politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » If Corbyn wants to win the confidence of Labour MPs he need

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Eagles, he wasn't Caesar reborn.

Toppled a year after a memorable victory?

I've got a Dave is Caesar thread coming up in the next few days.

Is the follow up to this thread from February

Michael Gove could be set to play the role of Brutus to David Cameron’s Caesar

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/02/28/michael-gove-could-be-set-to-play-the-role-of-brutus-to-david-camerons-caesar/

Alistair said:

SouthamObserver said:

YellowSubmarine said:

Anecdata and analysis from an ex Diplomat. Worth considering in the context of the Downing St 'clarification ' of the Brexit Secretary's Dispatch Box statement. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/06/theresa-mays-frosty-reception-at-the-g20-shows-she-cannot-stonew/

This is the key:

“You Brits voted Brexit because you wanted to be taken seriously as an independent world power. Fine. Now, own it. Be serious. That means getting on with it.”

And the government cannot do that because it has no idea how to achieve what it wants - which is to keep all the benefits of being in the single market but to have full control over immigration.

It struck me this morning that the grammar school business is another Theresa may sop to the Tory right - a way to buy credit for that time when triggering A50 is no longer avoidable and the reality of the trade-offs we will have to make hit home. I expect other moves right over the coming months for the same reason. And none of it will work. A betrayed Tory EU-obsessive is an uncontrollable beast.

I don't think the Grammar school stuff is as calculated as that, I think may just likes grammar schools regardless of the evidence.

It creates a fight on which May is positioned with the vast majority of right wing anti-EU Tory obsessives. I may be cynical, but I can't help thinking that's where she wants to be right now because she knows what's coming once A50 is triggered.

Mr. Eagles, toppled? He toppled himself. And you forget that he was defeated on the EU because of his own many failures. The deal was worthless, its presentation as 'good' insulted the intelligence of everyone who heard it, he belittled the majority of the electorate with his 'little England' nonsense, he had no answer on migration. It was a catalogue of errors, a litany of complacency.

Mr. P, arrogant is not great, but ruthless is a very good attribute for a politician, surely?

SouthamObserver said:

Corbyn's only interest is the Labour party and building a mass movement of protest. PMQs are just 30 wasted minutes as far as he is concerned.

He and most of the population.

Mr. Chris, true, but most of the population don't get six questions a week.

david_herdson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

tlg86 said:

But Corbyn has already seen off one Tory leader, so he must be doing something right....

Doesn't count, Cameron had already announced his retirement before Corbyn became Labour leader.

Yes, retirement is the word I'm going to use, as opposed to the other r word, as I still haven't come to terms with Dave's *retirement*

Yes it does (sort of). Cameron might have pre-announced his retirement but that was for late in the parliament; it certainly wasn't intended to be for 2016.

Corbyn thus became the first Labour leader to witness a change of Conservative leadership since Blair and only the third since 1957.

Edit - fourth. Forgot Kinnock in 1990.

david_herdson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

tlg86 said:

But Corbyn has already seen off one Tory leader, so he must be doing something right....

Doesn't count, Cameron had already announced his retirement before Corbyn became Labour leader.

Yes, retirement is the word I'm going to use, as opposed to the other r word, as I still haven't come to terms with Dave's *retirement*

Yes it does (sort of). Cameron might have pre-announced his retirement but that was for late in the parliament; it certainly wasn't intended to be for 2016.

Corbyn thus became the first Labour leader to witness a change of Conservative leadership since Blair and only the third since 1957.

And since the non-Corbynite PLP blames the Eurosceptic Corbyn for losing the referendum, if this was indeed deliberate then Corbyn really has seen off David Cameron.

Jonathan said:

Who is this Cameron person people are talking about? If he ever was someone, he has very quickly been forgotten.

Apparently he was the future once.

Mr. Eagles, look on the bright side. At least the Conservatives don't have a Corbyn as leader.

Some fine collector's items of remainer bitterness this morning.

Hallmark chippiness and condescension.

And of course, the patent remainer crystal ball. We know the future. We just KNOW.

The disaster awaiting our puny and stupid little island jam full of racists and bigots is coming.

DecrepitJohnL said:

david_herdson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

tlg86 said:

But Corbyn has already seen off one Tory leader, so he must be doing something right....

Doesn't count, Cameron had already announced his retirement before Corbyn became Labour leader.

