Westminstenders Contines. Boris outmaneovered everyone?! Now War and Peace?

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT CONTINUES - THREAD TEN

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This set of threads started out asking if Boris had been outmanoeuvred by Cameron handing him a poison chalice. Fate made it seem as if Boris lost the battle but May has confounded everyone and handed him a second chance. Or so it might seem.

May now has a new Cabinet after a sweeping cull of Cameron's lot. It is more right wing than in a generation. A number of appointments have raised eyebrows. There are plenty of poison chalices and plenty of Brexiteers. Will this create peace in the Tory ranks? Or is it just the calm before the storm

Labour are tearing themselves apart what now seems to be all out civil war. Talk of gerrymandering, violence, disenfranchisement, deselection and intimidation are rife. The seems to be no end in sight, and no prospect of a solution apparent. The question perhaps seems to be when and how, rather than if the party will split, and who will retain the name and party funds.

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So the sad face of British politics in the last two days can be summed up in a single image. Boris and a brick.

Depressed?

I think we have a while to go yet before we hit the bottom.

Excuse me with the intros as I'm starting to struggle to keep up with things myself

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2684990-The-Westminster-Hunger-Games-Contines-May-Day-May-Day Previous Thread Nine

There's therefore a far greater knowledge about what is going on in the world which feeds insecurity and paranoia

I think the constant access to news media via the internet really feeds this. We're much more aware of every little detail of what goes on - the videos and narrative make it much more real, more "close" to us, and therefore more alarming.

I think the scale of terrorism has changed - the amount of people who can be killed and the easier way to get weapons. Social media feeds discontent and can groom vulnerable and disaffected people more easily. I've no idea what the solution is to that.

Cross-post there with Ginger

Martin McGuinness authorised human bombs.
NewIRA has unclear chain of command.
Nothing new under the sun (?)

Hollande's comments yesterday reflect all this when he said we will 'have to learn to live' with terrorism. Frankly, having spent a long time being interested in the subject I'm inclined to say that he's right.

I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 80s and 90s (b.77) I would say that growing up in that kind of atmosphere (troops on the street, heightened security, bomb scares and so on) is the definitive memory of my early life. After the Belgian attacks I realised what you are saying Red that we, or more to the point, my children are going to have to live with it and it depresses the hell out of me.

I don't think I could read a book by David Laws - he was one of the worst offenders in the expenses row. But, speaking of LDs, I had an absolutely delightful conversation with a young LD on the doorstep this morning. Like an LD Gleb.

was there ever a halcyon age when MPs all represented their constituents?

Looking at wikipedia...

Rotten boroughs that were basically owned by one family were theoretically abolished in 1832.

However, women have only been able to vote on the same terms as men since 1928, the property requirements for men were only dropped in 1918, and MPs have only received salaries since 1911. Presumably this all influenced the rise of the Labour Party in the 1920s.

Given that we only ditched hereditary peers in 1999 I'm not convinced that there was ever a period when 'the powers that be' and the old school tie haven't influenced who could become an MP and where.

There's also the issue that some people are gifted politicians and wouldn't necessarily find a seat in their home town. Local councillors don't tend to be 'parachuted' in, and sometimes that shows...

Sorry to hark back to the LD tuition fees debate (I've been out and about all day), just wanted to say that I agree with red and others that it was probably in truth a sensible area for negotiation. However, the problem is that it had huge symbolic importance, which is why it haunts them to this day. And I also agree that the message didn't get across that they were a civilising influence on the Tories, but (1) they have never had any mainstream media in their pocket and (2) the right wing press had no incentive to report them fairly, hence Cameron etc got undeserved credit (sheesh, I thought it was bad last year when they won an outright majority, little did I know!)

You know, I can still remember the 10 o'clock news on election night 1997 and the announcer (Dermot Murnaghan?) saying just two words 'Labour landslide' and the feeling of euphoria which lasted for days.

Seems centuries ago now.

Best, I remember that night so well as well. Michael Portillo losing his seat was THE election moment.

I can't keep up with the thread so just place marking. I too remember the labour victory of 1997, it was the first election I could vote in and I felt so happy to have helped boot the Tories out.

To go on about tuition fees - I do feel doubly bitter as the fees/maintenance costs are now quite prohibitive for many (including my family/son); and the option - which we'd been seriously considering - of him going to a European Uni, like in Germany, where they teach in English and it costs virtually nothing, is now clearly closed. I so feel for young people in this era. We do talk about Brexit at home, but I try and be a little guarded because I think young people have a right to feel optimistic about their futures.

I also echo the impact of rolling news and social media. Thirty years ago there was simply a much lower volume of news which, being on the hour or in a newspaper was not hard to avoid.

The posts, pictures and video coming out of Nice made the situation very real, very frightening and very upsetting.

Comres poll
http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/independent-sunday-mirror-political-poll-2/
Carried out 13-15 June, so probably reflects a TM honeymoon period.

