Westminstenders Continues. Boris is having a bad week. Corbyn resists. Its gonna be a long summer.

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT CONTINUES - THREAD ELEVEN

The dust is beginning to settle and the storm has abated. At least for the moment. The summer is about to start, and so there may be a break in proceeding.

May has had quite a first week both here and abroad.

The ground has not stopped shaking from the political ripples abroad. Made PM on Weds, Nice on Thursday and a failed coup in Turkey on Friday. The political landscape has changed once again.

At home she first cleared out the Govians and called for loyalty. She channelled the ghost of Maggie at the despatch box. She started the process of trying to make friends with Scots, Germans and the French. She is apparently now Merkel's bestie. Sturgeon is already ousted from that position after just days.

Boris, meanwhile has been rinsed by everyone he speaks to because of what he's said in the past. He's also given up his chickfeed job. Oh the hardship.

Now he looking like he's starting to regret deciding to play with the grown up. He's been trying - and it would seem, largely failing - at sucking up to the Americans. There's still no apology, but he has admitted that he has a list that is so long that he's lost track of what he needs to apologise for. I bet he's wishing for his playmates, Dave and George to come back.

Otherwise life carries on as normal, well this alternate new version of normal, with parliament breaking for the summer today. Don't worry the Martian landing is scheduled for a week Tuesday.

UKIP's polling seems to have dropped back post referendum, and things have gone rather quiet. Wolfe, Etheridge, Duffy and Arnott are all standing (Who? When did that happen? Yeah quite. Without Farage they disappeared). They plan to reform and make an assault on seats in the Labour heartlands of the provisional NW, Midlands and NE at the next general election. Hustings in August, new leader announced Sept 15th. Looks of thinly and not so thinly veiled racism to look forward to there then. The Daily Mail best make sure it upgrades its servers in time.

The Labour contest grinds on like a war of attrition. Stalking horse Angela fell at the first fence as Owen Smith (that's the MP not the journalist everyone including the media!) wins the dream unity candidate ticket for an apparent hiding to nothing against the steely stubbornness of Corbyn. Everyone with a pulse is starting to loose the will to live with it all.

The Lib Dems, have a Spokesman for Remain. Old Cleggy's back! Otherwise they seem to have been trying to do a deluded impression of the opposition party. Though with 8 MPs they aren't doing much better or worse than Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet atm.

The Green are having a leadership battle too. It must be very civilised - I've heard not a word about it. Lucas tried to get a vote about PR though the Commons. It failed. Again.

There also is a cross party idea to set up a new iniative of a progressive movement to champion Europe, which seems to be gaining some traction. It may also double as a support group for anyone who thinks the world has gone a bit nuts lately at this rate.

The SNP are pissed off, as they vow differently on everything and once again they feel that Trident has been imposed on them. Sturgeon had a good meeting with May though, and apparently the Union must remain and Scotland holds the key to the future. Though we don't know the key to which door that is - Braveheart or Brave New World.

The Republic of Ireland is making noises about a referendum about Irish Unity, but beyond that nothing about NI has really been on the radar. May is supposed to go visiting soon.

And the Welsh? Baaaaa who cares about the welsh? They made the mistake of voting Leave as well as the English and now have been forgotten, consigned to political irrelevance forever.

Article 50 has been pushed back officially until the New Year, with a first legal hearing on how to activate it due no sooner than the 3rd week in October. Leaving the EU legally will now be no earlier than 2019.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2685902-Westminstenders-Contines-Boris-outmaneovered-everyone-Now-War-and-Peace?pg=1 Previous Thread TEN

I've finally managed to read the Helen Lewis article (kept on crashing on my phone). I agree with Howabout - she just doesn't understand Scotland. There's a lot within her article that is internally consistent: Scotland for one (and as Howabout points out: Corbyn's 10 Point plan is already "in place" in Scotland - yet was resisted by Scottish Labour ) plus her discussion about the electability of Labour. She touches on Clause One, yet then backs away from following through her argument

Re the BoE's base rate reduction and the various articles RedToothBrush linked to (not read them all yet): as someone who has a tiny mortgage but large savings (thanks to both dh and I having got generous redundancy packages at different times plus various bonuses/share save packages, so that we were able to pay off most of our mortgage), this really does mean we're going to be forced to become one of those "buy-to-let" landlords, as the only way to protect our savings.

