Westministenders: Oh No Not Another One. Thread that is.

[RedToothBrush]

In this edition of Westministers we play a game of ‘Where are they now?’

In June 2016 our screens were subjected to the sight of a number of particularly vocal MPs who participated in debates and stood on soap boxes to talk about the referendum.

The most noticeable of these for Leave were perhaps Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom, Gisela Stuart, Nigel Farage, Priti Patel and Kate Hoey. For Remain it was David Cameron, George Osborne, Jeremy Corbyn, Ruth Davidson, Sadiq Khan, Nicola Sturgeon, Nick Clegg and Tim Farron.

It is starting to seem that anyone involved in campaigning either for or against Brexit in June 2016 has faced an epic battle for survival. Just how long can they last before being defeated or conceding defeat.

David Cameron’s scalp was the first to go, as he swanned off leaving everyone to clear up his mess.

Boris Johnson, who was keen to stamp his mark and pitch for the leadership by stitching up Cameron, got stitched up by Michael Gove who also lost his own bid for leadership as a result.

Johnson, of course, still lives to fight another day by getting a nice job as Theresa’s whipping boy. He’s occasionally let out by himself, but its Michael Fallon who does the ‘Grown Up Business’. He was said to be one of the last to support an early election. I can’t think why that might be.

Poor old Gove is now confined to a straight-jacket, the back benches where he’s been told to think about what he’s done like a naughty school child and a column in the Times

Andrea Leadsom was sent to a field of cows never to be seen again except to pop up for the odd cameo line shouting about ‘Jam’.

Queen Theresa also dealt with the other Conservative Leader Leave Candidate Mr Liam Fox, by shipping him off to every dodgy corner of the global to get pampered by state hostility.

Stephen Crabb simply crawled back under his rock.

The announcement of the General Election seems to be like the major soap incident episode where half the cast get killed off by a totally unrealistic disaster because their acting contracts weren’t being renewed.

The quitters and abdicators who now have legged it at the sight of a General Election are Gisela ‘Champion of the Brexit Bus’ Stuart and Nigel ‘Too chicken to be defeated for an eighth time and risk losing my nice EU pension’ Farage. George Osborne took the advice of his school teachers and had another career to fall back on when he didn’t become successful in his first choice.

Its rather starting to look like the curse of being a leading Brexiteer is to be made to disappear off the face of the earth or fuck off when the going gets tough. Have you seen Priti Patel lately? Does she even still exist? And Chris Grayling? He was convinced he was going to get chancellor when he supported May in her bid for the leadership.
Instead he got packed off transport and disappeared off the face of the earth much to the annoyance of everyone caught up in the rail strikes.

The only one who is remotely visible seems to be David Davis and is like May’s pet poodle who just tries to please his owner.

It’s almost like the only one still standing or hasn’t been banished is Kate Hoey. And the Lib Dems are trying to work on that one and make her sink beneath the waves, on board her Alan Partridge Titanic once and for all.

Conversely the visible Remainers seem to be – on the face of it - fairing rather better at the moment.

Sadiq Khan is hugely popular and actually does his job rather than fannying about on zip wires. Ruth Davidson is also well respected and apparently has saved Priti Patel’s job from abolition. If the rumours are to be believed bored with scrapping with Nicola, she might be lining herself up for ‘Big Things’ in Westminister. Cameron’s one time love interest, Nick Clegg hasn’t shaken the tarnish of the coalition but he is enjoying a new reputation as the Brexit Soothsayer and some people actually know who Tim Farron is now, which is progress. Nicola Sturgeon is of course riding high and seems to be a permanent thorn in Theresa’s side.

Jeremy ‘I’m a Remainer, honest comrades’ Corbyn is the one who seems to be something of a walking disaster area yet is also thriving with it like a zombie who just keeps going regardless of what you throw at him.

And then of course there is Queen Theresa. The Remainer. Who has crushed everyone in her party. Not just the saboteurs. Even her supposed ally Hammond and BBF Rudd have been thrown under the bus at her wimb when its suited May personally.

The General Election now sets a new scene and opportunity for new characters to emerge. Now the rats have left the ship or been put in their place.

Will May set course to the left or to the right or simply plow on like a bull in a china shop?

