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 He has been replaced by the Head of the infamous Arch-Brexit Whatsapp group.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

Boris saying "Get stuffed" when challenged over making Fire Brigade cuts will inspire fury.

That will haunt him. As perhaps will May's 'I got us into this mess....' (even though by 'us' of course she only she and her fellow Tories)

Charm Not much point throwing anecdotes at each other is there? You have friends with experience of a "problem". I and other friends have an almost opposite experience, and would employ overseas builders over British ones (or at least London ones, employing a northern builder and paying their b&b is another option). We may well both be right, or both be wrong.....

Pain and Ever she just totally ignored the actual questions posed. At a time when people are justifiably furious, it's just so insulting for her to do that.

When the stories of the conditions those poor fire fighters had to endure come out I bloody hope so. They were under resourced! I suspect that due to the cuts full response time was far far longer than 6 mins (ie enough crew and resources to deal with the incident)

My sisters friend was attending as a FF. The look in his eyes is haunting.

Whatwould, I'm not talking about individual tradesmen or you & your pals hiring a small team to refit your bathroom.

I'm talking about the big contracts - where they are subcontracted & subcontracted & subcontracted and overall control is diluted to the point that standards inevitably slip & corners are cut.

Charm Here some evidence re UK builders skill shortage..Hammond has set up new qualifications to race to fill the gaps

www.constructionnews.co.uk/best-practice/skills/construction-t-levels-all-you-need-to-know/10018071.article

And here is why...its only one of many articles but it's a trade one and gives to a reasonably impartial reason why

www.builderandengineer.co.uk/feature/how-could-brexit-affect-uks-construction-industry

Damn them there experts!

Thanks, Brits – Brexit has vaccinated Europe against populism
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/15/britain-brexit-europe-populism-eu
Sliver lining.

Charm subbies have always exsisted. You are grasping now

David Allen Green‏*@davidallengreen*

"every public inquiry is an implicit admission of failure by existing state institutions"

Me at @FT, from 2014:

www.ft.com/content/51b9d9cd-97ff-39cb-9d10-c74e536557f8
Are inquiries a bad thing?

I'm not grasping at anything ever.

I've repeatedly stated I have no agenda, it is apparent that this is not enough, hence I withdrew.

I am not into crappy point scoring, so am withdrawing again.

Once more though, I would like to make clear that it was not an 'anti foreigner' anything.

Re:Boris ...

speaking as a Londoner, it seems that - despite Westminster being in London, the political parties don't seem to have a clue ... which was painfully obvious when the post of Mayor was created.

It's not that Londoners aren't party political. But they are also Londoners. And as such looked to someone they felt would best be "London" to the world. Which is why Ken became Mayor, beating the official Labour candidate.

Say what you will about Ken - he's as London as they come.

So is Boris.

(I'm not saying a non-Londoner couldn't be Mayor. But they would need to be accepted as a Londoner to stand a chance)

So extrapolating Boris nationwide popularity from being a moderately popular Mayor was naive at best, and ignorant at worst. But it does seem to sum up the quality of thinking from the Tory party at the moment.

Yes Charm you were. The facts are that EU building workers have a higher skill level and training in general than UK workers.

Subbies have always been used.So using that argument doesn't hold up. Firstly UK workers can also be subbies. Secondly EU workers are actually better trained...as I have repeated

Lurking yes and he was up against grasping Ken...twice! That was a shambles.

Once more though, I would like to make clear that it was not an 'anti foreigner' anything.

Mass amounts of cheap, imported, ready trained labour who have been trained to lower standards than in Britain & throw in communications issues wrt language barriers.

On the face of it, 'imported', 'language barriers' make it sound exactly like that.

Add in unscrupulous cost cutting on standards of materials used, poor checks & balances & wholly removed management focussed on profit & quantity over quality.

OK an acknowledgement that the responsibility is shared - but that didn't come across, to me or many others.

Ah but they are trained to a higher standard than us!

All these new elections ... MEPs, Mayoral, Police Commissioners really annoy me.

How come they aren't important enough for FPTP ?

Sorry 'us'

Mayoral, Police Commissioners really annoy me.
How come they aren't important enough for FPTP ?

You are speaking too soon LH. Treeza wants to change the last two and the first one, MEPs, she doesn't care about because that's Europe and we are leaving, so that the rest of the world can flock to trade with us.

Just posted:
Brexit talks between UK and EU will begin on Monday
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-news-talk-date-begin-eu-uk-theresa-may-leave-david-davis-a7791901.html

My df was once one of those pesky foreigners employed on a large scale moveable construction contract on behalf of another country's government. His work was in a third country.

The work they were being asked to do was frankly dangerous by our standards and the standards of the third country. Both teams were over ruled. Months were spent fighting over risk assessments and standards.

In the end the destination country took the project, dangerous state and all, off their hands. Neither country's team would sign it as safe, both managed to get an clause in that indemnified them of problems they'd raised.

6m after installation and it went up in literal flames. Thankfully no lives lost. But didn't stop them trying to lay the blame at the foot of the third country and the brits.

I'm led to believe that other than the being savvy with paperwork, this is often how people trained to a higher standard are treated when circumstances like these occur. As we're all anecdata.

On the fire brigade union website, there is a post dated June 9, expressing the hope that May's dire election result would mean the possibility of the end of cuts that, if continued, would see fire and rescue service funding cut by half over a decade.

I sincerely hope Grenfell puts this issue under the spotlight.

I like this tweet from David Lammy

Lammy's an absolute Bigly

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

On whose behalf is DD negotiating, what's the funding arrangements with DUP, how is DUP's involvement in Leave to be addressed? etc.

How can DD represent a government which has not presented its programme and which is at present legislatively untenable?

There are more questions than answers

Charm Being patronising doesn't win the argument either.

Around here you don't just fit a bathroom, you dig a basement (with the possible risk the entire house collapses www.standard.co.uk/news/london/barnes-house-collapse-georgian-townhouse-collapses-on-edge-of-river-thames-a3123971.html) add a storey, double the floorspace with a backgarden extension or knock something down and start again. Whole roads where all of the above have been done because to have the means of buying a house with the space already would require you to own a bank or hedge fund, or have some oil wells. So yes we are not talking the Shard but we are talking about a big local industry and needing a builder who knows what they are doing. Amongst the litigation cases with British builders just in this road was the builder who built a kitchen extension without tying in the brickwork to the rest of the house, so it not surprisingly fell over. I assume that you would learn about that in week 1 of a bricklaying apprenticeship. If those issues of shoddy craftsmanship and poor communication / customer service skills are more likely to occur amongst British builders than overseas ones in that market I find it hard to believe that the situation would be entirely transposed in the commercial market, without the evidence........ .

I have already posted about greedy developers, no problem with believing that, or the cost cutting / subcontracting, compromising on standards. It is just the issue of whether the nationality of the builders is a problem, or indeed part of the solution as ever has posted.

I agree Tatiana. People must recognise the links between this awful fire and the austerity agenda that has cut and cut public services.