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 He has been replaced by the Head of the infamous Arch-Brexit Whatsapp group.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

I work in the construction industry on projects which are designed, let to contractors, let again to subcontractors and often let again to sub- subcontractors.

In my experience issues arise either because the employer has given a completely wrong spec which just doesn't do what they want and has to be cobbled together to be fixed, or the contractors save a few quid here and there is any elements they design.

When the key factor in the tender is price (as in many publicly procured contracts) the race to the bottom starts.

It is vanishingly rare that this is did to errors by individual tradesmen whether or not they were born in the UK. It is more about inconsistent and badly thought through design by consultants, developers and contractors who don't cross check and try to do everything on the cheap.

Speaking as a Londoner, I voted for Ken against Boris in 2008 and it was very close on first preference votes. 2012 didn't vote. 2016 I voted for Sadiq Khan.

Don't find him charming or amusing in any way.

I'm pretty sure the view of that Tory mp about it being the fire industries jobs to produce efficient cheap products rather than regulating in case it knocked onto the building costs probably goes a long way towards building that corporate greed.

I think the narrative is shifting, now that's it's "us" that's being harmed and not just "them that don't deserve help", as so helpfully portrayed by the government and large parts of the media.

In January 2016 the Tories notoriously voted down a Labour Party amendment to their Housing Bill that would have required landlords to ensure that the properties they rent out are "fit for human habitation".

71 of the 319 Tory MPs to shoot this "fit for human habitation" requirement out of the water are registered as landlords on the Parliamentary register of members' interests.

Here's a list of the Tory MPs who thought that landlords like them should not be required to ensure the properties they rent out are "fit for human habitation".

Nigel Adams
Stuart Andrew
Victoria Atkins
Jake Berry
James Berry
Bob Blackman
Robert Buckland
Alun Cairns
David Cameron
Alex Chalk
James Cleverley
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Geoffrey Cox
Mims Davies
Philip Davies
Richard Drax
James Duddridge
Alan Duncan
Philip Dunne
Jane Ellison
George Eustice
Mike Freer
Richard Fuller
John Glen
Robert Goodwill
Chris Grayling
Dominic Grieve
Chris Heaton-Harris
Peter Heaton-Jones
George Hollingberry
Kevin Hollinrake
Philip Hollobone
Nick Hurd
Stewart Jackson
Margot James
Sajid Javid
Joseph Johnson
Simon Kirby (teller)
Greg Knight
Brandon Lewis
Julian Lewis
Craig Mackinlay
Tania Mathias
Karl McCartney
Anne Marie Morris
Sheryll Murray
Robert Neill
Sarah Newton (teller)
Jesse Norman
David Nuttall
Neil Parish
Owen Paterson
Rebecca Pow
Jeremy Quin
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Laurence Robertson
Julian Smith
Royston Smith
Mark Spencer
John Stevenson
Desmond Swayne
Derek Thomas
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Andrew Turner
Shailesh Vara
Theresa Villiers
Ben Wallace
David Warburton
Craig Whittaker
John Whittingdale
Nadhim Zahawi

Credit to Political Scrapbook for trawling through the parliamentary register of interests to cross reference the Tory landlords with the Tory MPs who voted not to require landlords to ensure that the properties they rent are fit for human habitation.

In light of the Grenfell Tower fire and the fact that a succession of Tory housing ministers sat on a report into tower block fire safety, it's about time people started waking up to the fact that the Tory government don't give a damn about housing.

They oversaw the lowest rate of house building since the early 1920s and the most unaffordable house prices in history, but to them that's all good, because the higher the demand for housing, the faster the inflation of their own personal property portfolios, and the higher the rents they can charge to their tenants.

These people are far too removed from reality to give a damn.

anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/

In business generally good project managers are like gold dust. It is not just that it requires a special set of skills, it needs a particular sort of personality. Management theory on effective teams identifies the need for a "completer finisher" who is motivated to micromanage, but also able to delegate. If they are rare on the ground in business, Consultancies can charge an arm and leg for a good project manager, then they will be rarer still in local government.

Faisal Islam @faisalislam
the Government is going to start Brexit negotiations before its confidence & supply negotiations with DUP have finished & signed off

I thought th EU refused to start with an "unconfirmed" government?

I too voted for Ken (my only Labour vote ever, so far) but not Boris. I didn't get the attraction of having a buffoon who suffered from attention deficit / seeking and the love of his own voice, however erudite, as a leader in London (and so he proved, he didn't actually do much of substance) , and I don't for the country either.

YY to Ron

Round here you dig a basement, build a whacking extension across the back of the house, and renovate from top to bottom. Takes 6 months to a year. These are sizable building projects.

There are currently around 5 basement projects on my road alone.

Many of the builders are Polish, who are sought after for their training and work ethic.

Bit of fun. Belbins team roles which are you?www.managementcentre.co.uk/learning-development/high-performing-teams-belbins-team-roles/

Evidently since I can't even finish a post properly!!

www.managementcentre.co.uk/learning-development/high-performing-teams-belbins-team-roles/

Ian Dunt @IanDunt
Hi! We represent a govt which doesn't exist, sent to secure a policy we do not understand and which we would anyway be unable to implement.

Ian Dunt @IanDunt
Do you have any Ferrero Rocher?

Is Dunt on this thread?

Anything in the twitter rumours that the tories are talking to the lib dems?

One of the buzzfeed guys tried to start that rumour last night. I'm not sure I'd buy it now unless it comes from a decent source.

Just announced on radio that EU and Britain starting Brexit negotiations next Monday

I just heard the tories are conducting a coup d'etat.

Not caught up with the thread yet but Brexit negotiations due to start on Monday

Ian Dunt @IanDunt
Do you have any Ferrero Rocher?

Why Ambassador vous prenez le piss.

*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 <a class="break-all" href="http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.standard.co.uk/news/london/barnes-house-collapse-georgian-townhouse-collapses-on-edge-of-river-thames-a3123971.html)" target="_blank">http://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.

You're still talking about small scale construction projects.

I was talking about the big multi site contracts that utilise countless numbers of people across all the trades.

The various foremen are usually trying to coordinate teams of various nationalities and there are often breakdowns in communication even with the very best of intentions & work forces.

A team of tradesmen & construction workers who know each other, are used to working together etc will work well and will have good communication, regardless of nationality - the often disparate realities of multi site,multi trade, large scale projects are a different thing entirely.

I will repeat again, for clarity, it is not about the individual workers or FoM, it is about the exploitation of FoM by the people who hire & fire - who will import the tradesmen wholesale & are entirely driven by profit.

They'll hire Polish leckies, Bulgarian brickies, Romanian plasterers & British plumbers because that was the cost effective option at that time, with not a second's though to the realities on the ground of trying to coordinate that.

You may have contact with 'your builders' - I have contact with, am related to & have many friends who actually are the tradesmen, across all trades & at varying levels of responsibility.
But like I said, its anecdote only.

Anything in the twitter rumours that the tories are talking to the lib dems?

My God, I hope not, when they shafted us last time. Our Red Line would be staying in the Single Market.

I do big multi- site projects charm.

Currently about £300m worth on site over 5 or so big developments. More at the planning stage.

No problems reported as far as I'm aware about languages or skills if the workforce. Plenty about confused instructions, contractors cutting corners and incompatibility if various design elements not properly cross checked.

www.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/the-tories-real-problem-is-that-they-are-now-seen-as-reckless-gamblers/

You get subbies on small scale projects too. Just saying.

So now the issue has shifted from the alleged inadequate training of foreign builders to communication problems...