Anyway I’m now looking forward to the shocking soap opera moment where your favourite hero or villain gets killed off in a twist you didn’t see coming. Role on June 8th. If only to get pass the upcoming horror of the next six weeks.

Mother I meant £30,000 per year

I think his halo is slipping anyway - what with the stance on gay marriage and the not acting on the anti-Semitism until it was pointed out in Parliament.
This highly amuses me. The other parties have a far far worse record on both, and have in some cases of anti-semitism barely acted if at all and on gay marriage they've both got people with far worse voting records. Like the Brexit trolls popping up whenever a threat to it happens, I'm seeing it a lot in this GE. The Lib Dems are clearly becoming a worry to some.

"Some vocational degrees from ex-Polytechnics can be very good courses, and probably equip their graduates better for life after university than some Oxbridge courses"

Peregrina I completely agree, this is one of the problems with fees, they are based on the idea of a market for education, which has many information problems (students don't know if a course is any good until they are on it). The quality of courses at some of the new universities (particularly if they have a vocational element) is very high and often much better. You can see this in the responses to the national student survey.

Interesting what you said Bolshy. My mother was widowed when we were kids, and one of my sisters and I got full maintenance grants in early/mid 1980s. Plenty to live from, with care. Many of my co students were from modest/ poor families and we all got full grants and 'free' degrees.

There is a proposal that teachers are now being offered debt write off (after 7 years in service) as there is such a teacher shortage. www.theguardian.com/education/2017/apr/27/wipe-out-new-teachers-student-debts-teaching-shortage-report-forgivable-fee-profession-education-graduates

If there are to be teachers or nurses in 5 years, and EU migrants are not going to want/ be able to step in, some one's got to pay for the training.

Like buying one's own tracking devices in mobile phones, we are having to buy a fiction/degree to keep young people off the unemployment line. Mad and a con.

Education is its own reward, and in times when there are going to be fewer and fewer 'real' jobs, a civilised society would be working on that principle. Jobs are the luxury item, and health, homes and education are the civilised and civilising 'rights'. Like they are in civilised countries.

Just to add that the Lib Dems get the blame for tuition fees, but it was a Labour government that first introduced them, and once they started it was inevitable that they would go up because of (a) large cuts to state support for universities, and (b) universities compete globally for the best students, so underfunding was unsustainable. A Tory minority government would have brought them in too.

So I hate the bloody Lib Dems for putting me in this positions.

My understanding was that it it's more complex than that, but the pro Tory press and the Tories themselves have managed to spin as though it was all the LibDems fault. It was initially Blair who introduced the tuition fees. The Coalition put them up, but Clegg, (naively, too trustingly perhaps?) allowed them to increase as a trade off for getting Pupil Premium through - which has worked and done a lot of good.

Now the Tories are ruling on their own, guess what? The cap has been abolished. That's OK for them, fees of £10K a year plus similar for living costs are still much cheaper than the Fees at Eton were, so it's a bargain for the parents putting Hugo or Gideon through Oxford.
Cynical, moi?

God, I hate this ideological purity crap from the left, the idea that their politicians must be so pure that they are unelectable. It's utter bullshit.

If you think that, you deserve a Tory government and a hard brexit. I have zero sympathy for intelligent people behaving like turkeys voting for christmas. If you don't vote against the clear and present danger then you are tacitly supporting it. Hold your nose and vote tactically if you have that opportunity.

MO4D - I agree with you. I think a lot of LibDems would have preferred a Coalition with Labour, but we are told it wasn't possible. I have also heard the argument that had they worked on a confidence and supply arrangement, the Tories would have called another election, won, and gained a big majority.

I wasn't convinced by that - Harold Wilson formed a minority Government in 1974 and then called a fresh election, only to gain a majority of 4, which was too slender a margin to be effective and dogged them throughout the Parliament, leading to the Thatcher landslide.

The only sort of coalition I would be able to stomach now would be a genuine cross party one, as the wartime coalition was, in recognition that there is a real crisis facing the country. It won't happen if Mayhem gets her majority.

MOTD I understand the tuition fee stuff, its why I've never voted for Labour after their volte face in 1997, which led to us being in this position. And that was when their leadership was credible. In my entire voting life there's never been a party that has in any way been trustworthy. Hence why the courts can say people expect politicians to lie.

