean. Corbyn clearly isn't the sharpest tool. But the Tory benches have all those expensive Eton educations and Oxford PPEs apparently going to waste.
(And before you start TSE, shush, I know PPE isn't a real subject and Oxford isn't a real university)
Both parts of that statement are correct. A No Deal Brexit would be disruptive, and the warnings are exaggerated.
This country is really fucked. Both main parties are now vehicles for extremist, destructive ideology.
I'd say the period 1968-84 was a good deal more politically turbulent, but we came through it.
Yes, but then we had political leaders with good brains, competence and plain honesty. The leadership of both Labour and Tories nowadays are seriously deficient in these qualities.
For some inexplicable reason you have left the Lib Dems out........
The reckoning is coming for traitorous no dealers and it cannot come soon enough.
Roaster Ross is the first of many, be afraid be very afraid.
After promising the voters nowt but sunlit uplands and then delivering no deal the voters will want to extract their pound of fresh for being misled.
I wonder if Roaster Ross is one of those thick as mince Leavers like David Davis who thinks we still get a transition with No Deal?
Wasn't that Leadbrain?
Could be her too.
But David Davis did it as well, confirming his excellent grasp of detail, which is why he was a success as Brexit Secretary.
David Davis has been mocked after claiming the UK will still be able to enter a post-Brexit transition phase even if it fails to reach a withdrawal agreement with the EU.
Did DD ever explain himself? The only conceivable excuse was that it was penned by a blundering minion, whose master didn't wish to waste his precious time on ConservativeHome. If not, then that should have destroyed DD's reputation for ever, and we need never suffer his smirking visage again.
I still laugh at those deluded PBers who think Brexit would be a success if Mrs May had allowed David Davis to get on with Brexit.
You know, he'd have precipitated the constitutional crisis much sooner, so we'd actually be in a far better position.
They were actually better than the usual scam emails (*), and I actually went onto the TV licencing website to see when my licence ended. If I wasn't so cautious I might have clicked on the link.
(*) In that the first one I received looked official, and didn't have any obvious speeling mistales.
I still struggle to understand how these fraudsters are allowed to open and operate accounts that can accept card payments.
That's true for much of the dodgy things on t'Internet. A couple of decades ago myself and a friend looked into starting a business, and part of that was into getting credit card payments. It wasn't that easy, with the bank wanting things like three years of accounts (from memory).
I don't know enough about the banking system to say why this happens, but it does seem a reasonable way of stopping the fraudsters and ner-do-wells.
Surely at Westminster it's DUP+Tory vs SNP+Labour. So it shouldn't matter a jot to Corbyn's chances of being PM if SNP and Labour trade seats. What really matters to Corbyn in Scotland is number of Tory seats.
Agreed. I would settle for an SNP clean sweep in Scotland to maximise the number of non-Tory seats.
I think you’re playing with fire. I would dearly love politics to find an equilibrium north and south of the border. One party states are unhealthy, Scotland is too interesting to be represented by one party. The UK will not have recovered from this crisis period until Scotland feels confident enough of its position to move on from nationalism. It seems on that front we’re going backwards.
We will only be confident when we are free and not serfs.
The Scots have never been and never will be serfs.
Maybe you mean Smurfs? That blue face paint must be hard to wash off.
Time they got off their bended knee. The old fearties are vanishing like snow off a dyke, soon we will be free.
No Scots I know are on the blended knee, you’ll get nowhere by distancing yourself from your kin south of the border.
Jonathan , don't be a silly boy, what is wanted is the same as every other country in the world, to make your own decisions. How you lot can whine on about EU making decisions etc but are very happy to crap on Scotland by forcing the wrong policies on Scotland constantly beggars belief. No is moving anywhere , we just need to be able to manage our own affairs and not have our bigger neighbour kicking us in the goolies and deciding where our money goes and how much of their loans are to be paid by us etc, regardless of what we would like. I seriously doubt you would like to give your salary to your neighbour to let him decide how you spend it.
The reckoning is coming for traitorous no dealers and it cannot come soon enough.
Roaster Ross is the first of many, be afraid be very afraid.
After promising the voters nowt but sunlit uplands and then delivering no deal the voters will want to extract their pound of fresh for being misled.
I wonder if Roaster Ross is one of those thick as mince Leavers like David Davis who thinks we still get a transition with No Deal?
Wasn't that Leadbrain?
Could be her too.
But David Davis did it as well, confirming his excellent grasp of detail, which is why he was a success as Brexit Secretary.
David Davis has been mocked after claiming the UK will still be able to enter a post-Brexit transition phase even if it fails to reach a withdrawal agreement with the EU.
Did DD ever explain himself? The only conceivable excuse was that it was penned by a blundering minion, whose master didn't wish to waste his precious time on ConservativeHome. If not, then that should have destroyed DD's reputation for ever, and we need never suffer his smirking visage again.
I still laugh at those deluded PBers who think Brexit would be a success if Mrs May had allowed David Davis to get on with Brexit.
Sidelining DD (if that indeed is what Theresa and Olly did) turned out to be a laudable approach. Things are bad now, but imagine if DD had been let loose.
Mr. Cocque, didn't Corbyn also go to a fancy school?
Yeah, I mean. Corbyn clearly isn't the sharpest tool. But the Tory benches have all those expensive Eton educations and Oxford PPEs apparently going to waste.
(And before you start TSE, shush, I know PPE isn't a real subject and Oxford isn't a real university)
Shows you can buy a degree but you cannot buy intelligence. A rich Thicko is just a Thicko in the end
Mr. Cocque, didn't Corbyn also go to a fancy school?
Yeah, I mean. Corbyn clearly isn't the sharpest tool. But the Tory benches have all those expensive Eton educations and Oxford PPEs apparently going to waste.
