Westminstenders: The wheels on bus start to fall off, start to fall off…

[RedToothBrush]

The wheels on bus start to fall off, start to fall off…

Since Article 50 has been triggered – 8 days ago:

1. A week after a terror attack in London, the government threatened to stop co-operation over security issues with the EU. This was quickly retracted as ‘not being a threat’. Except it was.

2. The ‘Great’ Repeal Act White Paper was published. Its vague, lacks detail, does not have a draft bill and there is no plan for a public consultation over it. It proposes sweeping powers for the government without parliamentary scrutiny using Henry VIII powers.

3. HMRC have said the new computer system planned for launch in 2019, won’t be able to cope with the additional work which leaving the Customs Union would produce. It would be five times the work load which sounds like a lot more red tape.

4. Spain have said they would not oppose an Independent Scotland being in the EU.

5. May’s article 50 letter did not mention Gibraltar and after the publication of the EU draft document on how the Brexit process would be handled, this looks like a massive error and oversight. One of the clauses was that any future arrangements with regard to Gibraltar had to be settled with Spain bi-laterally rather than by the EU and the UK’s agreement with the EU would not apply to Gibraltar, unless Spain agreed. This has been taken as an affront to Gibraltar’s sovereignty, although the document says nothing about sovereignty. Michael Howard, however, decided this was sufficient grounds to threaten our ally Spain with war.

May has not condemned his comments, and laughed it off. Though she was happy to get worked up about the word ‘Easter’ a couple of days later.

Of course, this situation was entirely predictable and was predicted yet this situation seems to have taken the government by surprise. Our reaction, in the context of everything else, has made the UK look like a basket case.

6. The government’s plan to run talks on the UK’s settlement on leaving the EU in parallel with talks on the UK’s future relationship with the EU has been rejected by the EU. Instead we must do things in stages, with advancement to the next stage only possible after completing the last: Stage 1 – Exit, Stage 2 – Preliminary agreement on future relation, Stage 3 – Exit/Transition Deal, Stage 4 – As third country status enter a new deal.

The effect of this also means that deals we currently have with counties like South Korea through the EU need to be revisited. There is no guarantee these countries will want to continue trading with us on the same terms, if they do not want to.

7. The EU has set out its own red lines. Our deal 'must encompass safeguards against...fiscal, social & environmental dumping'. Our transition deal must not last longer than three years and individual sectors, like banking, should not get special treatment.

Donald Tusk has said we don’t need a punishment deal as we are doing a good job of shooting ourselves in the foot, whilst Guy Verhofstadt said Brexit is Brexit is a 'catfight in Conservative party that got out of hand” and hoped future generations would reverse it.

8. May has admitted that we might well have no deal in place by the time we leave the EU. Until now we have been told we would have a deal in two years. She has also admitted an extension of free movement of people beyond Brexit.

9. The Brexit Select Committee published their report which warned about the dangers of exit without any deal, as well as talking about problems relating to the ‘Great’ Repeal Act, Gibraltar and NI. This is sensible and you’d think uncontroversial, but the Brexiteers threw the toys out of their pram saying it was too pessimistic. The government’s job is, of course, to plan for problems no matter how unlikely – such as disasters – and to hope that never happens. It seems that these Brexiteers don’t want to act responsibility or do their job.

10. Questions at the WTO have been asked about how Brexit will affect them. Interest in the subject came initially from Indonesia about Tariff Rate Quotas, but other parties who were watching closely were Argentina, China, Russia and the United States.

11. Phillip Hammond has openly said that there are a number of Tory MPs who want us to not make any agreement with the EU and to crash out in a chaotic exit.

12. Polling has suggested that people want Brexit to be quick and cheap. Not only that, but the word ‘Brexit’ has started to poll badly. Instead the Brexit department are advising officials to use the phrase “new partnership with Europe”. Lynton Crosby, the mastermind behind 2015’s Conservative victory has also warned that the Tories would probably lose 30 seats they gained from the LDs at an early election.

Of course, even a 2020 election might prove challenging with a transition deal still likely to be unresolved as Brexit drags on. Government strategy is, apparently, to hope that Remainer's anger will have dissolved by 2020.

Eight days in, and the Brexit Bus looks like it strayed into 1980's Toxeth and got torched, its wheels nicked, and graffitied with obscenities over its £350million pledge.

Chuka Umunna‏ @ChukaUmunna
The PM who,amongst other things,sent 'go home' vans round urban Britain +suggested 16million Remain voters are some elite now preaches unity

Good old Chuka

From the Indepenent

Stressing the opportunities that stem from the UK’s decision to leave the bloc, the Prime Minister said “our shared values can – and must – bring us together”.

It's the schoolmarm telling us whatever need to do without giving us any incentive to do so isn't it?

