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  • TGOHF2TGOHF2 Posts: 584
    Who is advising these Remainer parties - they choose worst options at every turn.
  • DecrepitJohnLDecrepitJohnL Posts: 13,300
    edited September 2019

    HYUFD said:

    David Miliband's pay rises to $911,976 a year, 5 times what Boris makes as PM, for running the International Rescue charity in Manhattan

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7516155/Million-dollar-Miliband-Former-Labour-Ministers-pay-soars-911-000-refugee-charity.html

    If we add up all of Boris' additional employment throughout the first half of 2019 I am sure he will make Milliband look church-mouse poor!

    And please Boris apologists, I don't want to see the figures proving that Boris and Carrie are getting by on Univeral Credit.
    Boris was trousering five-figure sums for corporate speeches.
    https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/190916/johnson_boris.htm
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,387
    AndyJS said:

    My hunch is the Tories won't win a majority at the next election because of bad results in Remain areas combined with not winning enough Labour Leave constituencies although they will win some of them.

    Fair point, but let's face it anything from a Johnson landslide to a Corbyn minority and anything inbetween could be the outcome.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,869
    HYUFD said:

    AndyJS said:

    My hunch is the Tories won't win a majority at the next election because of bad results in Remain areas combined with not winning enough Labour Leave constituencies although they will win some of them.

    There are more marginal Labour Leave seats than marginal Tory Remain seats
    All of these seats have Tory remainers (like you were, once) living in them.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,151

    HYUFD said:

    David Miliband's pay rises to $911,976 a year, 5 times what Boris makes as PM, for running the International Rescue charity in Manhattan

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7516155/Million-dollar-Miliband-Former-Labour-Ministers-pay-soars-911-000-refugee-charity.html

    If we add up all of Boris' additional employment throughout the first half of 2019 I am sure he will make Milliband look church-mouse poor!

    And please Boris apologists, I don't want to see the figures proving that Boris and Carrie are getting by on Univeral Credit.
    Boris was trousering five-figure sums for corporate speeches.
    https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/190916/johnson_boris.htm
    Even adding up all those speeches earnings etc Boris was still not earning as much as Miliband is now (excluding of course speeches and earnings Miliband made in addition to that as well)
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,151
    IanB2 said:

    HYUFD said:

    AndyJS said:

    My hunch is the Tories won't win a majority at the next election because of bad results in Remain areas combined with not winning enough Labour Leave constituencies although they will win some of them.

    There are more marginal Labour Leave seats than marginal Tory Remain seats
    All of these seats have Tory remainers (like you were, once) living in them.
    And I am still voting and campaigning for the Tories to beat Corbyn Labour
  • Their number 64 hit “remaining dreams” might not go down too well :smiley:
    They were shit when they were 'famous'. Still shit now.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,869

    Noo said:

    SunnyJim said:

    Noo said:


    Canvassing for Labour? Why would I do that when I don't even vote for them?
    You thick fuck.

    Hahaha...rattled much?
    Yup. I'm 100% rattled by the rise of authoritarianism in this country. You rattle me. You scare the shit out of me. I have no problem admitting that. Anyone who has a passing familiarity with the methods and history of authoritarianism is rightly frightened right now.
    But understand this. My fear of the likes of you will not be manifest in capitulation. I will never submit to your stinking, toxic vision of what this country should be. ¡No pasarán!
    I never thought I would ever think this but I’m slowly, very slowly coming round to the idea of PR.

    We need to protect against an authoritarian executive. Absolutely. We also need to protect against an elective dictatorship either in itself or derived from parliament.

    The possibility of gaining an absolute majority on as little as 35% of the popular vote is absurd.

    Likewise a parliament running from putting itself to a general election as the country is ungovernable is also absurd.

    I need more nudging away from FPTP but I’m getting there.
    PR could make things even worse. See Israel this week if you think PR will prevent authoritarian prime ministers with minority votes.
    The difference is that PR prevents (or makes considerably more difficult) the seizing of majority power from a minority vote. In Israel other parties are having to help the PM across the line, just as Hitler was helped into office in the 1930s. Under anything like FPTnP they’d have a majority straight off.
  • Boris wants to appoint his own Supreme Court judges.
    Those consequences may well, Mr Johnson suggests, include putting the UK on a path to a US-style system, under which supreme court judges are overtly political appointees.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/28/boris-johnson-interview-surrender-act-like-abject-capitulation/

    Hands up any pb-ers who expected this from Corbyn's Labour!
  • For those with a Times subscription:

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/jennifer-arcuri-told-friends-of-affair-with-boris-johnson-h8m7wlpg2

    More detail in the article of money/grants to Arcuri's business from public funds.
  • GIN1138 said:

    I think the idea that Remainers could make the Speaker PM to stop Brexit (and I'm sure this idea is floating around somewhere) shows that Remainers are basically finished.

