Westministenders: Before the Fire Alarm of Rome goes off

[RedToothBrush]

I’m going to keep this one very simple.

THE DEADLINE TO REGISTER TO VOTE IS 22ND MAY.
www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

Postal votes start to go out on 23rd May.

Your challenge is to persuade someone to register to vote or to get someone who is considering not to, to get their arse to the polling station.

Go forth and harass. Especially women and the young.

That’s it. No frills OP.

order-order.com/2017/05/17/may-twice-refuses-say-hammond-wont-be-sacked/
MAY TWICE REFUSES TO SAY HAMMOND WON’T BE SACKED

Reshuffle alert...

Conundrum: should I vote for Labour and their good local people

For me, a vote for Labour is still a tacit Leave vote. Which I fundamentally disagree with. Others have their own view, but for me (with a non British parent), it's existential.

It's not a danger - it's a fact. Remainers who vote Labour will be classed as having changed their minds to Leave. Post 8th June, I predict the figures bandied about for "Remain" will cease to be 48%, and instead shrink to 15-20% ....

I predict the figures bandied about for "Remain" will cease to be 48%, and instead shrink to 15-20%

Because how can you vote for something which doesn't exist.
It's the remain vote in the quad ifyswim.

Or totalitarianism.

Gina Miller has a constant security guard with her, she is in real danger. She was just on Radio 5 talking about tactical voting.

There is no Tory candidate, so I might as well vote Libdem. But I really dislike Lib dems on a national level and their policies. However their local people are again quite good.

LH I am naturalised British, so who knows how much that counts for.

Isn't it unbelievable that something like the Klan still exist? Seriously, I thought all these things were nearly gone if not extinct. I brought my son along to the polling station as I went to vote for a Council election. In the car, we were talking about political parties/movements and I said they were not all of the same ilk. I was explaining to him how there were some groups I would never vote for as I think their raison d'etre' is hateful. I mentioned the BNP (not the bank). I even said they might be a thing of the past as I was not sure if they still existed. On we wander into the station. When I went into the booth, he remained looking at the list of candidates which were helpfully displayed. He roared a few times in my direction that the BNP were standing. Not sure I had heard him properly as I hadn't responded fully to his satisfaction, he greeted me afresh with the news when I left the booth. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I can only imagine how devout everyone thought my support was if my youngster (then with a blond buzz cut, 'cos it was the only thing I could do with the hair clippers and was less waste than a barber) was so excitedly yelling out about them.

He has gone brown now, with longer locks and insists on the barber. A tenner wasted every few weeks for the merest cm off. I saved a bundle with those clippers. The skinhead look was a little bit unfortunate. Very cheap and practical, though. But I digress...

The director of advocacy organisation Cage has been charged under the Terrorism Act, the group said.

Muhammad Rabbani faces a charge of failing to disclose his password after being detained at Heathrow airport under counter-terrorism stop-and-search powers.

The group tweeted on Wednesday: “Our Director Muhammad Rabbani has been charged for failing to disclose his password under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act.”

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/17/cage-campaign-group-director-muhammed-rabbani-charged-under-terrorism-act

Reshuffle alert Gove

Muhammad Rabbani faces a charge of failing to disclose his password after being detained at Heathrow airport under counter-terrorism stop-and-search powers.

www.truecrypt71a.com/documentation/plausible-deniability/

I remember a while back Gina Miller was on the radio and was relaying just a taste of the stuff personally directed at her. It was hard listening to it, so I cannot imagine the impact of being the target. She must have someone filtering through the hate stuff, now. It would be too much for anyone to take.

Isn't it something that she needs a bodyguard?

LH: "Remainers who vote Labour will be classed as having changed their minds to Leave"

My previous local MP was one of the 47 Labour MP's who voted against a50. I thought it was standing by their principles and reflected the constituency. It is a dilemma, as voting for them would be supporting their personal stand contrary to the party whip. Yet it could be construed as a vote for the party stand. The LD has no chance in this constituency.

My feeling is that this election is all about the size of the Tory majority and not much else, and that we should all be voting tactically according to which direction we would like that majority to go.

But tbh, if the country still was split 48-52, why are the Lib Dems not increasing in the polls instead of stagnating or dropping ?

