Westministenders: Its WAR. Huh!? What is that good for? Negotiations apparently

[RedToothBrush]

Theresa May has declared war on the EU. She is going to be a ‘bloody difficult woman’ after she got caught out by a highly predictable leak.

Apparently, the EU are trying to rig an election she seems almost dead cert to win. They deliberately timed the leak to interfere with an election May decided the timing of. May was not supposed to be at the dinner, but after she announced the election she decided that she had to get in on the act for some reason. Wildly speculating here, but could this be because she wanted the political mileage herself?

No it wasn't a preplanned strategy. Don't be stupid. That would suggest they had the foggiest clue and a plan. Nope, the war declaration was an opportunist damage limitation exercise, used to maximise political capital.

She has now even further alienated the EU. It seems difficult to conceive how any deal will be done. Instead it looks like the election is trying to set us up to crash out. Whether the ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ happens to make the 3 page Tory Manifesto remains to be seen.

This would leave EU nationals and British national aboard in legal and social limbo.

There is also a feud building over the Brexit leaving bill, which is steadily climbing. We can not progress to the second stage of Brexit without resolving this. Again, this seems unlikely.

Thirdly, a settlement with Ireland is a top priority for the EU, and plans are being drawn up to make allowances for any potential United Ireland. This is a subject that is still to be talked about on any level really. May has been much more interested in the fate of Scotland and battling with Nicola Sturgeon.

That’s the thing. May is like the playground bully who goes around going “Do you wanna scrap ?, Do ya? DO YA?” and generally throws their weight around and most of the time gets their own way as a result. The trouble with the strategy is when the bigger kid comes along and thumps the bully, for being a cocky little shit and doesn’t like their kid brother getting picked on.

The trouble is that May is setting it up, to try and make it look like the poor little Britain has been picked on to her parents, so they go around accusing the big kid of all sorts rather than admitting their little darling is a nasty little shit.

It’s not going to end well is it? You can’t help but feel that at some point they’ll all end up in the Headmasters office and the WTO/UN/International Courts will rule against us for being a bunch of dickheads. No doubt May, will stick to character, hold a grudge and demand to leave them or say they have no authority over the UK.

That or we really will end up declaring war on Spain over Gibraltar. By accident of course. Probably to keep the ConKip party together and avoid a split.

Rule Britannia. Britannia rules. Erm, not a lot these days.

I'd rather be told how it is by a wolf openly being a wolf, than by this:

Except that is what people are in danger of voting for with May.
'A country which works for everyone' - a fine soundbite, but then examine her voting record.

How Theresa May voted on Welfare and Benefits #
• Generally voted for reducing housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms (which Labour describe as the "bedroom tax")
• Consistently voted against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices
• Generally voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability
• Generally voted for making local councils responsible for helping those in financial need afford their council tax and reducing the amount spent on such support
• Generally voted for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits
• Generally voted against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who have spent a long time unemployed

How Theresa May voted on Taxation and Employment #

• Generally voted for raising the threshold at which people start to pay income tax
• Generally voted for increasing the rate of VAT
• Generally voted for higher taxes on alcoholic drinks
• Generally voted for higher taxes on plane tickets
• Generally voted for lower taxes on fuel for motor vehicles
• Generally voted against increasing the tax rate applied to income over £150,000
• Voted a mixture of for and against encouraging occupational pensions
• Generally voted against automatic enrolment in occupational pensions

My conclusion from this is that the poor and disabled are to be given the bare minimum of what works for everyone; the wealthy are to be pandered to. Perhaps the vicar's daughter should go back to her Bible and see what Jesus taught about the rich entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

Auditing the entire NHS to look for excess staff would be a massive waste of time and money. Many NHS departments have already done this anyway in an attempt to save money i.e. Re-banded everyone to try and bring down pay and get rid of non-essential staff. It rarely saves money as, from what I've heard it normally results in multiple legal actions when they try to take staff down a band or two or force senior staff (the more expensive staff, innit) out by transferring them to a job they're not suited to. It's also a fantastic way to destroy staff morale. And results in departments being staffed entirely by junior staff members- cheaper for the NHS but not great for patient safety!

making in-patients pay for food,
Could be chaotic, but many wouldn't mind, given the quality of some hospital food.