    They've run out of ideas and are now thrashing around looking for the most bizarre, unlikely and implausible of scenario's to try and halt Brexit.

    Boris and Cummings have destroyed Remain. Probably.
    There was me, that is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel, and my three droogs, that is Priti, Govey, and Dom, and we sat in the Kensington Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Kensington Milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus Corn Syrup or GM Soya or Chlorinated Chicken, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old No-Deal Brexit!
    Clockwork Orange...?
    "Well, put it this way, I feel very low in myself. I can't see much in the future, and I feel that any second something terrible is going to happen to me."
  • NooNoo Posts: 2,380
    nico67 said:

    Putting this bizarre story aside . Bozo has certainly united the opposition and is despised, the problem for him is he’s also now despised by a number of backbench Tories .

    It’s all out war now with the public now the collateral damage as I fear things are going to become even more polarized and toxic .

    If done right, the coup de grace can be applied next week, and the only collateral damage should be that teetering bulb of dread, Cummings.
    I've given up caring who gets installed in Downing Street. Clarke, Grieve, Corbyn, Starmer, Swinson. Fuck it, put Joanna Cherry in charge. As long as it's somebody other than the bastard offspring of John Profumo and Charles I, I'm not going to get too fussy.
    Send the letter, fend off No Deal, then put it to the people. My vote will go to anyone who is involved in saving us from this self-serving prat Boris and his winged monkey.
  • SunnyJimSunnyJim Posts: 1,106
    IanB2 said:


    All of these seats have Tory remainers (like you were, once) living in them.

    If the GE comes after we have left then Tory remainers aren't going to be voting on the basis of Brexit.

    They will be voting to stop Corbyn.

    It all boils down to when the GE is of course but remainer MPs are going to find it very difficult to create any plausible excuse for not supporting a deal when they claim the greatest risk is no deal.

    They will be exposed as partisan game players...not that the country hasn't already sussed them out.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,151
    SunnyJim said:

    IanB2 said:


    All of these seats have Tory remainers (like you were, once) living in them.

    If the GE comes after we have left then Tory remainers aren't going to be voting on the basis of Brexit.

    They will be voting to stop Corbyn.

    It all boils down to when the GE is of course but remainer MPs are going to find it very difficult to create any plausible excuse for not supporting a deal when they claim the greatest risk is no deal.

    They will be exposed as partisan game players...not that the country hasn't already sussed them out.
    Voters prefer even No Deal to Corbyn as PM

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7516023/Voters-prefer-short-term-disruption-No-Deal-Brexit-Jeremy-Corbyn-Government.html
  • For those with a Times subscription:

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/jennifer-arcuri-told-friends-of-affair-with-boris-johnson-h8m7wlpg2

    More detail in the article of money/grants to Arcuri's business from public funds.

    I've not paid Murdoch's shilling but if the ST is leading on sex rather than money, it suggests they've not yet found a smoking gun, however persuasive the circumstantial evidence.
  • SunnyJimSunnyJim Posts: 1,106
    So remainers are exploring all available options to censure a terrible Prime Minister...

    ...except a VoNC.
  • ozymandiasozymandias Posts: 1,503

    GIN1138 said:

    I think the idea that Remainers could make the Speaker PM to stop Brexit (and I'm sure this idea is floating around somewhere) shows that Remainers are basically finished.

    They've run out of ideas and are now thrashing around looking for the most bizarre, unlikely and implausible of scenario's to try and halt Brexit.