Who knows ? - on these very forums, I have been told that "it's not all about Brexit" ... which suggests a masterful use of MSM by the Leave campaign. It's almost as if the Tories extremism has been played up to deliberately provoke Remainers to vote Labour (and thereby recant their mistaken support for Remain).

I'm the same LH...non British parent
My county is fielding a lib dem candidate who is pro leave
You couldn't make it up
So who the hell do i vote for?
A vote for LDs is a wasted vote here ffs

I think so too kaija
It's about minimising the Tory majority

Vote for whichever candidate is most likely to beat the Conservative one.

Gove has been unashamedly brown nosing TM since his fall from grace 'and favour'.

The mute button on my remote will be worn away if he shuffles back in some perfidious public role. He has been on Daily Politics recently an is announced as an ex cabinet minister. No mention of his journalistic role in Murdoch's pay.

Anyone fancy a free shower ?

Show this to a Leaver, and watch them froth ...

The UK's ability to successfully export – and import – drone technology relies on our aviation safety regulators staying as closely aligned with the EU as possible, Royal Aeronautical Society UAV committee chairman Tony Hadley told The Register.

Reversing the UK's membership of the European Aerospace Safety Agency (EASA) would be too complicated in the short term, he said, rejecting the notion that by leaving EASA the UK could create a freer regulatory environment enabling greater experimentation with new technology.

"The [UK's Civil Aviation Authority, the CAA] hasn't got the capacity or the expertise to provide an effective standalone aviation regulatory organisation. It did have, 20 years ago, but we've sacked three quarters of the people. And the expertise... has gone to join EASA," he told The Register.

If post-Brexit British aviation regulations do not align closely to the EU's, Hadley said, British-certified drones and other aircraft will face tedious paperwork challenges in order to be allowed to fly abroad.

"As soon as you fly outside the country," he said, "you've got to conform to international regulations, which means EASA or the US Federal Aviation Authority. Brazil and Canada do their own thing but in order to get them to fly, they need to be recognised by EASA or the FAA. If EASA gives you a certificate you can fly anywhere in Europe. Technically you need [separate] approval to go to the States but they tend to rubber-stamp it and we rubber-stamp theirs."

For drones the cross-Atlantic differences are even wider. "Europe and the US are not on the same page, and the US hasn't got anything like the open, specific and certified vision of unmanned aircraft, whereas the UK has, though it uses different terms. There is scope there for people to go and do their own thing until they want to use it across borders – say, to do a survey in France."

Even remaining a member of EASA might be fraught with difficulty, Hadley warned. "What most people would like in post-Brexit Britain, but I'm not sure is possible, is that we remain a full member of EASA. But as EASA is an EU agency that may not happen."

(contd).

Which is labour
I shall do it whilst holding my nose
Tory majority of 12k here though

Which is labour
I shall do it whilst holding my nose
Tory majority of 12k here though

My feeling is that this election is all about the size of the Tory majority and not much else, and that we should all be voting tactically according to which direction we would like that majority to go.

Its not purely that simple.

The popular vote will also be important in terms of Brexit this time. It will determine how much voice pro-EU voices get in the media (in the same way UKIP have).

Basically its about voting in a way that will create some opposition, which is in both media and in parliament.

For me, a vote for Labour is still a tacit Leave vote. Which I fundamentally disagree with. Others have their own view, but for me (with a non British parent), it's existential.
This is where I fall personally too I'm afraid. Their stance on fom leaves me feeling little choice but to vote lib dem (in our area I hasten to add, I may have been persuaded by other parties if there were candidates that were actually making themselves known). Our new labour candidate has stated she will stand for soft brexit only, when personally she seems to be a remainer, which is probably more to do with understanding how strongly leave our area voted. But I can't help but feel a cross in the labour box validates leave at all costs.