And yes, this is why our system is screwed, because very few people vote for their local MP but the person they want in power. I don't want any of them in power TBH. Personally I trust Farron more than May or Corbyn but that's a relative, because I trust May more than I trust my own MP and all of those figures are very low on the scale.

God, I hate this ideological purity crap from the left, the idea that their politicians must be so pure that they are unelectable. It's utter bullshit.

I've had these sorts of argument with DD. I ought to be voting Green apparently because it aligns with my values. A long drawn out W e l l it all depends from me. No party is an exact fit, for any of us, so we choose the one which we feel is the best fit and promises what we want for the country.

I am truly baffled by people who used to be Labour, but are now holding their noses and voting Tory, apparently because they trust May. She's not slippery like dodgy Dave, just not very competent, and those who think that she will deliver a country which works for everyone, have only to look at her voting record to see that this claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

God, I hate this ideological purity crap from the left, the idea that their politicians must be so pure that they are unelectable. It's utter bullshit.

Was it Jacques Chirac who said told Thatcher that if he had to get rid of everyone who'd had an affair there'd be no one left to run the country?

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) says that increased rationing of treatments is a sign that the NHS is falling out of the top tier of world health systems, and that patients and companies will suffer as a result.

It's definitely a worry, although I did notice this paragraph:

"The demands come after GSK, Britain’s biggest drugs company, announced a rise yesterday in first-quarter profits to £2 billion on revenues of £7.4 billion." So there is a little bit of hypocrisy here - they themselves can afford to put more money into healthcare - perhaps by way of Corporation tax.

The other depressing things about the article were there was no mention of the EMA moving, or the brain drain of EU staff, both of which would enhance the effect of a lack of money. Then the usual brainless waffle from Tory spokespeople about how a wonderful deal from Brexit which May is going to achieve will make it all work out fine.

But not a surprise. The EU have been working on a single EU wide approval scheme for clinical trials. One approval and you can recruit in 27 countries. With that on offer, why would you bother with the UK? Brexut is going to be disastrous for health research. We have already had projects withdrawn.

"The problem we have in the UK is that it doesn't matter whether you go to Oxford university or Kingston, Bristol or London Metropolitan, the fees are all the same"

The current fees do not cover the true amount it costs for a university to give you a degree. Particularly science or medical degrees, which are very expensive for universities as they have a lot more face to face teaching and equipment costs. This causes problems for universities as government funding reduces and means some unis are stopping offering science degrees. If you reduced the fees for less prestigious universities you would just have to subsidise them more. Plus it would perpetuate the trend of Oxford being a bastion of the rich and further discourage poorer students to apply.

'I love uneducated people' was one of Trump's many successful slogans. May's gov doing its best to emulate this, with bankrupting schools and HE. Has anyone else noticed (as The 48% have been pointing out) that secondary schools are sending out begging letters for funds, and asking parents to lobby MPs? First time I can remember state schools asking parents to take part in political lobbying for funds. Bottom line is, health, homes and education are for the rich in Britain now. The chaos of the HE loans system succeeds anyway in making school children sign up to indentured citizen status which is useful for a controlling state.

The 'good governance' against 'jungle law' mantra that worked for Crosby in Sri Lanka in 2015 is being adapted to work again here, with May's 'strong' leadership and JC's 'coalition of chaos' except there's isn't a coalition on the cards, yet.
www.ft.com/content/ad3c0b0e-45a3-11e5-b3b2-1672f710807

What to look out for in the 2017 local elections on 4 May, your guide to the important results, through the night and into Friday evening.
www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2017/04/what-look-out-2017-local-elections-4-may

Useful guide from Stephen Bush

Bolshy - I graduated in 84 and the grant for the years I was at Uni (78-84 - 4 year degree including one year employed as an assistante in France and an extra year changing my joint Honours subject) was plenty to live in. I've already mentioned my irritating best friend who even ended up with savings at the end of each year

Interesting about New York's approach to tuition fees. I've just unsuccessfully tried to find a post on my FB to a link I shared about why in Germany they've reduced even their nominal fees for HE as it is in the country's economic interests. It was a while ago but I'll keep searching.