    Boris and Cummings have destroyed Remain. Probably.
    There was me, that is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel, and my three droogs, that is Priti, Govey, and Dom, and we sat in the Kensington Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Kensington Milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus Corn Syrup or GM Soya or Chlorinated Chicken, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old No-Deal Brexit!
    Clockwork Orange...?
    "Well, put it this way, I feel very low in myself. I can't see much in the future, and I feel that any second something terrible is going to happen to me."
    I've seen things you remainers wouldn't believe. Trade deals on fire off the shoulder of China. I watched legislative independence glitter in the dark near the Brandenberg Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to Leave.
  • nico67nico67 Posts: 4,502
    Noo said:

    nico67 said:

    Putting this bizarre story aside . Bozo has certainly united the opposition and is despised, the problem for him is he’s also now despised by a number of backbench Tories .

    It’s all out war now with the public now the collateral damage as I fear things are going to become even more polarized and toxic .

    If done right, the coup de grace can be applied next week, and the only collateral damage should be that teetering bulb of dread, Cummings.
    I've given up caring who gets installed in Downing Street. Clarke, Grieve, Corbyn, Starmer, Swinson. Fuck it, put Joanna Cherry in charge. As long as it's somebody other than the bastard offspring of John Profumo and Charles I, I'm not going to get too fussy.
    Send the letter, fend off No Deal, then put it to the people. My vote will go to anyone who is involved in saving us from this self-serving prat Boris and his winged monkey.
    I feel your pain . Although the opposition has managed to unite to try and stop a no deal the numbers to win a VONC are still difficult . Only a few of the 21 Tory rebels will support that at the moment .
  • SunnyJim said:

    So remainers are exploring all available options to censure a terrible Prime Minister...

    ...except a VoNC.
    TBF I'm sure they're exploring that one as well, but you have to be a little bit careful that you've worked out what happens next: The system is built around the assumption that the outgoing PM will do his job in accordance with the rules, some of which are quite vague, and current guy, who has a history of fraud, has threatened to abuse his position.
  • GIN1138 said:

    I think the idea that Remainers could make the Speaker PM to stop Brexit (and I'm sure this idea is floating around somewhere) shows that Remainers are basically finished.

    They've run out of ideas and are now thrashing around looking for the most bizarre, unlikely and implausible of scenario's to try and halt Brexit.

    Boris and Cummings have destroyed Remain. Probably.
    There was me, that is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel, and my three droogs, that is Priti, Govey, and Dom, and we sat in the Kensington Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Kensington Milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus Corn Syrup or GM Soya or Chlorinated Chicken, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old No-Deal Brexit!
    Clockwork Orange...?
    "Well, put it this way, I feel very low in myself. I can't see much in the future, and I feel that any second something terrible is going to happen to me."
    I've seen things you remainers wouldn't believe. Trade deals on fire off the shoulder of China. I watched legislative independence glitter in the dark near the Brandenberg Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to Leave.
    It is a period of civil war. Remainer spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil TORY EMPIRE. During the battle, Remainer spies managed to steal secret plans to the Tories' ultimate weapon, the NO DEAL BREXIT, an armoured space station with enough power to destroy an entire nation's economy.

    Pursued by the Tories' sinister agents, Princess Nicola Heidi Jo races home aboard her battle-bus, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her Party and restore Freedom of Movement to the Continent...
  • SunnyJimSunnyJim Posts: 1,106
    nico67 said:


    I feel your pain . Although the opposition has managed to unite to try and stop a no deal the numbers to win a VONC are still difficult . Only a few of the 21 Tory rebels will support that at the moment .

    Eh?

    It is Labour that are running away from the electorate, a VoNC would sail through if they supported it.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,869
    Watching the sun set over the Tennessee river in Chattanooga, and cursing Bozo for having driven the £ down on the foreign exchanges once again.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    IanB2 said:

    Watching the sun set over the Tennessee river in Chattanooga, and cursing Bozo for having driven the £ down on the foreign exchanges once again.

    Those 20% tips are annoying.
  • IanB2 said:

    Watching the sun set over the Tennessee river in Chattanooga, and cursing Bozo for having driven the £ down on the foreign exchanges once again.

    It increases the number of £s for the Euromillions jackpot though.
  • NooNoo Posts: 2,380
    nico67 said:

    Noo said:

    nico67 said:

    Putting this bizarre story aside . Bozo has certainly united the opposition and is despised, the problem for him is he’s also now despised by a number of backbench Tories .

    It’s all out war now with the public now the collateral damage as I fear things are going to become even more polarized and toxic .