(And before you start TSE, shush, I know PPE isn't a real subject and Oxford isn't a real university)
Socially, the Parliamentary Conservative Party is far more representative of the public as a whole than it was thirty years ago. but that doesn't seem to have widened the talent pool in any way. The ones who aren't expensively educated seem no more effective than the ones who are.
Really talented people just don't seem to go into politics, these days. And, I think the answer was given upthread - your personal foibles are given far more scrutiny than is ever given to policy decisions.
Centrism hollows out people and parties and leaves them unable to even properly explain what they're even for. Look at what it did to Blair.
Hubris, I'd say, with Tony. Same as with Cameron and Thatcher. All goes to your head. You pull something off (GE15, Sindy1, GFA, Bosnia, couple of landslides, the Falklands) and you get to thinking that you can do anything. You can bring in a Poll Tax, you can re-engineer the Muslim world, you can ... and this one really takes the biscuit ... you can persuade the British people to stay in the European Union.
Mr. Cocque, didn't Corbyn also go to a fancy school?
Yeah, I mean. Corbyn clearly isn't the sharpest tool. But the Tory benches have all those expensive Eton educations and Oxford PPEs apparently going to waste.
(And before you start TSE, shush, I know PPE isn't a real subject and Oxford isn't a real university)
Socially, the Parliamentary Conservative Party is far more representative of the public as a whole than it was thirty years ago. but that doesn't seem to have widened the talent pool in any way. The ones who aren't expensively educated seem no more effective than the ones who are.
Really talented people just don't seem to go into politics, these days. And, I think the answer was given upthread - your personal foibles are given far more scrutiny than is ever given to policy decisions.
Isn't a mixture of that perennial problem that social mobility is still unhealthily low in the UK, and we've settled into a rut of being a kind of "hereditary meritocracy".
An even then it's not, by and large, our brightest and best that choose to go into politics anyway?
And as the Economist pointed out recently, the UK educational-political axis promotes a worldview where bluster, bluff and bravado are preferred to actual knowledge, talent, wisdom.
The Brexiteer Buccaneers are a very severe case of this. The fact that they've apparently been wrong about everything, and demonstrably so on almost every aspect of international trade hasn't slowed them down one jot, given them a moment's pause for thought.
All they've done is doubled down on the bluster, bluff and bravado.
Mr. Cocque, didn't Corbyn also go to a fancy school?
Yeah, I mean. Corbyn clearly isn't the sharpest tool. But the Tory benches have all those expensive Eton educations and Oxford PPEs apparently going to waste.
(And before you start TSE, shush, I know PPE isn't a real subject and Oxford isn't a real university)
Socially, the Parliamentary Conservative Party is far more representative of the public as a whole than it was thirty years ago. but that doesn't seem to have widened the talent pool in any way. The ones who aren't expensively educated seem no more effective than the ones who are.
Really talented people just don't seem to go into politics, these days. And, I think the answer was given upthread - your personal foibles are given far more scrutiny than is ever given to policy decisions.
And politics has become more of a lifetime career, in the past people did not often become MPs before they were 40 and cabinet ministers were mostly in their 50s and 60s. This meant that almost all MPs had a great deal of experience of "real life" before politics. Now it is common for people to move straight from university into lobbying or political research roles and become MPs in their early 30s or even their 20s without having any experience of anything apart from student politics.
Centrism hollows out people and parties and leaves them unable to even properly explain what they're even for. Look at what it did to Blair.
Hubris, I'd say, with Tony. Same as with Cameron and Thatcher. All goes to your head. You pull something off (GE15, Sindy1, GFA, Bosnia, couple of landslides, the Falklands) and you get to thinking that you can do anything. You can bring in a Poll Tax, you can re-engineer the Muslim world, you can ... and this one really takes the biscuit ... you can persuade the British people to stay in the European Union.
Both Thatcher and Blair went mad in office, although it took them several years. The thought has just occurred to me that May has perhaps gone mad after only two.
I, like many others, am astonished at May’s resilience given constant humiliations, a lack of conspicuous support, health issues, and a punishing schedule. But is it in fact possible that she has gone quite mad and will need to dragged spitting and foaming from office?
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
Surely at Westminster it's DUP+Tory vs SNP+Labour. So it shouldn't matter a jot to Corbyn's chances of being PM if SNP and Labour trade seats. What really matters to Corbyn in Scotland is number of Tory seats.
Agreed. I would settle for an SNP clean sweep in Scotland to maximise the number of non-Tory seats.
Disagree. I would always vote Tory rather than SNP - or Plaid.
Mr. Cocque, didn't Corbyn also go to a fancy school?
Yeah, I mean. Corbyn clearly isn't the sharpest tool. But the Tory benches have all those expensive Eton educations and Oxford PPEs apparently going to waste.
(And before you start TSE, shush, I know PPE isn't a real subject and Oxford isn't a real university)
Shows you can buy a degree but you cannot buy intelligence. A rich Thicko is just a Thicko in the end
A rich thicko can cause much more damage, as they have the resources to cover up their ineptitude and (sometimes) contacts who are willing to ignore that ineptitude.
Mr. Cocque, didn't Corbyn also go to a fancy school?
Yeah, I mean. Corbyn clearly isn't the sharpest tool. But the Tory benches have all those expensive Eton educations and Oxford PPEs apparently going to waste.
(And before you start TSE, shush, I know PPE isn't a real subject and Oxford isn't a real university)
The reckoning is coming for traitorous no dealers and it cannot come soon enough.
Roaster Ross is the first of many, be afraid be very afraid.
After promising the voters nowt but sunlit uplands and then delivering no deal the voters will want to extract their pound of fresh for being misled.
I wonder if Roaster Ross is one of those thick as mince Leavers like David Davis who thinks we still get a transition with No Deal?
Wasn't that Leadbrain?
Could be her too.
But David Davis did it as well, confirming his excellent grasp of detail, which is why he was a success as Brexit Secretary.
David Davis has been mocked after claiming the UK will still be able to enter a post-Brexit transition phase even if it fails to reach a withdrawal agreement with the EU.
