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.

Why she doesn't chicken out of TV debates

And she can think on her feet. Corbyn can sometimes, May almost invariably not, and nearly always ends up making personal attacks. It's not an attractive trait.

It's all very well for May to say that she prefers to go out canvassing and talking to ordinary voters, but she is not an ordinary MP anymore. As party leader and PM she has to be a figurehead and if she doesn't like the demands of being one, she either needs to learn PDQ or stand down.

Remembering my history reading, it is so interesting whom May and the Tory tabloids are copying:

“We are fulfilling the will of the people. . . And we shall crush the saboteurs.”

Yeah I posted the full quote this morning upthread - with the pic of Lenin.

Quite why a hard right propaganda rag is quoting a communist is unclear but perhaps they're not picky about their dictators.

oops sorry, ninon these threads move so quickly.
We obviously saw the same similarity (and read the same sort of books !)

No worries at all. I'm glad someone else mentioned it because I do think it's very odd.

The award for the most ridiculous story of the day:

inews.co.uk/opinion/bloggerswhovote-zoella-save-jeremy-corbyn/
How Zoella could save Jeremy Corbyn

Zoella did my head in so I re-read Tony Blair.

It's such a bloody shame that he cocked up so monumentally with Iraq, because he streets ahead of any our current crop of politicians.

Lenin and the modern right wing - what I think is a good article in the Grauniad www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/19/crush-the-saboteurs-how-hard-brexit-rhetoric-turned-leninist

Even has some amusing one-liners for light relief.

Good article.

The French resistance and SOE were explicitly saboteurs.

FT - Lynton Crosby kept urging May to an early GE

https://www.ft.com/content/559a0efe-2423-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16

The obvious reasons, plus:

• He expects heavy Tory gains from Labour in the North and Midlands

• He feared Corbyn might quit after expected Laour losses
  They don't want to lose Corbyn, who guarantees them the GE, unless May strangles kittens on TV.

FT prediction has Liberals gaining only 3 seats, but v early days yet.
Like the other prediction, they also have the SNP retaining all 56 seats The Union looks buggered.
Maybe within the 56, they'll swap seats though:

. The Liberals could regain 3 seats from SNP
BUT replaced by 3 others:
. The Greens are stepping aside in Mundell's seat, to give the SNP a clear run
. The lone Labour MP looks v vulnerable to SNP
. LidDem in Orkney & Shetland played very dodgy in the 2915 GE, iirc and some won't forgive. So maybe SNP again

Alastair Campbell just tweeted this:

Have sent @theresa_may draft statement. 'I've looked closely. Brexit is a total disaster. It's not happening. Now back to work'.

Interesting thought experiment here ... Would the tories win if they did a U turn on brexit? (I think they would.)

Nadine Dorries
By 522 to 13, we just repealed the useless piece of legislation pushed through by Cameron, Osborne + Clegg in favour of real politics

Remind me. How did this woman become an MP and how does she keep getting re-elected when she doesn't know what she is voting for?

I was about to post the Dorries tweet. Thick as.

Repealed the legislation? The stupidity of what she's saying had me doubting my understanding of what the fixed term elections mean but a quick google tells me that she is in fact that obtuse

If Remainers are saboteurs now, wtf will they call us when Brexit turns out to be a disaster and / or a humiliating climbdown ?

What will they do ?

I'm glad I'm not in the UK England and I'm not visiting until it's all over - friends can visit me instead ... I'll probaly be hiding Brexit refugees in my cellar

Misti, we're well out if it !

Dorries is ignorant, prejudiced, nasty and as thick as Brexshit.
Not a good combination

@MichaelLCrick Apr 18
The CPS have told Channel 4 News tonight that they are considering charges against more than 30 individuals. #electionexpenses

And the Nuttells one?

The 48% Tshirts

Would those MPs, if they were successfully prosecuted, be barred if they had already got re-elected? So May could still have some tricky by elections on her hands. I daresay those MPs will be encouraged to fall on their swords now - spend more time with their gardens and what not. I think though that they are the fall guys - that the impetus for this must have come from above.

At least we know now, and can be watching out for dodgy dealings. Brexit may ultimately revitalise politics.

I'm fairly sure the judges won't want to defy the "will of the people" so any Tory convicted will get a slap on the wrist, probably fined 2k or so.

The new GE Tipexxes over the scandals of the previous GE

I know that I was quick off the mark to say this election was prompted by TM's wish to bury the electoral expenses allegations. BUT, I don't think the CPS, if they did intend to prosecute, will just shrug shoulder and say: "Oh well, it doesn't really matter now, does it?" If the CPS does want to press charges and those MPs have been re-elected, it will be horrifically embarrassing at best and could lead to umpteen by-elections anyway at worst (from government's perspective).

And the CPS will have to announce prosecutions halfway through the election campaign as the time for it to be struck out runs out in mid-May.

Huff - BBC and ITC planning debates without May

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bbc-itv-general-election-debate-2017-theresa-mayukk_58f772afe4b029063d35a543?w7p&amp

Ofcon rules on impartiality state that the broadcaster must invite party leaders or other politicians in a strict % deoendent on votes & seats at the last GE

However, if a politician or partyy refuses to participate, the broadcaster is entitled to continue without them (and with no need to compensate them with extra time in another program)

So the other party leaders may debate.

It will be clear May chickened out because she is know to be a very poor debater; even Corbyn can beat her in PM Questions and almost everyone else, even Cam, can thrash him.

In theory election results in individual seats could be declared invalid if laws are found to have been broken, though this is not an automatic process

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-election-fraud-prosecutions-cps-election-campaign-result-overturn-battle-bus-a7689801.html

"Professor Justin Fisher of Brunel University said last month, after the Electoral Commission announced a £70,000 fine for the Conservatives over other failings, that: "It is potentially looking more likely that we will see charges at the end of this.

"The CPS has to decide whether there is a good chance of a prosecution. There may well have been wrong-doing. The key is whether there was intent. We may see in certain constituencies that there is further action rather than in others."

If we see charges then, politically, it will be very, very damaging. The biggest threat to the Tories in most of these seats comes from the Lib Dems. The election could turn out to be a considerable miscalculation if a lot of them are charged in the immediate period before the general election. But I would be surprised if all of them were."

What happens if an MP is re-elected in the 2017 general election but later convicted of election fraud in the 2015 general election?

Professor Fisher again: "That's an excellent question. I don't know the answer. But if they were allowed to continue as an MP through some loophole, politically they would have to stand

So Theresa May must hope that few, if any, of her MPs are charged.

And, if any are charged, that it happens soon and they stand down quietly.

The last thing she wants is to fight the final weeks of a bitter general election with candidates fighting for up to 20 of her most marginal seats charged with election fraud.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/what-snap-election-means-tory-10250515

So we are still going to be stuck with a UKIP presence, but at least it won't be disproportionate as with QT.

It is v difficult to prove GE expenses fraud and it would be extraordinary to receive a jail sentence for it - even under completely different circumstances.

So, as I posted, any conviction would be just a slap on the wrist.
It would be scandalous in normal times, but with Brexit GE fever, the Tory tabloids will bury the news, or make the CPS and judges the villains.