    If done right, the coup de grace can be applied next week, and the only collateral damage should be that teetering bulb of dread, Cummings.
    I've given up caring who gets installed in Downing Street. Clarke, Grieve, Corbyn, Starmer, Swinson. Fuck it, put Joanna Cherry in charge. As long as it's somebody other than the bastard offspring of John Profumo and Charles I, I'm not going to get too fussy.
    Send the letter, fend off No Deal, then put it to the people. My vote will go to anyone who is involved in saving us from this self-serving prat Boris and his winged monkey.
    I feel your pain . Although the opposition has managed to unite to try and stop a no deal the numbers to win a VONC are still difficult . Only a few of the 21 Tory rebels will support that at the moment .
    I'm not impatient, like some people. At the moment they've got Boris by his tiny little balls, and he's riffling through the authoritarianism playbook to find moves to squirm free. But he can't without breaking the law or giving up with one thing he so desperately wants, to be in charge. I'm quite content for them to let him flap about uselessly, but now it seems that Boris is ready to actually lash out and do some real harm, using his platform to whip up the mob, then it's probably time enough to give him the old heave ho.
  • I don't know how unusual this is, but I noticed that at 8.30pm this evening it was raining over 100% of Wales, which I thought was quite interesting. There are three days of rain weather warnings for Wales to go...
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,131

    IanB2 said:

    Watching the sun set over the Tennessee river in Chattanooga, and cursing Bozo for having driven the £ down on the foreign exchanges once again.

    It increases the number of £s for the Euromillions jackpot though.
    All together now:

    "Making the ruler smaller does not make your dick bigger"

    The value in money is what you can buy with it... :(
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,131
    SunnyJim said:

    So remainers are exploring all available options to censure a terrible Prime Minister...

    ...except a VoNC.
    Indeed. Everybody thinks the cat is terrible. Nobody wants to bell the cat. The cat is unimpressed.
  • viewcode said:

    IanB2 said:

    Watching the sun set over the Tennessee river in Chattanooga, and cursing Bozo for having driven the £ down on the foreign exchanges once again.

    It increases the number of £s for the Euromillions jackpot though.
    All together now:

    "Making the ruler smaller does not make your dick bigger"

    The value in money is what you can buy with it... :(
    Sure, but if the £ sterling is only temporarily weak (in reaction to political antics) and then strengthens after you've won your inflated number of £s (in reaction to different political antics) then I think you would have been fortunate with the timing of various political antics.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,869
    AndyJS said:

    IanB2 said:

    Watching the sun set over the Tennessee river in Chattanooga, and cursing Bozo for having driven the £ down on the foreign exchanges once again.

    Those 20% tips are annoying.
    A lot of checks (bills) come with “tip guidance” running up to 22 or even 25% now.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,215
    Trump looks to be absolutely smashing the Democrats weak as piss impeachment narrative out the park. I'm a general backer of the Dems as anyone sane is at the polling and current prices but my God are they fucking this up
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,869
    Pulpstar said:

    Trump looks to be absolutely smashing the Democrats weak as piss impeachment narrative out the park. I'm a general backer of the Dems as anyone sane is at the polling and current prices but my God are they fucking this up

    Trump has today gone nationwide with TV adds laying into the Dems
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,131
    Things are getting nasty... :(

  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,936
    Pulpstar said:

    Trump looks to be absolutely smashing the Democrats weak as piss impeachment narrative out the park. I'm a general backer of the Dems as anyone sane is at the polling and current prices but my God are they fucking this up

    2D chess? :p
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,936

    GIN1138 said:

    I think the idea that Remainers could make the Speaker PM to stop Brexit (and I'm sure this idea is floating around somewhere) shows that Remainers are basically finished.

    They've run out of ideas and are now thrashing around looking for the most bizarre, unlikely and implausible of scenario's to try and halt Brexit.

    Boris and Cummings have destroyed Remain. Probably.
    There was me, that is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel, and my three droogs, that is Priti, Govey, and Dom, and we sat in the Kensington Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Kensington Milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus Corn Syrup or GM Soya or Chlorinated Chicken, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old No-Deal Brexit!
    Clockwork Orange...?
    "Well, put it this way, I feel very low in myself. I can't see much in the future, and I feel that any second something terrible is going to happen to me."
    I've seen things you remainers wouldn't believe. Trade deals on fire off the shoulder of China. I watched legislative independence glitter in the dark near the Brandenberg Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to Leave.
    It is a period of civil war. Remainer spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil TORY EMPIRE. During the battle, Remainer spies managed to steal secret plans to the Tories' ultimate weapon, the NO DEAL BREXIT, an armoured space station with enough power to destroy an entire nation's economy.

