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.

The Independent‏*@Independent*

Theresa May announces UK will remain part of European Convention of Human Rights

a) Because its so difficult to get out of b) THANK FUCK FOR THAT c) expect lots of court cases then.

George Eaton‏*@georgeeaton*
Tory manifesto promises to introduce compulsory ID for voting.

Shit.

Constitutional crisis with the Lords right there with ID for voting.

Kevin Schofield‏ @PolhomeEditor
Tories pledge to go ahead with David Cameron's plan to cut the number of MPs from 650 to 600.

Dear Democracy...

How does ID for voting work with postal votes?

Jim Waterson‏*@jimwaterson*

Tory manifesto says it will drop proposals to introduce tougher regulation of the media, will treat print and online outlets in same way.

Raises eyebrow...

How?!

Treeza is Jim Crow ....

Jim Waterson‏*@jimwaterson*
Tory manifesto includes pledge to do everything possible to reduce immigration. Harder for students. Harder for spouses to join partners.

Elizabeth Pears‏**@BizPears**

Tory's going full throttle on "tough on crime". Plan for prison reform includes £10bn to modernise prisons w/10k beds.

Jessica Elgot‏*@jessicaelgot*

#torymanifesto - Human Rights Act will not be repealed during Brexit, but UK will "consider our human rights legal framework" after exit

Uh oh...

Conor James McKinney‏*@mckinneytweets*
On refugees, Conservative manifesto says "we will work to reduce asylum claims made in Britain" but do more in "the most troubled regions"

Elizabeth Pears‏**@BizPears**

This is interesting. Tories are proposing "the first new Mental Health Bill for 30 years to put parity of esteem at the heart of treatment"

Seeing as the Daily Mail wrote the rest of the Manifesto, I bet ELCS for mental health reasons are not covered...

Matt Chorley‏*@MattChorley*
Theresa May's speech:
"Conservative" = one mention
"Me" = Seven
"Brexit" = 11

It SOUNDS as if the British Bill of Rights has been dropped from the Manifesto. And it SOUNDS like the commitment to tens of thousands for immigration has been quietly dropped though in its place is strong language about a crack down.

Yep to confirm that but that's the impression I've got so far.

Alex Spence‏ @alexGspence
Tories will move "significant numbers" of civil servants and other public servants out of London

This, however, isn't a bad thing.

Unlike just about everything else I've seen.

Otto English‏**@Otto**_English

#ConservativeManifesto in Mail had attracted nearly 6k comments almost all negative. Suddenly they've been cleared

Otto English‏**@Otto**_English

Not one single pro May comment under this article. Not one. How long until Dacre orders another erase of comments

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4517736/May-unveils-tough-love-manifesto-vowing-shore-care.html

Interesting...

It SOUNDS as if the British Bill of Rights has been dropped from the Manifesto.

Every time this is floated, series legal minds (i.e. not the Daily Heil) have pointed out that trying to unwind the ECHR from UK law is fraught with innumerable complexities. Resulting in the (so far always correct) prediction that the issue will be spun out forever via consultations and reviews.

It's also worth noting that the UKs lack of written constitution makes us more dependent on - and subject to - the ECHR than other countries.

I've often argued the UK should have a written constitution. And it should be a source of pride and taught in schools from the earliest opportunity. It's slightly embarrassing to know that any 12 year old US schoolchild knows more about their constitution than a 12 year old Briton. It gets worse when I realise I know more about the US constitution than what passes for the UK constitution.

Tories will move "significant numbers" of civil servants and other public servants out of London

No they wont.

The only way to achieve that is to sack the London ones, and rehire in Manchester. Which is never going to happen.

What will happen - after an expensive and long winded review - is that every department will realise that there are "essential" staff who cannot be relocated as it's too far from Covent Garden.

Does anyone remember when Jim Hacker tried this in the 80s ?

( I thought Lossiemouth was a dogfood )

Motheroffour^^
"If you own a house, then either that has to be used to pay for your care, or people who can only afford to rent then have to pay additionally for the home-owners"

What I meant is - failing a magic money tree - if a homeowner (or anyone else) avoids paying for their own care, then that care bill is paid from the public purse, via income tax / council tax.

i.e. by everyone, including people renting, who may be poorer than the homeowner

If voting is to require ID, then we must try to avoid the US system of vote suppression of the poor:

the govt must provide FREE voting ID, available for people to obtain Monday - Saturday, available form postoffices and other places easy to access

Still doesn't solve the problem of those who are isolated, don't have & can't afford transport

For an election that's apparently all about Brexit, have you all noticed just how Brexit light the manifestos are? Nearly 11m in and still no one has an idea of what they may want to go for.

