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 He has been replaced by the Head of the infamous Arch-Brexit Whatsapp group.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

Oh look the Express are at it too.

Rupert Myers @ Rupertmyers
This cladding is banned in Germany so I'm going to go for "no"
See also: can we blame environmentalists for their notorious love of plastic?

Amazing.

Nick Paget-Brown, the Tory leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, said there was not a “collective view” among residents in favour of sprinklers.

He gave a very different answer on The World at One yesterday lunchtime. At lunchtime, he was asked by Martha Kearney whether they would fit sprinklers to similar tower blocks in Kensington. He replied the concrete building structure made it impossible to retro fit sprinklers without damaging the fabric of the building. There was no suggestion they had been considered for Grenfell.

I'm not sure I have much faith in what either K&C or the government say atm. It seems their prime concern is to cover their backs and I don't see a huge amount of empathy for the people affected.

Blaming the EU...I really don't think that will fly Express. How are they still in business...

I am so bloody angry at that Councillor! Thank heavens it isn't one of ours or I would be storming round to have some strong words.

This was a completely preventable tragedy. There are no excuses for it. It should not have happened and that is that. The government must take responsibility for failing to put in adequate fire safety legislation and for pushing through crippling cuts to public services, the Council must take responsibility for making decisions to cut corners and save money rather than prioritise the safety of residents. We, as the general population must take some responsibility for watching these things happen and not standing up sooner and shouting louder when it was clear that something like this would happen sooner or later.

The only people in this whole god awful mess who are at no fault at all are the residents themselves, who have asked and asked for years for better safety standards and who warned of serious consequences if they were not in place.

The gall of him putting any of this on them is just unbelievable!

Blaming the EU...I really don't think that will fly Express.

We don't think it will fly - but plenty will. Even though it's a pack of lies.

Meanwhile instead of blaming environmentalists and EU regulation, the independent go with this story.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/grenfell-tower-fire-safety-rules-sprinklers-brandon-lewis-warn-house-building-social-housing-tory-a7790921.html
Grenfell Tower: Tory minister declined to include sprinklers in fire safety rules as it could discourage house building

'We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government'

The fire industry are naturally responsible for the decision making and budgetary decisions that happen when social housing tower blocks are refurbished. Just so we can quote you at the public inquiry Mr Brandon Lewis.

I'm tempted to buy a copy of today's express to see who the advertisers are.

Tim Ireland @ bloggerheads
I'm surprised tabloids like Mail and The Sun didn't blame #Grenfell victims from the outset under the banner headline 'THE TRUTH'.

Faulty Fridge Man?

On accountability:

Jo Maugham QC @JolyonMaugham
Government, local authorities, have important statutory duties. But do they have funding to meet them? /1

If they don't have funding to meet them, how do they insulate themselves from the consequences of their failures? /2

Do they outsource to contractors? And if they do, how can contractors carry out works for which there is not proper funding? /3

And, knowing there isn't enough money for the contractor to do the job properly, are local authorities incentivised to check performance? /4

Do we end up with a world in which both local authority and contractor know job will be done badly but neither is incentivised to care? /5

If so, what ends up being outsourced is not the vital work, but moral and legal accountability for a failure to do that work. [ENDS]

Grenfell Tower was mixed - there were privately owned flats in there as well...(don't know what proportion but definitely not 100% social housing). Income poor/property rich is exactly the scenario that many British people are in so any land tax policy needs a lot of refinement in the method of deferring etc, but it is the right question. Councils anywhere priding themselves on taxes being kept ridiculously low so that some people can only survive with charity is just not acceptable. British mindset needs to change in quite a few areas.

Re social housing, British mindset will be much harder to shift. Acute housing shortages in many other European cities - not just the UK.

Are eu regulations to blame?
Only if you think they should be more strict. Not that it would have stopped us imposing more strict ones ourselves.

Tory voters....do you think this too?

'We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government'

Tory voters....do you think this too?

'We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government'

I'm tempted to buy a copy of today's express to see who the advertisers are.

Can't you thumb through it in Smiths so you don't line their pockets & add to their circulation?

It's taken 2 days to gind a way to pass that buck? Back to the fire industry...in effect the fire fighters too as they work with the industry

Oh that's gonna work

So Barswell ignores sky reporters who were asking important questions. Notice already that media are cooling down. Give it a week and the politicians won't even mention Grenfell. Meanwhile firefighters won't start recovery till the weekend. Not quite sure how you recover anything from a fire that was reported to be over 1000 degrees in heat. The poor families will have no closure. The next thing you know the poor souls lost will be blamed for being up late because of Ramadan.