    Pursued by the Tories' sinister agents, Princess Nicola Heidi Jo races home aboard her battle-bus, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her Party and restore Freedom of Movement to the Continent...
    So the government does have a plan? :D
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited September 2019
    Instead of Jeremy Corbyn or Ken Clarke being proposed as a potential PM next week, why not Jo Swinson?
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    Pulpstar said:

    Trump looks to be absolutely smashing the Democrats weak as piss impeachment narrative out the park. I'm a general backer of the Dems as anyone sane is at the polling and current prices but my God are they fucking this up

    Isn't trying to impeach a president just 13 months before an election an implicit admittance that you fear he may win that election? If you were confident of winning, you wouldn't bother impeaching this close to polling day.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,131
    AndyJS said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Trump looks to be absolutely smashing the Democrats weak as piss impeachment narrative out the park. I'm a general backer of the Dems as anyone sane is at the polling and current prices but my God are they fucking this up

    Isn't trying to impeach a president just 13 months before an election an implicit admittance that you fear he may win that election? If you were confident of winning, you wouldn't bother impeaching this close to polling day.
    Yes, and yes. It's arguably justified by messing up Trump's OODA loop, but unless they have a case for impeachment, *and* if the charge is serious enough to endanger his Presidency, then it may backfire.
  • AndyJS said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Trump looks to be absolutely smashing the Democrats weak as piss impeachment narrative out the park. I'm a general backer of the Dems as anyone sane is at the polling and current prices but my God are they fucking this up

    Isn't trying to impeach a president just 13 months before an election an implicit admittance that you fear he may win that election? If you were confident of winning, you wouldn't bother impeaching this close to polling day.
    Only if you view it as a purely political process, and not a criminal one.

    If the house thinks there is a serious probablity that he has committed "high crimes", they have a moral obligation to act regardless of where we are in the political cycle
  • AndyJS said:

    Instead of Jeremy Corbyn or Ken Clarke being proposed as a potential PM next week, why not Jo Swinson?

    Because with the best will in the world, Jo Swinson has not got the numbers. There cannot be a GNU. Negotiations would be too hard. There can be a minority Labour government or, as now, a minority Conservative government. Those are the choices.
  • AndyJS said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Trump looks to be absolutely smashing the Democrats weak as piss impeachment narrative out the park. I'm a general backer of the Dems as anyone sane is at the polling and current prices but my God are they fucking this up

    Isn't trying to impeach a president just 13 months before an election an implicit admittance that you fear he may win that election? If you were confident of winning, you wouldn't bother impeaching this close to polling day.
    In this case there's a reasonably well-founded suspicion that he'll abuse his office to win the said election by cheating, so yes, but that underlines the urgency of impeaching.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,616
    HYUFD said:

    David Miliband's pay rises to $911,976 a year, almost 5 times what Boris makes as PM and almost 6 times what Corbyn makes as Leader of the Opposition, for running the International Rescue charity in Manhattan

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7516155/Million-dollar-Miliband-Former-Labour-Ministers-pay-soars-911-000-refugee-charity.html

    All that money AND he gets to shag Lady Penelope......
  • AndyJS said:

    Instead of Jeremy Corbyn or Ken Clarke being proposed as a potential PM next week, why not Jo Swinson?

    Because with the best will in the world, Jo Swinson has not got the numbers. There cannot be a GNU. Negotiations would be too hard. There can be a minority Labour government or, as now, a minority Conservative government. Those are the choices.
    I don't think this is right. The requirements for keeping a government together are:
    1) It gives each party something they want
    2) Nobody gets more by collapsing it
    3) It doesn't require anyone to commit to anything their supporters hate

    Lab and ex-Con want brexit out of the way or stopped, SNP and LD want it stopped. Lab don't want an early election (lose many seats), ex-Con don't want an election (lose all the seats). So as long as it's heading for a referendum to satisfy SNP and LD, I think it could hold.

