Westministenders: Boris and his friends hand in their homework to be marked.

[RedToothBrush]

The last week has been depressing for a lot of people.

Even if you are happy about the vote in the Commons, there is a worrying lack of backbone in MPs of all shades.

Then there’s what is going on in the USA which I’m going to quietly ignore in this post except to say that cosying up to Trump still could backfire on all who do for numerous reasons.

It seems like its all over in someways, but there is still plenty going on.

The A50 Bill has only passed stage one. The Government’s deliberate publishing of the White Paper after the vote has left a lot of people with egg all over their face.

Plus its just crap. Actually its not crap. It’s a dog dinner of farcical proportions with no content, faulty data and incorrect details that an A-Level Student did the night before their assignment was due, masquerading as an official government document.

Now its amendment time, which is the serious bit. For an amendment to make it, it will need cross party support. After the government failed to produce a White Paper worth the paper it was written on, and insulted the intelligence of the House of Commons, that could get interesting.

For starters the White Paper says that EU citizens are one of our best bargaining chips. Trouble is a lot of Tory and Labour MPs don’t agree.

In short there is a fair old chance of a government defeat next week at some point. The government don’t want any. Especially not this early. I really think it will be very difficult for the government to provide the assurance MPs will want, even if they crack the whip. They have lost the trust of too many. In voting for the first vote, many MPs will feel they have shown their intent to support leaving and now will get busy on trying to hammer down the details.

Highlights include of the White Paper include the idea that we will still be subject to the ECJ except we won’t. This is ridiculous. We will be subject to ECJ rulings but not be subject to ECJ rulings directly. Eh? What? (Not that we didn’t see this coming). There’s Euroatom and the government doing an impression of Homer Simpson. With a by-election in Copeland on the cards. That story has some time to keep running. As Steve Peers points out, the Leprechauns are going to sort out Northern Ireland for us which is a great political strategy to employ.

Its full of lots of other utter bollocks but those particular points are the ones that are potentially the most problematic for the government. If you don’t think the White Paper screams we are going to get eaten alive by the EU and Trump, you need to get off the hallucinogenics pronto.

If that isn’t awe inspiring enough we also have:

The wonderful mental image of Paul Nuttall kipping on a mattress in a house in Stoke disparately pretending to be a Stokie, nervously hoping that letterbox rattling in the wind isn’t C4 letterbox again and that the coppers don’t pay him a visit in the near future. I confess that whilst my imagination has been kept busy with this, I am disappointed in the lack of video clips of him munching on an Oatcake in a Stoke City shirt, sitting on an Armitage Shanks throne, turning his plate over whilst listening to Robbie Williams and with a Titanic by his side. All at the same time. I think he’s missed a few tricks.

AND

Diane Abbott doing quite possibly even more damage to Labour than them merely rolling over and dying over a50 by pulling a sickie. Her ‘Brexit Flu’ damages the party’s image and Corbyn himself even more. If that’s even possible. Some Labour MPs have demanded an apology.

Labour is starting to look like it’s a ship with rats fleeing this week. MPs have defied a three line whip and quite the Shadow Cabinet (Again). Rumours are that over 7000 members have left. A councillor has defected to the Lib Dems. There was a council by election in Rotherham where Lab lost a seat to the LDs in an area where there has never been as many people vote LD. Nor were there as many remain voters as LD voters. The Parliamentary vote for Unite’s new leader has unsurprisingly selected the anti-Corbyn candidate Gerald Coyne over Len McCluskey. The bookies have dropped the odds on Corbyn leaving Labour before a GE from 6/1 to 2/1 overnight. Oh and Red Ed is being rumoured to be returning to the front bench…

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/06/brexit-opportunity-reverse-tragic-decline-marriage-britain/

The wider opportunities and horizons that can flow from a successful Brexit, one where we re-establish ourselves as a strong and distinctive player in the world, will inspire a resurgence of national and individual self-confidence which will flow back into family life. And an increase in the rate of the serious commitment of marriage and a reduction in family breakdown will naturally evolve from that.