Did DD ever explain himself? The only conceivable excuse was that it was penned by a blundering minion, whose master didn't wish to waste his precious time on ConservativeHome. If not, then that should have destroyed DD's reputation for ever, and we need never suffer his smirking visage again.
I still laugh at those deluded PBers who think Brexit would be a success if Mrs May had allowed David Davis to get on with Brexit.
Sidelining DD (if that indeed is what Theresa and Olly did) turned out to be a laudable approach. Things are bad now, but imagine if DD had been let loose.
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
Mr. Cocque, didn't Corbyn also go to a fancy school?
Yeah, I mean. Corbyn clearly isn't the sharpest tool. But the Tory benches have all those expensive Eton educations and Oxford PPEs apparently going to waste.
(And before you start TSE, shush, I know PPE isn't a real subject and Oxford isn't a real university)
Socially, the Parliamentary Conservative Party is far more representative of the public as a whole than it was thirty years ago. but that doesn't seem to have widened the talent pool in any way. The ones who aren't expensively educated seem no more effective than the ones who are.
Really talented people just don't seem to go into politics, these days. And, I think the answer was given upthread - your personal foibles are given far more scrutiny than is ever given to policy decisions.
Were Churchill, Attlee, Callaghan, Major, Lloyd George that really talented before they entered politics? Top QCs, surgeons, CEOs rarely enter politics which is a downgrade in terms of salary and status and those that do e.g. Archie Norman rarely find their skill set suited to the Westminster barepit
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
You know the worst thing? May has actually emboldened Davis. He can claim "I'd have negotiated a Canada++++++ deal by now if it wasn't for that pesky saboteur Theresa May sabotaging the whole thing". It's impossible to disprove a counterfactual, and a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
And those will eventually all be picked up and returned to Earth for further scientific research. They've been exposed to space for fifty years, and It'll give great information on all sorts of things, for instance whether the microbes within have survived.
(Yes, seriously,)
But the Moon is as dead as dead. If there are any microbes in the sh*t, then they're the only life on the Moon, and therefore should be protected
Mr. Cocque, didn't Corbyn also go to a fancy school?
Yeah, I mean. Corbyn clearly isn't the sharpest tool. But the Tory benches have all those expensive Eton educations and Oxford PPEs apparently going to waste.
(And before you start TSE, shush, I know PPE isn't a real subject and Oxford isn't a real university)
Actually after the departure of Boris there are now no Old Etonians in the Cabinet and only Hunt of the top Cabinet Ministers even went to public school, Charterhouse, the other 3, May, Hammond and Javid were all state educated and Javid did not go to Oxford either but Exeter
Mr. Cocque, didn't Corbyn also go to a fancy school?
Yeah, I mean. Corbyn clearly isn't the sharpest tool. But the Tory benches have all those expensive Eton educations and Oxford PPEs apparently going to waste.
(And before you start TSE, shush, I know PPE isn't a real subject and Oxford isn't a real university)
Socially, the Parliamentary Conservative Party is far more representative of the public as a whole than it was thirty years ago. but that doesn't seem to have widened the talent pool in any way. The ones who aren't expensively educated seem no more effective than the ones who are.
Really talented people just don't seem to go into politics, these days. And, I think the answer was given upthread - your personal foibles are given far more scrutiny than is ever given to policy decisions.
Were Churchill, Attlee, Callaghan, Major, Lloyd George that really talented before they entered politics? Top QCs, surgeons, CEOs rarely enter politics which is a downgrade in terms of salary and status and those that do e.g. Archie Norman rarely find their skill set suited to the Westminster barepit
I like our Malc. He's always here to remind us that no matter how nutty the ERG or Maomentum get, the SNP's cybernutters will always go one step further.
bellend old boy , I am not in the SNP or have any connection. I am for independence, think what that word means, I am not a political party sheeple lackey like you fan boys on here.
Fair enough, but you're still barking mad and that's why we love you.
Cut him some slack; you may have missed his sharing that one side of his brain runs slow.
The reckoning is coming for traitorous no dealers and it cannot come soon enough.
Roaster Ross is the first of many, be afraid be very afraid.
After promising the voters nowt but sunlit uplands and then delivering no deal the voters will want to extract their pound of fresh for being misled.
I wonder if Roaster Ross is one of those thick as mince Leavers like David Davis who thinks we still get a transition with No Deal?
Wasn't that Leadbrain?
Could be her too.
But David Davis did it as well, confirming his excellent grasp of detail, which is why he was a success as Brexit Secretary.
David Davis has been mocked after claiming the UK will still be able to enter a post-Brexit transition phase even if it fails to reach a withdrawal agreement with the EU.
Surely at Westminster it's DUP+Tory vs SNP+Labour. So it shouldn't matter a jot to Corbyn's chances of being PM if SNP and Labour trade seats. What really matters to Corbyn in Scotland is number of Tory seats.
Agreed. I would settle for an SNP clean sweep in Scotland to maximise the number of non-Tory seats.
I think you’re playing with fire. I would dearly love politics to find an equilibrium north and south of the border. One party states are unhealthy, Scotland is too interesting to be represented by one party. The UK will not have recovered from this crisis period until Scotland feels confident enough of its position to move on from nationalism. It seems on that front we’re going backwards.
We will only be confident when we are free and not serfs.
The Scots have never been and never will be serfs.
Maybe you mean Smurfs? That blue face paint must be hard to wash off.
Time they got off their bended knee. The old fearties are vanishing like snow off a dyke, soon we will be free.
No Scots I know are on the blended knee, you’ll get nowhere by distancing yourself from your kin south of the border.
Jonathan , don't be a silly boy, what is wanted is the same as every other country in the world, to make your own decisions. How you lot can whine on about EU making decisions etc but are very happy to crap on Scotland by forcing the wrong policies on Scotland constantly beggars belief. No is moving anywhere , we just need to be able to manage our own affairs and not have our bigger neighbour kicking us in the goolies and deciding where our money goes and how much of their loans are to be paid by us etc, regardless of what we would like. I seriously doubt you would like to give your salary to your neighbour to let him decide how you spend it.
