Meanwhile I am having fun with a customer's accounts clerk. He's got aggressive for non-payment of invoices which we never received. Now that I've been sent copies there is a rather obvious maths error on one of them. Am working calmly with the buyer to quickly resolve it and this guy keeps jumping back in defending a number which a chimpanzee with a calculator can see isn't correct.
I see that today is going to be the day that Major's adultery is going to be used as an excuse for not listening to or thinking about any of the points he makes.
Since none us is perfect - or, if you prefer, without sin - we can never criticise anyone else at all, let alone Boris. Which is very convenient for him.
A bit of a bummer in a democracy, mind you. Oh well.
When I become unDictator of the UK I will, of course appoint myself Head of the Supreme Court.
Since attacking the decisions of the Supreme Court is a vile attack on the law & democracy, it will of course be punishable by life without parole.
So all my decisions.....
Any flaws you can see with this plan?
Why appoint yourself when @Cyclefree would do better?
For the rest, I don't care as long as I am Secretary of State for Education with capital powers over all civil servants.
Three local by-elections today. A Lib Dem defence in Eastleigh, an Ind defence in Somerset West and Taunton, and a Con defence in Wealden. It is possible all could be Lib Dem tomorrow.
I see that today is going to be the day that Major's adultery is going to be used as an excuse for not listening to or thinking about any of the points he makes.
Since none us is perfect - or, if you prefer, without sin - we can never criticise anyone else at all, let alone Boris. Which is very convenient for him.
A bit of a bummer in a democracy, mind you. Oh well.
His adultery has nothing to do with it. Major’s attempt to annul democracy by cancelling the Brexit referendum and rerunning it, because he “didn’t like the result” very much DOES. He’s repulsive. They all are. All the 2nd voters. And they shall not be allowed to forget it, until they die, and then we shall remind their children, and their grandchildren
It was @Aslan and @Taz who specifically referenced his adultery. Not Brexit. You did that.
Still, let's ignore opinions because of who gives them eh. Always a good idea that. Just as you yourself pointed out over that BNP chap and grooming gangs. Or did you say the opposite? It's hard to keep up sometimes.
His attitude to Brexit is 100% germane, here. His adultery is not. I don’t give a toss who he shags or does not shag, never did.
But if he is going to make lofty superior speeches about “trust in British politics” well then yes his outrageous reaction to the Brexit vote comes into our purview. How can it not. He tried to betray British politics. He tried to do something far far worse than the oafish Boris has ever done
This cannot be wished away. What we need is some of the 2nd voters to start saying SORRY. Only then can the poison be lanced
Absolutely it is a stain on the collective moral character of the UK.
And also, I put forward that the next GE shall be the last one. Ever. Because it is no good having the British people changing their mind every four or five years. They will make a decision and must stick with it until the heat death of the universe.
You haven't seen the amendment planned for the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill when it returns to the Commons. It's a small change and replaces the word five with hundred in 4 places.
When does Wales announce modification / scrapping of COVID regs?
As soon as some photos of Covid rule- busting parties in the Senedd are released.
Guernsey scrapping ALL COVID regs a week today without any scandal requiring diversion from.
Just wait until the next iteration of the 'party' photos. This time we got to see a bottle, next time the shot is widened to reveal the Chief Minister* doing Jägerbombs. Guernsey are always ahead of the curve, including dropping the dead cat Covid restrictions before the scandal
*in the interests of not libelling the Chief Minister, I wish to make it clear that in my opinion the picture has been photoshopped and he was not present
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
David Cameron, addressing the British people, in late 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
Now, i know this makes a lot of people on this site deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
They need to deal with it, own it, confess, say sorry, and we all move on
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
The true spirit of Brexit.
It’s nothing to do with Brexit per se. It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
i guess Americans should just shrug and say Oh well Biden won anyway, let’s forget January 6…?
Of course they shouldn’t. Nor should we forget what happened in the UK, post 2016
You really can't let brexit go can you? You need help. You are addicted.
What we need is some of those who told us about all the good things to come from Brexit - like Jacob Rees-Mogg, for instance - to actually implement them. Instead of writing pathetic articles in the Sun some six years later asking us to tell him what he should do.
Dear Jacob, you ask what EU regulation would I like to get rid of. What about VAT on energy bills? Yours sincerely Chris Bryant
I see that today is going to be the day that Major's adultery is going to be used as an excuse for not listening to or thinking about any of the points he makes.
Since none us is perfect - or, if you prefer, without sin - we can never criticise anyone else at all, let alone Boris. Which is very convenient for him.
A bit of a bummer in a democracy, mind you. Oh well.
When I become unDictator of the UK I will, of course appoint myself Head of the Supreme Court.
Since attacking the decisions of the Supreme Court is a vile attack on the law & democracy, it will of course be punishable by life without parole.
So all my decisions.....
Any flaws you can see with this plan?
Yes - I should be the Dictator. 😁
No no. unDictator. Being a Dictator is very unBritish (think Roderick Spode).
The title would be some like the "Lord Deputy Advisor To The Second Privy". Due to legislation combined with the entire of Parliament being accidentally sent on the first manned mission to Pluto, I will temporarily keep things running.
Anyone who calls me Dictator will be attacking the Head of the Supreme Court etc etc...
If you want to be called "Lord Deputy Advisor to the Second Toilet" be my guest.
Can I design the gardens please? After sacking Cressida and various others on my list.
Meanwhile I am having fun with a customer's accounts clerk. He's got aggressive for non-payment of invoices which we never received. Now that I've been sent copies there is a rather obvious maths error on one of them. Am working calmly with the buyer to quickly resolve it and this guy keeps jumping back in defending a number which a chimpanzee with a calculator can see isn't correct.
I see that today is going to be the day that Major's adultery is going to be used as an excuse for not listening to or thinking about any of the points he makes.
Since none us is perfect - or, if you prefer, without sin - we can never criticise anyone else at all, let alone Boris. Which is very convenient for him.
A bit of a bummer in a democracy, mind you. Oh well.
His adultery has nothing to do with it. Major’s attempt to annul democracy by cancelling the Brexit referendum and rerunning it, because he “didn’t like the result” very much DOES. He’s repulsive. They all are. All the 2nd voters. And they shall not be allowed to forget it, until they die, and then we shall remind their children, and their grandchildren
It was @Aslan and @Taz who specifically referenced his adultery. Not Brexit. You did that.
Still, let's ignore opinions because of who gives them eh. Always a good idea that. Just as you yourself pointed out over that BNP chap and grooming gangs. Or did you say the opposite? It's hard to keep up sometimes.
His attitude to Brexit is 100% germane, here. His adultery is not. I don’t give a toss who he shags or does not shag, never did.
But if he is going to make lofty superior speeches about “trust in British politics” well then yes his outrageous reaction to the Brexit vote comes into our purview. How can it not. He tried to betray British politics. He tried to do something far far worse than the oafish Boris has ever done
This cannot be wished away. What we need is some of the 2nd voters to start saying SORRY. Only then can the poison be lanced
Absolutely it is a stain on the collective moral character of the UK.
And also, I put forward that the next GE shall be the last one. Ever. Because it is no good having the British people changing their mind every four or five years. They will make a decision and must stick with it until the heat death of the universe.
You haven't seen the amendment planned for the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill when it returns to the Commons. It's a small change and replaces the word five with hundred in 4 places.
Really? That's quite a dramatic change. In the original draft the word 'hundred' was added in, not substituted.
Tho that does not explain the odd size and tilting (however the latter could be a lens effect, as you say)
It's all decidedly fishy as when these photos first emerged there was no tinsel or bottle. So someone edited them out, then put them back in? WTF?
At this late decadent stage of partygate, it could be anyone doing anything. It could be some guy in a Croydon basement making photos for the lolz
Brilliant twitter conversation
I think it's the same game as the Andrew/Virginia thing - photoshop him out, then claim he was photoshopped *in*. It is not the case that the Mirror ever published the no-bottle photo, that's misdirection.
Yes, could be
However I certainly would not rule out my explanation. Release a doctored, more innocent, bottle-free image first, get Boris to say Oh it was a Zoom call, not a party, you can tell from the photo - THEN release the real photo, with tinsel and bottle, and make Boris look even more of a liar, and elongate the "scandal" by another week or two
I reckon the photo without the tinsel and bottle is the genuine one. Boris's people then photoshopped on the bottle and the tinsel and then leaked it to the Mirror. They then disseminated the innocent original one on social media. This is straight out of the Putin playbook: bombard everyone with so much confusion and fakery that in the end no one knows what to believe and just gives up.
I'm tending to @IshmaelZ's explanation.... probably
The doctored photo is the one without the bottle and the tinsel. You can tell. It isn't even doctored very well (see below). The removal of the bottle and tinsel have left blurs and lacunae, it's quite poorly done
The question then is: who did it? Did the Mirror really publish this badly doctored image, ever? There is no proof they did, so it is more likely someone has taken the doctored image and stuck MIRROR EXCLUSIVE on top of it, to cast doubt on the whole of partygate and on the Mirror
Note that the original tweet which kicked this all off came from a Boris fan account.
Fabulously murky. And this points to quite a scary and imminent future: in a couple of years photoshopping will be a billion times better than this, thanks to GPT82, and so we will never be able to distinguish between the fakes and reality. Ominous.
And if there isn’t someone with a palette of oils doing a painting on the spot, we will never have proof that anything actually happened.
Just to add, if the Mirror actually did publish the doctored image, then they are in deep shit
But, I don't think they did
The fact that doctored photos are being used in a weird way in an attempt to bring down the PM is not good.
I don't think that's a fact.
Well someone has definitely doctored the photo
Yeah, to muddy the waters. It seems obvious that the one without the bottle or tinsel is the one that has been altered. Quite how that is bringing down the PM is beyond me.
