Westministenders: Boris and God Knows what next. (I'm all out of ideas!)

[RedToothBrush]

Still a week until Stoke and Copeland. (Labour Hold/Con Gain unless something strange happens) QT is from Stoke next week.

A50 hits the Lords next week. Melania is being lined up to do something for the women. (God help us all).

Will UKIP survive? Will Nuttall survive? Will Labour survive? Will Trump survive? Will CNN survive? Will the Lords survive? Will Theresa May survive a class room of children?

All these questions and more

to all the lovely posters,(customers visiting proves success, and CA paying overtime) hope your little one is feeling better red
Looks like liberal democrats will "Go back to your constituencies, and prepare for government!". I'm labour and praying for a moderate remain gov!

Senator McCain attacks Trump administration, concerns about authoritarianism, Russia

He's chairman of the Armed Services Committee, part of a top-level US military & foreign affairs delegation visiting Germany to reassure NATO Europe
McCain said
Trump’s administration was in “disarray” and that Nato’s founders would be alarmed by the growing unwillingness to “separate truth from lies”.

Also very true:
^ “more and more of our fellow citizens seem to be flirting with authoritarianism and romanticising it as our moral equivalent”.^

US Defense Sec Mattis is claiming Trump has thrown his full weight behind NATO.
rNATO is v anxious & unconvinced
Veep Mike Pence will say in a speech today that Europe is an “indispensable partner"

"European intelligence agencies have warned that Russia is also seeking to destabilise governments and influence elections across Europe with cyber attacks, fake news and propaganda and by funding far-right political parties"

UK Defense Sec Fallon:
“We should be under no illusions about the step-change in Russian behaviour over the last couple of years, even after Crimea”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/18/john-mccain-savages-donald-trump-administration-inability-separate-truth-from-lies

And Putin distanced himself and Russian media from Trump after Thursday's performance.

When even Putin is embarrassed it's time to have a radical rethink

From twitter - at least this leave voter is honest. Protest votes are fine - when there isn't much at stake 😞😡
twitter.com/sturdyalex/status/832673026021810176

I concur with the rising food prices as I have been preppping since July (shopping already in aldi,lidl, bm, poundshops) some items are have shrunk in size and I noticed the slight increase in my Tesco bill.

Unfortunately, once art 50 is triggered (in three weeks?!?) this will most probably make the pound to slide further down and food prices to rise.

And this is just about the slump of the value of the pound. Roll on the next five years.

And a final thought for this morning...
Why do leavers think that the result of the 2016 ref will be any less controversial than the 1975 one?
I predict we will be discussing (and suffering) the ramifications of this ref for decades.
So, you know, get used to it 👍

Why do leavers think that the result of the 2016 ref will be any less controversial than the 1975 one?

The 1975 one wasn't controversial. There was a very clear majority for staying in and the matter was put to rest until after Maggie Thatcher went. Some say that the extreme Eurosceptics brought MT down, but they didn't - it was the Poll Tax which did for her.

Once she had gone, then the Tory Eurosceptics scented an opportunity and definitely helped to bring Major down, plus Cameron. Who knows what will happen to May? That's probably why she is dancing to their tune now.

Big choc indeed. What is emerging is two us foreign policies.
Mattis, Pence and McCain on one side (Ryan is also pro Russian sanctions), Tillerson whose job is foreign policy seems behind the curve and possibly not in control with Trump's son in law having different policies along with Trump himself, Bannon and Miller on the other side.

Something has to give.

Brexit results part 8:

Thanks again, Teresa for the 'citizen from nowhere' anti semitism:

It originates in German antisemitic discourse. It emerged in the 19th century: the “rootless Jew” was seen as a “cosmopolitan” citizen from “nowhere”. This view is echoed in that most vile of all antisemitic texts, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903). Subsequently, the prejudice was adopted by the Nazis, and used to justify the slaughter of the Jewish people as “non-citizens” and “non-persons” in the Holocaust. Is that where our xenophobic PM wants to lead us, this time by scapegoating “foreigners”? I don’t appear to be the only one who senses echoes of 1933 in our brave new Britain
www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/09/theresa-may-rejection-of-enlightenment-values.:

Anti semitism has been on the rise in universities( Oxford, I know of direct examples) for decades, but again, with grooming online and the Prime Minister's overtly anti semitic comments, a generation is now corrupted:

www.theguardian.com/education/2017/feb/18/uk-universities-urged-tackle-rising-tide-antisemitism-campus

In 1920s-30s Germany the first signs of state sponsored anti semitism were in universities, where it became more and more difficult for Jewish students to study.