It makes my blood boil that she thinks we'll all just fall into line because she's told us we must.

How about coming up with a plan people want to support?

^^ What we not whatever

I saw the news about May's speech and that was my first thought, too - deluded. It makes you wonder what circles she moves in.

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/15/hungary-protests-soros-university-closure-threat
"Hungary’s liberals find a hero in their battle against Viktor Orbán
Academic Michael Ignatieff’s stand for academic freedom has gained attention.

An estimated 70,000 attended a rally last Sunday, marching across the Chain Bridge that spans the Danube in scenes with the potential to embarrass a government used to revelling in its popular support. In another mass protest on Wednesday, crowds chanted “Russians go home” – a reference to Orbán’s perceived intimacy with Russian president Vladimir Putin – and shouted “Europe,” Europe” as a young man hoisted the European Union flag in the Oktogon square, in one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares. The latter gesture hinted at how the CEU protests have become a focal point for wider discontents while highlighting Hungary’s increasing isolation in the EU under Orbán’s aggressive Brussels-baiting leadership.

Yet it was on him that Orbán’s official spokesman focused while scrambling to explain recent mass protests supporting Budapest’s Central European University (CEU) – a small elite institution of higher learning of which Ignatieff is rector, and which could, theoretically, be forced to close because of a new higher education law".

Higher Education clamp down as a focus for resistance against populist government.

Vote this week for Mrs May's Christian values on 'foreign' students.

I learned grammar in my Dutch school at primary in considerable detail, not as much as is now expected of UK primary age though.

And like RhuBarbarella I read lots of books for my A-level equivalent MFl courses - it was 8 for each at our school, two of which had to date from before 1900. And I did in fact read Madame Bovary - _ still remember how irritated I was with Emma for not getting on with it and instead always doing stupid stuff in the pursuit of romaaaaaaaaance...

I was very angry too when I saw it. But I think her speech is not aimed at us, it's just spin to keep her own supporters and UKIP types happy.

Alastair Campbell: PM is wrong to hint that ‘God would have voted leave’
www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/16/campbell-attacks-mays-easter-message-to-nation

Slightly very off-topic but in the spirit of bring people together in opposition to an iniquitous policy: here is a link to a petition opposing the 2 person cap to welfare (aka known as the "Rape Clause")

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/195077

If you look at the signature distribution (it's even more marked if you look at percentages of constituencies), it's mostly been signed in Scotland. I can't believe that that that is down to a difference in caring but can only assume hope that because/despite the fact that we can mitigate it up here just how many Tory policies do we have to pay to mitigate? it has had a higher profile up here. (Wee Ruth showed her true colours supporting the clause and then accusing Nicola Sturgeon of hypocrisy for not mitigating it ; conveniently forgetting that it is an immoral UK wide policy)

Please sign.

woman God has a Facebook page with a weekly "Ask Me anything" feature. I shall enquire about His stance on Brexit. :-D

it's what she would have wanted.

Gosh, Michael Ignatieff has had a really interesting life: I remember when he used to present the arts show that was on after Newsnight and was an award-winning (but generally unreadable) novelist; he then disappeared and re-emerged a few years as a candidate for the Canadian leadership and now he's fomenting anti-fascist rebellion in Hungary.

Theresa May's Christian values (tweeted earlier by David Schneider).

Signed.

pretty - I'm going off Ruth Davidson. I used to think she was the acceptable face of Conservatism but I'm not sure there is one now.

I've signed the petition, prettybird.

I think you'll find the discrepancy in the people signing it in Scotland, compared to elsewhere in the U.K., is that it has been a big news story in Scotland. I would guess we can put that down to Nicola Sturgoen's abilities as a political leader, in comparison to Jeremy Corbyn's.

How can Bishop Tutu and May have the same religion? I imagine there are some infuriated vicars and congregations, looking at their food banks, and then back at May in disbelief.

Well, it is always described - through gritted teeth - as a very broad church. I remember Margaret Thatcher used to claim that Jesus was a Conservative - even as a child, this made zero sense to me (Jesus liked the poor, he wanted to share things, he was anti-materialistic etc etc). But that's what she believed

You only have to read the education threads to know that languages are just not valued in this country. A typical thread will go something like, my child finds languages very difficult (sometimes the fact they have a learning difficulty is thrown in), it is OK for them not to a GCSE isn't it? He /she will get a much better grade in Sociology /Photography etc (not dissing those subjects but at GCSE without a balance of subjects? ) A couple of lone voices might say it is worth persevering because languages are important and an asset on your uni / job applications even if only at GCSE but mostly the answer will come back that MFL GCSEs are rubbish these days / if he /she finds it hard they should do something they will do better in /people with learning difficulties can't learn a language......

