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

Compare and contrast. May's boyfriend's performance yesterday. Tony Blair right now on Open Britain, apparently hated by the whole of Britain.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/17/tony-blair-eu-brexit-mission-remainers-live/

Faisal Islam @ FaisalIslam
"The debilitation of the Labour party is the enabler of Brexit, I hate to say it" says ex-PM Tony Blair

Don't you just hate it when someone you utterly despise and can't bear to listen to has that annoying point of being right about a single issue?

And it'll turn more people off the argument than help you.

I'm thinking there should be a law against being Tony Blair or something. If only because if it results in unintended consequences that can only be a good thing from this situation and particular moment in time.

'Common sense dictates' and those dumb phrases that don't work.

Red, that's not fair - he can't really help who he is. He could just keep his mouth shut though.

Here is an interesting new post from Social Europe that deserves some traffic, on EU negotiating negotiating strategy.

www.socialeurope.eu/2017/02/taking-initiative-europe-respond-brexit/

It's interesting to read about the existing Treaty caveats to the Freedom of Movement obligation.

I lived through the Thatcher years and Blair years. I dislike Blair because of the Irak war but I believe in publicity whether bad or good, it is still publicity. We need more heavyweights annoying Theresa May and co. I would really enjoy seeing Duncan Smith's smugness being wiped out of his face. I think that there is not enough debate just politicians quivering in their boots. Was it Agatha Christie who said ' a nation of sheep attracts a government of wolves'?

news.sky.com/story/tony-blair-to-tell-brexit-critics-its-time-to-rise-up-10770942

TB: " We are living a time for the first time in my life time, the basic values of liberal democracy are at risk."
" Please don't tell us that the right to make that argument is wrong."

From the mouths of warmongers babes....

The other comment I would make from her is that in the last few days I have seen widespread infrastructure projects that are mindblowing in their ambition, 60km bridges, high speed rail links linking vast new towns of skyscrapers to industrial centres, vast container ports. It is like the 21st century looked from the middle years of the twentieth century. Where is UK PLC in this gearing up for the 21st century? Apart from providing the financial and technical services, all those skills going overseas.....

I wonder if an inherent contradiction in May's position will be her undoing? She wants a strong NATO for European defence against Russia. At the same time, she is desperate to cosy up to Trump, who at best, does not appear fully committed to NATO and has at best an ambivalent attitude towards Russia. Does she throw in her lot totally with Trump, and turn against NATO, if that is the stance he settles on?

“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”

There is a tendency to connect everything to Brexit, but I noticed this story slowly sinking on the front pages ...

Some of the UK's biggest employers' groups have united in condemning the government's "outrageous" changes to business rates in England.

They are most vexed about a clause they say could prevent firms appealing against rate rises, even if firms can prove they are wrong.

Thirteen of them, including the British Retail Consortium and CBI, have written a letter calling for it to be dropped.

And Treasury Minister, David Gauke, told the BBC three in four businesses would not see an increase in their bill.

(contd).

Bloody Tony Blair, coming over here, with his three election wins, with his child tax credits, children's centres, anti domestic abuse laws, peace in north of Ireland after 400 years of war, with his defence of liberal democracy, taking jobs off Corbyn, off the brightest and best....................................

Bloody Tony Blair with his Messiah complex and his lies and his Blair Rich Project. That's why he's poison to any cause and why he should shut up. Especially if the cause is important.

"he should shut up".
That sounds familiar, what sort of regimes advocate that?

Interesting to see who funded the 'Bliar' campaign too, interesting.

Exactly, Woman12345!

I see someone else is saying they despise him. Why? He didn't implement punishing austerity cuts that have lead to utter despair, even suicide, among our most vulnerable citizens.

What exactly did TB do that was so despicable? Of course he made mistakes, the best of us do. He also did a great deal of good - far more good than some of the truly despicable, self-interested politicians currently in government.

His comments today are absolutely spot on. Be nice if people could concentrate on his message instead of helping the likes of the Telegraph and their absurd "poll" to dismiss him.

Tanith Cheers for that.

Personal prejudice is an unaffordable luxury at the moment, it was for all successful resistance movements.

The list of those who sought to impeach him is interesting.

If I could have had Jimmy Knapp as my Labour prime minister I would have, but winchester woman wouldn't have bought it.

We personalise political reactions at out peril.

I can't forget that 1 million people marched against the Iraq war, a war Blair prosecuted on the basis of lies, knowingly so. And he's a sanctimonious git.

Also, it was Gordon Brown who was behind an attempt at a redistributive tax system (for all his faults).

I've no time for Corbyn and Momentum. Equally I have to time at all for Blair and Mandelson.

The Human Rights Act

Including responses to Trump's performance yesterday, which was aimed fairly and squarely at his demographic.

Successful oppositions have to be strategic and pragmatic.

In the absence of a Harry Potter and Gary Linnekar party with Ed Balls on triangle, TB's contribution should be used strategically.

Anyway, the point is that a lot of people do loathe and despise Tony Blair (including most of the 1 million who marched, I imagine) and his support for any cause is, as I say, poison.

If he cares about Brexit and its consequences, he needs to realise that and keep quiet.

Why do you think the GOP has won?
They didn't like Trump, but they saw he could produce a win for them.
It's the way political movements are won.

Real politics is not a dating app.

PFI?

Targets?

The reason the public finances were in such a mess in 2010 was not down to the crash alone. How public debt was structured has had a massive impact on what happened next - why austerity happened and why centre voters turned away from Labour in disgust.

The consequences of PFI were entirely predictable. Indeed people did point them out. At the time a hospital where I worked was going through a public consultation. I saw the documents relating to it. It was a car crash waiting to happen and a lot of it is now coming to that head.

The NHS problems were compounded by targets which made the NHS politicised to a level it had not been.

Anyway

Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick
If Nuttall registered as voter at empty house in Oxford St, Stoke before Weds 1 Feb, that's an electoral offence too

keep quiet
why should any one have to keep quiet?
He's not a woman

What exactly did TB do that was so despicable

He (ab)used his power to trick a nation into war. On the basis a serving Prime Minister would never knowingly lie to parliament or the nation in a direct television broadcast I found myself agreeing with the need for military action in Iraq. I was sceptical of the need for it, but even more sceptical that a serving PM would lie. And - like the boy who cried "war" there have been terrible consequences. Look how we shy away from Syria.)

That lie not only cost lives on all sides, but started the poisonous corrosion which has contributed to - if not resulted in - the mess we're in now, where cynicism trumps truth, and experts have become "experts".

But apart from that ...

Trump was popular with a significant section of the US population.

Blair is not in the same position with regard to the UK population.

He won't be producing a win for anyone.

I admit, I voted for Blair twice. I think that's part of my anger of it tbh.