We’re not neighbours, we’re family. But I do agree, English nationalism and Scottish nationalism are both bad. Hopefully the pendulum will swing against both and those that seek to divide us will not prosper.
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
Both parts of that statement are correct. A No Deal Brexit would be disruptive, and the warnings are exaggerated.
This country is really fucked. Both main parties are now vehicles for extremist, destructive ideology.
I'd say the period 1968-84 was a good deal more politically turbulent, but we came through it.
Yes, but then we had political leaders with good brains, competence and plain honesty. The leadership of both Labour and Tories nowadays are seriously deficient in these qualities.
And party memberships slightly more aligned with the broader electorate...
Yes, it was more normal in those days to be a party member just to show your support, rather than out of ambition or obsession.
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
So what do you suggest she should do instead, that would get parliamentary support? A single-sentence answer will do.
I like our Malc. He's always here to remind us that no matter how nutty the ERG or Maomentum get, the SNP's cybernutters will always go one step further.
bellend old boy , I am not in the SNP or have any connection. I am for independence, think what that word means, I am not a political party sheeple lackey like you fan boys on here.
Fair enough, but you're still barking mad and that's why we love you.
Cut him some slack; one side of his brain runs slow.
I've asked the first-year students at the University of West Scotland who run Eliza to upgrade the processors on that side, but they're still drunk from their new year revelries.
For Brexit psychosis, can I recommend you breathe into a paper bag. The theory is that it increases the carbon dioxide content of the blood. Not sure I buy that, but it can't do a lot of harm.
So would you see no-deal Brexit as not worth the candle if it led to avoidable deaths or increased unemployment?
The UK suffers from avoidable deaths now. The info is available on the ONS if you are actually interested and not just scare mongering. The highest incidence in the U.K. is actually in Remain supporting Scotland. There are also over 1 m unemployed now despite the fact that we are in the EU.
To pretend that avoidable deaths and unemployment don’t occur now is asinine.
So you're happy to add to the total if necessary in order to conclude a no-deal Brexit? Any upper limit on those avoidable deaths before you decide that no-deal Brexit isn't worth the candle?
You actually have to Leave under a no deal Brexit to find out whether your scare mongering would actually be correct. As you have no evidence or reasonable basis for assuming it would,let alone for assuming any increase would be due to Brexit, your argument is, as I said earlier pointless.
All you are doing by running this argument is showing how indifferent and uncaring you are to avoidable deaths that occur now and those who are unemployed now.
The Health Secretary thinks it's possible. So there's a piece of evidence for you to chew on:
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
You know the worst thing? May has actually emboldened Davis. He can claim "I'd have negotiated a Canada++++++ deal by now if it wasn't for that pesky saboteur Theresa May sabotaging the whole thing". It's impossible to disprove a counterfactual, and a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes and having resigned first after Chequers let alone the final Deal Davis is best placed to take over if No Deal
And those will eventually all be picked up and returned to Earth for further scientific research. They've been exposed to space for fifty years, and It'll give great information on all sorts of things, for instance whether the microbes within have survived.
(Yes, seriously,)
But the Moon is as dead as dead. If there are any microbes in the sh*t, then they're the only life on the Moon, and therefore should be protected
And I guess someone might want to part-ex the moon buggy for a new Leaf.
I'm not sure where the golfballs fit into scientific research.
So what do you suggest she should do instead, that would get parliamentary support? A single-sentence answer will do.
I'm in favour of SeanT's papal conclave idea. Though I'm not sure it will be necessary to remove the roof, put them on bread and water rations as was done with the papal election of 1268-1271.
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
So what do you suggest she should do instead, that would get parliamentary support? A single-sentence answer will do.
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
You know the worst thing? May has actually emboldened Davis. He can claim "I'd have negotiated a Canada++++++ deal by now if it wasn't for that pesky saboteur Theresa May sabotaging the whole thing". It's impossible to disprove a counterfactual, and a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes and having resigned first after Chequers let alone the final Deal Davis is best placed to take over if No Deal
It would certainly provide some grim amusement to see someone who told us No Deal wouldn't be a disaster being left in charge of picking up the pieces, but sadly not enough amusement to compensate for the chaos, job losses, insolvencies, shortages, and the ensuing Corbyn government.
Both Thatcher and Blair went mad in office, although it took them several years. The thought has just occurred to me that May has perhaps gone mad after only two.
I, like many others, am astonished at May’s resilience given constant humiliations, a lack of conspicuous support, health issues, and a punishing schedule. But is it in fact possible that she has gone quite mad and will need to dragged spitting and foaming from office?
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
Not particularly, no. I flip between 2 views of her.
1. Totally sane. She is a doughty battler for what she sees as the national interest, fighting tooth & nail to ram her deal through because she has embraced the harsh reality that we don't get to leave the EU in one piece any other way. If she can't get it through, she will resign with honour and allow her replacement to delay Brexit for a referendum.
2. Sanity questionable. She is intoxicated by being PM and, national interest go hang yourself, will do whatever it takes to stay in the job. Plan A is get the deal through, obviously, but Plan B is to roll the dice, leave with no deal, it's no bluff, stay on and see how the cookie crumbles (or the dice fall rather).
I've been more of a (1) but am now inclined to (2).
That's like claiming Saxons and Celts are the same.
The Scots were Hibernian Celts (Irish) invaders who through a mix of marriage and conquest took over Pictland (interestingly, the book I'm currently reading, The Inheritance of Rome, suggests the Picts had a far better integrated and cohesive kingdom than anywhere else in the British Isles in the century or two after the Romans buggered off).
Mr. Cocque, didn't Corbyn also go to a fancy school?