I dont think we can be 100% sure that both photos are not doctored.
If you look at the architrave behind the bottle, in the one where the bottle is missing the architrave extends much further than where the bottle would cover it up.
There's no evidence that the photo with the bottle is fake. There's plenty of evidence the other one is.
How do you explain the architrave being in view when if you had removed the bottle there would be no architrave to see.
I think something else smaller has been removed and the bottle then added.
Someone made a half-arsed attempt to conceal the removal of the bottle? It's obvious the tinsel and bottle have been removed from the original photo.
No doubt about that, but if you had the skills to add the achitrave back in you would added it in completely, not partially
Well quite, but the fact is they didn't have the skills, as is obvious from the clear manipulation of the original image.
But either what was removed from the original photo was much smaller than the champagne bottle, or someone partially and professionally added the architrave back in, when it would have been just as easy to add it fully back in. I have no doubt that both photos are photoshopped
The photo with the bottle is definitely not photoshopped, can you provide any evidence to show that it is?
Of course he can. Boris told parliament there were no parties. Boris never lies. Therefore this image of him at a party must be photoshopped.
Unless the Tories have a clear poll lead next year, there is zero chance of a 2023 general election. Brown of course did not hold an early general election because he trailed Cameron's Tories in the polls after Osborne's IHT cut proposal. Major also delayed holding general elections as long as possible for the full 5 years in 1992 and 1997 as he trailed Labour in polls.
Thatcher and Blair only held early general elections as they were ahead in the polls, same with May in 2017 and Boris in 2019. I therefore do not expect the next general election to be until Spring 2024.
The only way there would be a general election next year is if the Tories got a clear poll lead again under Boris or a new leader
The other benefit of a Spring '24 election is the possibility to deploy a feelgood tax cut.
But the key thing is that if the Conservatives are on track to lose (and that's a smaller if than it seemed a few months back), they are duty-bound to hang on as long as they can. Anything can happen at backgammon and all that.
What's the latest possible date under the new rules?
Dissolution would be 17th December 2024 (which is a Sunday, so in reality it would be whichever day in the week ending Friday 15th leads to a GE on a Thursday).
FTPA specifies parliament dissolves 17 working days before the election but the Electoral Commission says 25, and it seems to have been 25 in 2019. So my best guess based on what I see at the moment is Thursday 11th January 2025.
Is this right? 17th December 2024 is a Tuesday on my calendar? And the twenty five working days is right, but because of Christmas there are a lot of bank holidays. Doesn't Scotland have 2nd January 2025 as a bank holiday too? Given its a UK GE, you couldn't really ignore this.
I'm not sure if its 25 clear days (ignoring dissolution and the election day itself)? Tuesday 28th January 2025?
I see that today is going to be the day that Major's adultery is going to be used as an excuse for not listening to or thinking about any of the points he makes.
Since none us is perfect - or, if you prefer, without sin - we can never criticise anyone else at all, let alone Boris. Which is very convenient for him.
A bit of a bummer in a democracy, mind you. Oh well.
His adultery has nothing to do with it. Major’s attempt to annul democracy by cancelling the Brexit referendum and rerunning it, because he “didn’t like the result” very much DOES. He’s repulsive. They all are. All the 2nd voters. And they shall not be allowed to forget it, until they die, and then we shall remind their children, and their grandchildren
It was @Aslan and @Taz who specifically referenced his adultery. Not Brexit. You did that.
Still, let's ignore opinions because of who gives them eh. Always a good idea that. Just as you yourself pointed out over that BNP chap and grooming gangs. Or did you say the opposite? It's hard to keep up sometimes.
His attitude to Brexit is 100% germane, here. His adultery is not. I don’t give a toss who he shags or does not shag, never did.
But if he is going to make lofty superior speeches about “trust in British politics” well then yes his outrageous reaction to the Brexit vote comes into our purview. How can it not. He tried to betray British politics. He tried to do something far far worse than the oafish Boris has ever done
This cannot be wished away. What we need is some of the 2nd voters to start saying SORRY. Only then can the poison be lanced
Promoting a vote to confirm the Brexit deal was NOT cancelling democracy, no matter how many times you repeat that rubbish to ease your own pain.
Maybe, if the f*cking shambles of a 'deal' Johnson signed-up to had been put to a vote the British electorate would have cast their democratic opinion on its uselessness.
If the second referendum had been deal v more negotiations, you would be right.
But it wasn't going to be. It was going to be deal v remain, therefore discarding the result of the first referendum without implementing it.
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
The true spirit of Brexit.
It’s nothing to do with Brexit per se. It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
i guess Americans should just shrug and say Oh well Biden won anyway, let’s forget January 6…?
Of course they shouldn’t. Nor should we forget what happened in the UK, post 2016
You really can't let brexit go can you? You need help. You are addicted.
It’s not that he can’t let Brexit go - it’s a topical issue currently affecting real lives and livelihoods, as well as politics - it’s that he is still obsessed with the historical issues of the 2016 campaign and vote, and the leaving of the EU, when all of these are done and dusted.
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
David Cameron, addressing the British people, in late 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
Now, i know this makes a lot of people on this site deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
They need to deal with it, own it, confess, say sorry, and we all move on
And it - the referendum vote - has been.
Now about those Brexit promises which were made?
Because I'm guessing - a wild guess here - that those unfulfilled promises, the broken promises and the admission that they don't know what to do now is making some people feel a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
Russia: Liz Truss is a joke. UK: Oi Russia! We're going to send Liz Truss over there right away. Russia: Assuming she can find the place, sure! Let's see how that goes for her...
As far as I'm concerned, anyone who pisses off the Soviet Union Russian government is okay in my book.
Russia is the number one enemy of this country. They have launched indiscriminate terrorist acts in this country with no regard to any 'collateral' damage they did. One British citizen died, and two seriously injured (as well as there two targets).
They can fuck off. Reagan was right about lobbing one in the men's toilets in the Kremlin.
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
David Cameron, addressing the British people, in late 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
Now, i know this makes a lot of people on this site deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
They need to deal with it, own it, confess, say sorry, and we all move on
It is remarkable how seamlessly Harold Wilson smuggled in to the constitution both the utterly foreign idea of the referendum, and a load of made up on the spot traditions to go with it, one of which is that the PM utters these constitution-defying lies about the referendum in your pocket. It was the decision of the Crown in Parliament, irregardless of the second-hand lies of a smarmy Old Etonian.
Unless the Tories have a clear poll lead next year, there is zero chance of a 2023 general election. Brown of course did not hold an early general election because he trailed Cameron's Tories in the polls after Osborne's IHT cut proposal. Major also delayed holding general elections as long as possible for the full 5 years in 1992 and 1997 as he trailed Labour in polls.
Thatcher and Blair only held early general elections as they were ahead in the polls, same with May in 2017 and Boris in 2019. I therefore do not expect the next general election to be until Spring 2024.
The only way there would be a general election next year is if the Tories got a clear poll lead again under Boris or a new leader
The other benefit of a Spring '24 election is the possibility to deploy a feelgood tax cut.
But the key thing is that if the Conservatives are on track to lose (and that's a smaller if than it seemed a few months back), they are duty-bound to hang on as long as they can. Anything can happen at backgammon and all that.
What's the latest possible date under the new rules?
Dissolution would be 17th December 2024 (which is a Sunday, so in reality it would be whichever day in the week ending Friday 15th leads to a GE on a Thursday).
FTPA specifies parliament dissolves 17 working days before the election but the Electoral Commission says 25, and it seems to have been 25 in 2019. So my best guess based on what I see at the moment is Thursday 11th January 2025.
Is this right? 17th December 2024 is a Tuesday on my calendar? And the twenty five working days is right, but because of Christmas there are a lot of bank holidays. Doesn't Scotland have 2nd January 2025 as a bank holiday too? Given its a UK GE, you couldn't really ignore this.
I'm not sure if its 25 clear days (ignoring dissolution and the election day itself)? Tuesday 28th January 2025?
Yes, I corrected that error a couple of hours ago.
I see that today is going to be the day that Major's adultery is going to be used as an excuse for not listening to or thinking about any of the points he makes.
Since none us is perfect - or, if you prefer, without sin - we can never criticise anyone else at all, let alone Boris. Which is very convenient for him.
A bit of a bummer in a democracy, mind you. Oh well.
When I become unDictator of the UK I will, of course appoint myself Head of the Supreme Court.
Since attacking the decisions of the Supreme Court is a vile attack on the law & democracy, it will of course be punishable by life without parole.
So all my decisions.....
Any flaws you can see with this plan?
Yes - I should be the Dictator. 😁
No no. unDictator. Being a Dictator is very unBritish (think Roderick Spode).
The title would be some like the "Lord Deputy Advisor To The Second Privy". Due to legislation combined with the entire of Parliament being accidentally sent on the first manned mission to Pluto, I will temporarily keep things running.
Anyone who calls me Dictator will be attacking the Head of the Supreme Court etc etc...
If you want to be called "Lord Deputy Advisor to the Second Toilet" be my guest.
Can I design the gardens please? After sacking Cressida and various others on my list.
In the spirit of Putin I was thinking more of a High Inquisitor kind of role to offer.
If someone starts enjoying government a bit to much*, then I will need someone to sort them out.....
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
David Cameron, addressing the British people, in late 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
Now, i know this makes a lot of people on this site deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
They need to deal with it, own it, confess, say sorry, and we all move on
But David Cameron was a detestable two-faced rat, wasn't he? In fact, he went to the same school as Boris Johnson... Enough said.
When he said that, he thought his campaign was going to win. A walkover. Another triumph for D. Cameron.
But apart from that, he was making it all up. Such a commitment to a "once and for ever" vote never appeared in any legislation, did it?