Not just chaotic but potentially detrimental to patient welfare. Eating well and eating the right food is important for people to get better. If they have to pay many poorer patients may either not be able to afford to eat as much as they should or will bring in less nutritious food that will impact on their recovery. This isn't even considering people with eating disorders, mental health issues or special dietary requirements who may very well end up not getting the food they need. This will result in slower recovery for some patients and therefore ultimately cost the NHS far more than it saves.

Basically it's a bloody stupid, short sighted idea thought up by idiots who don't know the first thing about health care.

I can't believe Farage is on Peston today. I hope all these media appearances are just them trying to get him to admit UKIP's new irrelevance, then they'll let him sink into relative obscurity.

The only good thing about Tories becoming UCON is that after the next GE UKIP most likely will lose their larger party status so won't need to be given as much platform as now. UCON will just be spouting the stuff instead

Some small hope maybe...

Third of people considering tactical voting at general election to block Tories' hard Brexit, poll reveals
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-2017-tactical-voting-progressive-alliance-hard-brexit-block-tories-a7721551.html

Shame on BBC for continuing to give publicity to fascists.
Wasn't the National Front were banned on it in the 1970s?
Like all terrorist organisations?

Kudos to the French anti fascists (or Macron supporters ) some really funny tweets doing the rounds about the emails and excellent digital analysis of where the tweets came from.

There is loads of data on the unfairness of US health care. And the bottom line is always the same.

A vote for May will be a death sentence for many, before the UKIP/ National Front/Orange order have even started on their campaign for the re introduction of state executions.

I was going to ask what the objection from the right to socialised healthcare is. I had assumed it came down to objecting to the state having a role in determining your treatment. It didn't realise it was just outright selfishness.

What depresses the fuck out of me is that when we are freed from the shackles of the EU we don't come up with our own uniquely British solutions, but instead slavishly copy what the Americans do. The consequences of non-universal healthcare are blatantly apparent if you walk around a typical US city for a couple of hours. Why on earth would you want to replicate that? And that's before you compare the relative efficiency of different health systems.

Buzzfeed have done some interesting stories on labour news site and social media. Worth a read if you like that sort of thing and interesting to compare with the way the alt-right used their own heavily biased news sites and social media to galvanise support for Trump (with the caveat that I don't think that they are exactly the same in all aspects, the alt-right specialised in outright take news, whereas the left seems to go for heavily biased interpretations that are nevertheless based in facts. A matter of semantics maybe, but worth noting I feel).

I think the popularity of these sorts of sites on both sides of politics says something about the MSM and the way they are failing to engage or represent large swathes of the public leaving then open to the influence of more extreme sites that seems to reflect their views better. I find this very worrying.

The Rise Of The Alt-Left British Media
www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/the-rise-of-the-alt-left?utm_term=.myMwdazDX9#.qaOLKarDvn

People On Facebook Only Want To Share Pro-Corbyn, Anti-Tory News Stories
www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/people-on-facebook-only-want-to-share-pro-corbyn-news?utm_term=.tp6Gxwv7Y8#.oheolz6ajn

Some small hope maybe...

Even if in practice this doesn't achieve the desired effect, it's consciousness raising. The 48% and many supporters are doing this. The fact that it's local, informal and organised through social media, is going to help form some very useful grassroots organisation post June10th. Local candidates are also agreeing to stand aside, or not campaign much, in order to help the non tory get in.

This non partisan informal coalition is being formed thanks to May and may be more powerful and useful than we realise at the moment.

take news = fake news

I agree woman. I actually think it is a very smart move from the party leaders to not make this official and just allow a grassroots movement to rise. It is much more powerful and stops the media from being able to spin it as labour or lib Dems trying to fix the election or getting into bed with each other. It is also nice to see that people can work together and put their own egos and ambitions aside for the greater good when needed. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I was out yesterday - in the garden in the glorious sunny weather and then at the Warriors game, where beforehand ds' school was in the finals of the ScottishPower Glasgow Warriors Championship - aggregate results of 3 teams and he helps coach one them - they won all 3 games life must gone in these troubling times ).

Going back to the Orange Order in Glasgow: I agree with the other posters (Woman and squoosh) that the sectarianism is a stain on West of Scotland society . I'd like to hope it was better than it was, but as I was brought up in blissful ignorance of it, I really have nothing to compare it with. (That religion was irrelevant to my parents is both a blessing and a curse - it means that I am blind to what religion people are, but it also means that on occasion it means I'm not aware of issues).

