Westministenders: Wake up and smell the coffee, shit just hit the fan.

[RedToothBrush]

Since the last update 12 days ago:

1. We have had the proposal to give barista visas. If we are giving out visas for this, what aren't we going to give visas for. Its just the announcement of a lot of red tape.
2. EU Banking and the Medicines agency are moving so they can serve the EU. In the EU. As serving them outside the EU is just weird. This is apparently a punishment for leaving the EU.
3. The number of students applying to become nurses has plummeted due to the removal of bursaries. This is as EU nurses leave.
4. The Brexit department published a couple of graphs promoting staying in the EU.
5. Theresa May said we were unified behind the idea of Brexit in her Easter message
6. The environment is being sacrificed for trade.
7. Turkey apparently has voted to become a dictatorship. This was a vote that Erdogan won by a whisper. His executive will not need scrutiny from parliament. Rather the UK referendum which at 0.6% more than the Turkish one is decisive. Donald Trump has congratulated him for it.
8. Trump has been dick swinging about nukes over North Korea. China are telling the children to behave.

And now we have a General Election.
Well if she can get 434 votes in the HoC tomorrow. That's ANOTHER broken promise. I'm sure its nothing but a formality.

What will Labour do? Support it? To get rid of Corbyn? Corbyn has backed the election. Given Corbyn is in charge, I'm not sure I'd have confidence to say that Labour will all vote for it, even with a three line whip. One Labour MP has already said he will not stand for reelection. (Tom Blenkinsop‏) I suspect there will be more.

Tim Farron has given support to the GE though, so it seems likely it will pass as that's a few of the votes that would be needed to block a GE.

(Note here abstentions do not count to the 434 votes needed.)

Trouble is what would happen if they didn't? Would the government collapse anyway? Might take May's head with it, but...

I guess the good news is that Corbyn will be gone by the end of June.

Otherwise the news is shit I fear. We will vote to give power to the executive with no parliamentary scrutiny. This is about getting rid of any opposition even from within her own party.

How will the campaigning go? Here's a clue:

Tim Montgomerie @montie
Tories want the exln to be about Corbyn and May; LibDems want it to be about Brexit; Labour want it to be about ?

then there is this:
fleetstreetfox‏*@fleetstreetfox*
I wonder what'll happen to the SNP. Polls not too chuffed about 2nd indy ref, Labour screwed... could parts of Scotland go blue again?

there will be lots of this about:
Dan Rebellato‏*@DanRebellato*
^Right. If we don’t want a huge Tory majority, we must all hold our nose and vote tactically. This MUST happen. How to organise that?

and the strategy is this:
Laura Kuenssberg‏*@bbclaurak*
Clear from May and hearing IDS that tories will go after idea of Labour Lib Dem coalition as risky

Council officials are now seeking legal advice over the Gorton By-Election that is scheduled for next month.

One more thing: Does this bury the election expenses row that is brewing and involves May's close adviser Nick Timothy?

Oh and the bottom line?
Alberto Nardelli‏ @AlbertoNardelli
Difference size of Tory majority will make to EU27 negotiating position: 0

Sigh.

In the 2015 GE, the DUP+UUP total was 10 seats, Sinn Fein + SDLP had 7 seats, 1 seat alliance.

Is the balance unionists vs republicans / nationalists likely to change?
[BigChoc]

Close call, but I believe there will be some change in the motivation of the UUP voters and I do not know how that may be expressed in a general election.

NI voted 56% to remain. This total included many UUP, Alliance, Green, and SDLP voters as well as SF.

I can see some tactical voting emerging among broadly nationalist parties - SF and SDLP. I am not sure the UUP can really get behind the DUP after the Brexit vote.

The union theme announced by the DUP is the nuclear option, but they always use it. It is the subtext of their entire platform. It's a blatant appeal to the UUP as much as a pavlov's whistle to the DUP faithful.

I think it behoves SF to tone down the 32 county bit and focus on Brexit and the disaster it will bring to agriculture and the only just recovering NI economy.

Shared by Jolyon Maugham this morning
May's Gambit

Conservative Home telling it like it is return a voice to the white working class
Yes, white

Thanks for info, Math

That C Home article is titled
"Let’s seize this chance to purge our Party and deselect the Remainers"

So no just the Labout hard left who weaponise deselection
This intolerance and ideological purity are other quialities the hard ledt and hard right have in common

I'd thought to catch up on these threads when I'm back from holiday but I can't now!!