PM
Q: Who would make a better PM ?
TM 58%
JC 19%

Labour Leader
Re leadership: voters prefer Owen to Eagle
Labour voters are still loyal to JC and think he would do better in the GE than the challengers:
JC 44% to Owen 26%
BUT
General electorate disagree:
Owen 34% to JC 27%

Also, after a Brexit deal has been negotiated (!) most people do NOT want ref#2 to say Y/N to the terms
57 % to 29 %
So TM and the cabinet decide

Then a trade bill has to be drafted for the HoC for approval and presumably our trading partners do the same (US Congress can take decades !)

Going back a fair bit (after our detour into Con-Dem coalition and terrorism not that they're linked ), I most definitely don't think that Nicola Sturgeon "seeking to make sure Scotland is part of the UK negotiation is a significant climbdown for her."

She has always been a pragmatic and incremental politician; don't assume that just because she is giving May enough rope "working with the UK Government" on the Brexit negotiations, she isn't still also doing the soft "pre-negotiations" with representatives from the EU/EU negotiations so that if the Brexit negotiations don't go well, she has a back-up.

The need to "bring Scotland along" serves both May and Sturgeon for the moment: May can use Scotland as an excuse to invoke Article 50 until she has her ducks in a row if ever and Sturgeon gains time and ammunition before calling Indyref2 which she doesn't really want to call yet

This is what Nicola has said about yesterday's meeting:

^"Today I welcomed the new Prime Minister to Bute House in Edinburgh.

I sought a commitment from her that the UK government would listen and consider all the options raised by Scotland.

So there is now an agreement that the Scottish Government will be fully involved in ‘Brexit’ talks.

With Scotland facing exit from the EU against our will, warm words about a 'special Union' won’t cut it.

A Union that ignores our wishes would not be very special at all.

I’ll continue to explore all options to preserve our place in Europe. That’s what Scotland voted for.

And, a new poll shows the people across Europe strongly support Scotland’s place in Europe too.

I’ll be back with a further update soon. Until then, I’ll be working tirelessly to protect Scotland place in Europe… come what may.^

It's a little different to May's statement which implies that she's "just" agreed to be involved in the UK Government Brexit negotiations.

btw: Caroline Lucas is introducing a bill to introduce PR on Wednesday.
Apart from Liberals and the Green, I wonder how many PLP votes for it Very few Tories I suspect

The 2 politicians obviously want quite different things - but I suspect they understand each other perfectly
TM seems to choose words carefully and she chose not to use the word “agree” wrt Scotland
“Listen”, “discuss” and “consider” each have a different meaning to “agree”.
She's not letting Scotland have a veto, at least not unless it becomes helpful to her later

Newspaper pictures of victims (posed photos before the horror) have always been available and always had a great impact.
Still do, Especially those 3 smiling little boys got to me:

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/15/who-were-the-nice-attack-victims-bastille-day-dead

I think terrorists before ISIS and Al Qaeda at least made some effort not to slaughter so many children. For PR if nothing else. ISIS & co love the horrified reactions and world condemnation
Nihilism.

I agree BigChocFrenzy: I think all that happened on Friday was two politicians marking their territory; they can both use the outcome of the meeting to serve their respective ends/audiences.

Who gets the most benefit in the long term is something we'll only be able to tell with hindsight

I have been mostly avoiding real life today, I needed a bit of a break. However, I have just seen the 'fair campaign pledge' Corbyn has launched (don't know why he couldn't just agree to AE 's but anyway) and it's either shitty proofreading or a Freudian slip, but it includes the words
"no personal abuse will not be accepted"

You'd think that was the one point they would want to make certain was correct, wouldn't you?
It's being pointed out repeatedly in the responses to his tweet, so we'll see if it gets changed.

Bathroomsink Sums up JC's real policy ! Unintentional honesty.

Further info from that ComRes poll:
JC doesn't do well vs TM, even failing to beat her on qualities where a Labour leader normally smashes the Tory one - "nice", "principled" etc
Since Labour voters like him, it suggests other voters really don't

Re. PR, if the labour party are going to split, PR is the only hope we have of avoiding a Tory government for ever more. Perhaps some labour MPs will realise this and support the bill?

BigChoc

I've been avoiding real life too. And I know what you mean about those pictures. My DS is the same age as one of the boys who was killed.You can only hope it was quick and they didn't suffer.

Regarding the discussion about terrorism, this does 'feel' worse. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and remember the constant low-level fear that you would be caught up in an IRA bomb attack. However the IRA didn't seem to deliberately target civilians and there was usually a warning. That is in absolutely no way intended to minimise the impact of those awful attacks by the way, I'm just describing my own feelings.

AQ and IS seem to revel in their notoriety and are (I think) calculated to cause maximum horror and distress. As I said above, I think this target would have been chosen specifically because lots of families would be out enjoying the Bastille Day fireworks.

Jon Lansman (Momentum founder & leader) has confirmed our worst suspicions:

Momentum (and presumably JC) aren't interested in winning GEs
AND they are contemptuous of the idea of winning GEs and consider it elitist

Utter madness for the Official Opposition
The Guardian analyses the behaviour and motivations, but I still find it incredible that Labour should be reduced to this travesty
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/16/corbynism-sounds-death-knell-for-labour

What will those millions of Labour voters do, if the Labour Party just abandons them and wanders off ?

This is an outrageous betrayal in particular of the working class and the vulnerable in this country