I do however make a plea for those of us with learning difficulties /differences. Of course we can learn a language, but we do learn differently and I do think schools are happy to let themselves off the hook and say that those with learning difficulties should not do MFL or even essay subjects rather than use different teaching methods /provide the right support, in spite of the fact that you are talking about 10% of pupils. I despair at what Gove has done to Primary education, and indeed the regulations on special arrangements in examinations, which is dooming the 10 % to failure, and returning to the days of being made to feel stupid. But then it is another minority to step all over.

By the way Howabout argued that unless you are fluent in another language you will be OK to do business in English as long as you are culturally sensitive which is true to a point. However a language, especially in Asia, is a key to culture and understanding people's attitudes and motivations. Even if you are far from fluent some attempt to use the language even if it is only common courtesies shows a respect that is always appreciated. I know from personal experience it is very easy to think you are being culturally sensitive, perhaps after a seminar or reading a book of dos and don't but be blind to the fact that you are seeing things from a western perspective and therefore misreading situations because you are not understanding the fundamental difference in people, attitudes, motivations and behaviour. That appreciation of the fundamental difference does not really get touched on in British education unless you study a MFL or Area Studies.

I did grammar at my first primary school then moved in the last couple of years where they didn't do it. (Also did long division and multiplication at first school but not the second) It was down to the ethos of the school alone. I was the first year to do the national curriculum from high school so i think the change came in around then.

Both schools were very good. I was regarded as behind at the second school but in reality the building blocks I got earlier which the kids at the second school didn't have worked better for me in the long run.

I find that school still do this to a degree: some teach for results alone and some teach for long term outcomes which aid thinking and learning.

I don't think league tables help at all with this as it pushes the emphasis more on results rather than actually teaching to be able to problem solve and think out of the box.

A film that I loved last year was Arrival with Amy Adams. The central tenet of it is that if you learn another language, your brain changes, you start to think in the same ways as the people (or in this case, the things) that speak that language. It was a beautiful way of looking a linguistics.

I have had a few discussion with people about whether different languages, by their very structure affect your character.

A linguist I talked to said she'd done a dissertation on just that topic.

I know when I speak French, I'm "different". The French "bof" and the Gallic shrug change my approach, but there is also something about the grace of the language that relaxed me.

I was talking about it again recently with a group of friends and one, who has lived in Holland and learnt to speak Dutch (even though she says she finds languages difficult - but she believes in making the effort), pointed out that in German and Dutch, you have to listen properly to what the person is saying, as the verb is right at the end. That might explain the Germanic patience and attention to detail

"Relaxed" = "relaxes" (blooming autocorrect )

Apologies for a Daily Mail link but this is a novel take on TM's refusal to call an early election Theresa May doesn't enjoy being PM and plans to quit before 2020

A few weeks ago I [Dan Hodges] was chatting to a Minister about Theresa May’s strange reluctance to call a General Election she would win by a landslide. ‘Why is she waiting till 2020 to fight it?’ I asked. ‘How do you know she’s planning on fighting it?’ he replied.

I laughed, but then he explained his thesis. On entering Downing Street, the Prime Minister has discovered that being Prime Minister isn’t really for her. So she intends to serve out the rest of this parliamentary term, deliver a deal on Brexit, then ride off into the sunset.

‘She’ll be hailed as the person who saved the nation from its worst crisis since the war, then go off and enjoy her retirement with husband Philip,’ he said.

I checked his theory with another Minister. ‘I don’t know the exact timetable,’ he said. ‘But she’s certainly only a transitional PM.’ A third Minister agreed. ‘She’ll fight an Election, then be gone in 18 months.’

Lalalonglegs : wee Ruth is angling for a nice safe seat in England. Hence her unwavering support of everything coming from Westminster. She'll certainly never achieve her supposed ambition of being First Minister of Scotland.

Contrary to the impression in MSM, the Conservatives are polling less than Maggie Thatcher did in her worst years (only 22% at the last election) and her supposedly positive ratings compared to Nicola are only because of respondents in England. In Scotland, she is still well behind and her recent antics will have done nothing to increase her popularity

pretty my half French DH is always much less considered and much more objectionable when he lets his Mother's tongue out

In our multicultural hh we have discovered endless Scottish variations of aye well yes but no but which are almost always bluntly responded to with the Gallic shrug or plain old non.

Going back to the conversation about EU students at UK Universities I think it is worth pointing out that there are concerns on all sides about how the system is working in Scotland because of the operation of the funded places cap and the lure of zero fees.

Glasgow Uni EU students currently take up 3,000 of the 17,000 funded places. For Edinburgh Uni the figures are 5,000 out of 17,000. Only 20% of Edinburgh Uni undergraduate places went to Scottish students last year.

www.sec-ed.co.uk/news/fear-that-scotlands-cap-on-university-numbers-is-locking-out-scottish-students/