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 He has been replaced by the Head of the infamous Arch-Brexit Whatsapp group.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

Sorry, I may have been too harsh on Emma Dent Coad. She says she wasn't paid to sit on the board

I still have an issue with it, if complaints were being made, but not resolved if she was on the board.

She may well be the voice that was ignored and this motivated her to stand for election.

If that's the case then there are also big questions that come from that too.

I grow tired of hearing institutionalised bull shit defending the indefensible. I grow tired of hearing the latest thing about conflicts of interest.

It not new. I know too many people bullied out of organisations for asking difficult questions over accountability to the point that they gave up or were forced out.

It not new. I know too many people bullied out of organisations for asking difficult questions over accountability to the point that they gave up or were forced out.

Yep, me too. I also know people who were bullied out of organisations when a 'new broom' comes in, makes sweeping changes to show who's boss, and gets rid of staff whose faces don't fit. Only to clear off after a couple of years when they have wrecked the organisation.

A cheery picture

George Peretz QC‏ @GeorgePeretzQC 7m7 minutes ago
More

1. A thread on minority Govt in U.K.

1. The best analogy is with a Roman legion lost in forest on wrong side of the Rhine.
2. The Opposition can strike when and where it likes.
3. It can attack timetable motions. It can force votes at night. Night after night.
4. If it loses it overturns in Lords. And sends back to repeat the experience.
5. Govt MPs have to stay up night after night. They can't go back to constituencies.
6. Much worse for Ministers - who have to vote too. Dragged from meetings to vote. Foreign travel disrupted or cancelled.
7. Johnson/Fox/Patel can't do their jobs reliably (I express no view on whether that is a bad thing).
8. Consequences; Ministers become exhausted. Decision making suffers.

10. Govt becomes a series of grubby compromises with eccentric MPs/MPs with a grudge. Routine humiliation as Govt has to pretend this is OK. 11 Impossible to plan or give impression of coherence. 12. Govt MPs and Ministers become demoralised. Health suffers. Resignations as any other job seems better. 13. Bye elections. Which Govt loses. Problems become worse. 14. Only safe strategy; draw wagons round camp. Do nothing. Avoid votes. 15. But this Govt has to keep marching through forest: Brexit. Can't avoid huge controversial legislation. 16. Remember what happened to Varus's legion in the Teutoburgerwald. 17. UK political history gives same lesson. Minority Govt for more than a few months leads to catastrophic defeat. 1979. 1997. 18. No prediction these days is safe. But history is still as good an indicator as any. /ends.

Parliament in Recess for summer in just a few weeks. Not much time to test the theory before then.

I was about to post something similar to red in that she may well have been that person. However now would probably be a good time to say it.

It not new. I know too many people bullied out of organisations for asking difficult questions over accountability to the point that they gave up or were forced out.

This is why I was about to post. We've had two separate school's bullying out the people who have raised issues that ultimately led to those schools failing recently.

I still stick with my prediction that May will say she is too ill to continue for long. Summer will have Tory leadership contest. Full crowning at conference 1st week October. Election mid October

Which means she would have to call election beginning September to give 6 weeksish Or the new leader does.

Let battle begin

Jane Merrick @ janemerrick23
Andrea Leadsom has been to meet residents at Grenfell on behalf of the House of Commons. Rejects claim by Portillo that May lacks humanity
She has defended May but her very presence, in stark contrast to the grainy images of May yesterday, just make this look worse for PM.

I heard something that suggested Justine Greening and Greg Hands were down yesterday meeting residents too.

The runners and riders for the leadership battle are going to Grenfell? Or is that me being cynical?

And me, Peregrina.

We were just reflecting on fate and how Kensington now has a Labour MP who has direct experience of the area and the housing problems.

The cover up may have been so much easier with a Tory MP batting for the council leaders and government. 20 votes may make a big difference.

Jim Waterson @ jimwaterson
Lots of Conservative MPs retreating from social media at the moment, this one quitting Twitter altogether.

m.facebook.com/TellRanil/posts/10158700634960161

The abuse is appalling. Truly shocking. This isn't the way to deal with it. It's a further retreat from contact with the public. It makes MPs more distant and aloof.

Heavily regulating also isn't the way ahead either though.

May has sent Leadsom to face the Grenfell residents? This habit she has of delegating any potentially uncomfortable encounters to other ministers is really cowardly.

The runners and riders for the leadership battle are going to Grenfell? Or is that me being cynical?

Boris and Davis are too chicken. Gove gets his wife to make comments for him in the press. Like last time.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy‏Verified account
@krishgm
At 1030am the Govt has already refused to put a minister up on #C4News tonight #GrenfellTower

Whilst so don't agree with SM abuse I've had it from some elements on the left. I do wonder if going along with MSM vileness for the past year is coming back to haunt them.

This toxic anger the referendum unleashed has to go somewhere. But it doesn't seem to be the way they wanted it to go

Krishnan Guru-Murthy @ krishgm
At 1030am the Govt has already refused to put a minister up on #C4News tonight #GrenfellTower
The new No10 Chief of Staff is Gavin Barwell - who was housing minister until losing his seat last week. He hasn't spoken either

Omg! May has done another u- turn and is going to visit victims. So sending Leadson wasnt quite enough afterall. Who the hell is advising May?

Chris Mason @ ChrisMasonBBC
The Prime Minister is going to visit the injured from the tower block fire in hospital this morning.

She will never see it through to next week as leader. May I mean.

The masses want compassion...we will give them compassion!

Marina Hyde @ marinahyde
Over the past few weeks, we have heard a lot about people who walk towards horrors. This government seems bent on looking like it runs away.

OK visiting injured in a nice safe environment.

Remember what happened to Varus's legion in the Teutoburgerwald.

History one B. Johnson will know intimately ...

This is how "I Claudius" starts - with Augustus howling around the palace "Quintus Varus, where are my legions ?" - Augustus being played by a (beardless) Brian Blessed, so it was actually "QUINTUS VARUS WHERE ARE MY LEGIONS ?"

In my opinion, the analogy chosen is quite a deep one. Generally, a look back at history shows that astoundingly, Roman military tactics were quite rigid and inflexible. In a pitched battle, at a place of their choosing - open level ground - they were probably invincible. But draw them into uneven, wooded territory (like the Teutoburgerwald) and they were much more vulnerable. As Caractacus, and Bodicea proved in Britain.

Rigid ? Inflexible ? Unable to change tactics ? Surely not ....

Let's hope the comparisons to Roman history stop there. If May is Augustus, I dread to think what the Tory party will throw up for Tiberius and Caligula .

In the current climate, comparisons for Nero would be distasteful.

If all this wasn't so horrifying it would verge on the farcical as far as May is concerned. Begone witch, begone!

Emma Dent Coad was interviewed this week by the Guardian. I read her response as positive but you may disagree?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/15/unforgivable-local-labour-mp-vents-fury-over-grenfell-tower-fire

This from 12 June
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/14/tories-must-find-moral-message-die/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw
The Tories must find a moral message or die
By Maurice Saatchi.

Maurice Saatchi is Chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies and a former Chairman of the Conservative Party