LH, thinking about it, it might be a way to purge the civil service though... until they realise the redundancy costs... oh wait logic is irrelevant.

Maybe I'm mistaken. Its a bloody stupid idea and we'll lose bags of valuable experience.

Samuel Lowe‏*@SamuelMarcLowe*

The Tory manifesto has surprisingly little to say on their approach to trade policy.
TL;DR: Leave EU; Sort out WTO; Copy EU deals; Do a Trade Bill; Promote British business abroad.
And #CANZUK nowhere to be seen, alas.*

*lol

Ben Lucas‏*@benjameslucas*

#SFO will be merged into the NCA if Tories win the next election #GE2017

Quote from manifesto:
We will strengthen Britain's response to white collar crime by incorporating the Serious Fraud Office into the National Cime Agency, improving the intelligence sharing and bolstering the investigation of serious fraud, money laundering and financial crime.

Not sure what to make of this. Is this a good thing?

europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-1369_en.htm
Mergers: Commission fines Facebook €110 million for providing misleading information about WhatsApp takeover

The European Commission has fined Facebook €110 million for providing incorrect or misleading information during the Commission's 2014 investigation under the EU Merger Regulation of Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp.

Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: "Today's decision sends a clear signal to companies that they must comply with all aspects of EU merger rules, including the obligation to provide correct information. And it imposes a proportionate and deterrent fine on Facebook. The Commission must be able to take decisions about mergers' effects on competition in full knowledge of accurate facts."

The EU Merger Regulation obliges companies in a merger investigation to provide correct information that is not misleading as this is essential for the Commission to review mergers and takeovers in a timely and effective manner. This obligation applies, regardless of whether the information has an impact on the ultimate outcome of the merger assessment.

When Facebook notified the acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014, it informed the Commission that it would be unable to establish reliable automated matching between Facebook users' accounts and WhatsApp users' accounts. It stated this both in the notification form and in a reply to a request of information from the Commission.

However, in August 2016, WhatsApp announced updates to its terms of service and privacy policy, including the possibility of linking WhatsApp users' phone numbers with Facebook users' identities.

On 20 December 2016, the Commission addressed a Statement of Objections to Facebook detailing its concerns.

The Commission has found that, contrary to Facebook's statements in the 2014 merger review process, the technical possibility of automatically matching Facebook and WhatsApp users' identities already existed in 2014, and that Facebook staff were aware of such a possibility.

Today's decision has no impact on the Commission's October 2014 decision to authorise the transaction under the EU Merger Regulation. Indeed, the clearance decision was based on a number of elements going beyond automated user matching. The Commission at the time also carried out an 'even if' assessment that assumed user matching as a possibility. The Commission therefore considers that, albeit relevant, the incorrect or misleading information provided by Facebook did not have an impact on the outcome of the clearance decision.

Moreover, today's decision is unrelated to either ongoing national antitrust procedures or privacy, data protection or consumer protection issues, which may arise following the August 2016 update of WhatsApp terms of service and privacy policy.

It continues further in the link.

Interesting to see there they are doing this though.

"basically, as usual I see the tories dropping local government in the shit again, while they continue to blame them for failing social care."
Yup.

Had a quick look at their manifesto, and I couldn't see any mention of central grants to councils - so am I right in assuming that this means they will be continuing with Osborne's plans to drastically cut them? (To move towards a system in which local sources determine a council's revenue).
Because (unless I have got the wrong end of the stick) this a huge issue, that seems to have been barely covered anywhere.

Alastair Campbell‏*@campbellclaret*
David Davis introducing @theresa_may Michael Fallon fronting the media on social care, tax etc. BoJo and Spreadsheet Phil P45/June 9 if TM

Interesting observation.

Note: If Hammond goes, will the markets stay strong and stable? Or react badly?

Peter Daou‏ @peterdaou
Roger Ailes has died.

In case this means nothing to you: Fox Exec caught up in a sex pest scandal. Murdoch says nothing to see here. Ailes a connection to Trump. Several woman have come to UK to give evidence about sex pest scandal regarding Murdoch taking over Sky in full saying he's not fit to do so.

Timing is well... could be better.