Yes, retirement is the word I'm going to use, as opposed to the other r word, as I still haven't come to terms with Dave's *retirement*

Yes it does (sort of). Cameron might have pre-announced his retirement but that was for late in the parliament; it certainly wasn't intended to be for 2016.

Corbyn thus became the first Labour leader to witness a change of Conservative leadership since Blair and only the third since 1957.

And since the non-Corbynite PLP blames the Eurosceptic Corbyn for losing the referendum, if this was indeed deliberate then Corbyn really has seen off David Cameron.

I'd agree. Corbyn's highly ambivalent attitude to the EURef may well have swung the vote. Of course, in a close vote, many things can swing the result but the left-wing anti-TTIP lobby might well have been a big enough group by itself to have made the difference. If not, it was certainly big enough to have gone a very long way to tipping it and Labour's lack of effective ground campaign, resulting from his ineffective leadership, should have accounted for the rest.

But the biggest failure had to be Cameron himself.

Jonathan said:

david_herdson said:

david_herdson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

tlg86 said:

But Corbyn has already seen off one Tory leader, so he must be doing something right....

Doesn't count, Cameron had already announced his retirement before Corbyn became Labour leader.

Yes, retirement is the word I'm going to use, as opposed to the other r word, as I still haven't come to terms with Dave's *retirement*

Yes it does (sort of). Cameron might have pre-announced his retirement but that was for late in the parliament; it certainly wasn't intended to be for 2016.

Corbyn thus became the first Labour leader to witness a change of Conservative leadership since Blair and only the third since 1957.

Edit - fourth. Forgot Kinnock in 1990.

So same as Tories then.

Cameron
Major
Thatcher
Macmillan

All 'Saw off Labour leaders'

Heath
Hague
IDS
Howard

Didn't.

True. But of both lists, none yet has seen off an opposing party leader and also failed to become PM / win an election before leaving office.

@rcs1000, the reason I think CETA is dead is because the French forced the commission into giving all 28 nations final right of ratification instead of just one signature from the commission. It is going to be a tough sell for all 28 nations to get it ratified when there is so much anti-EU/globalisation sentiment all over the continent. In a sense we are lucky that our post-Brexit settlement deal requires a QMV rather than unanimity.

The tories will soon realise they have a big problem with May. It could come as soon as today when MPs try to find out whatever the f8ck she believes about Brexit.

The truth, of course is that May believes anything that is seen as popular and successful, and is against anything that doesn;t work initially and is seen as unpopular.

She wants a soft brexit with a hard edge, or should I say a hard Brexit with distinctly soft characteristics. She wants free movement that isn;t THAT free. Or something. Advocators of hard Brexit are wrong, but that doesn;t mean soft brexiters should start celebrating.

Result? total confusion and lack of leadership. In Britain. Abroad. Everywhere.

UKIP jubilant.

When she was elected I posted Theresa May is UKIP's candidate of choice and I'm sticking with that.

Election in 2017? do me a favour. I'd like to see odds on May lasting until 2017.

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/TSEofPB/status/773435443727720448

What's pathological gambling? We're investors, not gamblers anyway.

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Eagles, he wasn't Caesar reborn.

Toppled a year after a memorable victory?

I've got a Dave is Caesar thread coming up in the next few days.

Is the follow up to this thread from February

Michael Gove could be set to play the role of Brutus to David Cameron’s Caesar

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/02/28/michael-gove-could-be-set-to-play-the-role-of-brutus-to-david-camerons-caesar/

Brutus stabbed Caesar, not Lepidus.

I know and I've also got the troubling issue of who plays Marcus Antonius, viz a viz Sam Cameron.

Wouldn't you like to know

*wanders off whistling*

taffys said:

The tories will soon realise they have a big problem with May. It could come as soon as today when MPs try to find out whatever the f8ck she believes about Brexit.

The truth, of course is that May believes anything that is seen as popular and successful, and is against anything that doesn;t work initially and is seen as unpopular.

She wants a soft brexit with a hard edge, or should I say a hard Brexit with distinctly soft characteristics. She wants free movement that isn;t THAT free. Or something. Advocators of hard Brexit are wrong, but that doesn;t mean soft brexiters should start celebrating.

Result? total confusion and lack of leadership. In Britain. Abroad. Everywhere.

UKIP jubilant.

When she was elected I posted Theresa May is UKIP's candidate of choice and I'm sticking with that.