Is this the most bizarre argument in favour of Brexit ever? Aa far as I can tell, the premise is that there were fewer cohabiting/single parent/ otherwise immoral families in the 1970s. And there are more now. Um...

blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/posts/2016/11/parliamentary-reform/
In a world sceptical of political promises, I’m trying to keep mine

This is a speech by John Bercow that he gave in Nov.

I highly recommend reading.

A few highlights:

For the last six years, the Backbench Business Committee has been choosing for debate subjects which the Government and often the official opposition didn’t want, but MPs did, whether it be the merits of an EU referendum or the cause ofenhancedcompensationfor victims ofcontaminatedblood. Some of our best debates, such as the review of theHillsboroughdisaster which led to a public enquiry and the reversal of wrong and historically unjust findings about culpability for that tragedy, have been spawned by the creation of the Backbench Business Committee. It has brought about change that might not have happened otherwise.

and

When I stood for Speaker I was quite taken aback by the fact that we had a shooting gallery in the House of Commons, but we had no nursery which members of staff or MPs with children could pay for in the name of facilitating a better work life balance. As Tom Watson rightly said, that there is no shortage of places that you can have a beer in the House of Commons but there’s nowhere you can put a baby. I’m happy to say that the nursery is now thriving, despite much huffing and puffing from members who were unhappy with the demolition of one Parliament’s bars.

and

In 2013 I was told that not everyone who worked on the Parliamentary estate, employed by or contracted to work for us, was paid the London Living Wage. I said that must be changed in the name of fairness to those individuals and because of what it says about the DNA of the House of Commons as an employer, we have to set an example and I’m pleased that now everyone on the estate is now paid at least the London Living Wage. Similarly, I found the increase of zero hours contracts on the estates unacceptable as well, so we now offer everyone a minimum hoursguarantee and there’s a tiny number of people who’ve said they don’t want it but virtually everyone has accepted it.

and

There’s still a lot to do and there are some areas of the House where there isn’t anything like adequate female representation or BAME representation at senior levels, but it’s better than it was. Work on that front is very important because as well as being a legislature, we are an employer and a world heritage site and therefore whether we look, sound and feel like the country we aspire to represent and the multi-racial world that we wish to be a part, is very important.

and

It’s perfectly possible and, in my view highly desirable, that in the name of engagement and out-reach, to bring politics to the great cities in a formal way by having debates in town halls around the country between political leaders, which was actually common in previous centuries. Why not have a debate between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn or between Nicola Sturgeon and the Secretary of State for Scotland around the country? I don’t think people are as turned off to politics as is suggested, they don’t like the remoteness or the formality or the combination of yobbery and public school twittishness – but I do think people are interested in ideas and they’d quite value hearing our leaders’ points of view.

I believe that Bercow's position today is in keeping with his role as he sees it: That the honour of speaking in Westminster Hall is one that is earnt and Trump has not been in the position long enough. And then the Immigration ban and Trump's actions after have shown a flagrant disregard for the principles and institutions of democracy being about the relationship between the Executive, Parliament and the Courts.

Then refer to JRM and what he would do to the role and what his belief the role of Parliament and its traditions should be....

I hope to god JRM is not the next Speaker.

John is a good egg.

Talking of eggs

Poor, poor Farage. Poor, poor Nuttall.

Whoops, Sorry. RTB got there first!

"Emily Thornberry complains about May calling her "Lady Nugee". May replies that she's always been happy to be called by her husband's name."

What's all this about?

I don't like Emily Thornberry particularly.
I know she sneered at the house with an England flag.
I'm not aware she pretends to working class.
So, TM was trying to score a cheap point for???
And TM has "always been happy to be called by her husband's name" - is that what TM said? . So, there's a subtle dig going on at women who don't change their names (or don't get married even)?

Have I got the gist of that correct?

Aa far as I can tell, the premise is that there were fewer cohabiting/single parent/ otherwise immoral families in the 1970s. And there are more now. Um...