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
David Cameron, addressing the British people, in late 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
Now, i know this makes a lot of people on this site deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
They need to deal with it, own it, confess, say sorry, and we all move on
And it has been.
Now about those Brexit promises which were made?
Because I'm guessing - a wild guess here - that those unfulfilled promises, the broken promises and the admission that they don't know what to do now is making some people feel a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
Not remotely. I agree with the noble ex-PBer @SeanT who wrote in the Spectator in October 2016 that Brexit would be like having a baby. Painful, bloody, unpleasant… and explicitly dismissed the airy Leaver promises:
“Thirdly, there will be blood. Brexit is going to be painful, like childbirth. It just is. The Leave quacks who promised a brisk and blissful delivery don’t have enough diamorphine to dull the nerves. We might need epidurals from the Treasury. We will swear a lot, and not care. It might be rather embarrassing but again, we probably won’t care, because we’ll be concentrating on the pain. Other countries will look at us and think 'I’m never going through that'. Immediately after Brexit, we will likely appear reduced, saggy, wrinkled.
Then comes the depression. It’s unavoidable. Overnight, your horizons have shrunk to a nursery room, some cheap Lidl shiraz, and the sound of a fiendishly annoying plastic toy which sings 'Froggy goes a courting he did ride uh-huh' over and over again. The house is a mess, all the time, in every way. You haven’t slept properly for several economic quarters. And so, at one point you will stare at a bowl of mushed baby food, and then you’ll soulfully ask yourself: Why did I ever do this?”
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Interesting take given the attacks on his govt at time for sleaze.
Indeed it was one of the things that brought them down.
As for principles and values, did that extend to him humping Edwina Currie while married ?
I should have said *political* principles and values. Though I wouldn't put a single affair which all parties have long forgiven on the same level as what Boris has done.
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
You won Brexit. Be pleased about it, own it but ffs stop going on about it so aggressively.
WTF??????
I’m not attacking anyone here. I’m attacking an ex prime minister who wanted to abolish democracy, and who now has the brass neck to lecture us about “breeding mistrust in democracy”
A little bit of ire is, to say the least, justified
Forget your remoaners, it is you moaning about something to do with Brexit every other day.....aren't the winners supposed to be enjoying victory?
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
The true spirit of Brexit.
It’s nothing to do with Brexit per se. It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
i guess Americans should just shrug and say Oh well Biden won anyway, let’s forget January 6…?
Of course they shouldn’t. Nor should we forget what happened in the UK, post 2016
You really can't let brexit go can you? You need help. You are addicted.
It’s not that he can’t let Brexit go - it’s a topical issue currently affecting real lives and livelihoods, as well as politics - it’s that he is still obsessed with the historical issues of the 2016 campaign and vote, and the leaving of the EU, when all of these are done and dusted.
Yep we are (er, he is) still banging on about the 2017 parliament. That is four going on five years ago.
By all means talk about the impact that Brexit might have on the UK in various areas - certainly the MPs have done this.
But to go back to the vote and its aftermath time and time again is evidence of demons. Or rather of demons not yet washed down by a large G 'n T on the veranda, laptop at a rakish angle.
I see that today is going to be the day that Major's adultery is going to be used as an excuse for not listening to or thinking about any of the points he makes.
Since none us is perfect - or, if you prefer, without sin - we can never criticise anyone else at all, let alone Boris. Which is very convenient for him.
A bit of a bummer in a democracy, mind you. Oh well.
When I become unDictator of the UK I will, of course appoint myself Head of the Supreme Court.
Since attacking the decisions of the Supreme Court is a vile attack on the law & democracy, it will of course be punishable by life without parole.
So all my decisions.....
Any flaws you can see with this plan?
Why appoint yourself when @Cyclefree would do better?
For the rest, I don't care as long as I am Secretary of State for Education with capital powers over all civil servants.
Are retired civil servants safe from your ire? Just asking.
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
The true spirit of Brexit.
It’s nothing to do with Brexit per se. It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
i guess Americans should just shrug and say Oh well Biden won anyway, let’s forget January 6…?
Of course they shouldn’t. Nor should we forget what happened in the UK, post 2016
You really can't let brexit go can you? You need help. You are addicted.
It’s not that he can’t let Brexit go - it’s a topical issue currently affecting real lives and livelihoods, as well as politics - it’s that he is still obsessed with the historical issues of the 2016 campaign and vote, and the leaving of the EU, when all of these are done and dusted.
I hadn't realised how depressing googling "MPs Brexit" is - try it.
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
"you got it wrong, vote again" is how europhiles ended up losing the referendum in the first place.
And what is so advisory about "the government will implement what you decide"?
You're just a bitter bad loser - five and a half years on you just can't get over the fact that you lost.
Baffling that someone with so little grasp of the law as to how the country is governed spends time on a political website.
Why are you not saying "five and a half years on you just can't bring yourself to admit the countless benefits which brexit has so visibly conferred on every aspect of life in the UK" I wonder?
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
Seanie luv you keep reposting this and its starting to feel like Father Ted explaining to Dougal that some things are small and others are far away.
The referendum was in the 2015 parliament. No parliament binds the hands of its successors, and parliamentary sovereignty - not being bound - was literally the reason given by many people as to why we needed Brexit.
The 2017 parliament was Small. The referendum was Far Away.
Just to add, if the Mirror actually did publish the doctored image, then they are in deep shit
But, I don't think they did
The fact that doctored photos are being used in a weird way in an attempt to bring down the PM is not good.
I don't think that's a fact.
Well someone has definitely doctored the photo
Yeah, to muddy the waters. It seems obvious that the one without the bottle or tinsel is the one that has been altered. Quite how that is bringing down the PM is beyond me.
I dont think we can be 100% sure that both photos are not doctored.
If you look at the architrave behind the bottle, in the one where the bottle is missing the architrave extends much further than where the bottle would cover it up.
There's no evidence that the photo with the bottle is fake. There's plenty of evidence the other one is.
How do you explain the architrave being in view when if you had removed the bottle there would be no architrave to see.
I think something else smaller has been removed and the bottle then added.
Someone made a half-arsed attempt to conceal the removal of the bottle? It's obvious the tinsel and bottle have been removed from the original photo.
No doubt about that, but if you had the skills to add the achitrave back in you would added it in completely, not partially
Well quite, but the fact is they didn't have the skills, as is obvious from the clear manipulation of the original image.
But either what was removed from the original photo was much smaller than the champagne bottle, or someone partially and professionally added the architrave back in, when it would have been just as easy to add it fully back in. I have no doubt that both photos are photoshopped
The photo with the bottle is definitely not photoshopped, can you provide any evidence to show that it is?
Of course he can. Boris told parliament there were no parties. Boris never lies. Therefore this image of him at a party must be photoshopped.
The crucial point is how does one define a lie. I believe Johnson follows the interpretation of an alternative truth, as proposed by Kellyanne Conway, or like Alan Clark, Johnson is merely "economical with the actualite".
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
The true spirit of Brexit.
It’s nothing to do with Brexit per se. It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
i guess Americans should just shrug and say Oh well Biden won anyway, let’s forget January 6…?
Of course they shouldn’t. Nor should we forget what happened in the UK, post 2016
It wasn't anti-democratic let alone Trumpite. I'm an expert on when Trumpite can be used and it doesn't fit here. The best way to view it is a doomed attempt by a group of politicians and activists to get the British people to change their mind and vote again on the EU, this time to Remain. It was never going to happen same as No Deal was never going to happen. Ref2 and No Deal were just strands to a story with an inevitable end - leaving the EU with some sort of Deal. Could have been under May with hers. Ended up under Johnson with his. If your rage isn't confected it's misplaced. It's people like me who should be pissed off - because the story also ended up with a landslide Tory govt and a sick joke as PM.
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
The true spirit of Brexit.
It’s nothing to do with Brexit per se. It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
i guess Americans should just shrug and say Oh well Biden won anyway, let’s forget January 6…?
Of course they shouldn’t. Nor should we forget what happened in the UK, post 2016
You really can't let brexit go can you? You need help. You are addicted.
It's quite extraordinary. Bizarre. Disturbing.
This forum is fast becoming the Brexit forum because whenever Leon comes on here and baits people about Brexit, they can't resist rising to the bait.
Enjoy your crab, Leon and whilst doing so please please please find the courage to move on from Brexit.
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
The true spirit of Brexit.
It’s nothing to do with Brexit per se. It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
i guess Americans should just shrug and say Oh well Biden won anyway, let’s forget January 6…?
Of course they shouldn’t. Nor should we forget what happened in the UK, post 2016
You really can't let brexit go can you? You need help. You are addicted.
It's quite extraordinary. Bizarre. Disturbing.
This forum is fast becoming the Brexit forum because whenever Leon comes on here and baits people about Brexit, they can't resist rising to the bait.
Enjoy your crab, Leon and whilst doing so please please please find the courage to move on from Brexit.
Leon gets positively crabbit about Brexit, indeed.
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
"you got it wrong, vote again" is how europhiles ended up losing the referendum in the first place.
And what is so advisory about "the government will implement what you decide"?
You're just a bitter bad loser - five and a half years on you just can't get over the fact that you lost.
Baffling that someone with so little grasp of the law as to how the country is governed spends time on a political website.
Why are you not saying "five and a half years on you just can't bring yourself to admit the countless benefits which brexit has so visibly conferred on every aspect of life in the UK" I wonder?
Falling back on the technically legal position when it differs from the political reality never works. (see also: Boris parties).
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
David Cameron, addressing the British people, in late 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
Now, i know this makes a lot of people on this site deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
They need to deal with it, own it, confess, say sorry, and we all move on
And it has been.
Now about those Brexit promises which were made?