Election in 2017? do me a favour. I'd like to see odds on May lasting until 2017.

Are you prepared to put your money where your mouth is on Theresa May not lasting until 2017?

There'll be lots of PBers willing to take your money.

Jonathan said:

Who is this Cameron person people are talking about? If he ever was someone, he has very quickly been forgotten.

There was an interesting article by Sandbrook in Newstatesman over the summer, arguing that (and I paraphrase) debating what way history will remember a PM is mainly nonsense, since most will basically be all but completely forgotten, except by a few parliamentary historians and PBers.

Manufacturing down -0.9%, industrial production up +0.1%, mixed picture really.

Scott_P said:

Back of the queue?

@GdnPolitics: No free trade deal until Brexit settled, says Australian minister https://t.co/1hUEfwwhrc

As we'd be breaking the law to do a trade deal before we leave the EU this is no surprise...

TheScreamingEagles said:

taffys said:

The tories will soon realise they have a big problem with May. It could come as soon as today when MPs try to find out whatever the f8ck she believes about Brexit.

The truth, of course is that May believes anything that is seen as popular and successful, and is against anything that doesn;t work initially and is seen as unpopular.

She wants a soft brexit with a hard edge, or should I say a hard Brexit with distinctly soft characteristics. She wants free movement that isn;t THAT free. Or something. Advocators of hard Brexit are wrong, but that doesn;t mean soft brexiters should start celebrating.

Result? total confusion and lack of leadership. In Britain. Abroad. Everywhere.

UKIP jubilant.

When she was elected I posted Theresa May is UKIP's candidate of choice and I'm sticking with that.

Election in 2017? do me a favour. I'd like to see odds on May lasting until 2017.

Are you prepared to put your money where your mouth is on Theresa May not lasting until 2017?

There'll be lots of PBers willing to take your money.

I'm not surprised May seems to be struggling to tell us what Brexit means - the charlatans who ran the Leave campaign couldn't tell us then and they can't now, so why should a reluctant Remainer who happens to be PM?

MaxPB said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/TSEofPB/status/773435443727720448

What's pathological gambling? We're investors, not gamblers anyway.

It's someone who does it more and worse than you.

PlatoSaid said:

The London Blitz began 75 years ago on 7 September 1940, and marked the start of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. https://t.co/EqpTNL95nj

Great Pathe footage

My Dad was three when it began. I remember my grandmother telling me about him shaking and crying in the bomb shelter as everything exploded above ground. It's extraordinary to think that it happened to people so close. The idea that both my Dad and grandmother (and the rest of the family) were literally sitting in a hole while bombs rained down on London is just so hard to get my head round. Likewise, the Dad of one of my closest friends lost his entire family at Auschwitz. He managed to get to Britain as part of the kinder transport project and was adopted into a middle class Christian family, but he grew up knowing everyone else he loved had been murdered by the Nazis. These are people I know and they were right in the middle of total horror - as appalling as anything that is happening now. No wonder WW2 is still so vivid in our collective memory and so hard to leave behind.

david_herdson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Eagles, he wasn't Caesar reborn.

Toppled a year after a memorable victory?

I've got a Dave is Caesar thread coming up in the next few days.

Is the follow up to this thread from February

Michael Gove could be set to play the role of Brutus to David Cameron’s Caesar

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/02/28/michael-gove-could-be-set-to-play-the-role-of-brutus-to-david-camerons-caesar/

Brutus stabbed Caesar, not Lepidus.

I know and I've also got the troubling issue of who plays Marcus Antonius, viz a viz Sam Cameron.

To have Marc Anthony (or Octavian for that matter), you need to have a Caesar Party. Where are the Cameroons contesting for power? The obvious Marc Anthony by positioning pre-leadership election would be Osborne but the disparity in popularity between Cameron after his departure and Caesar after his assassination means the dynamics don't really work.

You also have the question of where May retrofits. The best I can come up with is a not-dead Pompey.

Thinking about it a little more, you're too late in the story. Cameron is Crassus, not Caesar.

foxinsoxuk said:

MaxPB said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/TSEofPB/status/773435443727720448

What's pathological gambling? We're investors, not gamblers anyway.

Pathological gambling, like drinking or any other habit is when it starts to adversely impact on social functioning, psychological or physical health.

Gamblers are not risk averse people so I would not be surprised if gamblers had higher rates of other reckless behaviours, including getting into fights.