Yeah, I mean. Corbyn clearly isn't the sharpest tool. But the Tory benches have all those expensive Eton educations and Oxford PPEs apparently going to waste.
(And before you start TSE, shush, I know PPE isn't a real subject and Oxford isn't a real university)
Socially, the Parliamentary Conservative Party is far more representative of the public as a whole than it was thirty years ago. but that doesn't seem to have widened the talent pool in any way. The ones who aren't expensively educated seem no more effective than the ones who are.
Really talented people just don't seem to go into politics, these days. And, I think the answer was given upthread - your personal foibles are given far more scrutiny than is ever given to policy decisions.
And politics has become more of a lifetime career, in the past people did not often become MPs before they were 40 and cabinet ministers were mostly in their 50s and 60s. This meant that almost all MPs had a great deal of experience of "real life" before politics. Now it is common for people to move straight from university into lobbying or political research roles and become MPs in their early 30s or even their 20s without having any experience of anything apart from student politics.
Anecdote alert... but I'm told a huge proportion of current PPE-ers see their futures in financial services, possibly with a view to retiring somewhere agreeable in their thirties. There seems to be very little thirst for the lobbying/research>elected office/civil service route.. presumably for the scrutiny reasons already quoted and £££ to be earned elsewhere. So we're probably in for a future run by sociology grads from Wolverhampton Uni (which I suppose will increase the diversity a bit!)
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
So what do you suggest she should do instead, that would get parliamentary support? A single-sentence answer will do.
Revoke Article 50?
That's unlikely to get Parliamentary support on the first vote. Hence the need for a conclave.
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
If Parliament wants No Deal, that is what Parliament will get.
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
So what do you suggest she should do instead, that would get parliamentary support? A single-sentence answer will do.
Revoke Article 50?
Would that get a majority? Dunno. But it wouldn't be possible for a Conservative PM to do it.
So what do you suggest she should do instead, that would get parliamentary support? A single-sentence answer will do.
I'm in favour of SeanT's papal conclave idea. Though I'm not sure it will be necessary to remove the roof, put them on bread and water rations as was done with the papal election of 1268-1271.
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
So what do you suggest she should do instead, that would get parliamentary support? A single-sentence answer will do.
I think it's probably too late (although she may still get the deal through in the end, if all alternatives are voted down, or otherwise denied).
The only two ways she had to a majority from the beginning were keeping the ERG and DUP on board, or reaching out to the opposition. The first would probably have been futile, trying to reconcile the irreconcilable; the second might have been more fruitful if she had very obviously tried to progress toward a soft Brexit on a cross-party basis once she lost her majority. Even had she been rebuffed, having tried would put her in a stronger position for the end game, and could well have forced Labour's hand somewhat earlier.
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
You know the worst thing? May has actually emboldened Davis. He can claim "I'd have negotiated a Canada++++++ deal by now if it wasn't for that pesky saboteur Theresa May sabotaging the whole thing". It's impossible to disprove a counterfactual, and a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes and having resigned first after Chequers let alone the final Deal Davis is best placed to take over if No Deal
David Davis is a lazy fucker who is not fit to look after my cat, let alone the country.
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
So what do you suggest she should do instead, that would get parliamentary support? A single-sentence answer will do.
Revoke Article 50?
Would that get a majority? Dunno. But it wouldn't be possible for a Conservative PM to do it.
Doesn’t that currently apply to every option. With a split Tory Party a Tory PM has limited room for manoeuvre. With her counting down the clock on the deal the problem worsens every day.
If Parliament wants No Deal, that is what Parliament will get.
Yes, that's Parliament's default choice, not because of some ham-fisted May attempt to blackmail Parliament into supporting her deal, but because that's what the law says.
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
You know the worst thing? May has actually emboldened Davis. He can claim "I'd have negotiated a Canada++++++ deal by now if it wasn't for that pesky saboteur Theresa May sabotaging the whole thing". It's impossible to disprove a counterfactual, and a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes and having resigned first after Chequers let alone the final Deal Davis is best placed to take over if No Deal
It would certainly provide some grim amusement to see someone who told us No Deal wouldn't be a disaster being left in charge of picking up the pieces, but sadly not enough amusement to compensate for the chaos, job losses, insolvencies, shortages, and the ensuing Corbyn government.
Davis PM, Boris back as Foreign Secretary, Gove Chancellor, Mogg or Raab at Business, Hunt DPM, Javid stays at Home.
Let those opposed to the Deal and backing No Deal make the running together with the careerists and if Corbyn forms a government shortly after let him then deal with the mess too.
May can enjoy a long cruise with Philip in retirement and several glasses of schadenfraude
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
You know the worst thing? May has actually emboldened Davis. He can claim "I'd have negotiated a Canada++++++ deal by now if it wasn't for that pesky saboteur Theresa May sabotaging the whole thing". It's impossible to disprove a counterfactual, and a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes and having resigned first after Chequers let alone the final Deal Davis is best placed to take over if No Deal
David Davis is a lazy fucker who is not fit to look after my cat, let alone the country.
Such unparliamentary language is unlike you Ms Cyclefree..
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
Actually the electorate prefers the Deal to No Deal or Remain in most polls after preferences
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
So what do you suggest she should do instead, that would get parliamentary support? A single-sentence answer will do.
Revoke Article 50?
Would that get a majority? Dunno. But it wouldn't be possible for a Conservative PM to do it.
Doesn’t that currently apply to every option. With a split Tory Party a Tory PM has limited room for manoeuvre. With her counting down the clock on the deal the problem worsens every day.
It's not her counting down the clock, though. She's all keen to get the deal agreed and to move on to the next stage. It's her opponents who are preventing that.
But, yes you are right, all options are impossible, which means that we are at very substantial risk of falling accidentally into the unquestionably worst of all the bad routes we could have taken.
