Westministenders. Boris we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Constitutional Crisis?

[RedToothBrush]

Its twelve days to go until the end of the HoC 2016 calendar and we can already tell that everyone is wishing it was Christmas already. Poor Theresa though, she doesn’t get to play with toys on the last day of term. Instead she has a grilling on the lack of spending on health and social care spending by a commons select committee.

Hopefully the next couple of weeks will calm down a little though as thoughts turn elsewhere.

The A50 case has come to an end. There is no way of telling which way the judges will go but the decision to appeal may yet haunt the government as it will bring the issue of devolution to a head, whether they win or lose. The ruling is due in mid January.

Win and they are going to have to amend the Devolution Acts and potentially impose Brexit on people with certain national identities who voted against it. This is profoundly undemocratic and a betrayal of the principles of Devolution and the expectations of the will of the people.
Lose and they could face a full blown constitutional crisis, with NI or Scotland or both having a veto over Brexit, and the government effectively unable to trigger a50 in line with our constitutional requirement. Which is again, potentially profoundly undemocratic and against the referendum and the expectations of the will of the people.

It was a scenario that predictable and avoidable at several junctions yet the government under Cameron and May ploughed on regardless. It a scenario that we are now locked into, due to deciding to use the courts rather than just go through parliament.

It could also massively restrict the power of the executive under the Royal Prerogative. Ironically this is something that David Davis has campaigned for, for years so I guess he gets a victory however the decision goes.
So the chances of some kind of crisis with regard to our constitutional makeup and the union seem inevitable in the new year.

The government despite a defeat in Richmond Park continues to lean right and characterise anyone with concerns as unpatriotic or not honourable. This is the last resort of the desperate.

They have however, conceded to Labour that they will publish a report on their Brexit plans before a50 is triggered. In return Labour have promised that they will let a50 be triggered by the end of March. Is this a good thing? It remains to be seen. In some ways this is a blinder for Labour.

They are pro-Brexit but anti-lack of plan in theory. This only works if the plan actually has substance. If there is no substance in the plan and its nothing more than empty words then they face having to go back on a commons vote committing them to a deal with the Conservatives. It could therefore be a trap for them. It marginalises the none English Nationalist voices too. Voices that are important and deserve to be heard. Voices that if they are not listened to, will have consequences.

What will the Sleaford and North Hykenham (yep again) by election bring?

A vote of confidence in the government, a new ever growing and rising fear of UKIP or something else. How will this colour the start to the New Year?

I don’t know. 2016 has apparently been the year of gin as people turn to the drink to cope. Everything is now Brexitty and Red, White and Blue.
But whose’s? Britain’s? The USA’s? Russia’s? Or France’s?

We look forward to, or more to the point we fear what 2017 could bring. A feeling we have not felt to this degree in many years. A General Election with a UKIP breakthrough. The end of peace in NI. A repeat of the age old betrayal of Scotland’s by the English. The Welsh damned to irrelevance and marginalisation. Brexit vettoed and the subsequent political fallout. The end of the NHS. A bonfire of rights. A new Italian PM and possibly new Eurozone economic crisis. Fillon or Le Pen and at last a real victory for the far right in Europe. The chance of Merkel’s Last Stand. Putin’s partnership with Assad and a new genocide we are powerless to stop. Erdogan pulling the plug on the EU door and unleashing a new wave of refugees onto European shores. The horror of ISIS both within the West and within the Middle East. Trump’s neo-fascism and rise of a New World Order. There is something in there for everyone to dread.

Which will it be? Probably something we have not yet foreseen such are these times.

Act 2 of Brexit in Westminstenders land is bound to be just as dramatic and of course, we leave 2016 in true soap fashion on a real cliff hanger.

All the more reason to enjoy the holiday period and break whatever your politics.

Devastating assessments of Trump by US intelligence officers, giving evidence & advice to the Senator Intelligence Committee:

"“There is not just smoke here. There is a blazing 10-alarm fire, the sirens are wailing, the Russians provided the lighter fluid, and Trump is standing half-burnt and holding a match,”

"He said: “Look, in my professional assessment as an intelligence officer, Trump has a reflexive, defensive, monumentally narcissistic personality, for whom the facts and national interest are irrelevant, and the only thing that counts is whatever gives personal advantage and directs attention to himself.
“He is about the juiciest intelligence target an intelligence office could imagine.
He groans with vulnerabilities. He will only work with individuals or entities that agree with him and build him up, and he is a shockingly easy intelligence ‘target’ to manipulate.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/11/intelligence-agencies-cia-donald-trump-russia

There seems to be a bipartisan effort to have these claims investigated.
I wonder if Trump will be impeached in his first year - it'll be a race between that and him managing to stop the investigations

Re: Farage, it's not clear what he can advise on except campaigning and Trump seems to have that covered. Would Trump keep him close just to spook the British government?