Plan had been to use the savings to set up a business - but don't think now is the time to do so

I've changed my pension arrangements so that new investments will be going into funds with a limited exposure to UK shares.

Arj Singh ‏@singharj
Parties' reliance on "mega donors" criticised by Committee on Standards in Public Life, including link with honours
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/543811/Political_Finance_in_Britain.pdf
Its a 50+ page report but the summary is as follows:

What are the problems?
Clearly there IS a problem - or series of problems. Continued scandals attest to that. But it is important to clarify what the problems are and are not.

The first part of my study – the review of party and candidate expenditure in the 2010-15 cycle does not reveal any major problems.
There was not a spending “arms race” between the two main parties. Nor was there a spending difference between them sufficient to justify charges of major unfairness in the system.
^The main source of concern lies in the manner in which the parties derive their income. The principal source of the problem is low (and, in the case of the Conservatives, rapidly declining) party membership.
Major challenges are:^
• Reliance on mega-donors. This, in turn, raises questions of alleged rewards for these donors in the form of peerages and other public honours, privileged access, and of influence on policy. These are areas of frequent speculation but inadequate solid research.
• Use of public funding for partisan purposes. At almost all levels of elective politics, incumbents have become entitled to public money to aid them in their duties to their electors. There is a tendency to use some of this money as a form of backdoor state funding of parties and for the re-election of incumbents.
• Re-channeling of political money into relatively unregulated streams. The focus of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act of 2000 on donations specifically to political parties, has made it rational for donors to use alternative channels of influence. Pressure groups, NGOs and think tanks may serve as “offshore islands” of political parties.
In addition, a number of emerging problems deserve fuller examination and research. Further issues are:
• Arguable shortcomings in regulation and enforcement of existing political finance laws. Some of these were stressed in 2007 in the 11th Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The effectiveness not only of the Electoral Commission but also of other regulators such as the Charity Commission arguably need to be examined.
• Ambiguities in details of existing political finance legislation For example, there are spending caps on campaigning both by political parties and by candidates. Is the boundary line between their budgets sufficiently clear? What difficulties emerge from the fact that spending by candidates is subject to the Representation of the People Acts (and is administered by local government officials subject to [theoretical] direction from the Cabinet Office) while party election spending is subject to PPERA. which is subject to enforcement by the Electoral Commission?

Its certainly interesting timing for this to come out!!! Cameron is going to potentially be hauled over the coals over this, as there is already talk of him having to face MPs over cronyism. It covers the period up to 2015. I've done a very quick skim of the paper and here are some interesting points though they are by no means the only things of real note in it. It is utterly fascinating. I hope this gets a lot of media coverage. The whole thing is worthy of it really.

While average spending by candidates fell way below the legal limits, the parties poured money into marginal seats as was to be expected. It is only in some of these particular contests that significant questions arise about adherence to the legal limits. There are questions of three kinds: (1) at the level of law, does current legislation define with sufficient clarity the distinction between spending by candidates and by their national parties? Given that national parties have not been spending up to their legal limit, there has been an incentive to use (national) party money for campaigning in targeted seats. (2) Have the relevant authorities provided sufficient advice about the current laws to campaigners and parties? (3) Have the relevant authorities devoted sufficient efforts to investigating the accuracy of reported election expenses?

Second, the decline in constituency activity and finance in the party most noted for these things – the Conservative Party – apparently has led to a considerable centralisation of Conservative Party funding and thus of a centralisation of power. A thorough examination of trends in local party funding must, however, take into consideration changes in the system of public financing of the offices of MPs and of other public office-holders.

IMO this is because they have fewer and fewer party members and its now at the point where constituency activity is almost impossible. It is no wonder they are 'out of touch' tbh.

A further important feature of present-day company contributions is that they do not come from public corporations but almost always from private family firms. In practice, most company political contributions effectively are individual contributions designated as company contributions for tax reasons. Public companies have become reluctant to make payments to political parties. The complexity and uncertainty of company law relating to shareholder consent for political donations arguably has been a contributing factor.

^The rules concerning political donations by foreign companies is relatively lax since they are allowed to contribute provided that they have a UK business base and carry out business in the UK. This effectively
allows some individuals barred from making individual donations because they are not included on the electoral register to do so via a UK-based company.^
So you could be Russian for example...