I can never understand these Tory apologists, of which the Telegraph is one. Don't they realise than men are needed to create families? How about calling for more men to step up to their responsibilities? What about a jerk like Farage? How about him committing to marriage?

Have I got the gist of that correct?
Yes, you have. It's discourteous to call someone by a name other than the one they are normally known by, and also, it's not the convention in the HoC. It should be 'the member for ......' or by Office. May will know the second and it's just plain rude in the first case, and her apology was grudging and cheap. Professional women are often known by two names - their married name in their private life and the name they got established in in their professional life.

Yes. I'm also going to stand up for Emily Thornberry, i quite like her and nobody is completely tasteful all the time.

Tbf, Emily Thornberry does bang on quite a lot about being brought up on a council estate by her single mother. She's never attempted to catch a ride on her husband's coat tails though so it does seem cheap and catty to refer to her by a title that she did not ask for/does not use herself.

Also could anyone explain the joke or context to me? I understand why it was condescending but I can't work out the context

Is May annoyed with Bercow for saying that Trump can't talk to the House? Or is it something she will twist, in that nasty, sly fashion she has? She would have let him speak blah, blah, blah.

Hang on, harking back to Farage. Wasn't the proposed move to the US to spare his wife and kids the abuse they were getting? As they are 'living separate lives' surely that means he wanted to spare himself seeing the mess he had created, including to his own family. Asshat.

The world has gone mad when a bunch of men are having to tell a woman off for referring to another woman by the wrong name
Reminds me of the woman in the post office who insisted it was the law that I be referred to as mrs Larryhusband.

RTB the man who killed Jo Cox really was a lone with MH problems. I can't say how I know for sure without breaking MH nursing confidentiality .

I'm not sure if that makes things better or worse. Better, because it makes it less of a political act. Worse, precisely because it can't be called terrorism (whereas if he had brown skin, he definitely would).

Sorry for being a pedant but wanted you to know that, in this case, the truth really has been told, not twisted by the powers that be.

*and of course, if someone who is Muslim commits an atrocity, they are called a terrorist irrespective of MH problems

Cecile - if you're referring to May calling Thornberry "Lady Nuggee", I don't think there was a particular context. It was just a rather cack-handed attempt to point-score. Thornberry is perceived as being a bit holier than thou when it comes to lefty luvviedom so May, whom she was apparently heckling, threw the fact that Thornberry has a title by marriage in as an attemp to get her to STFU and not so subtly imply she is a hypocrite.

Isn't it tradition that the Soeajer is elected unopposed? I.e. No one else stands a candidate in his seat? Is that why JRM is suddenly interested given his pretty inadequate majority? Or is it that he's given up on the governorship of the Bank of England...

Soerjer = speaker

But a lot of people who commit mass murders are loners with MH problems. Dylann Roof and Anders Breivik are two others I can think of where they were obviously part of that category AND there was a racist/political aspect to the murders.

There were MH problems identified during the trial of one of Lee Rigby's killers too. Regardless of capacity, murdering on a political basis is terrorism and should be reported as such. To try to pull one away diminishes the role one can play in the other.

I have never used my married name at work, and I know a lot of women who carry that into the rest of their lives too, including at their children's school . I have never known that be disrespected by another woman unless it was in all innocence. Fine if someone has made it known that they want to use their married name in whatever context but if not it is extraordinarily disrespectful, or May wants us all dragged back to the 1950s.

Thanks Lala. I was watching/listening with half an ear and just heard the joke and then saw a lot of laughing Tories seemingly very amused.

Cecilede and Hashi - I don't know. If they committed crimes that they would never have committed when mentally well, e.g. Killing for a cause in sound mind, are they still terrorists?

ron - I agree it wasn't an innocent mistake but I think the point is that Thornberry has a title rather than she is a feminist.

are we speaking medically or legally? Because legally none of them are insane, they are fit to be held responsible for their actions. Medically, do you know many completely healthy murderers?

penelope To not treat acts of terrorism caused by people with MH issues as terrorism does not only a disservice to the entire MH community but does not help in identifying causes that can lead to people committing acts of terrorism.