Rather revealing read on what crap some universities will take for a PhD thesis these days,
Some Due Diligence On Aaron Bastani
Much of the thesis read less like academic research and more like the minutes of organizing demos written by a hanger-on, with excruciatingly detailed chronologies of meetings in pubs and retweets from the likes of Johann Hari. My first impression was that Bastani had conned a university into giving him a PhD for researching some demos organized by his friends, concluding from his ‘fieldwork’ (going on the demos with them) that – quelle surprise! – said friends were at the vanguard of a radical new way of organizing protest (largely coordinating online and tweeting hashtags).
But after discussing it with Sam and digging a little deeper, we realized it was a lot worse than that. Bastani had gone against his own caveats, misleading and omitting crucial information. He wasn’t simply researching his friends’ activities, and he wasn’t merely a hanger-on. In fact, he was just as much of a key player in these events as the people he was ‘researching’, and he had gone out of his way to hide it.
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
You know the worst thing? May has actually emboldened Davis. He can claim "I'd have negotiated a Canada++++++ deal by now if it wasn't for that pesky saboteur Theresa May sabotaging the whole thing". It's impossible to disprove a counterfactual, and a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes and having resigned first after Chequers let alone the final Deal Davis is best placed to take over if No Deal
It would certainly provide some grim amusement to see someone who told us No Deal wouldn't be a disaster being left in charge of picking up the pieces, but sadly not enough amusement to compensate for the chaos, job losses, insolvencies, shortages, and the ensuing Corbyn government.
As you can probably guess I am less worried by the last of those consequences of No Deal but I would not want to experience the others.
However, if we do end up with No Deal chaos I will enjoy hearing those on here who currently say No Deal will be painless, explain how they got it so wrong*.
(*I suspect it will still all be the fault of 'Remoaners' somehow.)
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
So what do you suggest she should do instead, that would get parliamentary support? A single-sentence answer will do.
Revoke Article 50?
Would that get a majority? Dunno. But it wouldn't be possible for a Conservative PM to do it.
Doesn’t that currently apply to every option. With a split Tory Party a Tory PM has limited room for manoeuvre. With her counting down the clock on the deal the problem worsens every day.
The Grieve amendment helps her, if EUref2 and Norway plus are also defeated in the Commons the Deal becomes the default alternative to No Deal
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
You know the worst thing? May has actually emboldened Davis. He can claim "I'd have negotiated a Canada++++++ deal by now if it wasn't for that pesky saboteur Theresa May sabotaging the whole thing". It's impossible to disprove a counterfactual, and a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes and having resigned first after Chequers let alone the final Deal Davis is best placed to take over if No Deal
It would certainly provide some grim amusement to see someone who told us No Deal wouldn't be a disaster being left in charge of picking up the pieces, but sadly not enough amusement to compensate for the chaos, job losses, insolvencies, shortages, and the ensuing Corbyn government.
Davis PM, Boris back as Foreign Secretary, Gove Chancellor, Mogg or Raab at Business, Hunt DPM, Javid stays at Home.
Let those opposed to the Deal and backing No Deal make the running together with the careerists and if Corbyn forms a government shortly after let him then deal with the mess too.
May can enjoy a long cruise with Philip in retirement and several glasses of schadenfraude
Oh sod it. Let's just go for complete broke and just put Grayling in as PM.
There is nothing May can do to get Parliament to support her deal. NOTHING.
At this point, I doubt there's anything anyone could do. Even somebody who wasn't a cold, inhumane, unempathic automaton with all the convincing power of a breeze block.
If she chooses instead to drive us over the cliff edge, then all power to her for respecting the referendum result finally. But I think Tory remainers will unite with Labour to VONC her before that happens.
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
You know the worst thing? May has actually emboldened Davis. He can claim "I'd have negotiated a Canada++++++ deal by now if it wasn't for that pesky saboteur Theresa May sabotaging the whole thing". It's impossible to disprove a counterfactual, and a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes and having resigned first after Chequers let alone the final Deal Davis is best placed to take over if No Deal
It would certainly provide some grim amusement to see someone who told us No Deal wouldn't be a disaster being left in charge of picking up the pieces, but sadly not enough amusement to compensate for the chaos, job losses, insolvencies, shortages, and the ensuing Corbyn government.
Davis PM, Boris back as Foreign Secretary, Gove Chancellor, Mogg or Raab at Business, Hunt DPM, Javid stays at Home.
Let those opposed to the Deal and backing No Deal make the running together with the careerists and if Corbyn forms a government shortly after let him then deal with the mess too.
May can enjoy a long cruise with Philip in retirement and several glasses of schadenfraude
I wonder if Javid and Hunt would want to be part of the disaster. They are not complete fools.
The thought has just occurred to me that May has perhaps gone mad after only two.
I, like many others, am astonished at May’s resilience given constant humiliations, a lack of conspicuous support, health issues, and a punishing schedule. But is it in fact possible that she has gone quite mad and will need to dragged spitting and foaming from office?
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It doesn't particularly matter what we think - the decisions that will be taken rest with May and parliament. Clearly the Tories should have booted her out as per @Alistair_Meeks well written piece when they had the chance; however they voted in that one on a completely different question where a lack of support for May's deal transposed to a vote against her office and a vote in favour of May came down to one of i) Wishing to stay on the payroll and not bearing the consciousness to lie about your vote for the remainder of her tenure ii) Being genuinely in favour of her deal from the backbenches iii) The hard remain contingent also voted for her most baffingly of all.
Number of MPs voting against her and in favour of her deal or remaining in the EU ? Approximately zero.
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
You know the worst thing? May has actually emboldened Davis. He can claim "I'd have negotiated a Canada++++++ deal by now if it wasn't for that pesky saboteur Theresa May sabotaging the whole thing". It's impossible to disprove a counterfactual, and a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes and having resigned first after Chequers let alone the final Deal Davis is best placed to take over if No Deal
It would certainly provide some grim amusement to see someone who told us No Deal wouldn't be a disaster being left in charge of picking up the pieces, but sadly not enough amusement to compensate for the chaos, job losses, insolvencies, shortages, and the ensuing Corbyn government.