I hate marching season which we are now in : both the big Orange Marches you see in town and the little ones you come across locally when you aren't expecting them. They give me the creeps.

Dh (a very lapsed Catholic, so has given me some insight) tells me that the marches used to stop outside the Catholic Churches where mass was being held and bang their drums even more loudly . That sort of thing has stopped, with march routes and times being pre-approved.

The segregated schooling doesn't help: state schools split by catholic and non-denominational, so you effectively have two catchment schools (although many of the "catholic" schools in Glasgow are filled with Muslims and Sikhs ).

Re the local elections, I think there is a degree of the sectarianism in the results, in the West of Scotland at least. Glasgow City Council had a reputation as a Catholic fiefdom; I asked dh why and he said because it was Labour - which was the party for the poorer people.

The reason that some poor people were prepared to vote Conservative goes back to the Tory Party's full name: the "Conservative and Unionist Party". The Orange Lodge is all about draping themselves in Queen and Country (Union flags alongside the orange sashes).

There is a real risk of the "Ulsterisation" of Scottish politics.

I've written all of the above before seeing the Sunday Herald's front page "Orange Order elected to councils as Labour and Tory members: Grand Lodge vows its new councillors will fight independence". Off to read the article.....

BTW: to whoever said that the UKIP vote in Scotland went to the SNP couldn't be further from the truth. a) there were hardly any UKIP votes to start with (no elected councillors) and b) they would never go to the SNP - they would go to a pro-Union party.

It is also nice to see that people can work together

Sadly, we have to be planning for June 10th, not June 9th.

Consciousness raising, is a very 1970s term, I used it explaining to a nice transexual picketing a Germaine Greer lecture last week, as I defended women's separatist organisations to him. I look to the black power movement on how they gained what they did in the 1960s-70s and women's movement too. I know we've had slight set backs at the moment, ,but the resistance is not going anywhere. This thread is consciousness raising. and it's also amazingly non partisan in terms of alliances to particular political parties?

The political establishment and the MSM are unsettled by this and talking it down, everywhere. Nick Cohen in today's Observer certainly is.
Partisan adversarial politics is pretty peculiar to the US and here, and now look what's happened.

Great political movements, and crappy ones too, are formed by the like minded organising and co operating. Again May may have done a great service to the majority who detest her and her policies, by getting us to gradually realise what we have in common. I have voted lib dem this week and a lib dem has got in. He's a nice effective local councillor. I've made the personal jump from voting labour and it's made a local change in a tory area.

prettybird sounds nice, in the rugby sunshine. This political malarkey hasn't stopped the lovely bluebells round where I live, either.

In Liverpool, down by Scotland Road on a large council estate, several years ago, I was on a bus which had its path stopped by Orange Lodge march. It was frightening.

I think they are on the march through Catholic areas in many towns and cities in England as well as Scotland.

As they march through predominantly council estates, I don't think they get reported much in MSM, but they are deliberately intimidating and threatening.

The marching season is one to watch for May's thugs.

"making in-patients pay for food,". The Ryan air model. Even people in prison don't have to pay for their own food. I suppose it is watch this space. I was in Washington DC during during the Obamacare discussions. I forget whether the UK were Socialist or Communist as shown by the supposed stain that is the NHS. I didn't know anything about Fox News and you could have picked my jaw up off the floor.

Farage and Gove on Peston? OH said last night "I wonder who will be on this morning's Marr, Peston, S. Politics. I said "Bet a Kipper will be on". Gove may as well be a kipper. Have I a gift? No, it is just they are always on. So Farage will spout stuff in the interview and then Gove at the coffee table will reinforce him. Tim Marshall on the Daily politics said something to the effect that even if Macron wins, the FN and Le Pen will have done better because they will have increased their vote and will be ready in 5 years time. This seem to have to cling to this to satisfy themselves about Brexit. So when Macron wins, there will be lots of talk about Le Pen.

