The Westminster Arms

Sorry, LL please can I have a small 🍷. It is not yet six o'clock, but needs must.
I have a headache.
Is 🍷 good for headaches?

I think it is really worrying if Rebecca Wrong Daily becomes leader.
I think Lisa Nandy would be good with the public but perhaps not so good at the dispatch box.
Sir Kier would be good at the dispatch box but a disaster with northern voters.

RWD would be bad at both.
And they say Boris lies,
ET is out of the race I hope.
We need someone who has leadership qualities to give us the opposition we need.
And I say that as a Conservative party member.

I don't know anyone plotting to create a Rejoin movement. No doubt there is one. Most Remain voters I know are exhausted with the whole thing and want to see if any of the promises will be delivered.

I don't know anyone who "self identifies as a Remainer". YouGov didn't ask me. Or anyone I know. Stereotyping isn't a good idea.

bellinisurge, you could well be right. I accept I could well be my bias (due to voting leave) and it might just be that I am 'perceiving' them that way.

Hopefully you are right and it will happen quickly. Do you sense anyone in the frame of mind to regroup in a rejoin position?

I only agree with Bellini insofar as it would be helpful to all of us to move forward regardless of how we voted, mummmy, but that doesn't stop people from defining themselves as Remainers or Leavers, or anyone else using those terms.

I am a Leaver. Always will be. Immutable fact.

I am, however, saddened to learn that in four years, only 30% of Remainers are apparently at the acceptance stage. They were not best served by public leaders who continued to squabble and divide - and who continued to hold out the hope of a People's Vote or withdrawal of Article 50; something pointed out by Ommward.

I don't know any people like that @Walkingdeadfangirl . And I suspect I know more people that voted Remain than you do.
Lots of negative feeling obviously but no one in denial.
Enjoy your day tomorrow. I don't wish to begrudge you that. It's a new chapter.

As my mum used to say - it takes a wise man to act the fool. I can see Boris ruffle his hair, tug on his tie and then launch himself out the door of number 10.
I think the new term that’s being used after 31st is rejoiners.

After tomorrow I hope we can all start to move on and be, "let's move to the next stage" -ers. I fear it will take another year, or more, before a lot of remainers stop self identifying as such. They still seem to be in fight mode, "will not accept we have left, will not be part of building a brighter future, its all a shit show and the EU are keeping a light on for us".

But maybe in time when the trade deals start falling into place and the sky doesn't fall down. It will be interesting to see if a 'rejoin' grouping starts to emerge.

So do we just say some people are more unhappy about the future than others.?

howabout "YouGov have been doing research on how Remainers feel on the 5 stages of grief spectrum. In 2016 only 20% reported Acceptance. Today it is still only 30%."

I'm having a bad day on a personal level but that really made me headdesk.

I think I need a triple, landlady!

As Ed Miliband was, not "is".

I see RLB is having problems with figments of her imagination again.

On Wednesday, she was forced to backtrack over claims that she had worked through the night to help keep Labour afloat in the wake of the 2016 revolt against Jeremy Corbyn. Simply not true, as the facts showed and as she had to concede.

Previously, she claimed with pride that she “was born to the sound of the roar of the Stratford end" at Old Trafford. The woman must have ears like Jodrell Bank. United were playing at Wolverhampton that day. They’re a good 80 miles apart.

Our Becky is also adamant that “her politics were informed by watching her father’s anxiety about losing his job at Salford docks”. What a remarkable toddler she must have been, developing complex political views and insight into human emotion at the age of two. Any other tot of that age would be too busy watching cartoons and eating biscuits to think about job losses at Salford docks.

Wonder if she knows what happened to Lord Lucan?

Despite all of this, I think RLB will be pushed to the fore in much the same way as Ed Miliband is. In that case, we are going to have to wait longer for an effective opposition, and that's of no benefit to any of us regardless of political persuasion.

a bit of a worry for those who 'lent' their vote to Boris...

I had an exchange with Singing about this earlier and we seemed to agree. Maybe it would be a good idea not to think about people as Remainers and Leavers. Particularly when most people are " Let's move to the next stage" -ers.
I don't regret my Remain vote but this is 2020 not 2016. Tomorrow we leave. Please don't define me or anyone else as a Remainer . There is no Remain option.

YouGov have been doing research on how Remainers feel on the 5 stages of grief spectrum. In 2016 only 20% reported Acceptance. Today it is still only 30%.