Because I'm guessing - a wild guess here - that those unfulfilled promises, the broken promises and the admission that they don't know what to do now is making some people feel a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
Not remotely. I agree with the noble ex-PBer @SeanT who wrote in the Spectator in October 2016 that Brexit would be like having a baby. Painful, bloody, unpleasant… and explicitly dismissed the airy Leaver promises:
“Thirdly, there will be blood. Brexit is going to be painful, like childbirth. It just is. The Leave quacks who promised a brisk and blissful delivery don’t have enough diamorphine to dull the nerves. We might need epidurals from the Treasury. We will swear a lot, and not care. It might be rather embarrassing but again, we probably won’t care, because we’ll be concentrating on the pain. Other countries will look at us and think 'I’m never going through that'. Immediately after Brexit, we will likely appear reduced, saggy, wrinkled.
Then comes the depression. It’s unavoidable. Overnight, your horizons have shrunk to a nursery room, some cheap Lidl shiraz, and the sound of a fiendishly annoying plastic toy which sings 'Froggy goes a courting he did ride uh-huh' over and over again. The house is a mess, all the time, in every way. You haven’t slept properly for several economic quarters. And so, at one point you will stare at a bowl of mushed baby food, and then you’ll soulfully ask yourself: Why did I ever do this?”
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
You won Brexit. Be pleased about it, own it but ffs stop going on about it so aggressively.
WTF??????
I’m not attacking anyone here. I’m attacking an ex prime minister who wanted to abolish democracy, and who now has the brass neck to lecture us about “breeding mistrust in democracy”
A little bit of ire is, to say the least, justified
"Abolish democracy"? We had a general election and a different slate of representatives were elected. How is a general election abolishing democracy? When people voted for Blair instead of Major was that abolishing their democratic will to have Major in 1992?
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
David Cameron, addressing the British people, in late 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
Now, i know this makes a lot of people on this site deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
They need to deal with it, own it, confess, say sorry, and we all move on
But David Cameron was a detestable two-faced rat, wasn't he? In fact, he went to the same school as Boris Johnson... Enough said.
When he said that, he thought his campaign was going to win. A walkover. Another triumph for D. Cameron.
But apart from that, he was making it all up. Such a commitment to a "once and for ever" vote never appeared in any legislation, did it?
Also, if DC had conversely said on the eve of a general election "Your vote is advisory and will certainly be taken into account, to a limited extent, in deciding on the government of the country for the next five years" would that be taken as gospel too? What's the difference?
Important point those critical that Macron (or now Truss) went to Moscow need to address: in 2024 either Trump or an America-firster could be in power again. Do we really want no European leaders directly involved in diplomacy and speaking to Moscow?
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
David Cameron, addressing the British people, in late 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
Now, i know this makes a lot of people on this site deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
They need to deal with it, own it, confess, say sorry, and we all move on
And it has been.
Now about those Brexit promises which were made?
Because I'm guessing - a wild guess here - that those unfulfilled promises, the broken promises and the admission that they don't know what to do now is making some people feel a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
Not remotely. I agree with the noble ex-PBer @SeanT who wrote in the Spectator in October 2016 that Brexit would be like having a baby. Painful, bloody, unpleasant… and explicitly dismissed the airy Leaver promises:
“Thirdly, there will be blood. Brexit is going to be painful, like childbirth. It just is. The Leave quacks who promised a brisk and blissful delivery don’t have enough diamorphine to dull the nerves. We might need epidurals from the Treasury. We will swear a lot, and not care. It might be rather embarrassing but again, we probably won’t care, because we’ll be concentrating on the pain. Other countries will look at us and think 'I’m never going through that'. Immediately after Brexit, we will likely appear reduced, saggy, wrinkled.
Then comes the depression. It’s unavoidable. Overnight, your horizons have shrunk to a nursery room, some cheap Lidl shiraz, and the sound of a fiendishly annoying plastic toy which sings 'Froggy goes a courting he did ride uh-huh' over and over again. The house is a mess, all the time, in every way. You haven’t slept properly for several economic quarters. And so, at one point you will stare at a bowl of mushed baby food, and then you’ll soulfully ask yourself: Why did I ever do this?”
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
"you got it wrong, vote again" is how europhiles ended up losing the referendum in the first place.
And what is so advisory about "the government will implement what you decide"?
You're just a bitter bad loser - five and a half years on you just can't get over the fact that you lost.
Baffling that someone with so little grasp of the law as to how the country is governed spends time on a political website.
Why are you not saying "five and a half years on you just can't bring yourself to admit the countless benefits which brexit has so visibly conferred on every aspect of life in the UK" I wonder?
Falling back on the technically legal position when it differs from the political reality never works. (see also: Boris parties).
When you find yourself saying "technically legal" when you mean "legal" you have already lost.
Any comments on the Justin Webb article I posted earlier about class? I thought it was a particularly thought-provoking piece. Not at all what it seemed from the title.
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
You won Brexit. Be pleased about it, own it but ffs stop going on about it so aggressively.
WTF??????
I’m not attacking anyone here. I’m attacking an ex prime minister who wanted to abolish democracy, and who now has the brass neck to lecture us about “breeding mistrust in democracy”
A little bit of ire is, to say the least, justified
"Abolish democracy"? We had a general election and a different slate of representatives were elected. How is a general election abolishing democracy? When people voted for Blair instead of Major was that abolishing their democratic will to have Major in 1992?
How would the 2nd Ref proposal to have VOTE of ALL THE ELECTORATE be abolishing democracy, for that matter?
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
David Cameron, addressing the British people, in late 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
Now, i know this makes a lot of people on this site deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
They need to deal with it, own it, confess, say sorry, and we all move on
And it has been.
Now about those Brexit promises which were made?
Because I'm guessing - a wild guess here - that those unfulfilled promises, the broken promises and the admission that they don't know what to do now is making some people feel a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
Not remotely. I agree with the noble ex-PBer @SeanT who wrote in the Spectator in October 2016 that Brexit would be like having a baby. Painful, bloody, unpleasant… and explicitly dismissed the airy Leaver promises:
“Thirdly, there will be blood. Brexit is going to be painful, like childbirth. It just is. The Leave quacks who promised a brisk and blissful delivery don’t have enough diamorphine to dull the nerves. We might need epidurals from the Treasury. We will swear a lot, and not care. It might be rather embarrassing but again, we probably won’t care, because we’ll be concentrating on the pain. Other countries will look at us and think 'I’m never going through that'. Immediately after Brexit, we will likely appear reduced, saggy, wrinkled.
Then comes the depression. It’s unavoidable. Overnight, your horizons have shrunk to a nursery room, some cheap Lidl shiraz, and the sound of a fiendishly annoying plastic toy which sings 'Froggy goes a courting he did ride uh-huh' over and over again. The house is a mess, all the time, in every way. You haven’t slept properly for several economic quarters. And so, at one point you will stare at a bowl of mushed baby food, and then you’ll soulfully ask yourself: Why did I ever do this?”
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
"you got it wrong, vote again" is how europhiles ended up losing the referendum in the first place.
And what is so advisory about "the government will implement what you decide"?
You're just a bitter bad loser - five and a half years on you just can't get over the fact that you lost.
"the government" being the one elected in 2015.
Then we had an unnecessary general election.
Which elected a different mix of MPs and a government who needed the support of others to do anything.
Radical idea - if implementing the referendum result was important to May's government, and she had a working majority, would it not have been better to get on with it?
You are describing the entire British electorate - who voted in 2017 for something different to what the voted for in 2015 as "a bitter bad loser".
Honestly I can't understand how some people so confidently comment about democracy whilst demonstrating that they have no clue how our democratic system actually works.
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
David Cameron, addressing the British people, in late 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
Now, i know this makes a lot of people on this site deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
They need to deal with it, own it, confess, say sorry, and we all move on
And it has been.
Now about those Brexit promises which were made?
Because I'm guessing - a wild guess here - that those unfulfilled promises, the broken promises and the admission that they don't know what to do now is making some people feel a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
Not remotely. I agree with the noble ex-PBer @SeanT who wrote in the Spectator in October 2016 that Brexit would be like having a baby. Painful, bloody, unpleasant… and explicitly dismissed the airy Leaver promises:
“Thirdly, there will be blood. Brexit is going to be painful, like childbirth. It just is. The Leave quacks who promised a brisk and blissful delivery don’t have enough diamorphine to dull the nerves. We might need epidurals from the Treasury. We will swear a lot, and not care. It might be rather embarrassing but again, we probably won’t care, because we’ll be concentrating on the pain. Other countries will look at us and think 'I’m never going through that'. Immediately after Brexit, we will likely appear reduced, saggy, wrinkled.
Then comes the depression. It’s unavoidable. Overnight, your horizons have shrunk to a nursery room, some cheap Lidl shiraz, and the sound of a fiendishly annoying plastic toy which sings 'Froggy goes a courting he did ride uh-huh' over and over again. The house is a mess, all the time, in every way. You haven’t slept properly for several economic quarters. And so, at one point you will stare at a bowl of mushed baby food, and then you’ll soulfully ask yourself: Why did I ever do this?”
"Met chief says stopping illegal parties was not job for police guarding No 10
In her interview with Eddie Nestor on BBC Radio London, Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said it was not the job of officers guarding Downing Street to prevent illegal parties."
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
"you got it wrong, vote again" is how europhiles ended up losing the referendum in the first place.
And what is so advisory about "the government will implement what you decide"?
You're just a bitter bad loser - five and a half years on you just can't get over the fact that you lost.
Baffling that someone with so little grasp of the law as to how the country is governed spends time on a political website.
Why are you not saying "five and a half years on you just can't bring yourself to admit the countless benefits which brexit has so visibly conferred on every aspect of life in the UK" I wonder?
Falling back on the technically legal position when it differs from the political reality never works. (see also: Boris parties).