Frank disclosure here BCF “If Trump is willing to disregard sound intelligence now, and demean the hard-working and patriotic Americans who produced it, I fear what he will do as president when confronted with unpleasant truths,” Schiff said.
“Will he accept the best insights of our agencies, or punish them for daring to contradict his assumptions?”
Were Trump an intelligence officer himself, Carle said, “he would be removed and possibly charged with having accepted the clandestine support of a hostile power to the harm of the United States”.
It would make a great film, pity it's real.

But it's constitutional violation, isn't it Merry? Unless he's appointed by TM he's got no mandate, but will act like he has?

TM still has the mail onside by the looks of it: they've got a picture tomorrow of Nicky Morgan carrying a handbag which cost as much as the trousers.

What would Farage even do in Washington DC aside from massaging Trump's ego and making himself increasingly unpopular with the British govt? Court jester?

What would Farage even do in Washington

I suppose, based on past performance, claim expenses.

"At this point are Americans supposed to trust either the FBI or the CIA?"

God knows. They're (we're all?) clearly being groomed to trust no-one. "Only your leader tells the truth - so I can tell you anything". Thankfully, need to remember most Americans did not vote for him.

Like Farage sneered at the EU ' You laughed at me then, you're not laughing now'. He's a obnoxious little man, but this would set a very dangerous precedent. It's the ukips and trump puppeteering May and all our elected representatives, potentially. She is at least elected, in her brown leather trouser glory.

an obnoxious

Isn't Mike Pence equally obnoxious to Trump in his own way? He's what the US would get if Trump were to be impeached.

We shouldn't need to be groomed to trust no one in my book. We should trust no one in the first place!

Not asking the right questions was what got us here because we trust what we've been told too much already at face value without holding people to account properly.

Its what's NOT said that often more important that what IS said. We look for evidence and accept facts. What we don't do is looking for contradicting points on the same issue, if we've already found 'the answer' and we accept that answer or can't be bothered to check it and follow it further. (not just in politics but for lots of other things) And we don't question what's absent because we are too distracted by what is being said. (This is what the whole argument for Leave managed to do and is still is doing).

We will never know the truth about a lot of things. But that's not to say you can't spot what is grossly untrue or spot glaring absences. This might give clues to what's going on behind the scenes, even if you can't see it or know what it is for certain.

Plus people don't ask about motives enough, when the motivation behind a story is as important as the story itself in my cases. Motivations are so revealing.

Trouble is for most of us, what is really happened means jack shit. What matters is how its all being presented and how that affects us that matters.

Trump might really be a very nice man, and respects everyone in equal measure and there is nothing wrong with him being president. The way he was smeared is all just a gigantic democrat lie.

Donald Trump is the hero of the hour come to save us from Russia by being their friend; the pussy gate tape is a fake and Trump was conned into apologising for something that never happened.

Except his entire campaign was about being nasty to others both in word and deed.

The building blocks of truth can be found if you look hard and are both open minded and critical of what you read - and how you process that in a positive or negative way to construct a bigger picture.

Unless you actively WANT the lie to be true...

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/theresa-mays-grammar-school-plan-9440207
Theresa May's grammar school plan suitable for just six counties in England

The education think-tank said it analysed all 152 local areas to find where new or expanded grammar schools would not be to the detriment of pupils who do not attend the school; would not undermine existing high performing non-selective schools; would be in high demand from parents; and would have enough pupils attending within a reasonable travel distance.

Just six fit the bill - Solihull, Essex, North Yorkshire, Dorset, Northamptonshire and North Somerset.

Would they be those areas that need assistance to improve social opportunity? Or are they Tory Hotspots? Nice to see Sunderland on the list. Oh wait...

qz.com/846940/a-yale-history-professors-20-point-guide-to-defending-democracy-under-a-trump-presidency/
And a 20-point guide to defending democracy under a Trump presidency

(Worth knowing and understanding, even if you don't think Trump is as bad as all that simply because at its core its about democracy)

The only Grammars in North Yorkshire are Ripon and Ermysteds (Skipton). Ripon and Skipton is one of the largest constituencies, and would elect a sheep with a blue rosette, so she won't get many votes for her £ there.

Perhaps Farage can take a flotilla down the Potomac

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/11/labour-war-jeremy-corbyn-opponents-control-constituencies?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other
An interesting article on what the PLP is doing is doing atm.
Concludes:
Do not mistake the sound of silence in the national media for an absence of battle. The war for Labour’s soul goes on. As the old leftists liked to say, the struggle takes many forms. The one that counts at the moment is at the grassroots. Rather against expectations, the moderates are prevailing.