As you can probably guess I am less worried by the last of those consequences of No Deal but I would not want to experience the others.
However, if we do end up with No Deal chaos I will enjoy hearing those on here who currently say No Deal will be painless, explain how they got it so wrong*.
(*I suspect it will still all be the fault of 'Remoaners' somehow.)
Of course, it will be the wrong sort of No Deal, with all the bad things caused by a lack of preparations, the substance of which is never specified.
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
You know the worst thing? May has actually emboldened Davis. He can claim "I'd have negotiated a Canada++++++ deal by now if it wasn't for that pesky saboteur Theresa May sabotaging the whole thing". It's impossible to disprove a counterfactual, and a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes and having resigned first after Chequers let alone the final Deal Davis is best placed to take over if No Deal
David Davis is a lazy fucker who is not fit to look after my cat, let alone the country.
Such unparliamentary language is unlike you Ms Cyclefree..
A sparing use of such epithets adds to their force.
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
So what do you suggest she should do instead, that would get parliamentary support? A single-sentence answer will do.
Revoke Article 50?
Would that get a majority? Dunno. But it wouldn't be possible for a Conservative PM to do it.
Has a better chance of passing than Mrs May's deal I think.
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
It is Labour, the SNP, the DUP, the LibDems and the ERG who are holding loaded revolvers to the country’s head. Theresa May and the government as a whole are trying to disarm them, unfortunately with little sign of success.
You're trying this again, Richard? When Mrs May drives the UK over the cliff edge it will be her choice.
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
So what do you suggest she should do instead, that would get parliamentary support? A single-sentence answer will do.
Revoke Article 50?
Would that get a majority? Dunno. But it wouldn't be possible for a Conservative PM to do it.
Doesn’t that currently apply to every option. With a split Tory Party a Tory PM has limited room for manoeuvre. With her counting down the clock on the deal the problem worsens every day.
It's not her counting down the clock, though. She's all keen to get the deal agreed and to move on to the next stage. It's her opponents who are preventing that.
But, yes you are right, all options are impossible, which means that we are at very substantial risk of falling accidentally into the unquestionably worst of all the bad routes we could have taken.
The deal was rejected in December. It has fundamental flaws that means it doesn’t command a majority . Bringing it back unchanged now, threatening chaos, is at best dumb at worst negligent. Her duty is to find something that passes, delay or revoke.
If we go to No Deal Davis could end up Tory leader and PM
You know the worst thing? May has actually emboldened Davis. He can claim "I'd have negotiated a Canada++++++ deal by now if it wasn't for that pesky saboteur Theresa May sabotaging the whole thing". It's impossible to disprove a counterfactual, and a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes and having resigned first after Chequers let alone the final Deal Davis is best placed to take over if No Deal
It would certainly provide some grim amusement to see someone who told us No Deal wouldn't be a disaster being left in charge of picking up the pieces, but sadly not enough amusement to compensate for the chaos, job losses, insolvencies, shortages, and the ensuing Corbyn government.
As you can probably guess I am less worried by the last of those consequences of No Deal but I would not want to experience the others.
However, if we do end up with No Deal chaos I will enjoy hearing those on here who currently say No Deal will be painless, explain how they got it so wrong*.
(*I suspect it will still all be the fault of 'Remoaners' somehow.)
Of course, it will be the wrong sort of No Deal.
I think rather that they will blame the WTO for failing to fulfil a role which it doesn't actually have.
Comments
You'd have got away with it if it wasn't for those pesky goalmouth cameras.
I think The Thick of It nails it, with a speech that identifies a country and a political class, which has given up on morality and simply pursues popularity at all costs.
Hence the focus on small differences. Hence the scalp-hunting. Hence the slow encroachment of what is essentially thought-crime into public debate.
Being a third country which was once a member does not mean that we will we be in some "special privileged ex-members of the club and therefore treated almost as well status".
I sometimes wonder if that's what some of the No Dealers think will happen: that things will continue much as they are now but without the horrid bits. There is a huge amount of wishful thinking going on, a belief that because we are Britain even if we leave we ought to be treated differently from any other third country. The EU could choose to do this, of course. They might be wise to do so. But they don't have to. And one can see why they might not - given the level of ill-informed abuse levelled in their general direction by senior British politicians who give every impression of believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden while being incapable of getting dressed without help.
Whatever happens now a large proportion of the electorate will be miffed and will say that this is not what they voted for. I'm inclined to say that - if Parliament won't vote for the deal or won't give the electorate another opportunity to vote - we should just bloody well revoke Article 50 and then go away into a darkened room for however long it takes and work out a coherent European strategy, for the world as it is and not for the world as it was, something we should have done long before now.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-congressman-adam-schiff-future-house-intelligence-committee
“One of the issues that has continued to concern me [is] the persistent allegations that the Trumps, when they couldn’t get money from US banks, were laundering Russian money...
Perhaps calling him 'little Schitt' wasn't the smartest of moves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRD0-UbBvFY
The chinese consumers are right ! Lenovo and Huawei in my household.
A travesty that was , the best politician in the UK by a country mile, brought down by perfidious unionists of Labour and Tory persuasions. He will see them get their comeuppance.
Nice to see you back by the way.
And, there were some pretty dodgy ones as well (eg Maudling, Thorpe, Stonehouse, Cyril Smith)
Centrism hollows out people and parties and leaves them unable to even properly explain what they're even for. Look at what it did to Blair.
The rapid rise of poujadist movements across the democratic world is a testament to the emptiness that centrism leaves in its wake, and the desperate desire to fill it with something -- *anything*.
When there is a lack of clarity in the body of the treaties, the ECJ will often fall back on the preliminaries for guidance.
But David Davis did it as well, confirming his excellent grasp of detail, which is why he was a success as Brexit Secretary.