When you find yourself saying "technically legal" when you mean "legal" you have already lost.
Now, about those brexit benefits?
Sorry, but no. Even if Boris is found to have acted technically legally (as I would put it) or legally (as you would put it) during the parties, that wouldn't change the political reality that his actions weren't appropriate.
Remember, just because you can doesn't mean you should.
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
David Cameron, addressing the British people, in late 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
Now, i know this makes a lot of people on this site deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
They need to deal with it, own it, confess, say sorry, and we all move on
Seanie luv. David Cameron was the Prime Minister when he said that. When we held the referendum. Then he quit and we got a new PM leading the same government in the same parliament. What he said applied to his government. It could be said to apply to May's government.
And then we had a General Election. What was said and done in the 2015 parliament is null and void at tha point. Any law can be overturned by any successor parliament. You know that. And yet you keep saying thinks that make you look like you don't.
Come on. Intelligent man as you are you know how bitter and ranty and drunk you sound.
"Met chief says stopping illegal parties was not job for police guarding No 10
In her interview with Eddie Nestor on BBC Radio London, Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said it was not the job of officers guarding Downing Street to prevent illegal parties."
Every political decision now being made is for a political purpose ie the survival of Boris as PM, and the benefits or risks to us of such decisions are of no importance whatsoever.
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
You won Brexit. Be pleased about it, own it but ffs stop going on about it so aggressively.
WTF??????
I’m not attacking anyone here. I’m attacking an ex prime minister who wanted to abolish democracy, and who now has the brass neck to lecture us about “breeding mistrust in democracy”
A little bit of ire is, to say the least, justified
"Abolish democracy"? We had a general election and a different slate of representatives were elected. How is a general election abolishing democracy? When people voted for Blair instead of Major was that abolishing their democratic will to have Major in 1992?
How would the 2nd Ref proposal to have VOTE of ALL THE ELECTORATE be abolishing democracy, for that matter?
Having such a second referendum (that is, with Remain on the ballot paper) would have been admitting that there's a right answer and a wrong answer, and if the electorate give the wrong answer you will ignore them. How is this democracy?
"@ZacGoldsmith A stale old corporatist who delivered 7 years of autopilot govt & a thumping defeat at the polls... & is still struggling to come to terms with the country’s decision to leave the EU.
John Major’s intervention has zero to do with covid rules (or democracy!)"
On photoshopgate: isn't the point that Johnson has been happy to deny anything that he either believes to be untrue, or that he believes is not provable? (I realise those may not be concepts he can distinguish). If the photo was fake and there wasn't a bottle, it would already have been decried as a fake and the account of the event denied. Given that Zahawi is on the record saying there was no alcohol, if the recollection of everyone present is that there was indeed no alcohol, I'm sure he'd be eager to say that he stands by his account and he doesn't see that a fake photo changes it.
Throughout most of Johnson's Parliamentary non-apology sessions, he denied plenty of accusations, and mainly resorted to saying that he couldn't comment before the report was out when accused of things that may have been true. That seems the best context for interpreting what's happened here.
What's happening is we've spent half the morning debating the photographic minutiae of a very poor image, as opposed to whether it's a good idea to retain as PM a liar, cheat and pander to conspiracy theorists.
I see that today is going to be the day that Major's adultery is going to be used as an excuse for not listening to or thinking about any of the points he makes.
Since none us is perfect - or, if you prefer, without sin - we can never criticise anyone else at all, let alone Boris. Which is very convenient for him.
A bit of a bummer in a democracy, mind you. Oh well.
His adultery has nothing to do with it. Major’s attempt to annul democracy by cancelling the Brexit referendum and rerunning it, because he “didn’t like the result” very much DOES. He’s repulsive. They all are. All the 2nd voters. And they shall not be allowed to forget it, until they die, and then we shall remind their children, and their grandchildren
It was @Aslan and @Taz who specifically referenced his adultery. Not Brexit. You did that.
Still, let's ignore opinions because of who gives them eh. Always a good idea that. Just as you yourself pointed out over that BNP chap and grooming gangs. Or did you say the opposite? It's hard to keep up sometimes.
No PMs are perfect. I don't agree with all Major said but as a former PM he has a right to say it.
If we only ever listened to our most moral former PMs still alive, we would only ever listen to Theresa May and Gordon Brown
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
"you got it wrong, vote again" is how europhiles ended up losing the referendum in the first place.
And what is so advisory about "the government will implement what you decide"?
You're just a bitter bad loser - five and a half years on you just can't get over the fact that you lost.
Baffling that someone with so little grasp of the law as to how the country is governed spends time on a political website.
Why are you not saying "five and a half years on you just can't bring yourself to admit the countless benefits which brexit has so visibly conferred on every aspect of life in the UK" I wonder?
Falling back on the technically legal position when it differs from the political reality never works. (see also: Boris parties).
When you find yourself saying "technically legal" when you mean "legal" you have already lost.
Now, about those brexit benefits?
Here's the thing. The overriding Brexit benefit is that we no longer have to compromise as part of a large trade body which had political aspirations also. That is, we join North Korea in being more sovereign than, say, France. I imagine 0.4% of the people who voted for Brexit wanted this, they have achieved it, and it is an incontrovertible position. If the country is worse off as a result then that is irrelevant to their view of the world.
Of course the next trade deal that is signed will erode that sovereignty but they are enjoying it while it lasts and I am happy for them.
It is the idiots who voted it for a) economic benefit; b) less immigration; or c) any other reason whatsoever that deserve ire and scorn.
Three local by-elections today. A Lib Dem defence in Eastleigh, an Ind defence in Somerset West and Taunton, and a Con defence in Wealden. It is possible all could be Lib Dem tomorrow.
I see that today is going to be the day that Major's adultery is going to be used as an excuse for not listening to or thinking about any of the points he makes.
Since none us is perfect - or, if you prefer, without sin - we can never criticise anyone else at all, let alone Boris. Which is very convenient for him.
A bit of a bummer in a democracy, mind you. Oh well.
His adultery has nothing to do with it. Major’s attempt to annul democracy by cancelling the Brexit referendum and rerunning it, because he “didn’t like the result” very much DOES. He’s repulsive. They all are. All the 2nd voters. And they shall not be allowed to forget it, until they die, and then we shall remind their children, and their grandchildren
It was @Aslan and @Taz who specifically referenced his adultery. Not Brexit. You did that.
Still, let's ignore opinions because of who gives them eh. Always a good idea that. Just as you yourself pointed out over that BNP chap and grooming gangs. Or did you say the opposite? It's hard to keep up sometimes.
No PMs are perfect. I don't agree with all Major said but as a former PM he has a right to say it.
If we only ever listened to our most moral former PMs still alive, we would only ever listen to Theresa May and Gordon Brown
In a peculiar Forrest Gump style way, that is very profound.
Just to add, if the Mirror actually did publish the doctored image, then they are in deep shit
But, I don't think they did
The fact that doctored photos are being used in a weird way in an attempt to bring down the PM is not good.
I don't think that's a fact.
Well someone has definitely doctored the photo
Yeah, to muddy the waters. It seems obvious that the one without the bottle or tinsel is the one that has been altered. Quite how that is bringing down the PM is beyond me.
I dont think we can be 100% sure that both photos are not doctored.
If you look at the architrave behind the bottle, in the one where the bottle is missing the architrave extends much further than where the bottle would cover it up.
There's no evidence that the photo with the bottle is fake. There's plenty of evidence the other one is.
How do you explain the architrave being in view when if you had removed the bottle there would be no architrave to see.
I think something else smaller has been removed and the bottle then added.
Someone made a half-arsed attempt to conceal the removal of the bottle? It's obvious the tinsel and bottle have been removed from the original photo.
No doubt about that, but if you had the skills to add the achitrave back in you would added it in completely, not partially
Well quite, but the fact is they didn't have the skills, as is obvious from the clear manipulation of the original image.
But either what was removed from the original photo was much smaller than the champagne bottle, or someone partially and professionally added the architrave back in, when it would have been just as easy to add it fully back in. I have no doubt that both photos are photoshopped
The photo with the bottle is definitely not photoshopped, can you provide any evidence to show that it is?
Of course he can. Boris told parliament there were no parties. Boris never lies. Therefore this image of him at a party must be photoshopped.
The crucial point is how does one define a lie. I believe Johnson follows the interpretation of an alternative truth, as proposed by Kellyanne Conway, or like Alan Clark, Johnson is merely "economical with the actualite".
He lied to the house - twice - at PMQs yesterday saying that photo had already been given to the police. Despite the Gray report stating that it had not been. And the police later in the day saying they would now have a look at it as they don't have it.
"Met chief says stopping illegal parties was not job for police guarding No 10
In her interview with Eddie Nestor on BBC Radio London, Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said it was not the job of officers guarding Downing Street to prevent illegal parties."
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
"you got it wrong, vote again" is how europhiles ended up losing the referendum in the first place.
And what is so advisory about "the government will implement what you decide"?
You're just a bitter bad loser - five and a half years on you just can't get over the fact that you lost.
"the government" being the one elected in 2015.
Then we had an unnecessary general election.
Which elected a different mix of MPs and a government who needed the support of others to do anything.
Radical idea - if implementing the referendum result was important to May's government, and she had a working majority, would it not have been better to get on with it?
You are describing the entire British electorate - who voted in 2017 for something different to what the voted for in 2015 as "a bitter bad loser".
Honestly I can't understand how some people so confidently comment about democracy whilst demonstrating that they have no clue how our democratic system actually works.
The 2017 election return a vast majority of MPs who were committed to implementing the 2016 result (a significant share of which only made such a committment because they couldn't get elected without doing so). Just because that faction then technically had the legal right to junk their manifesto and become obstructive in the hope of overturning the 2016 result does not mean they were democratically and politically right to do so.