I am a risk averse gambler. I only bet on certainties!

SouthamObserver said:

PlatoSaid said:

The London Blitz began 75 years ago on 7 September 1940, and marked the start of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. https://t.co/EqpTNL95nj

Great Pathe footage

My Dad was three when it began. I remember my grandmother telling me about him shaking and crying in the bomb shelter as everything exploded above ground. It's extraordinary to think that it happened to people so close. The idea that both my Dad and grandmother (and the rest of the family) were literally sitting in a hole while bombs rained down on London is just so hard to get my head round. Likewise, the Dad of one of my closest friends lost his entire family at Auschwitz. He managed to get to Britain as part of the kinder transport project and was adopted into a middle class Christian family, but he grew up knowing everyone else he loved had been murdered by the Nazis. These are people I know and they were right in the middle of total horror - as appalling as anything that is happening now. No wonder WW2 is still so vivid in our collective memory and so hard to leave behind.

Very, very well put.

I think it will fade as the last generation to remember it directly or through close family pass on. My mother in particular felt enormously strongly (e.g. her cousin starved to death in siege of Leningrad). For me it's already at one remove, and I'm 66. She would never buy a single German item of any kind; I visit the country without a second thought. But we need to at least respect the enormous personal suffering in still-living memory, and respect it in whatever form it comes out- Israel is the obvious case, not just another country but a desperate last refuge, something to keep in mind however strongly we feel their Government may sometimes be inflicting new tragedies.

david_herdson said:

david_herdson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Eagles, he wasn't Caesar reborn.

Toppled a year after a memorable victory?

I've got a Dave is Caesar thread coming up in the next few days.

Is the follow up to this thread from February

Michael Gove could be set to play the role of Brutus to David Cameron’s Caesar

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/02/28/michael-gove-could-be-set-to-play-the-role-of-brutus-to-david-camerons-caesar/

Brutus stabbed Caesar, not Lepidus.

I know and I've also got the troubling issue of who plays Marcus Antonius, viz a viz Sam Cameron.

To have Marc Anthony (or Octavian for that matter), you need to have a Caesar Party. Where are the Cameroons contesting for power? The obvious Marc Anthony by positioning pre-leadership election would be Osborne but the disparity in popularity between Cameron after his departure and Caesar after his assassination means the dynamics don't really work.

You also have the question of where May retrofits. The best I can come up with is a not-dead Pompey.

Thinking about it a little more, you're too late in the story. Cameron is Crassus, not Caesar.

I've been writing that thread for nearly six weeks. It is a struggle, I think it's one of those pieces that ends up on the cutting room floor.

The last thing I want to do is a thread so historically inaccurate that people think Morris Dancer wrote it.

david_herdson said:

rottenborough said:

Jonathan said:

Who is this Cameron person people are talking about? If he ever was someone, he has very quickly been forgotten.

There was an interesting article by Sandbrook in Newstatesman over the summer, arguing that (and I paraphrase) debating what way history will remember a PM is mainly nonsense, since most will basically be all but completely forgotten, except by a few parliamentary historians and PBers.

Indeed. Most PMs are not remembered at all. Most of the rest are remembered for one thing only, and that negatively. A rare few are remembered for more than one thing and they tend to be the greats.

I reckon four are remembered.

Churchill, WW2
Attlee, NHS
Thatcher, First woman
Blair, Iraq

That's it. Other notables

Walpole
Disraeli
Gladstone
Lloyd George
Eden
Chamberlain

All largely forgotten now.

Jonathan said:

Thatcher, First woman

I'd argue that's about the last thing she's remembered for!

NickPalmer said:

SouthamObserver said:

PlatoSaid said:

The London Blitz began 75 years ago on 7 September 1940, and marked the start of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. https://t.co/EqpTNL95nj

Great Pathe footage

My Dad was three when it began. I remember my grandmother telling me about him shaking and crying in the bomb shelter as everything exploded above ground. It's extraordinary to think that it happened to people so close. The idea that both my Dad and grandmother (and the rest of the family) were literally sitting in a hole while bombs rained down on London is just so hard to get my head round. Likewise, the Dad of one of my closest friends lost his entire family at Auschwitz. He managed to get to Britain as part of the kinder transport project and was adopted into a middle class Christian family, but he grew up knowing everyone else he loved had been murdered by the Nazis. These are people I know and they were right in the middle of total horror - as appalling as anything that is happening now. No wonder WW2 is still so vivid in our collective memory and so hard to leave behind.