The main, and in the author’s view, by far the most damaging effect of reliance on a limited number of very large donations is that it acts as a lazy short-cut for party leaders who are thereby able to devote less time and attention to the essential democratic function of generating support from party members and supporters. There are at least three other damaging consequences. First, social events which party leaders feel the need to hold with potential mega-donors gives an image of undesirable entitlement and extravagant lifestyle by the successful few.
Second, there is a fear that major donors expect and are led to expect privileged access to the Government in order to promote their business interests.

Third, the fact that some large donors to all the three established parties have received knighthoods and peerages has been a subject of frequent comment.

The statistical category “public funds” used by the Electoral Commission is misleading and underestimates the extent and growth of state funding of British political life. Indeed, this growth is one of the most important and ignored trends. Throwing light on the details of this trend is one of the most pressing research tasks in the field of British political finance. There is a strong case for CSPL to include the topic in its possible programme.

I never realised that Richard Desmond - owner of the Express and Star was a Kipper Donor!!!

Its not unsurprising though really!

www.buzzfeed.com/laurasilver/parents-are-worried-about-schools-plan-to-ask-what-country-t?utm_term=.eidBwj14X&bftwuk#.hvnBWzgaP
Parents Are Worried About Schools’ Plan To Ask What Country Their Child Was Born In

WTAF?! I will be having a conversation with DH over this. I will try and refuse to give as much information as possible about DS as this is simply outrageous. Its predates Brexit too.

I am not impressed at this at all. This is the action of a police state.

Richard Desmond has been a Ukip donor for a couple of years, and it's been public knowledge since he switched the paper's editorial support from the Consevatives to Ukip. It was definitely before the last election.

Corbyn has indeed nominated Shami Chakrabati for a peerage, which means he is on a very sticky wicket if he pulls Cameron up over his nominations. Especially as one of his leadership campaign pledges last year was to refuse to nominate new Labour peers because he doesn't believe in the House of Lords.

I don't know that I can get terribly excited about that Buzzfeed article, Red. Our schools have asked nationality and language since my kids started. They also asked to see birth certificates when they started reception, and my oldest started 8 years ago.

They send out the pupil information sheet each year, for us to amend if needed.

The Gambling Commission are investigating betting on the Ukip leadership fiasco

Oooo, that's interesting TBS. There was some odd betting on referendum night which I'm convinced with no evidence was Ukip betting on the result by calling a Remain win when the knew it was a Leave win.

We get an annual "contact details/medical information" form, with an optional "ethnic monitoring" form. I'm pretty sure it asks what language is spoken at home.

This is in Scotland though - and I'm not even sure the form is a national one, just what Glasgow is looking at.

They do ask for birth certificates when enrolling for primary school but accept passports when you can't find the birth certificate - but that's more to confirm age than nationality.

The referendum betting was all over the place, Swedish but there's not any particular evidence that there was anything illegal going on so far. I fully expect that there were some dodgy bets going on, but there really was a good volume of bets being made, which means the iffy ones have less impact.
In this case, apparently the bet in question shifted the price on Diane James from 8/1 to 1/3, which is massive.

David Allen Green ‏@DavidAllenGreen

Some quick points about post-Brexit trade deals. In modern world, tariffs and quotas are old hat as topics for trade agreements. Can be important, but not like in nineteenth century. Sadly, many Brexiteers think they are latter-day Richard Cobdens, and that quick tariff deals can be concluded. Some Brexiteers seem to be offering solutions to the very real problems of the 1850s.

Nowadays, it is not tariffs or quotas but "NTBs" - "non-tariff barriers" which are the contested basis of trade agreements.

What are NTBs?
In essence, they are domestic policies: from competition law, to consumer protection, procurement to IP rights. In other words, NTBs will be what will be dealt with in any credible international trade agreements.

Domestic policies are at stake.

You may say: this is not "what taking back control" should look like. And you may well be right. Any substantial international trade deals, post-Brexit, will require proper parliamentary oversight re NTBs (domestic policies). And UK government's competence at complex high-value commercial deals at speed under pressure can be described in three letters: PFI.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bookmakers-have-lost-faith-in-article-50-ever-being-triggered-a7170361.html
The bookies now think Brexit won't happen.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/department-for-brexit-theresa-may_uk_579f6339e4b0f42daa4ac9a6?ib8caysyjopxk1emi
Panic setting in, at the Brexit department. A good read this one. There is a rumour they are deliberately not hiring anyone with EU experience.