You rely on "MPs can do whatever the hell they want, and screw what the public thinks". Technically correct. Politically unsustainable. Totally undemocratic.
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
You won Brexit. Be pleased about it, own it but ffs stop going on about it so aggressively.
WTF??????
I’m not attacking anyone here. I’m attacking an ex prime minister who wanted to abolish democracy, and who now has the brass neck to lecture us about “breeding mistrust in democracy”
A little bit of ire is, to say the least, justified
"Abolish democracy"? We had a general election and a different slate of representatives were elected. How is a general election abolishing democracy? When people voted for Blair instead of Major was that abolishing their democratic will to have Major in 1992?
How would the 2nd Ref proposal to have VOTE of ALL THE ELECTORATE be abolishing democracy, for that matter?
Given the current prevalence of the disease, how much good does the professor think test, trace and isolate is still doing? Does he offer any suggestion at all as to how long it should go on for? And, if it does have any meaningful effect, presumably this implies some kind of spike when it is actually abandoned - in which case, would we just end up having rules re-imposed again?
Unless you adopt the position advocated by the extremist faction on iSAGE and some very frightened people, i.e. that testing (as well as things like masks and distancing) should continue forever, then they have to stop at some point. The most recent ONS figures estimate that about 98% of the adult population of the UK would now test positive for Covid antibodies. Therefore, if not now, when?
"@ZacGoldsmith A stale old corporatist who delivered 7 years of autopilot govt & a thumping defeat at the polls... & is still struggling to come to terms with the country’s decision to leave the EU.
John Major’s intervention has zero to do with covid rules (or democracy!)"
At least Zac never got defeated at the polls, right?
"Met chief says stopping illegal parties was not job for police guarding No 10
In her interview with Eddie Nestor on BBC Radio London, Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said it was not the job of officers guarding Downing Street to prevent illegal parties."
So if someone had tried to get into Downing Street to illegally steal confidential material or the silver candlesticks or to illegally deliver a suitcase full of poison it was not their job to prevent that either??
That sounds to me like an admission that officers knew full well what was going on but did not pass any of the information onto other officers who could have stopped them.
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
There's a universe 'over there', just behind the looking glass:
David Cameron: 24th June 2016: "The British people have voted 52% to 48% to remain in the European Union......" *long pause* ".... however, despite voting and campaigning for Remain as well, I'm reminded the vote was only advisory.... I triggered Article 50, as I'm allowed to do, twenty minutes ago. Fuck you all! We leave the EU in two years time." *Slings back inside No. 10 with Samantha looking on dumbfounded. Slams door behind him*
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
You won Brexit. Be pleased about it, own it but ffs stop going on about it so aggressively.
WTF??????
I’m not attacking anyone here. I’m attacking an ex prime minister who wanted to abolish democracy, and who now has the brass neck to lecture us about “breeding mistrust in democracy”
A little bit of ire is, to say the least, justified
"Abolish democracy"? We had a general election and a different slate of representatives were elected. How is a general election abolishing democracy? When people voted for Blair instead of Major was that abolishing their democratic will to have Major in 1992?
How would the 2nd Ref proposal to have VOTE of ALL THE ELECTORATE be abolishing democracy, for that matter?
Having such a second referendum (that is, with Remain on the ballot paper) would have been admitting that there's a right answer and a wrong answer, and if the electorate give the wrong answer you will ignore them. How is this democracy?
Ignoring the electorate would have been saying "f*ck it, you voted to leave the EU but we're not going to do anything about it - no article 50, no negotiations, carry on as if nothing had happened".
That patently did not happen.
Asking the electorate to approve the negotiated deal would have only enhanced democracy.
Of course the Tory government wouldn't do that because it knew its negotiated deal was such utter shit and likely to be judged as such by the electorate.
"@ZacGoldsmith A stale old corporatist who delivered 7 years of autopilot govt & a thumping defeat at the polls... & is still struggling to come to terms with the country’s decision to leave the EU.
John Major’s intervention has zero to do with covid rules (or democracy!)"
Zac "Bollywood" Goldsmith on thumping defeats at the polls. Well, well
Doesn't play the adultery card, though, I wonder why that is
"@ZacGoldsmith A stale old corporatist who delivered 7 years of autopilot govt & a thumping defeat at the polls... & is still struggling to come to terms with the country’s decision to leave the EU.
John Major’s intervention has zero to do with covid rules (or democracy!)"
Saying that Brexit is a turd is the exact opposite of not coming to terms with it. It is Brexiteers who can't come to terms with the fecal reality of their creation.
"Met chief says stopping illegal parties was not job for police guarding No 10
In her interview with Eddie Nestor on BBC Radio London, Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said it was not the job of officers guarding Downing Street to prevent illegal parties."
So if someone had tried to get into Downing Street to illegally steal confidential material or the silver candlesticks or to illegally deliver a suitcase full of poison it was not their job to prevent that either??
That sounds to me like an admission that officers knew full well what was going on but did not pass any of the information onto other officers who could have stopped them.
What happens in Vegas...er Downing St. stays in Downing St.
Unless the Tories have a clear poll lead next year, there is zero chance of a 2023 general election. Brown of course did not hold an early general election because he trailed Cameron's Tories in the polls after Osborne's IHT cut proposal. Major also delayed holding general elections as long as possible for the full 5 years in 1992 and 1997 as he trailed Labour in polls.
Thatcher and Blair only held early general elections as they were ahead in the polls, same with May in 2017 and Boris in 2019. I therefore do not expect the next general election to be until Spring 2024.
The only way there would be a general election next year is if the Tories got a clear poll lead again under Boris or a new leader
The other benefit of a Spring '24 election is the possibility to deploy a feelgood tax cut.
But the key thing is that if the Conservatives are on track to lose (and that's a smaller if than it seemed a few months back), they are duty-bound to hang on as long as they can. Anything can happen at backgammon and all that.
What's the latest possible date under the new rules?
Dissolution would be 17th December 2024 (which is a Sunday, so in reality it would be whichever day in the week ending Friday 15th leads to a GE on a Thursday).
FTPA specifies parliament dissolves 17 working days before the election but the Electoral Commission says 25, and it seems to have been 25 in 2019. So my best guess based on what I see at the moment is Thursday 11th January 2025.
Is this right? 17th December 2024 is a Tuesday on my calendar? And the twenty five working days is right, but because of Christmas there are a lot of bank holidays. Doesn't Scotland have 2nd January 2025 as a bank holiday too? Given its a UK GE, you couldn't really ignore this.
I'm not sure if its 25 clear days (ignoring dissolution and the election day itself)? Tuesday 28th January 2025?
Yes, I corrected that error a couple of hours ago.
I see that today is going to be the day that Major's adultery is going to be used as an excuse for not listening to or thinking about any of the points he makes.
Since none us is perfect - or, if you prefer, without sin - we can never criticise anyone else at all, let alone Boris. Which is very convenient for him.
A bit of a bummer in a democracy, mind you. Oh well.
When you have someone completely unapologetic about their faults - and actions - and using the office of PM to recruit a new team to purely protect his position, you are institutionalising those faults.
Which is rather a different matter than what Major did a couple of decades back.
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
"you got it wrong, vote again" is how europhiles ended up losing the referendum in the first place.
And what is so advisory about "the government will implement what you decide"?
You're just a bitter bad loser - five and a half years on you just can't get over the fact that you lost.
"the government" being the one elected in 2015.
Then we had an unnecessary general election.
Which elected a different mix of MPs and a government who needed the support of others to do anything.
Radical idea - if implementing the referendum result was important to May's government, and she had a working majority, would it not have been better to get on with it?
You are describing the entire British electorate - who voted in 2017 for something different to what the voted for in 2015 as "a bitter bad loser".
Honestly I can't understand how some people so confidently comment about democracy whilst demonstrating that they have no clue how our democratic system actually works.
The 2017 election return a vast majority of MPs who were committed to implementing the 2016 result (a significant share of which only made such a committment because they couldn't get elected without doing so). Just because that faction then technically had the legal right to junk their manifesto and become obstructive in the hope of overturning the 2016 result does not mean they were democratically and politically right to do so.
You rely on "MPs can do whatever the hell they want, and screw what the public thinks". Technically correct. Politically unsustainable. Totally undemocratic.
MPs represent their constituents. They do what they believe is right for their constituents hence for example the furore over LHR expansion. If they get it wrong and it turns out that their constituents wanted something else then that will become apparent at the ballot box.
And this is what happened in 2017 and 2019. Well done us the democratic nation.
There is nothing undemocratic about it at all. For all the 2017 shenanigans the end result was that Boris was elected in 2019 because the people spoke and wanted Brexit. Plus there was Corbyn, obvs.
If Lab had been elected in 2019 on a manifesto promise to rejoin the EU would that have been undemocratic? Because Brexit wouldn't have been "done" by then.
I see that today is going to be the day that Major's adultery is going to be used as an excuse for not listening to or thinking about any of the points he makes.
Since none us is perfect - or, if you prefer, without sin - we can never criticise anyone else at all, let alone Boris. Which is very convenient for him.
A bit of a bummer in a democracy, mind you. Oh well.
His adultery has nothing to do with it. Major’s attempt to annul democracy by cancelling the Brexit referendum and rerunning it, because he “didn’t like the result” very much DOES. He’s repulsive. They all are. All the 2nd voters. And they shall not be allowed to forget it, until they die, and then we shall remind their children, and their grandchildren
It was @Aslan and @Taz who specifically referenced his adultery. Not Brexit. You did that.
Still, let's ignore opinions because of who gives them eh. Always a good idea that. Just as you yourself pointed out over that BNP chap and grooming gangs. Or did you say the opposite? It's hard to keep up sometimes.