    However, Corbyn and Swinson both fail (3), and Clarke might as well, hence the importance of the none-of-the-parties options: Sylvia Hermon, or possibly Bercow.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,616

    Noo said:

    SunnyJim said:

    Noo said:


    Canvassing for Labour? Why would I do that when I don't even vote for them?
    You thick fuck.

    Hahaha...rattled much?
    Yup. I'm 100% rattled by the rise of authoritarianism in this country. You rattle me. You scare the shit out of me. I have no problem admitting that. Anyone who has a passing familiarity with the methods and history of authoritarianism is rightly frightened right now.
    But understand this. My fear of the likes of you will not be manifest in capitulation. I will never submit to your stinking, toxic vision of what this country should be. ¡No pasarán!
    I never thought I would ever think this but I’m slowly, very slowly coming round to the idea of PR.

    We need to protect against an authoritarian executive. Absolutely. We also need to protect against an elective dictatorship either in itself or derived from parliament.

    The possibility of gaining an absolute majority on as little as 35% of the popular vote is absurd.

    Likewise a parliament running from putting itself to a general election as the country is ungovernable is also absurd.

    I need more nudging away from FPTP but I’m getting there.
    To a system where your power potentially becomes more powerful the less seats you have.

    If you want to lie awake with worry for democracy in this country, imagine the power broking that goes on with this possible scenario:

    Tories 170,
    Labour 150,
    LibDems 120,
    Brexit 80,
    Greens 40,
    SNP 20,
    NI Unionists 7,
    Plaid 6,
    Sinn Fein 7,
    NI Alliance 4,
    National Front 20,
    Yorkshire First 8,
    Mebyon Kernow 2,
    Ratepayers 16.
  • AndyJS said:

    Instead of Jeremy Corbyn or Ken Clarke being proposed as a potential PM next week, why not Jo Swinson?

    Because with the best will in the world, Jo Swinson has not got the numbers. There cannot be a GNU. Negotiations would be too hard. There can be a minority Labour government or, as now, a minority Conservative government. Those are the choices.
    I don't think this is right. The requirements for keeping a government together are:
    1) It gives each party something they want
    2) Nobody gets more by collapsing it
    3) It doesn't require anyone to commit to anything their supporters hate

    Lab and ex-Con want brexit out of the way or stopped, SNP and LD want it stopped. Lab don't want an early election (lose many seats), ex-Con don't want an election (lose all the seats). So as long as it's heading for a referendum to satisfy SNP and LD, I think it could hold.

    However, Corbyn and Swinson both fail (3), and Clarke might as well, hence the importance of the none-of-the-parties options: Sylvia Hermon, or possibly Bercow.
    So what are this GNU's policies? Health? Tax? Defence? And so on. Trying to form a stable coalition is just too hard even if you call it a GNU. By the time they'd agreed Plaid Cymru's demand for three junior ministers and the nationalised jam company to print bilingual labels, we'd have left the EU already.

    If the LibDems (and SNP and the rest) are serious about stopping Brexit, they need to support a minority Labour government that will extend Article 50 and call an election, and do nothing else. That is the only game in town.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,616

    AndyJS said:

    Instead of Jeremy Corbyn or Ken Clarke being proposed as a potential PM next week, why not Jo Swinson?

    Because with the best will in the world, Jo Swinson has not got the numbers. There cannot be a GNU. Negotiations would be too hard. There can be a minority Labour government or, as now, a minority Conservative government. Those are the choices.
    I don't think this is right. The requirements for keeping a government together are:
    1) It gives each party something they want
    2) Nobody gets more by collapsing it
    3) It doesn't require anyone to commit to anything their supporters hate

    Lab and ex-Con want brexit out of the way or stopped, SNP and LD want it stopped. Lab don't want an early election (lose many seats), ex-Con don't want an election (lose all the seats). So as long as it's heading for a referendum to satisfy SNP and LD, I think it could hold.

    However, Corbyn and Swinson both fail (3), and Clarke might as well, hence the importance of the none-of-the-parties options: Sylvia Hermon, or possibly Bercow.
    So what are this GNU's policies? Health? Tax? Defence? And so on. Trying to form a stable coalition is just too hard even if you call it a GNU. By the time they'd agreed Plaid Cymru's demand for three junior ministers and the nationalised jam company to print bilingual labels, we'd have left the EU already.