Yes, pretty that sounds like what we get, I don't think you have to fill in the ethnicity/religion sections, but I always have anyway. I think the school would also have accepted passports instead of bc, I also think back then they might have accepted Child Benefit award, but I can't entirely remember.

I don't know if the form we get is national, either, all the schools mine have gone to have been in the same LA, so it has always been the same form. It also asks stuff like how do they travel to school and do they intend to have sandwiches or dinners (which is pointless as both schools they currently attend run a choose on the day system!)

This article about a potential "Scottish Six" is quite funny http://www.thecanary.co/2016/08/03/bbc-pundit-says-scotland-cant-have-its-own-6-oclock-news-because-scots-cant-work-video-cameras-video/

There are legitimate areas of concern/consideration, but "Scots only bring able to cope with operating radio equipment and not complicated cameras" is not one of them

Torrance though is like Farage: a self-publicist who gets far too much air time.

I live in a marginal constituency and the amount of focus and indeed public funds that flowed here was deeply eg funding intended for the maintenance of existing schools suddenly flowed to a new VA faith school that was refurbishing and extending a site donated by the LA (it the Conservative leader's legacy project) on the basis all along that the funding for the necessary building work would come from the diocese / local faith community. I assume it was within the letter of the law / policy but I am equally sure the need for those funds was greater elsewhere

Completely agree with you about Torrance pretty. I have only ever seen him in Edinburgh so assume he has never visited BBC Scotland or STV.

Cardiff hustings now in progress.

You can watch live here:
www.labour.org.uk/pages/leadership-debates-2016

I've missed the first couple of minutes but there has already been this.

Sophy Ridge ‏@SophyRidgeSky

Owen Smith getting heckled as he talks about Labour being a disunited party - "Withdraw then!"

Posted too soon darn it. I was going to boast my old student flat was in the opening camera shots for Taggart.

So far, Owen Smith's position is that he is not Corbyn but otherwise is the same as Corbyn.

That and Labour should have a second ref. Which is the only really big cheer and applause he's got.

Howabout - I've got more time for Alan Massie than for David Torrance - and that's saying something!

My claim to fame is living in the same street as David Tennant's "Single Father" TV series. Shows the difference in housing between Glasgow especially the South Side and English cities: there were MNers who couldn't believe that a photographer and a TA could indeed live in a house like that.

Watching this I think that the leadership contest for Labour could work out well in a way regardless of who wins. It should generate lots of column inches and air time about what Labour's policies now are.

Its forced Corbyn to clarify the party position which was one of his criticisms. It should get him the publicity he's been complaining he's not been getting.

Smith is far from a Blairite it does have to be said. He and Corbyn seem to agreed on rather more than they disagree on. If they do start focusing on that, then they do have a hope of staying together as a party. This is the first time I've seen that for weeks.

There are some differences, but they are mainly around defence / foreign policy with regards to nukes and that's all to be honest.

I guess that ultimately that the real issue comes down to Jeremy Corbyn's man management which led to this situation in the first place and what they can do about that, and how he confronts the Tory more directly in holding them to account as he's been weak on this.

I can see Labour do have a potential chance of regaining some of their voters who are despairing. Which is a pretty big shift to what I would have said previously.

Owen Smith is such a lousy candidate I might even prefer the Dear Leader.

Angela Eagle towered above him.

Corbyn with or withiut the avuncular beard.

That's the choice now.

nauticant - Cameron's ruined reputation is a pretty small consolation really, isn't it?

Right wingers are so loyal to their own they'll keep pretending he was marvellous.

It is indeed a nano-consolation DoinItFine. But in this year of rubbishness I'll settle for any tiny ones going.

That's Smith's approach/tactic - same policies, made clearer but more effectively presented.

Summary of the husting so far:

Corbyn says something.
Smith goes. I agree Jeremy.

You'd be forgiven for wondering why they even bothered doing this tbh, if you hadn't been following it all closely.

@ hustings summary

7 Local ByElections tonight:

Beaver, Ashford - Lab
East Brighton, Brighton & Hove - Lab
South West Holderness, East Riding of Yorkshire - Con
Alston Moor, Eden - Con
Silverdale & Parksite, Newcastle under Lyne - UKIP
Bingham, Nottinghamshire - Con
Cramer, Rushcliffe - Con

The Brighton & Newcastle under Lyne ones caught my eye. Brighton CLP got suspended so that one will get some attention I think.