Hunt not answering question on Marr. Labour didn't make the promise on the 350million. Hunt knows it is rubbish. "Whatever deal will be a good deal for the NHS". Give me strength. Oh, It is a battle against the EU now. How so? They won't change their rules to give UK benefits without obligations and rights. Is it a case of resolve to dismantle the four pillars? Oh, EU are leaking reports to undermine Theresa May. Someone did leak about the meeting and picked up to the newspaper, but it could have been Merkel's office or someone else. Merkel was briefed on the bonkers brexit soiree. It wasn't to do with this election. It was to get it out there that when the negotiations fail and UK walk away the reason is that the the gov't are not engaging with reality at all. Wanting what is not on offer and thinking leaving will not render the UK a third country wrt benefits. This election is irrelevant to the EU. However accusing them of leaking on the dinner meeting is different to going out an delivering a speech to the press accusing them of interfering in an election. That is basically accusing them of a crime. With no evidence of this. May doesn't like the fact she can't have control the European press. Nothing about the British press. You know the ones who called supreme court judges 'enemies of the people'.

Have just posted this on the Trump thread, but obviously relevant here as well. Long but very worth reading if you have some time.

The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked
A shadowy global operation involving big data, billionaire friends of Trump and the disparate forces of the Leave campaign influenced the result of the EU referendum. As Britain heads to the polls again, is our electoral process still fit for purpose? by Carole Cadwalladr
www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

John McDonnell interview on #Marr. Labour will ask those over £80,000 to pay more tax t.co/vDqLonB3or

Sorry, lost half that tweet somehow

Eoin Clarke
^Here is the crucial bit of the John McDonnell interview on #Marr. Labour will ask those over £80,000 to pay more tax t.co/vDqLonB3or^

Oh my...!

But the really sad thing is, I shouldn't be

....although just re-reading that, I now get that Gove was trying to be clever and obviously failing

Bigly many thanks

What I then discovered is that Mercer’s role in the referendum went far beyond this. Far beyond the jurisdiction of any UK law. The key to understanding how a motivated and determined billionaire could bypass ourelectoral laws rests on AggregateIQ, an obscure web analytics company based in an office above a shop in Victoria, British Columbia.

It was with AggregateIQ that Vote Leave (the official Leave campaign) chose to spend £3.9m, more than half its official £7m campaign budget. As did three other affiliated Leave campaigns: BeLeave, Veterans for Britain and the Democratic Unionist party, spending a further £757,750. “Coordination” between campaigns is prohibited under UK electoral law, unless campaign expenditure is declared, jointly. It wasn’t. Vote Leave says the Electoral Commission “looked into this” and gave it “a clean bill of health”
.
What’s been lost in the US coverage of this “data analytics” firm is the understanding of where the firm came from: deep within the military-industrial complex. A weird British corner of it populated, as the military establishment in Britain is, by old-school Tories. Geoffrey Pattie, a former parliamentary under-secretary of state for defence procurement and director of Marconi Defence Systems, used to be on the board, and Lord Marland, David Cameron’s pro-Brexit former trade envoy, a shareholder
.
^SCL/Cambridge Analytica was not some startup created by a couple of guys with a Mac PowerBook. It’s effectively part of the British defence establishment. And, now, too, the American defence establishment.
This is not just a story about social psychology and data analytics. It has to be understood in terms of a military contractor using military strategies on a civilian population. Us. David Miller, a professor of sociology at Bath University and an authority in psyops and propaganda, says it is “an extraordinary scandal that this should be anywhere near a democracy. It should be clear to voters where information is coming from, and if it’s not transparent or open where it’s coming from, it raises the question of whether we are actually living in a democracy or not^

Finding “persuadable” voters is key for any campaign and with its treasure trove of data, Cambridge Analytica could target people high in neuroticism, for example, with images of immigrants “swamping” the country. The key is finding emotional triggers for each individual voter.

This is Britain in 2017. A Britain that increasingly looks like a “managed” democracy. Paid for a US billionaire. Using military-style technology. Delivered by Facebook. And enabled by us. If we let this referendum result stand, we are giving it our implicit consent. This isn’t about Remain or Leave. It goes far beyond party politics. It’s about the first step into a brave, new, increasingly undemocratic world.

Yes, I think that is Gove's idea of wit . I did assume it was Farage's contribution to start with though...

Looking forward to a quiet half hour so I can get to grips with the Carole Cadwalladr article.

Hunt not answering on Peston. Sticking to general nothingness. After the dismantling of the mental health act, where will the 10,000 places for people who would normally end up in police cells be? Not answered. Doesn't there need to be a body to oversea this? Not answered. Blah, blah, blah. Want our NHS care to be the best in the world. etc. No real discussion.