Brexit is quietly going round and round in ever decreasing circles.
The story is that the European parliament will not agree to a transition period beyond 1st January 2020.
The third minister responsible for getting the Repel Bill through the Lords has quit. There are now nearly 400 amendments. It is scheduled for 6 days parliamentary time in the Commons from this coming week. With another 2 possible the following week. Rather bravely AFTER the budget. Bored with May, CVs are being submitted for the position of Chancellor.
Interest Rates are looking likely to rise next week too with the message being 'this is as good as it gets'.
Another team of MPs has gone to the EU to see if they can check up on May and her team. This is unlikely to work as Nicola Sturgeon came across a brick wall.
And then there are the many many distractions from it all.
Catalonia has declared independence, which will consume EU time and energy.
There are rumours that the first prosecution in Trump Russia will be Monday (Guess who is currently in the US. Yep, the gurning one). And there are increasing muttering about Russia over here, with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg being called to respond to a Select Committee investigation into Fake News.
And then there's the sleaze. Jared O'Mara seems to be the first in the queue. There are rumours more will be outed in several parties. Suggestions include May's right hand man Damien Green who was previously named in 2008. And the Tory Whips have a 'sleaze list' which suggests they know whats going on, but have done nothing.
This morning we have Gove making ill advised jokes about Weinstein in this political climate. With Neil Kinnock laughing heartily in response.
Anything that happens will be political to discredit opponents not because there is a change of attitude towards the treatment of women. We know this, because of who is leading the charge on this. The skeletons are being dusted off out the cupboard rather than exposed for the first time in dramatic fashion.
Things, could take a very unexpected turn against this background.
Don't bet against it.
Brexit
Westministenders: The Return of Parliamentary Sleaze?
RedToothBrush · 28/10/2017 14:35
Thanks, red 
Sleaze and now an even more batshit new minister.
All producing the new fUKed.
Whilst I applaud the focus on sleaze wrt sexual harassment in Westminster , I cannot help feeling it has a 'ooh look over there' feel about it .That really is all I am going on , gut instinct , but the Repel bill hits parliament this week and suddenly after years and years , we are suddenly distracted by stories of what ? Stuff that has been going on for years and years. Squirrel ?
I hope I am wrong and the British press will be exemplary in their coverage of the now nearly 400 amendments 
The terrible Brexit prophecy of Ivan Rogers is coming true. We should have listened
(paywall) Christopher Booker (whose Torygraph column has long been slashed in length and moved to the back of the paper)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/28/terrible-brexit-prophecy-ivan-rogers-coming-true-should-have/
Back again last week as one of the chief spectres at the Brexit feast was Sir Ivan Rogers,
who last January resigned as our vastly experienced ambassador to the EU,
after warning against
“ill- founded arguments and muddled thinking” in our approach to leaving it.
This was just before Theresa May’s announcement that we were to leave the single market and the European Economic Area (EEA),
to seek a one-off trade deal that would give us the same “frictionless” access to the market we have now.
On Wednesday, Sir Ivan tried to explain to the Commons Treasury committee some of the realities inevitably resulting from our decision to become what the EU classifies as a “third country”,
with “no more rights than Yemen or Venezuela”.
And the picture he painted, although diplomatically couched, was devastating.
"I hope you will continue to challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking and that you will never be afraid to speak the truth to those in power"
- Ivan Rogers in his parting letter
Allowing for ratification, we effectively now have only a year left for our negotiations.
Even the “thousands of pages” required by a “Canada-type” trade deal, giving us considerably less access to our largest export market than we have now, would take years to hammer out.
But the consequences of a “no deal” would be so “dire”, “chaotic” and “bloody” as to be unthinkable.
We could not hope just to rely on “WTO rules”, which are not “rules” at all but merely principles that must govern any trade agreement; and without a deal we would simply drop into “a legal void”.
The difficulties of achieving continued access for our exports in pharmaceuticals and chemicals (worth £50 billion a year),
food products,
“large chunks of financial services”, and much else would be insurmountable.
Sir Ivan tried to discuss other problems, both with and without a deal,
such as all the new border controls and infrastructure required not just in Ireland but on the continent.
But most of this seemed to pass the MPs by.
When he tried to explain in some detail, based on discussions going back to 2015 with senior figures in the aviation industry,
just how flights from the UK to the EU and the US could “cease” overnight,^^
because these are all now legally authorised only by EU regulations that would require incredibly complex negotiations to replace,
one MP simply cut him short in order to change the subject
Remember this announcement from a few years ago ?
"The child abuse inquiry may for the first time open up the 'dirt' used to enforce discipline by the most feared figures in politics"
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/13/whips-secrets-black-books-threats-child-abuse-inquiry-politics
....
former Tory whip Tim Fortescue, who served in Edward Heath's government between 1970 and 1973.
In a 1995 TV documentary, Fortescue, who died in 2008, said:
"Anyone with any sense, who was in trouble, would come to the whips and tell them the truth, and say,
'Now I'm in a jam. Can you help?'
It might be debt, it might be … a scandal involving small boys,
or any kind of scandal in which … a member seemed likely to be mixed up.
They'd come and ask if we could help, and if we could, we did."
The late Tory home secretary Willie Whitelaw told the same programme how information was recorded in the black or "dirt" book:
"The dirt book is just a little book where you write down various things you know or hear about people that may or may not be true.
I think you could make a very good guess what sorts of things it contains."
Fortescue added that "scandalous stories" were whips' stock-in-trade.
"When you are trying to persuade a member to vote the way he didn't want to vote on a controversial issue
– which is part of your job –
it is possible to suggest that perhaps it would not be in his interest if people knew something or other – very mildly."
< so MPs are blackmailed into voting for the govt >
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