Re social housing, British mindset will be much harder to shift. Acute housing shortages in many other European cities - not just the UK.

My estate is a mix of big houses and 'affordable homes'. These are shared ownership.

The estate is really nice but some of the lived here forever locals initially were up in arms about it calling it a council estate.

The people who qualified for the homes had to go through a process where priority was given to those who lived within 2miles and then within 5miles already.

And the locals still were muttering about it bringing down the area.

Our area is going to be forced to build houses in the near future. We have a choice to either accept and do it on our terms in the best interests of the whole community or be idiot nimbies.

We have to build x number of homes. The nimbies are screaming about not wanting small affordable homes as it will 'ruin the area'. I just don't get the logic when the huge half million pound monsters will mean the loss of much more land to development.

If the council tried to build actual council housing here these people would be close to rioting. Snobbery doesn't even come close to describing it.

Sadly, I think the revolting victim- (and FFS green lefty-) blaming Fail and Express headlines will find fertile ground amongst their readership. After all, they've been all too happy to believe all the other horse manure in those rags for years.

Fortunately, we've now seen that their malign influence is withering away with dwindling numbers and demographics against them.

I'm tempted to buy a copy of today's express to see who the advertisers are.

Wife, @StopFundingHate tweets the advertisers. This is today:

Today's Daily Express advertisers include @marksandspencer @Morrisons @IcelandFoods @Tesco @AldiUK #spenditwell #everylittlehelps

Today's Daily Express advertisers also include @EE @lv @Peugeot @Homebase_uk @LoveWilko @Debenhams @SharpsBedrooms #belikephonecoop

David Allen Green @ davidallengreen
1. A short thread about the Poll Tax and about Brexit.
2. Once upon a time there was an idea called the Community Charge.
Some people thought it a very clever idea.
3. The idea was put into the 1987 Conservative manifesto. Set out in plain sight.
4. The Conservatives won a thumping majority.
There was a mandate for this clearly set out idea.
5. The debates about the Community Charge went on. Some dispute it made sense. Others warned of the dangers.
6. But for the public the debates were a bit abstract. Few cared at large, at this stage.
7. Some in House of Lords said it was a very bad idea. So the Tories summoned to the Lords every "backwoodsman" hereditary peer in the land.
8. In what was one of the highest votes in parliamentary history the government forced the Bill though the upper house. Timetable was kept.
9. Was first implemented in Scotland. Hugely unpopular. Wiped out Tories in Scotland for political generation.
But London Tories shrugged.
10. And then: the councils set the amounts.
The Community Charge became the hated Poll Tax.
11. It did not matter it was a clever idea. It did not matter there was a "mandate". It did not matter government had kept timetable.
12. It did not matter there was a populist view that "loony lefty" councils would be now "accountable".
None of this mattered.
13. When people saw how much the idea was going to cost, they went against it.
14. Similarly, the test for Brexit will not be whether mandate or timetable has been kept, or "Eurocrats" defeated, or it is a good idea.
15. The test for Brexit will be when people pay real costs for the policy.
The Community Charge failed that test. Will Brexit?

/ends

Except it will be too late then

I remember the poll tax riots..was meant to go to the march bit I got stoned instead

NO drugs for me in the current 1980s round 2. I will protest

Blaming EU regulations ?
The 5k more expensive cladding that would have prevented such a fire is within regulations

This was down to greedy rich bastards gambling with the lives of (mostly) poor people

Re requisitioning, in Amsterdam there's a fiendish system where all property is awarded 'points'. Size is the main criteria so anything below 50 square meters is usually rent-controlled. Everything else is in the 'free' market. Landlords take this as a sign they can charge what they like (and because of the housing shortage, often get away with it), but those more alert to the points system, can challenge and often win and are encouraged to challenge by groups (funded by the city) who want to keep house prices fair and citizens unexploited. But some (privately-owned) property can only be occupied by those below a certain income and/or economic tie to the city. If that property is left vacant (i.e. the person registered at that address is also registered somewhere else), the city can and does requisition it i.e. they put in their own tenant.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/16/keir-starmer-labour-can-change-course-of-brexit-after-mays-election-rejection?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Keir Starmer: Labour can change course of Brexit after May's election rejection
Shadow Brexit secretary says there is now a majority for a new approach and Theresa May must ditch ‘extreme Brexit’

Have a word with McDonnell, Hoey and Corbyn first FFS then.

So I see Gavin Barwell refuses to answer the questions that Sky News put to him. This is the Barwell, who was voted out of office last week. What a nuisance this democracy is.

Instead of accepting it, Dear Treeza just appoints him to another job. Not that it will help her - with the strong suspicion that he may have blood on his hands she ought to ditch him PDQ.