My first reaction to the GE news was that the outcome of the Brexit negotiations will bite so hard just about the time the next GE should take place, that there was collective cabinet panic.

That CH blog is interesting. Apart from being bloody awful - idiot man, why would you publish that at the moment when there is absolutely no prospect of selecting new ideologically approved candidates now when the election is 8 weeks away. Some of that time needs to be spent campaigning and legally this time.

Does Priti Patel make sure everyone knows who she is, before she visits Tory meetings and social occasions ?

Also, what is the reaction of voters to a purge? My guess from watching labour is that the party loves it and feels all ideological.

Voters think wtf and guess the party is in a total mess, especially if they have a non objectionable mp.

^So no just the Labout hard left who weaponise deselection
This intolerance and ideological purity are other quialities the hard ledt and hard right have in common^
I'm struggling to see the difference between them at the moment. I'm guessing its solely on who gets to keep the profits?

Why won't my quote marks work properly

Rather late placemark. Wonder if the NHS and education will get a look in at all of Brexit will just roll over everything.

Hashi 😳
That DM headline is a disgrace why am I surprised?
Nothing yet from farage?
How odd....

Sing...of course it won't
Not the electoral fraud investigation
I think that's sort of the point tbh...

HashiAsLarry Wed 19-Apr-17 07:36:02
Why won't my quote marks work properly

You have a carriage return in the middle of your quote: doesn't work if there are paragraphs (you have to add the sign around each para separately) or if there is a space or a special character just before the ^.

Ah, thanks misti

Using nancy's link I compiled a list of what my MP had and had not voted for, either totally or largely in one direction. Realised this morning that he's actively voted for the sort of things people blame the EU on, then went out and fricking campaigned for leave. We're one of the highest leave areas and the problems that were building for years being blamed on immigrants when really the MP was working against his constituents. Totally offering whatever help I can now to the local Lib Dems, anything to massively dent him if we can't quite remove the twat.

From the Conservative Home piece We must move away from division politics and return a voice to the white working class, the self-employed and other small business people who have had no voice in government for decades. We must be the unashamed voice of unity across the UK; as a country, we have been divided too long.

Move away from Division - yes, but I can't see May achieving that. I can't really see what they offer the white working class. I can no longer see what they offer to small businesses. I wonder how the Asian vote will hold up in Priti Patel's constituency, after she promised more immigration for them and had to go back on her word?

What do 5000 extra paid up Lib Dem supporters in one day tell us? It must depend on their distribution. Will Labour be slaughtered? I am not so sure myself.Consider how UKIP has been talked up and up on Question time and constant exposure in the Media, (last night being no exception) yet despite that they have virtually collapsed.

I have no idea what to predict - I know what I hope for, but that doesn't usually happen in politics.

How can a government that tolerates, let alone encourages, Daily Mail mail headlines like today's speak of unity?

They are lying scum. I don't care who wins the election - because I think analysts are right to believe that a bigger May majority means a softer brexit, and that is important to me - but I do care about what is being done to a once-proud democracy.

Anyone who defends the sort of headlines in today's Mail is utter scum and I hope brexit hurts you and your families. That's what unity among Britons looks like today: a country split down the middle, with each half actively wishing harm upon the other.

Place marking as have to go to work , Radio 4 all day to day I think .

DB was saying much the same as you yesterday Misti - what must a Civil War be like, just thinking of the hatred that the Referendum has stirred up and split families?

Just listened to a Leaver business man saying this on BBC Breakfast "what goes down must go up again. At the end of the day the economy over rides everything"

Remind me again where salaries are compared to pre-2008? And how has the UK performed while other countries have recovered in comparison with other countries? Did we or did we not suffer a double dip depression? While people at the top have done ok, how are the poorest doing? How is "trickle down" economics working?

Decisions made by governments can and do affect the economy, stimulating or stopping it. He's right in one respect though: we don't live in isolation with the rest of the world. We can however make it bloody difficult to do business with the rest of the world.

Out all day yesterday but put the BBC news on once home. Guess who they were interviewing? Nuttall. Why? A party with no MPs. Where was the Green spokesperson, or the Plaid Cymru spokesperson, with 3 MPs - representing a much greater proportion of all MPs in Wales.

pretty I saw that and said to DH 'well that's just bullshit'

Someone 'improved' the DM