His attitude to Brexit is 100% germane, here. His adultery is not. I don’t give a toss who he shags or does not shag, never did.
But if he is going to make lofty superior speeches about “trust in British politics” well then yes his outrageous reaction to the Brexit vote comes into our purview. How can it not. He tried to betray British politics. He tried to do something far far worse than the oafish Boris has ever done
This cannot be wished away. What we need is some of the 2nd voters to start saying SORRY. Only then can the poison be lanced
What we need is some of those who told us about all the good things to come from Brexit - like Jacob Rees-Mogg, for instance - to actually implement them. Instead of writing pathetic articles in the Sun some six years later asking us to tell him what he should do.
If he doesn't know what laws to repeal some SIX YEARS AFTER the referendum and all the promises he and others now in government made, he's the one who should be saying sorry. Over and over.
These people made promises they have not kept. And now it turns out they don't even know what they're supposed to be doing. They mis-sold. Mis-selling is a fraud...
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
You won Brexit. Be pleased about it, own it but ffs stop going on about it so aggressively.
WTF??????
I’m not attacking anyone here. I’m attacking an ex prime minister who wanted to abolish democracy, and who now has the brass neck to lecture us about “breeding mistrust in democracy”
A little bit of ire is, to say the least, justified
"Abolish democracy"? We had a general election and a different slate of representatives were elected. How is a general election abolishing democracy? When people voted for Blair instead of Major was that abolishing their democratic will to have Major in 1992?
How would the 2nd Ref proposal to have VOTE of ALL THE ELECTORATE be abolishing democracy, for that matter?
Having such a second referendum (that is, with Remain on the ballot paper) would have been admitting that there's a right answer and a wrong answer, and if the electorate give the wrong answer you will ignore them. How is this democracy?
Because democracy is not an ever-fixed mark. We get to vote all the time. In 2015 we elected a government on a 5 year fixed term. Before the expiry of that fixed term we had had two rerun elections because a succession of rerun PMs refused to accept the result of the previous one.
So apparently it IS democracy to ignore the result of a general election because the winner appointed to a fixed 5 year term didn't like the result. But not democracy to repeat any other votes.
"@ZacGoldsmith A stale old corporatist who delivered 7 years of autopilot govt & a thumping defeat at the polls... & is still struggling to come to terms with the country’s decision to leave the EU.
John Major’s intervention has zero to do with covid rules (or democracy!)"
Why did Zac Goldsmith tweet that? Has he given up on racist election leaflets as a form of communication?
He has a short rest period from his day job sending Carrie further instructions for Boris
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
You won Brexit. Be pleased about it, own it but ffs stop going on about it so aggressively.
WTF??????
I’m not attacking anyone here. I’m attacking an ex prime minister who wanted to abolish democracy, and who now has the brass neck to lecture us about “breeding mistrust in democracy”
A little bit of ire is, to say the least, justified
"Abolish democracy"? We had a general election and a different slate of representatives were elected. How is a general election abolishing democracy? When people voted for Blair instead of Major was that abolishing their democratic will to have Major in 1992?
How would the 2nd Ref proposal to have VOTE of ALL THE ELECTORATE be abolishing democracy, for that matter?
Because one vote only is allowed for some reason.
You can have as many votes as you want, provided only that what the public decides in those votes happens. If it doesn't, holding the votes is pointless and you might as well just report all the results as 99.7% Да.
Given the current prevalence of the disease, how much good does the professor think test, trace and isolate is still doing? Does he offer any suggestion at all as to how long it should go on for? And, if it does have any meaningful effect, presumably this implies some kind of spike when it is actually abandoned - in which case, would we just end up having rules re-imposed again?
Unless you adopt the position advocated by the extremist faction on iSAGE and some very frightened people, i.e. that masks and distancing should continue forever, then they have to stop at some point. The most recent ONS figures estimate that about 98% of the adult population of the UK would now test positive for Covid antibodies. Therefore, if not now, when?
Interestingly, just been on an all-company call this morning. We have these every three months or so. Three months ago, the (anonymous) comments in the chat bar tended to the fearful - why aren't more people wearing masks, there were 50,000 positive tests yesterday, can't the company do more to keep people safe. There weren't many contrary opinions (I held a contrary opinion, but kept it to myself). Today, the balance of the comments (and the 'likes' they were given) was very much in the 'when is the company going to stop requiring us to wear masks to walk around the building, when are we going to stop the social distancing requirements' type questions.
I've said in the past that I don't see any reason to continue with any restrictions; but for a long time I felt like a lone voice at work; now I feel like I'm in the majority.
"Met chief says stopping illegal parties was not job for police guarding No 10
In her interview with Eddie Nestor on BBC Radio London, Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said it was not the job of officers guarding Downing Street to prevent illegal parties."
It is the Trumpite attempt to reverse a legal, democratic vote: the campaign for a 2nd EU vote without enacting the first
The vote was advisory
It's not undemocratic to ask for more advice
There's a universe 'over there', just behind the looking glass:
David Cameron: 24th June 2016: "The British people have voted 52% to 48% to remain in the European Union......" *long pause* ".... however, despite voting and campaigning for Remain as well, I'm reminded the vote was only advisory.... I triggered Article 50, as I'm allowed to do, twenty minutes ago. Fuck you all! We leave the EU in two years time." *Slings back inside No. 10 with Samantha looking on dumbfounded. Slams door behind him*
Never an option.
It was clear before the referendum that there were precisely three options:
(1) We vote to Remain and Remain (2) We vote to Leave and Leave (3) We vote to Leave but Remain.
Some people who favoured option 1 (like Major, Grayling and Scott) preferred option 3 to option 2. They are not democrats.
"Met chief says stopping illegal parties was not job for police guarding No 10
In her interview with Eddie Nestor on BBC Radio London, Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said it was not the job of officers guarding Downing Street to prevent illegal parties."
At the London Assembly on the Monday she said she wouldn’t release details of what the police knew at the time, by the end of the same week the report was bogged down in redaction. Where everyone said Dick was covering Boris ass, my take is it’s her own force she is trying to protect. And fair enough imo, or would you disagree?
It’s more than just a Bobby stood outside a door guarding that estate from terror attack. The police have known all along what became a political scandal when hit the media many months later. And to be realistic, what they knew was passed right up the chain, not kept at ground level, wasn’t it?
Dick is in a tight spot, I don’t think Khan and Patel should force her out until this gets untangled. In my opinion, or it would feel like the commissioner is being stitched up in my view.
Sadiq Khan should be asked when he first knew of these parties I think. How long did he sit on the knowledge?
Sir John Major is a man of principles and values who places integrity and honesty at the top of the priority list above partisanship and personal profit.
Such a man has no place in the amoral disgraceful modern Tory party as HY and the other remaining sycophants have no doubt already proven.
Fuck off. His “principles” extended to cancelling the vote of 17.4 million people, because “they got it wrong”, and having a second vote to reverse the first, without ever enacting the LEAVE vote. And he accuses Boris of generating “mistrust in democracy”? How much mistrust would be have generated if he’d managed to actually CANCEL democracy
The man is a rancid hypocrite. A c*nt of the lowest order. He should be ignored. He should not be in public life. He should fuck off at great speed to I-have-now-fucked-off-istan, and the government there should expel him to the tiny village of Fuck Off Again, whence he will be exiled into the surrounding FUCK OFF JOHN MAJOR RAINFOREST and hopefully eaten half to death by great big fuck off ants with faces like Nigel Farage
You won Brexit. Be pleased about it, own it but ffs stop going on about it so aggressively.
WTF??????
I’m not attacking anyone here. I’m attacking an ex prime minister who wanted to abolish democracy, and who now has the brass neck to lecture us about “breeding mistrust in democracy”
A little bit of ire is, to say the least, justified
"Abolish democracy"? We had a general election and a different slate of representatives were elected. How is a general election abolishing democracy? When people voted for Blair instead of Major was that abolishing their democratic will to have Major in 1992?
How would the 2nd Ref proposal to have VOTE of ALL THE ELECTORATE be abolishing democracy, for that matter?
Having such a second referendum (that is, with Remain on the ballot paper) would have been admitting that there's a right answer and a wrong answer, and if the electorate give the wrong answer you will ignore them. How is this democracy?
Ignoring the electorate would have been saying "f*ck it, you voted to leave the EU but we're not going to do anything about it - no article 50, no negotiations, carry on as if nothing had happened".
That patently did not happen.
Asking the electorate to approve the negotiated deal would have only enhanced democracy.
Of course the Tory government wouldn't do that because it knew its negotiated deal was such utter shit and likely to be judged as such by the electorate.
If - and only if - the other option on the ballot paper is "more negotiations".
Putting Remain back on the ballot paper would have invalidated the first vote, and would have meant that people who wanted to Leave would have had to win two referendums but people who wanted to Remain cound have done so by winning only one.
If you can't see that this is fundametally anithetical to democracy I cannot help you.
Mandelson: "New Labour certainly had its arguments in govt. But they were arguments of real substance & they were conducted between real adults & they were resolved by adults
"You don't really have that sense now about a govt that seems to be just ricocheting around with a🛒 PM"
Comments
For the rest, I don't care as long as I am Secretary of State for Education with capital powers over all civil servants.
*in the interests of not libelling the Chief Minister, I wish to make it clear that in my opinion the picture has been photoshopped and he was not present
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
Now, i know this makes a lot of people on this site deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
They need to deal with it, own it, confess, say sorry, and we all move on
you ask what EU regulation would I like to get rid of. What about VAT on energy bills?
Yours sincerely
Chris Bryant
https://twitter.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1491686910103891976
Can I design the gardens please? After sacking Cressida and various others on my list.
And the twenty five working days is right, but because of Christmas there are a lot of bank holidays. Doesn't Scotland have 2nd January 2025 as a bank holiday too? Given its a UK GE, you couldn't really ignore this.