Very, very well put.

I think it will fade as the last generation to remember it directly or through close family pass on. My mother in particular felt enormously strongly (e.g. her cousin starved to death in siege of Leningrad). For me it's already at one remove, and I'm 66. She would never buy a single German item of any kind; I visit the country without a second thought. But we need to at least respect the enormous personal suffering in still-living memory, and respect it in whatever form it comes out- Israel is the obvious case, not just another country but a desperate last refuge, something to keep in mind however strongly we feel their Government may sometimes be inflicting new tragedies.

Yep, I could not agree more. But I think this is something that people in Europe - and inside the Commission especially - have often struggled with when it comes to the UK. On an abstract level you can understand frustration that something that ended over 70 years ago has not yet been left behind, but our experience of WW2 - though not in any way more horrific and appalling - was very different to everyone else's, as was the end of Empire self-questioning and confusion it left behind.

Hmm. Which Roman emperors would people say are remembered?

MikeK said:

Corbyn is essentially a backroom boy by nature, and a rabble rouser by desire. Sadly for Labour, not a leader.

No, Ed Miliband was a backroom boy, not a leader. Corbyn is a perennial protestor, not a leader.

Morris_Dancer said:

Hmm. Which Roman emperors would people say are remembered?

Constantine The Great. A true Yorkshireman.

John_M said:

SouthamObserver said:

PlatoSaid said:

The London Blitz began 75 years ago on 7 September 1940, and marked the start of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. https://t.co/EqpTNL95nj

Great Pathe footage

My Dad was three when it began. I remember my grandmother telling me about him shaking and crying in the bomb shelter as everything exploded above ground. It's extraordinary to think that it happened to people so close. The idea that both my Dad and grandmother (and the rest of the family) were literally sitting in a hole while bombs rained down on London is just so hard to get my head round. Likewise, the Dad of one of my closest friends lost his entire family at Auschwitz. He managed to get to Britain as part of the kinder transport project and was adopted into a middle class Christian family, but he grew up knowing everyone else he loved had been murdered by the Nazis. These are people I know and they were right in the middle of total horror - as appalling as anything that is happening now. No wonder WW2 is still so vivid in our collective memory and so hard to leave behind.

My Mum's family moved to Wembley after my Grandad was killed in France (my other Grandad was killed in N. Africa in '42). She was then immediately evacuated to the Midlands and came back just in time for the V-1 campaign. WW2 is still sort of 'real' for me in a way that it isn't for my kids.

Yep - two vivid memories from my childhood are all the bombsites that still had not been developed and the number of middle aged blokes you saw with one leg or one arm. Both now totally unimaginable to my kids.

Morris_Dancer said:

Hmm. Which Roman emperors would people say are remembered?

The mad, the bad and the mad one that got stabbed. Nero, Caligula and Julius Caesar.

When I was a child we had a Telegram from San Francisco from my Great Uncle. It was telling my Nana's family he was alive and had reached the US after being liberated from a Japanese POW camp. They hadn't heard from him in over two years and feared the worst.

When ever any mention of Japan or Japanese goods came on TV my Nana would explode with a tirade of Japanese cities that should have been A Bombed. She denounced the Allies for being so soft on the Japanese by only using two A Bombs.

PlatoSaid said:

The London Blitz began 75 years ago on 7 September 1940, and marked the start of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. https://t.co/EqpTNL95nj

Great Pathe footage

And it won us the war - had the Germans concentrated on the airfields and our industrial capability while they had the capability they would have won.

I see Tsonga retired injured against Djokavic.

If I was Djokavic's next opponent I'd be searching out for a rabbit's foot and some four leaf clover.

HYUFD said:

taffys said:

The tories will soon realise they have a big problem with May. It could come as soon as today when MPs try to find out whatever the f8ck she believes about Brexit.

The truth, of course is that May believes anything that is seen as popular and successful, and is against anything that doesn;t work initially and is seen as unpopular.

She wants a soft brexit with a hard edge, or should I say a hard Brexit with distinctly soft characteristics. She wants free movement that isn;t THAT free. Or something. Advocators of hard Brexit are wrong, but that doesn;t mean soft brexiters should start celebrating.

Result? total confusion and lack of leadership. In Britain. Abroad. Everywhere.

UKIP jubilant.