I have realised though that I'm not a typical voter. I always knew I didn't care for rosettes, but I've realised I tend not to vote for things but for those who don't cross red lines. Nhs will always be a red line for me. Seems I have a brexit related one too now.

www.facebook.com/pestonitv/posts/1847416695583067

Robert Peston 13 mins ·
·
There is no question the LibDems have eye-catching policies - such as raising all income tax rates by 1p to raise £6.345bn a year to finance more resources for health and social care.
Also they would end the current government's benefits freeze, when Labour would not.
And then there is the £1bn a year they would raise in duty from the legalisation of cannabis. There ain't no party like a LibDem party, as they say.
But the truth is, as I discussed with the party's leader Tim Farron today, its policy-rich little orange book is broadly an irrelevance, for two reasons.

1. as Farron repeated to me again today, there is no chance of the LibDems actually being in government, because he is unambiguously against being in a coalition;
2. there is only one policy that really really matters to him and his party, which is that the LibDems want a second EU referendum, after we know the terms of the Brexit deal.

Pretty much whatever I asked him in a 15 minute interview, the answer was that only by voting LibDem could British people escape the kind of hard Brexit deal that Farron hates and assumes Theresa May would deliver. I asked him a few times whether therefore the LibDems had become UKIP in reverse - a single issue party, in favour of keeping the UK in the EU - and that he was Farage's inverted image. He didn't exactly recoil at the notion - especially because his other somewhat rehearsed line was that Labour are appeasers who have capitulated to May's allegedly dangerous Brexit. To his credit, his position is simple and principled. It is also risky. Because it is not clear how many of us actually want the issue of whether we leave or remain in the EU reopened, even if we voted to stay. And another thing: he risks alienating those LibDem sympathisers who voted Leave. Which could cost the party seats, especially in the West Country (interestingly he didn't say to me what he claimed a few days ago, namely that he used to be a bit of a eurosceptic). But - lest we forget - almost half the country (well that part of it who voted) did not want to quit the EU. Perhaps enough of them are still agitated enough about the price of leaving to deliver a LibDem revival.

LH I've read an article cheerfully saying that it's unlikely that the UK will leave the EASA, as four of its members aren't in the EU, i.e. Iceland, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

Has it occurred to the author, I wonder, that Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are members of the EEA - even if there was internal consensus that the UK should apply for membership of the EEA, there's no guarantee that the current members would approve it. Also, that Switzerland has spent decades discussing, accepting and rejecting agreements with the EU, having first signed an FTA in 1972 - how long would a bilateral agreement between the UK and the EU take to negotiate?

www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/evening-standard-comment-it-s-time-to-scrap-the-tory-migration-cap-a3541346.html
Evening Standard comment: It’s time to scrap the Tory migration cap

Osborne and the Standard again....

To meet the pledge, the number of both EU and non-EU migrants will have to be reduced by around two thirds. How is that to be achieved? No one in government can identify the third we want and the two-thirds we don’t. Asked whether we want to stop bankers, builders, berry pickers or baristas coming from Europe, ministers are at a loss. The Business Secretary, Greg Clark, could not name a single sector that should have its supply of labour forcibly reduced. He knows that to do so would push up prices and hurt firms.

Notable I don't think anyone has asked this directly to Theresa May. Its one Paxman should definitely ask.

Instead, ministers assert we need to train under-qualified British people to fill posts currently filled by over-qualified Europeans. But where is this army of workless Brits? The numbers claiming out-of-work benefits is at a 45-year low

Well Mrs May?

What about the many Europeans who attend our universities? European students are a vital source of income and academic excellence for our colleges, and one would presume that a “global Britain” would want to export education and influence. Nor have people been told that they won’t be able to marry a Danish boyfriend or French girlfriend and bring them to Britain. So who are the 100,000-odd Europeans we are supposed to be turning away? When the debate turns from the generality of reducing European migration to the specifics, the Government is floundering.

Is there going to be some sort of law brought in that you effectively can not marry someone from a particular background?

We have been here before. Over the past seven years, the Government has not been able to reduce significantly the numbers of non-Europeans coming here — though we could. The damage to the economy from seriously reducing work visas was judged too severe by an expert migration committee; the impact on community relations of further limiting family reunion visas was seen as unpalatable; and few thought we were taking in too many refugees. There are no other groups we can turn away.

It says a few other really good points. Osborne says the target should be dropped in the Manifesto tomorrow....

Its difficult to rationally argue against that, because its unachievable so if you do include it to make Brexiteers happy, you inevitably will not be able to achieve it.