    If the LibDems (and SNP and the rest) are serious about stopping Brexit, they need to support a minority Labour government that will extend Article 50 and call an election, and do nothing else. That is the only game in town.
    Except, Labour doesn't want to play pass the parcel bomb of being the party that just extends Article 50 and calls an election where it is within a couple of points of the LibDems and a significant way behind the Tories.

    It wants the Tories still to be in office on 31st October, with no options but to be legally required to extend. That is their dream scenario. Why the non-Labour MPs in Westminster voted for a Benn Bill that really only helps out Labour remains one of the mysteries of the age. And what happens on 1st November? Do they pass Benn Act 2 - that when we get to 31st January, another extension - to 2022? Or do they cotton on to the fact that their games have fused the Tory-Brexit vote into one 40%+ solid slab of mightily pissed off voters that they will be crushed by? In the meantime, owning every job lost due to uncertainty, every investment cancelled - even owning the resulting recession? For a general election when, exactly?

  • So what are this GNU's policies? Health? Tax? Defence? And so on. Trying to form a stable coalition is just too hard even if you call it a GNU. By the time they'd agreed Plaid Cymru's demand for three junior ministers and the nationalised jam company to print bilingual labels, we'd have left the EU already.

    If the LibDems (and SNP and the rest) are serious about stopping Brexit, they need to support a minority Labour government that will extend Article 50 and call an election, and do nothing else. That is the only game in town.

    Health: Don't privatise or nationalise anything, act like it's purdah but with more money, as per the Tory unfunded pre-election spending splurge
    Tax: Leave it alone, new spending will come from the Tories' unfunded pre-election spending splurge
    Defence: New purchasing decisions, army reforms etc on hold as if it's purdah, no new wars unless everyone agrees
  • By the time they'd agreed Plaid Cymru's demand for three junior ministers and the nationalised jam company to print bilingual labels, we'd have left the EU already.

    This is where I think people's thinking has failed to catch up with the reality of a sizable ex-Con group. When the opposition had a majority of -1 and was relying on some heroic Tory going kamikaze, this would have been absolutely correct. If everyone has a veto, there's no way to hold the thing together.

    But then Boris strapped a load of his less yamato-damashi-driven pilots into their planes and launched them into the air, and they're now flying around free to decide whose ship they want to crash into. The opposition parties have quite a respectable majority. You need the leaderships of ex-con, LD, Lab and SNP on the same page for a 6-month programme, which certainly isn't trivial, but it's still well within the bounds of normal political log-rolling.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,616


    So what are this GNU's policies? Health? Tax? Defence? And so on. Trying to form a stable coalition is just too hard even if you call it a GNU. By the time they'd agreed Plaid Cymru's demand for three junior ministers and the nationalised jam company to print bilingual labels, we'd have left the EU already.

    If the LibDems (and SNP and the rest) are serious about stopping Brexit, they need to support a minority Labour government that will extend Article 50 and call an election, and do nothing else. That is the only game in town.

    Health: Don't privatise or nationalise anything, act like it's purdah but with more money, as per the Tory unfunded pre-election spending splurge
    Tax: Leave it alone, new spending will come from the Tories' unfunded pre-election spending splurge
    Defence: New purchasing decisions, army reforms etc on hold as if it's purdah, no new wars unless everyone agrees
    And when PM Corbyn orders the nuclear subs to return to base and their missiles to be unloaded and stored? Is that outside purdah?

    If Argentina sails for the Falklands - can we defend them? Or can the one Green MP block that defence?

    HS2 - going ahead, stopped, suspended? Purdah says what?

    Heathrow expansion? Purdah?

    And Brexit?
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708
    edited September 2019


    And when PM Corbyn orders the nuclear subs to return to base and their missiles to be unloaded and stored? Is that outside purdah?

    If Argentina sails for the Falklands - can we defend them? Or can the one Green MP block that defence?

    HS2 - going ahead, stopped, suspended? Purdah says what?

    Heathrow expansion? Purdah?

    And Brexit?

    There's no PM Corbyn, that doesn't work, as I've said. Green wouldn't have a veto on a response but Labour would. If Corbyn didn't want to go I expect the government would collapse at that point and everybody would realign on Falklands issues...