I'm not sure if its 25 clear days (ignoring dissolution and the election day itself)? Tuesday 28th January 2025?
But it wasn't going to be. It was going to be deal v remain, therefore discarding the result of the first referendum without implementing it.
And what is so advisory about "the government will implement what you decide"?
You're just a bitter bad loser - five and a half years on you just can't get over the fact that you lost.
Now about those Brexit promises which were made?
Because I'm guessing - a wild guess here - that those unfulfilled promises, the broken promises and the admission that they don't know what to do now is making some people feel a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps even a little guilty?
Trump categorically denies flushing official documents down the White House toilets. https://twitter.com/SimonMarksFSN/status/1491764029924249609/photo/1
Soviet UnionRussian government is okay in my book.Russia is the number one enemy of this country. They have launched indiscriminate terrorist acts in this country with no regard to any 'collateral' damage they did. One British citizen died, and two seriously injured (as well as there two targets).
They can fuck off.
Reagan was right about lobbing one in the men's toilets in the Kremlin.
Even JRM has no fucking clue what to do now
If someone starts enjoying government a bit to much*, then I will need someone to sort them out.....
*Steal if you must, but the trains need to run.
When he said that, he thought his campaign was going to win. A walkover. Another triumph for D. Cameron.
But apart from that, he was making it all up. Such a commitment to a "once and for ever" vote never appeared in any legislation, did it?
“Thirdly, there will be blood. Brexit is going to be painful, like childbirth. It just is. The Leave quacks who promised a brisk and blissful delivery don’t have enough diamorphine to dull the nerves. We might need epidurals from the Treasury. We will swear a lot, and not care. It might be rather embarrassing but again, we probably won’t care, because we’ll be concentrating on the pain. Other countries will look at us and think 'I’m never going through that'. Immediately after Brexit, we will likely appear reduced, saggy, wrinkled.
Then comes the depression. It’s unavoidable. Overnight, your horizons have shrunk to a nursery room, some cheap Lidl shiraz, and the sound of a fiendishly annoying plastic toy which sings 'Froggy goes a courting he did ride uh-huh' over and over again. The house is a mess, all the time, in every way. You haven’t slept properly for several economic quarters. And so, at one point you will stare at a bowl of mushed baby food, and then you’ll soulfully ask yourself: Why did I ever do this?”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
How right he was. We desperately need him back. A much missed voice of calm sanity and moral probity
And now I must go and eat lagoon crabs. Later
Trouble is, they've won... a pig in a poke.
By all means talk about the impact that Brexit might have on the UK in various areas - certainly the MPs have done this.
But to go back to the vote and its aftermath time and time again is evidence of demons. Or rather of demons not yet washed down by a large G 'n T on the veranda, laptop at a rakish angle.
Here's one for starters: https://www.channel4.com/news/brexit-increased-burden-on-business-only-detectable-impact-says-report-by-mps
Why are you not saying "five and a half years on you just can't bring yourself to admit the countless benefits which brexit has so visibly conferred on every aspect of life in the UK" I wonder?
The referendum was in the 2015 parliament. No parliament binds the hands of its successors, and parliamentary sovereignty - not being bound - was literally the reason given by many people as to why we needed Brexit.
The 2017 parliament was Small. The referendum was Far Away.
Get it now?
Looking for a good ground coffee by post supplier. Any recommendations?
This forum is fast becoming the Brexit forum because whenever Leon comes on here and baits people about Brexit, they can't resist rising to the bait.
Enjoy your crab, Leon and whilst doing so please please please find the courage to move on from Brexit.
This presser has not gone well. Sergey Lavrov has just briskly walked off, leaving @trussliz on her own at the podium.…
https://twitter.com/EJ_Burrows/status/1491730304716918784?s=20&t=8u3mWGNxLSMJYdMfQCToFg
Video shows he had walked to door (cropped out of shot) and was waiting for her at it, opening it for her:
https://twitter.com/rckjnsn/status/1491768647165091841?s=20&t=8u3mWGNxLSMJYdMfQCToFg
Edit: as admittedly are others.
I think we still miss him. He is fondly remembered, and still mentioned in dispatches.
https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1491772239745851396?s=20&t=8u3mWGNxLSMJYdMfQCToFg
Five errors in that ten word sentence - that's quite something.
Now, about those brexit benefits?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lifting-covid-restrictions-early-is-irresponsible-politics-says-professor-tim-spector-n8fs3bzhk
Then we had an unnecessary general election.
Which elected a different mix of MPs and a government who needed the support of others to do anything.
Radical idea - if implementing the referendum result was important to May's government, and she had a working majority, would it not have been better to get on with it?
You are describing the entire British electorate - who voted in 2017 for something different to what the voted for in 2015 as "a bitter bad loser".
Honestly I can't understand how some people so confidently comment about democracy whilst demonstrating that they have no clue how our democratic system actually works.
If it's a political decision then it is one that the government was elected legitimately to take.
In her interview with Eddie Nestor on BBC Radio London, Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said it was not the job of officers guarding Downing Street to prevent illegal parties."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/feb/10/politics-live-boris-johnson-nato-brussels-keir-starmer-john-major-cressida-dick
Remember, just because you can doesn't mean you should.
And then we had a General Election. What was said and done in the 2015 parliament is null and void at tha point. Any law can be overturned by any successor parliament. You know that. And yet you keep saying thinks that make you look like you don't.
Come on. Intelligent man as you are you know how bitter and ranty and drunk you sound.
Until he goes, that is how it will be.
https://twitter.com/ZacGoldsmith/status/1491750540119793665
"@ZacGoldsmith
A stale old corporatist who delivered 7 years of autopilot govt & a thumping defeat at the polls... & is still struggling to come to terms with the country’s decision to leave the EU.
John Major’s intervention has zero to do with covid rules (or democracy!)"
If we only ever listened to our most moral former PMs still alive, we would only ever listen to Theresa May and Gordon Brown
Of course the next trade deal that is signed will erode that sovereignty but they are enjoying it while it lasts and I am happy for them.
It is the idiots who voted it for a) economic benefit; b) less immigration; or c) any other reason whatsoever that deserve ire and scorn.
Yeah you're right. Not lies. Just mistruths.
You rely on "MPs can do whatever the hell they want, and screw what the public thinks". Technically correct. Politically unsustainable. Totally undemocratic.
Given the current prevalence of the disease, how much good does the professor think test, trace and isolate is still doing? Does he offer any suggestion at all as to how long it should go on for? And, if it does have any meaningful effect, presumably this implies some kind of spike when it is actually abandoned - in which case, would we just end up having rules re-imposed again?
Unless you adopt the position advocated by the extremist faction on iSAGE and some very frightened people, i.e. that testing (as well as things like masks and distancing) should continue forever, then they have to stop at some point. The most recent ONS figures estimate that about 98% of the adult population of the UK would now test positive for Covid antibodies. Therefore, if not now, when?
That sounds to me like an admission that officers knew full well what was going on but did not pass any of the information onto other officers who could have stopped them.
David Cameron: 24th June 2016:
"The British people have voted 52% to 48% to remain in the European Union......" *long pause*
".... however, despite voting and campaigning for Remain as well, I'm reminded the vote was only advisory.... I triggered Article 50, as I'm allowed to do, twenty minutes ago. Fuck you all! We leave the EU in two years time."
*Slings back inside No. 10 with Samantha looking on dumbfounded. Slams door behind him*
That patently did not happen.
Asking the electorate to approve the negotiated deal would have only enhanced democracy.
Of course the Tory government wouldn't do that because it knew its negotiated deal was such utter shit and likely to be judged as such by the electorate.
Doesn't play the adultery card, though, I wonder why that is
Judging by the desperate tone of the one that's just arrived, that council by-election in Hailsham isn't looking good for the Tories...
Which is rather a different matter than what Major did a couple of decades back.
And this is what happened in 2017 and 2019. Well done us the democratic nation.
There is nothing undemocratic about it at all. For all the 2017 shenanigans the end result was that Boris was elected in 2019 because the people spoke and wanted Brexit. Plus there was Corbyn, obvs.
If Lab had been elected in 2019 on a manifesto promise to rejoin the EU would that have been undemocratic? Because Brexit wouldn't have been "done" by then.
So apparently it IS democracy to ignore the result of a general election because the winner appointed to a fixed 5 year term didn't like the result. But not democracy to repeat any other votes.
That your argument? Bit thin isn't it?
I've said in the past that I don't see any reason to continue with any restrictions; but for a long time I felt like a lone voice at work; now I feel like I'm in the majority.
It was clear before the referendum that there were precisely three options:
(1) We vote to Remain and Remain
(2) We vote to Leave and Leave
(3) We vote to Leave but Remain.
Some people who favoured option 1 (like Major, Grayling and Scott) preferred option 3 to option 2. They are not democrats.
It’s more than just a Bobby stood outside a door guarding that estate from terror attack. The police have known all along what became a political scandal when hit the media many months later. And to be realistic, what they knew was passed right up the chain, not kept at ground level, wasn’t it?
Dick is in a tight spot, I don’t think Khan and Patel should force her out until this gets untangled. In my opinion, or it would feel like the commissioner is being stitched up in my view.
Sadiq Khan should be asked when he first knew of these parties I think. How long did he sit on the knowledge?
We are all getting exposed to COVID and most of us are going to get it at some point.
Putting Remain back on the ballot paper would have invalidated the first vote, and would have meant that people who wanted to Leave would have had to win two referendums but people who wanted to Remain cound have done so by winning only one.
If you can't see that this is fundametally anithetical to democracy I cannot help you.
"You don't really have that sense now about a govt that seems to be just ricocheting around with a🛒 PM"
https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1491779074640986113