When she was elected I posted Theresa May is UKIP's candidate of choice and I'm sticking with that.

Election in 2017? do me a favour. I'd like to see odds on May lasting until 2017.

May will do neither soft nor hard BREXIT, what she will agree is migration controls but leaving enough limited free movement to allow limited single market access. That will be enough for the majority of the country however it will annoy hardcore Remainers, particularly the LDs, as well as hard BREXIT backers, particularly UKIP but she win without the support of either, especially with Labour still in the grips of Corbyn and McDonnell

It will be enough for the majority of the country but how about for the majority of Conservative voters?

@Morris Dancer - Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, Trajan, Hadrian, Diocletian and Constantine the Great.

Following 1066 And All That principles, I have rejected others for being insufficiently memorable. Domitian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Septimus Severus, Elegabalus, Julian the Apostate, Theodosius and Honorius are borderline.

Casino_Royale said:

YellowSubmarine said:

The previous thread header was fantastic. My thanks to Harry Hayfield. On Brexit Watch more sabre rattling over the Single Market. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/06/ubs-warns-1500-jobs-could-vanish-from-london-after-brexit/

My banking friend says this is nonsense.

It's your banking friend who's talking nonsense. Ermotti did say this. And UBS - in common with all banks - does have various contingency plans for the post-Brexit era, depending on what UK/EU deal is done. And some of those contingency plans do involve having some jobs/legal entities within the EU, if that proves necessary.

Banks will wait but they won't wait for ever. Strategic plans are made; budgets agreed and there is always a lead time for any big decisions, not least because of all the legal, regulatory, capital and other implications of any significant move.

The City of London is not going to decamp en masse to Dublin, Paris or Frankfurt but only a fool would think that Brexit - in whatever form it finally takes - is not going to have some impact, some of it bad and some of it good.

It is also worth noting that banks are continually cutting costs and making redundancies and are doing so now. This is driven by factors other than Brexit. The markets are tough and expensive capital cannot be allocated to marginally profitable or unprofitable activities. All such decisions are made as a result of a variety of factors: strategic repositioning, shareholder demands, market factors etc and that applies as much to the post-Brexit era as it does now.

TheScreamingEagles said:

SimonStClare said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Hmm. Which Roman emperors would people say are remembered?

The mad, the bad and the mad one that got stabbed. Nero, Caligula and Julius Caesar.

Caesar was never Emperor.

Well I know that and you know that, but that’s who the ‘people’ will remember +Derek Jacobi.

Mr. Pulpstar, isn't today's news from July?

Alistair said:

HYUFD said:

taffys said:

The tories will soon realise they have a big problem with May. It could come as soon as today when MPs try to find out whatever the f8ck she believes about Brexit.

The truth, of course is that May believes anything that is seen as popular and successful, and is against anything that doesn;t work initially and is seen as unpopular.

She wants a soft brexit with a hard edge, or should I say a hard Brexit with distinctly soft characteristics. She wants free movement that isn;t THAT free. Or something. Advocators of hard Brexit are wrong, but that doesn;t mean soft brexiters should start celebrating.

Result? total confusion and lack of leadership. In Britain. Abroad. Everywhere.

UKIP jubilant.

When she was elected I posted Theresa May is UKIP's candidate of choice and I'm sticking with that.

Election in 2017? do me a favour. I'd like to see odds on May lasting until 2017.

May will do neither soft nor hard BREXIT, what she will agree is migration controls but leaving enough limited free movement to allow limited single market access. That will be enough for the majority of the country however it will annoy hardcore Remainers, particularly the LDs, as well as hard BREXIT backers, particularly UKIP but she win without the support of either, especially with Labour still in the grips of Corbyn and McDonnell

It will be enough for the majority of the country but how about for the majority of Conservative voters?

Over 40% of Conservative voters voted Remain and polling has shown that, unlike UKIP voters a majority of Conservative voters would accept a limited free movement, limited single market access deal. About a third of Tory voters want full, hard BREXIT but about 20% of Labour voters do too so May can take the risk as with Labour about 10% behind the Tories in present polling UKIP threaten them more than the Tories even if slightly more Tories than Labour voters shift to the Kippers

Miss Plato, bah. I'd prefer Vaz to Umunna.

Mr. Jonathan, Hadrian*.

Poor Antoninus. He built a wall, and nobody remembers it.

Mr. Pulpstar, I meant the report is from today, but the data upon which it is based is from economic activity in July.