David Davis has been mocked after claiming the UK will still be able to enter a post-Brexit transition phase even if it fails to reach a withdrawal agreement with the EU.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/foreign-affairs/brexit/news/99971/david-davis-criticised-over-brexit-transition-period-gaffe
Yet the Tories lack of big beasts is entirely baffling. All that expensive education, so little substance.
Bravo
(And before you start TSE, shush, I know PPE isn't a real subject and Oxford isn't a real university)
I don't know enough about the banking system to say why this happens, but it does seem a reasonable way of stopping the fraudsters and ner-do-wells.
Really talented people just don't seem to go into politics, these days. And, I think the answer was given upthread - your personal foibles are given far more scrutiny than is ever given to policy decisions.
An even then it's not, by and large, our brightest and best that choose to go into politics anyway?
And as the Economist pointed out recently, the UK educational-political axis promotes a worldview where bluster, bluff and bravado are preferred to actual knowledge, talent, wisdom.
The Brexiteer Buccaneers are a very severe case of this. The fact that they've apparently been wrong about everything, and demonstrably so on almost every aspect of international trade hasn't slowed them down one jot, given them a moment's pause for thought.
All they've done is doubled down on the bluster, bluff and bravado.
I, like many others, am astonished at May’s resilience given constant humiliations, a lack of conspicuous support, health issues, and a punishing schedule. But is it in fact possible that she has gone quite mad and will need to dragged spitting and foaming from office?
After all, she is currently holding a loaded revolver to the country’s head. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?
"There are around 96 packets of human excrement, urine and vomit left behind by the 12 astronauts who briefly called the Moon home."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ampstories/moonmess/index.html
Humankind really doesn't have a fecking clue.
(Says the bloke with a PPE degree!)
(Yes, seriously,)
But the Moon is as dead as dead. If there are any microbes in the sh*t, then they're the only life on the Moon, and therefore should be protected
We do not give in to blackmail.
The very fact that Parliament, Labour, Labour members, Tory members, Tory backbenchers and the electorate as a whole are all opposed to Mrs May's deal, does not give her any kind of moral cover to drive the UK over the cliff edge in a tantrum of chaos and destruction.
If we go over the cliff edge, it'll be her choice to do so, and she will rightly get the blame.
We don't give in to blackmail.
Is every Scot with ginger hair called Sandy?
Next?
I'm not sure where the golfballs fit into scientific research.
1. Totally sane. She is a doughty battler for what she sees as the national interest, fighting tooth & nail to ram her deal through because she has embraced the harsh reality that we don't get to leave the EU in one piece any other way. If she can't get it through, she will resign with honour and allow her replacement to delay Brexit for a referendum.
2. Sanity questionable. She is intoxicated by being PM and, national interest go hang yourself, will do whatever it takes to stay in the job. Plan A is get the deal through, obviously, but Plan B is to roll the dice, leave with no deal, it's no bluff, stay on and see how the cookie crumbles (or the dice fall rather).
I've been more of a (1) but am now inclined to (2).
That's like claiming Saxons and Celts are the same.
The Scots were Hibernian Celts (Irish) invaders who through a mix of marriage and conquest took over Pictland (interestingly, the book I'm currently reading, The Inheritance of Rome, suggests the Picts had a far better integrated and cohesive kingdom than anywhere else in the British Isles in the century or two after the Romans buggered off).
The only two ways she had to a majority from the beginning were keeping the ERG and DUP on board, or reaching out to the opposition. The first would probably have been futile, trying to reconcile the irreconcilable; the second might have been more fruitful if she had very obviously tried to progress toward a soft Brexit on a cross-party basis once she lost her majority. Even had she been rebuffed, having tried would put her in a stronger position for the end game, and could well have forced Labour's hand somewhat earlier.
Let those opposed to the Deal and backing No Deal make the running together with the careerists and if Corbyn forms a government shortly after let him then deal with the mess too.
May can enjoy a long cruise with Philip in retirement and several glasses of schadenfraude
But, yes you are right, all options are impossible, which means that we are at very substantial risk of falling accidentally into the unquestionably worst of all the bad routes we could have taken.
Some Due Diligence On Aaron Bastani
Much of the thesis read less like academic research and more like the minutes of organizing demos written by a hanger-on, with excruciatingly detailed chronologies of meetings in pubs and retweets from the likes of Johann Hari. My first impression was that Bastani had conned a university into giving him a PhD for researching some demos organized by his friends, concluding from his ‘fieldwork’ (going on the demos with them) that – quelle surprise! – said friends were at the vanguard of a radical new way of organizing protest (largely coordinating online and tweeting hashtags).
But after discussing it with Sam and digging a little deeper, we realized it was a lot worse than that. Bastani had gone against his own caveats, misleading and omitting crucial information. He wasn’t simply researching his friends’ activities, and he wasn’t merely a hanger-on. In fact, he was just as much of a key player in these events as the people he was ‘researching’, and he had gone out of his way to hide it.
http://www.jeremy-duns.com/blog/someduediligenceonaaronbastani
However, if we do end up with No Deal chaos I will enjoy hearing those on here who currently say No Deal will be painless, explain how they got it so wrong*.
(*I suspect it will still all be the fault of 'Remoaners' somehow.)
At this point, I doubt there's anything anyone could do. Even somebody who wasn't a cold, inhumane, unempathic automaton with all the convincing power of a breeze block.
If she chooses instead to drive us over the cliff edge, then all power to her for respecting the referendum result finally. But I think Tory remainers will unite with Labour to VONC her before that happens.
i) Wishing to stay on the payroll and not bearing the consciousness to lie about your vote for the remainder of her tenure
ii) Being genuinely in favour of her deal from the backbenches
iii) The hard remain contingent also voted for her most baffingly of all.
Number of MPs voting against her and in favour of her deal or remaining in the EU ? Approximately zero.
https://esrcpartymembersproject.org/2019/01/04/no-deal-is-better-than-mays-deal/