    On HS2 I imagine there's ongoing work that contines unless there's an explicit government decision to suspend work, so that would continue, but whatever would have happened for a long election campaign followed by a long coalition negotiation, do that. Likewise Heathrow expansion.

    Government can function for quite a long time without a lot of ideological direction, in some countries without even having a government. This happens routinely in Britain for purdah. 6 months or so would be fine.

    Brexit is the whole point of the exercise, the solution is TMay-Barnier WA + softer PD + referendum.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,914
    HYUFD said:

    SunnyJim said:

    IanB2 said:


    All of these seats have Tory remainers (like you were, once) living in them.

    If the GE comes after we have left then Tory remainers aren't going to be voting on the basis of Brexit.

    They will be voting to stop Corbyn.

    It all boils down to when the GE is of course but remainer MPs are going to find it very difficult to create any plausible excuse for not supporting a deal when they claim the greatest risk is no deal.

    They will be exposed as partisan game players...not that the country hasn't already sussed them out.
    Voters prefer even No Deal to Corbyn as PM

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7516023/Voters-prefer-short-term-disruption-No-Deal-Brexit-Jeremy-Corbyn-Government.html
    MOS extrapolations taken from Ashcrofts 'poll' This piece of 'research' was based on the answer of one person in a focus group. If makes Scottish subsamples look like the gold standard


    ‘They seem to have made up a law and found Boris guilty of breaking it,’ as one put it. More telling, for them, is who brought the case in the first place. ‘The people bringing these lawsuits have got money,’ one of our focus group participants observed. ‘It’s like they’ve got an extra vote somehow. They have their own interests and they’re not interested in us at all. Your vote, my vote is meaningless because it can be undermined by people of influence.’
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,616


    And when PM Corbyn orders the nuclear subs to return to base and their missiles to be unloaded and stored? Is that outside purdah?

    If Argentina sails for the Falklands - can we defend them? Or can the one Green MP block that defence?

    HS2 - going ahead, stopped, suspended? Purdah says what?

    Heathrow expansion? Purdah?

    And Brexit?

    There's no PM Corbyn, that doesn't work, as I've said. Green wouldn't have a veto on a response but Labour would. If Corbyn didn't want to go I expect the government would collapse at that point and everybody would realign on Falklands issues...

    On HS2 I imagine there's ongoing work that contines unless there's an explicit government decision to suspend work, so that would continue, but whatever would have happened for a long election campaign followed by a long coalition negotiation, do that. Likewise Heathrow expansion.

    Government can function for quite a long time without a lot of ideological direction, in some countries without even having a government. This happens routinely in Britain for purdah. 6 months or so would be fine.

    Brexit is the whole point of the exercise, the solution is TMay-Barnier WA + softer PD + referendum.
    And what happens when this unelected cabal delivers this Brexit in name only - at an annnual cost very similar to the membership fees we currently pay? And the referendum is boycotted by the Conservatives and Brexit parties, pledging to overturn this deal after the upcoming election - and building 30 hospitals in marginal constituencies with the money saved? Who is served by this BINO? Not business. Not the EU. Not democracy.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708
    edited September 2019


    And what happens when this unelected cabal delivers this Brexit in name only - at an annnual cost very similar to the membership fees we currently pay? And the referendum is boycotted by the Conservatives and Brexit parties, pledging to overturn this deal after the upcoming election - and building 30 hospitals in marginal constituencies with the money saved? Who is served by this BINO? Not business. Not the EU. Not democracy.

    If the referendum is boycotted then Remain will win it. The Tories and BXP then have to fight the next election on ignoring the more recent referendum, opening the whole can of worms again and doing many more years of brexit pychodrama.

    There definitely is a market for many more years of brexit psychodrama, but if you're Corbyn you'd much rather fight that election than the one Johnson is trying to set up, with brexit unresolved, and a position that doesn't appeal to anyone, and Johnson getting the "just get it sorted" vote.

    Alternatively the Leave side may decide to contest the referendum. If Leave wins then brexit is one issue of many (Con will pledge to change the PD and the argument will be sovereignty vs jobs) and Corbyn et al can take the credit for actually delivering it, where three Tory Prime Ministers failed. If Remain wins then the Tories have to run awkwardly on "we fought this referendum and lost but it was invalid" or on "tell you what, best of three". Alternatively they drop it and their brexitiest voters hate them. These are all much better for Corbyn than the status quo.
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