Westminstenders: The Brexit Apprentice

[RedToothBrush]

Theresa May is increasing looking like she is running an episode of the Apprentice with two teams trying to compete in their plan for Brexit. Complete with the obligatory reprehensible contestants.

On one side we have Team Creationists intent on hard Brexit and on the other we have Team Sensibles desperate to get a softer deal.
May herself has been held hostage by seasoned expert negotiators the DUP. Once No 10 has reported the deal was done, only for the DUP to say it wasn’t. Then it said, it would be settled today. But the DUP disagreed and said ‘the weekend’. Now its 'next week'.

Meanwhile the Queen has been messed about with a scapegoat over when her Queen’s Speech will be. It’s likely to be a week on Monday.
Meanwhile the Brexit department is also in chaos.

The Number two in the department was sacked and replaced by a Remainer, and the number three quit amongst reports that he no longer thought Brexit was achievable and that there was no way that the Great Repeal Act could pass through the Lords. He has been replaced by the Head of the infamous Arch-Brexit Whatsapp group.

Oh and Gove got hired. Nuff said on that one.

After some slight back tracking from David Davis, Hard Brexit is still on in all its glory. Negotiations are going ahead next week. Well that’s what we are saying. The EU, on the other hand, don’t won’t to go ahead until we have an officially sworn in government. Which seems pretty fair enough.

Tune in to find out which Team wins this week’ The Brexit Apprentice

Last year a good friend told me about their company refusing to insure the use of this cladding system for buildings over a certain height. Yes it was legal in the UK, yes it was approved by building regs inspectors. But the insurer's own building inspectors said that it was not safe. Client was not happy of course. Not sure what the final outcome was but very concerning for me that insurers (protecting money) are more clued up than building regs teams (protecting lives). I draw my own conclusions from that.
Good luck with anyone trying to pin down a housing association in an enquiry. We took ours to tribunal and they obstructed in every way they possibly could, wasting everyone's time. Strategic incompetence. The only way they'll be able to do it is if the investigators get to just 'take over' the office today and go through every single file before anyone has a chance to delete stuff.

I was wondering why K and C council are so quiet.....the shredder there must also be working overtime

Faisal Islam‏Verified account @faisalislam 8m8 minutes ago

Incredible move in net favourability ratings over campaign, just got even more extraordinary. PM at -34, Corbyn at 0

Laura Kuenssberg‏Verified account @bbclaurak
Housing minister just committed to every single family being rehoused in the same area

That's good news. I had suspected they might shunted off to Luton or somewhere.

Pain the Tory party rating isnt looking too clever either

Re housing minister..it shouldn't even have to be said. It shouldnt even be a conversation that traumatised people should be able to stsy in their own community if they want to. That is how bad it has got

That's good news. I had suspected they might shunted off to Luton or somewhere

And so did they. Quite rightly as K&C has a habit of rehousing people outside the borough.

Pain That might be why they're desperately pressing ahead with the "nothing has changed, any-port-in-a-storm style of coalition, mandate for Hard Brexit ASAP", etc - because their days are numbered.

When Piers Morgan is writing this about Corbyn:

Empathy.
Humanity.
Leadership.
@jeremycorbyn #grenfell t.co/WYgGaibXQO

The Tories must know they are in the doggy doo doo. I must say May comes across as so lacking in empathy it's shocking

*I'm out.

There is a valid problem there, but it obviously cannot be raised because it is immediately twisted to become an anti foreigner agenda.*

A valid problem, validated by evidence, can be raised, but if you make a statement not backed up with evidence it leaves us with two possible conclusions. Throwing your toys out of the pram strengthens the evidence for the other, not least because it is such a common tactic amongst those who have an anti foreigner agenda.......

#empathy: pictures speak 1000 words

What it is generally agreed that our training of our UK builders is far far below that of our EU counterparts. As another poster said there are real worry about the quality of builds if Brexit means they can not work here

But what's a few facts to the anti forreigneers PP? Give me strength. I'm surprised victim blaming hasn't started yet.

There was an interesting article in the Guardian last week about the Cambridge gateway development and the way in which it was watered down from a framework by the Rogers Partnership which promised to be architecturally and socially of good quality and ended up being neither. Developers got away with building cheap and uninspiring boxes, watering down the affordable / social housing obligation and the development became a source of social and environmental problems associated with the nature and density of the development, anti social behaviour, pop up brothels (flats bought to for short term lets), pollution etc. The blame was with both the greed of developers and the failure of both planning process and the resources to implement it on the part of the Council.

Rydon were the firm given the 8 million contract and their website statement says they 'completed a partial refurbishment of the building'.

Note 'Partial'.

And that: 'the project met all required building regulations and handover took place when the completion notice was issued by the Department of Building Control, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea'.

Are building regulations up to speed with new materials?

Faisal Islam‏Verified account
@faisalislam
Naomi Long of NI Alliance party has come out of No 10 after PM talks saying she's "not reassured" by UK Govt neutrality post DUP-Tory deal.

Long: "its the DUP having leverage over the UK Government" not the other way round... and she raises the issue of party funding arrangements

Sam Coates Times @SamCoatesTimes

Theresa May's interview with Channel 4's Robert Hamilton in full

The local councillor said on the BBC that the refurb did not include the fire escape and that recently the lights on the escape had not been working.

This had been reported the the management company

charm and on that other thread, whilst agreeing with a general "minimise all errors" approach, other people have pointed out several glaring instances of critical junctures

1. Inadequate access routes for firefighters
2. Flammable cladding, possibly lacking fire stops
3. Compromised compartmentalisation
4. Vital equipment e.g. Dry risers inoperational
5. Ignoringvresidents voncerns

Whilst there will likely be multiple factors and multiple failures involved in this, that doesn't mean that some of those factors are larger, more obvious and more avoidable than others.

Pain even on paper she comes across as unempathetic. I just thought it was delivery style

Didn't say why she didn't talk to residents

A valid problem, validated by evidence, can be raised, but if you make a statement not backed up with evidence it leaves us with two possible conclusions. Throwing your toys out of the pram strengthens the evidence for the other, not least because it is such a common tactic amongst those who have an anti foreigner agenda.......

Didn't 'throw my toys out of the pram' - just decided to withdraw as I was clearly unable to articulate my point sufficiently to get past the knee jerk reactions.

Again, I will reiterate, I have no 'anti foreign agenda'.

It is not the workers themselves I have a problem with - it is the people who exploit FoM to cut costs as much as they can.

I'm afraid I have no stats, facts or studies to link to, just anecdata unfortunately.

People who actually work alongside the immigrant workforce.
People who like & respect them & count them as friends but are exasperated by how much the employers who contract them are willing to compromise standards & safety at the altar of costs.

What ever else you might say about David Cameron, he knew how to do a good public statement when one was needed

Rhythm, of course there are massive & glaring causes - of course there are.

I am not suggesting anything different.

Charm 'them' is generally far better trained than 'us'

Agree Boris will get even more toxic over this. If May thought she got a hard time re police cuts in the wake of Manchester and London Bridge attacks, Boris saying "Get stuffed" when challenged over making Fire Brigade cuts will inspire fury. Justifiably so.

Apologies Charm but what you've said does come across a bit like that.