And, Sebastian Gorka, an example, educated in England, wearing nazi badge, defending a dictator:

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-aide-sebastian-gorka-nazi-hungary-medal-vitezi-rend-fascists-a7581941.html

^Britain’s highest court is set to be headed by a woman for the first time, but the appointment will run into fierce opposition from right-wing tabloids and MPs.
Lady Brenda Hale,(to replace Lord Neuberger) ......... is credited with the introduction of greater protections for children, mental health patients, and victims of domestic violence..........she has championed greater rights for women. She has regularly ruled against the government in human rights cases^.

www.buzzfeed.com/alexspence/heres-why-tabloid-newspapers-will-lose-the-plot-if-this-woma?utm_term=.aiOE0XW1M#.hlEV0nBl1

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39014191?ocid=socialflow_twitter&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=twitter
EU citizens 'denied residence documents'

For those critical of Tony Blair and Iraq war, here is a useful list of which current MPs supported him. Johnson for one, needs to put a sock in it, when criticising Blair, given that he plus Davis, Fox, May and Hammond all voted for it.

Notably Ken Clarke voted against.

The Lib Dem vote is under-represented because so few of their MPs are still in Parliament.

I read about a case last week - I think it was oxford - where a bullingson club cunt was filmed burning a £20 note in front of a homeless man
^ these are the supposed great and good and he will probably be in govt one day.....
jesus wept
I hope the little fucker is sent down

Parallel lives: how the Brexit vote revealed Britain's divided culture
alludes to the BBC class report
www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/18/lynsey-hanley-brexit-britain-divided-culture-uses-of-literacy

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/ministers-reflect-new-interviews-after-brexit-decision
Ministers Reflect: new interviews after Brexit decision

Few pundits expected a Conservative majority at the 2015 election, and ministers noted that it took a while for the civil service to get used to it. Winning a majority undoubtedly gave ministers a renewed sense of unity and purpose, and changed the atmosphere: “I can’t put my finger on the difference, but it made it more relaxed, less tense”, says Desmond Swayne.

Some like Hugo Swire were relieved that the Government could get policies through more quickly: “…we didn’t have to listen to the Lib Dems whinging on about whatever they were whinging on about – compulsory sandals or tofu for lunch or whatever.”

Nonetheless, nearly all the ministers felt the 2010-15 Coalition, not least because of the larger majority it provided, was a stable government providing a healthy level of challenge and scrutiny. As Stephen Crabb says, “issues and policies had to be fought over a bit harder… by the time things reached the Cabinet or got floated in the press, it had been thought through a bit more.”

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/ministers-reflect/
Actual interviews.

Also includes older interviews from previous ministers.

Bladders - that one was a Cambridge student so less chance of being in government, more of running pwc...

Thanks for the link to the Alistair Campbell article, Red. A member of government being able to answer 10 - no, five even - of those 50 questions with real knowledge and conviction would give me some hope that we're not heading towards a broken track on a runaway train. But who needs concrete answers when fluffy platitudes are all the rage?

Ah, thanks for the correct info unicorn
I'm feeling a bit queasy. I'm reading some of Louise menschs twitter posts and find myself agreeing.
Ugh

😂
Only kidding.
But, Christ, what have we come to? Mensch and Clarke as the voices of reason?

Btw I would recommend reading hoggart - I'm off to dig out my old copy.....

Ken Clarke voted against Iraq too? Good for him.

Interesting article on the stabilising and sanitising role of the LibDems in the last Parliament Red. That is yet another argument in favour of Proportional Representation. The principal argument right now I think being based on the fracturing of old political allegiances, the emergence of UKIP and re-emergence of the LibDems and the need to make sure that everyone has an appropriately-scaled voice in Parliament.

ukandeu.ac.uk/is-labours-brexit-dilemma-being-misunderstood/?platform=hootsuite
Is Labour’s Brexit dilemma being misunderstood?

Ensuring Labour’s survival in the North of England and the Midlands is not just a question of strengthening the party’s appeal to the so-called traditional Labour voter who voted to Leave. There are simply not enough of them for that alone to be a viable strategy. Rather, it is also about retaining the support of the majority of Labour voters in the northern half of England who voted to Remain. For without them, the party really will be in trouble.

I think Labour's embrace of Leave is misguided, and probably more influenced by Jeremy "let's invoke article 50 immediately" Corbyn, than by common sense.

I reckon we will see a sizeable shift to the LibDems at the next Election, with the potential for them either to be the majority power in government (with Labour and the SNP as coalition partners) or probably more likely the primary Opposition. A lot of people, from all traditional political persuasions, don't like what the Tories are doing, enabled by Labour. A potentially disgruntled 48% of voters is a lot.

What I also find interesting is the 'other' column, when you bear in mind that 70% of LDs and 75% of Greens voted Remain in contrast to 4% of Kippers.

The degree to which, none voters are important is crucial. And will they vote again in future?

If they won't, then it will backfire on anyone chasing those voters.

There is a sting in the tail for UKIP too. Even if they do make a breakthrough and then behave like other parties (or worse still, behave like themselves), any support they initially pick up from 2015 none voters/first time EU voters will disappear because they don't actually serve their voters well in practice.

The national polls are saying different Stripey. LDs are on 14% at most. I think there is something off on what they are showing, and that's not just down to council by-election results. The methodology has holes in it, due to FPTP. The polls are suffering from a case of the average man having less than 2 legs. I don't think the LDs are back at 2010 levels of support but they might do better than people expect because its concentrated in a smaller number of constituencies.

75% of Greens voted Remain but Lucas is against Blair's remain intervention.