Same here. Only time I voted Labour was in 1997.
And I regretted it a few years later.
But it was optimism, energy and enthusiasm that persuaded me.
#shallow

If you were in a bubble in 1997, Ommward, I was there with you. It was the one and only time I voted Labour.

The elections of 1979, 1997 and 2019 were national game-changers - seismic in my view - and each were a direct response to the common issues of a national weariness with stagnation, lack of direction, dearth of hope and a sense that the UK was facing managed decline if something didn't change.

In 1979, the country was held to ransom by the unions (three day week, electricity rationed, rubbish uncollected and mounting up in the streets, the dead unburied) and the feeble efforts of Heath, Wilson and Callaghan came to naught. Margaret Thatcher projected positivity, optimism and a sense of purpose and so people voted for hope and change.

In 1997, the tired and fractious government of a lacklustre John Major dithered itself to a standstill (Major's thoughts, as we now know, were engaged elsewhere). Tony Blair projected positivity, optimism and a sense of purpose and so people voted for hope and change.

And in 2019, after nearly four years of endless bickering and hysterics about Brexit by a government led in name only by micro-manager Theresa May and hampered by the parliamentary arithmetic did - in my view - palpable damage to the morale of the nation and to confidence of business and investors. Boris Johnson projected positivity, optimism and a sense of purpose and so people voted for hope and change.

Margaret Thatcher, love her or loathe her, changed the UK both domestically and on the international stage. She started with a government majority of 43. Boris, with a majority of 80, has no excuse now but to get on with it and repay the trust shown in him.

I actually think that Boris wants to go down in history as a game-changing PM in the style of Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher. That's why Serious Boris is more in evidence these days and that's why he continues to bamboozle those who expect only Boris the Jester. He can do both, but the overall aim is always to bring enough of the electorate with him.

I think labour go all out for spend and make it better, make it fair for all, only it fails and the Tory's have to come in and be the bad guys and clean up the mess.
But for some reason labour have missed their window of power, due to Corbyn, Boris has come in on the Brexit tide and so gets to change things because David Cameron already sorted the mess labour left.

I've also been reflecting on big general election victories, and the way that both Blair and Johnson harnessed optimism and reaped the rewards. And that now makes me wonder about 1983, and whether Thatcher pulled off the same feat (I'm too young to have been consciously aware of whether there was that in the national mood).

There's certainly a difference between 1997 and 2019. In 1997, it felt as if everyone heaved a sigh of relief at the new direction, including many conservatives (or was I in a bubble?). In 2019, there's a very vocal minority resistance to and fury about the conservative victory, and I just don't remember that being expressed in 1997.

howabout Unfortunately there is no sign of one emerging from any of them so far.

This is exactly the conversation I had with MrHospitality. Not a single one of the candidates has spoken a positive thought about our future out of the EU to my knowledge.

I saw ET on Peston last night, still analysing the disastrous election and how her way (2nd referendum) would have been more successful. Labour MP guest Gloria De Piero did try to tell ET that labour weren't listening, but ET wasn't listening to that either.

Morning all
Interesting thoughts on optimists and pessimists. I don't agree that it is a Leave / Remain split. I think rather that pessimists inhabit both extremes. So the extreme Brexiteers believed the Ref was our last opportunity to Leave before being subsumed by the EU behemoth and the extreme Remainers believed overturning the Ref to be the only route to prevent turning our backs on the rest of Europe if not the World.

Irl most people I know are far more pragmatic and want to make the most of whatever outcome.

Some of the Labour Leadership candidates have talked about the problem with the 2019 campaign being a lack of a coherent positive future vision. I agree with this analysis. Unfortunately there is no sign of one emerging from any of them so far.

I also agree positivity is a big plus point for Boris but also his demonstrable willingness to take risks and make mistakes followed by an equal willingness to dust himself off and move forwards. Again that echoes strongly with most people I know irl.

Blimey
I’ve never been thought of as optimistic in my entire life.

Morning all 😀

Copper I agree about Boris. I first saw it when he attended the G7 meeting in Biarritz; he had only been PM a few weeks at that time. I was feeling apprehensive about his bumbling Boris reputation, but he did really well (what bit we saw) and it was clear that his presence was going down well with the other representatives, whatever they thought of him in reality.

People like to be around positive people. You see it all the time in the workplace. A positive, happy boss generally = a happy workforce.