Re Farage job:
Trump can appoint him to do a job for the US, e.g. negotiator / ambassador to the EU or Middle East < shudders >
but he can't appoint him to do a job for the UK, e.g. to be British ambassador to the US

President Mike Pence ?

The fundamental differences between him & Trump are that although Pence is a (rather stupid) rightwing religious Republican, he is:

• sane
• not a fascist and doesn't associate with them
• no more likely to be a Manchurian candidate than any other bog-standard US politician.

So he is almost certainly not manipulated by Russia, nor a threat to US national security and democracy, not likely to have a tantrum and order people to be harmed.

We need to distinguish between politicians whose policies we hate (Pence would be horrendous for womens's rights) and politicians who are a threat to democracy.

bigchoc I agree with that, although I think there needs to be some nuance when it comes to whether Pence and other hardline republicans pose a threat to democracy. He has been linked with black voter suppression in Indiana, and efforts to suppress the minority vote are becoming commonplace in republican states.

I would personally be a lot more worried about Pence than Trump.

Indiana and the KKK www.theindychannel.com/longform/the-ku-klux-klan-ran-indiana-once-could-it-happen-again

I would worry not because of the actual KKK but because of the history of receptiveness to that sort of dynamic.

I know this is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it's long been going round on some forums that Trump chose Pence as a life insurance policy: as in, nobody would assassinate him because they'd get Pence instead.

dudleymcdudley optimistic take on it by Rawnsley. Hope it's true but from what I've seen of momentum's takeovers, it's not. Labour have the trots to contend with, whose battles with the communists are long running. And in 'post truth' land. Brown was a terrible chancellor ( despite getting us through 2008 in on piece) and Blair is a liar ( despite the parliamentary vote to go to war on Iraq led by the post 9.11 hysteria which successfully discombobulated the west) The fact that Corbyn is utterly useless is presented as a lie by the Corbynistras. What's happened to Labour is 'post truth' politics and the ensuing one party state, dressed in leather.

I don't use the word fascist merely for those politicians I disagree with e.g. TM & Boris may be heartless, but they certainly aren't fascist.

I actually think TM is very much a fascist. Her stint as Home Secretary, her disdain for the ECHR, her idea of using EU citizens in the UK as bargaining chips, her vision as expressed at the Party Conference of one nation, the failure to support the judiciary in the face of intemperate criticism, her pandering to the gutter press - all points in that direction. I do not think Theresa May has one ounce of respect for the rights of the individual or for the idea of checks and balances in the constitution. I think she is very dangerous.

I think you are crediting Putin with far too much influence, power, potential to wield power, and laying it all on a bit thick...

Wrt the 'bi-partisan' calls for investigation of Russian influence - McCain is at the point where he can no longer really be considered a member of the Republican Party. It has swerved off into the rough and left him on the highway, with a few (very few) others. Certainly there are many members of the GOP who would rather spit on McCain than shake hands with him. It is a very divided party right now.

Obviously Clinton has her own issues with the FBI.

I think the issue of Russian interference was always a plausible suggestion, made without reference to any facts (which are only now apparently going to be examined, if they exist), always intended to be a political football, and nobody is ever going to fully believe whatever an investigation concludes. The fact that this particular football kept on gathering momentum is distressing for what it reveals about the capacity of the media and politicians to engage in game playing and the way the public tends to swallow certain tropes whole.

I believe that any perceived political bias towards either party by either the FBI or the CIA regarding the election can only be incredibly harmful. Politicians on both sides need to step back and ask themselves if they are really ready to undermine faith in the institutions by continuing to fight it out apparently just in order to score Reds Under The Bed points. These institutions must be seen to be independent and not favour either party. Parties choosing sides in the presentations is going to end with somebody losing an eye.

'With so much of the evidence about Russia’s alleged role in the election shrouded in secrecy because of strict classification rules, Democrats and Republicans in Washington who have access to the underlying intelligence say they have struggled to make their respective cases, leaving an already deeply divided public convinced that both sides are shading their conclusions to help the candidate they backed on Election Day...
...At one point during the discussion in the secure room, a Republican lawmaker turned to his Democratic colleagues and said the back-and-forth suggested that “Republicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Venus,” according to an aide who was present, adding: “We’re looking at the same evidence and drawing very different conclusions.”'
www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-and-cia-give-differing-accounts-to-lawmakers-on-russias-motives-in-2016-hacks/2016/12/10/c6dfadfa-bef0-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html
This is a big problem.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/11/nigel-farage-not-controversial-toxic-why-give-airtime-question-time
Urges people to switch off when he's on. Think we can do better than that.
For sure, he's the new normal.

Is this a clash of the 'he's a b........but he's our b..........view of politics' and what used to be important to US which was vigilance against 'fifth column'?
It depends on how much they chose to love the constitution over partisan interests.